for being unhappy that school is using my dd (4yrs) to fundraise for Barnardos without my permission?

[ellasmum1]

I feel really quite annoyed that my dd in reception has come home with a sponsorship type form asking for donations for barnardos from her friends and family.She has been told if she brings money in she can enter a competition to win a teddy bear.So she wants us to do it, but my husband and I already donate to charities. I just don't appreciate being badgered for money from my own child through her school. They already pester for money and stuff for the PTA every other week.
I do not want to pester friends or family for donations.Dd is too young to really understand the whole concept.
Am I just being silly?

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Fundraisin is part and parcel of most schools. I don't as family and friends. DH and I put down an amount we are happy with, taking into account other stuff we already do, and that is it.

She will have to find a way to quietly deal with it-stopping it would be like King Canute stopping the tide! It is what schools do, my DS has just gone into the 6th form and one of the first things they do is have a fund raising committee and choose a charity to support.Many editions of my local paper have a picture of smiling school children handing over a cheque to a charity. You could just imagine the headline if parents announced that their children were no longer supporting charities! If she doesn't want to support Barnados just quietly lose the form and let her DC put money in a collecting box next time she is in town and sees a charity that she would like to support.

My dd's school did some fundraising recently for Barnardos, they had to look after a hard bolied egg for a week and collect sponsorship money for doing it.

The idea was that the children had to care for something for a week without it getting broken, I thought it was a lovely idea, dd really enjoyed it. We didn't ask many people, just my sister and parents and our total donations were less than £10. I don't think the amount you donate should matter, but I think it's good that children learn their are people less fortunate than them.

I hate the commercial incentive of school fundraising - the whole 'if you donate then your school will benefit by....' Then the pressure that the school puts on the kids is unfair and its hardly altruistic on the schools behalf. I'm all for fundraising - I'm just very cynical about the manner in which charities operate in schools nowadays.

I particularly loathe the ones where it doesn't even matter how much of an event a child does - all they have to do is turn up to school that day and they get the sponsorship money.

I handle it by giving a small amount as I don't want to use my child as a political weapon! I'm keeping an eye out for school governor places and if I'm successful I'd like to encourage the school to fundraise for local relevant charities (like the local kids hospice) rather than big commercial charities.

I think an important part of education is to learn about the wider world, and for children to realize that there are other children much less fortunate than themselves. So I think you are being unreasonable, I'm afraid.

Wow thankyou for all your responses! I don't mind being told I am being unreasonable- I asked for it after all!
Lovely to see some people feel similar though (oops you seem to be on same wavelength!), so I am not as unreasonable as I thought at first! I won't actually be writing or complaining to anyone as I want to have a good relationship with the school.
I have so far been volunteering to help at fundraising events and selling raffle tickets etc for the school but this is MY choice. I just feel using four year olds is a bit underhanded.

I totally agree with people here who say it is good for achild to learn there are less fortunate people out there and I don't want anyone to think I am disagreeing with that. But I think 4 is too young to get that message across and children need to be older and involved a lot more in what they are doing and learn why they are doing it. I love the idea about the egg.

My children were quite able at less than 4 to understand that there were children in the world who were less fortunate than they were, and they could do something to help by collecting money. I really really don't see the problem. Nobody has to give more than they can afford - all it takes is a pound in the envelope - and the lesson that it is a good think to help other people can't be learnt too early IMHO

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