To expect children to make their own crafts for competitions?

[Sparkler]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh
I need to rant.
DDs have had lots of things to make at home for competitions at school and girlguiding. We had to make something for Fairtrade week and also easter bonnets for competitions.
DDs made them all themselves - I helped with the occasional cutting out but most of it was done by them.
When we got to the events some of the items that had been made were totally unbelievable, and I mean really impressive, but that's just not the point. These things are meant to be for the children's enjoyment so why the hell do some parents take over? A lot of those items were in no way whatsoever made by the children - they were far too perfect. One easter bonnet was in the age 3-6 category and was absolutely perfect in every way.
And on top of this, some of these "obviously parent made" items were given high commendation awards when my DDs and their friends who had obviously worked really hard to make their own things didn't get anything.

I hate that

YANBU

YANBU When I was a teacher we used to award the prizes to the children who had made the items themselves.

When I have been judging we go for the child made ones-it is always obvious.

YANBU
But then do you want he occasional scissors and glue genius child penalised because someone thinks their parent did it?

We've had this on World Book Day. With shop-bought costumes winning prizes, whilst home-made outfits get overlooked. Now I understand that not all parents have the time to make such things, but what does it tell the children when they know that their parent has put in loads of effort and another has just gone to the shops?

This happens alot at ds's school and it makes me so mad. Last year a 8 year old made a glass case with a model of the earth inside . I don't think so! They had to make models of a tudor house last week, it was fairly obvious that the parents had made some of these.

I don't think dingdong that you would be penalising the genius child! You tend to know the child and their capabilities anyway.

YANBU I totally agree. The easter bonnet thing particularly drives me nuts.

When dd1 did these hers was the only one that looked like a child had made it and the one that won was a work of art (picture delicately painted eggs in a nest with chicks built into a hat) that a very artistic adult had obviously made.

However a change of head teacher meant a change of voting proceedure and when dd2 made hers a few years later she won! (Cue one smug mummy!)

dindong05 If a child really is a genius with scissors and glue- the teachers at the school will already know that.

it didn't matter if my mother or me did my art projects, we still got ridiculously low marks

what do you do if you are shite at art as well as your kids?

when I was a teenager we used to compete to see who could make 4 out of 10 for my art homework

we always got 3

Apart from the actual hat that was home-made by an adult, my DS decorated his Easter hat for school. The problem is, he is really neat with sticking and stuff (and we used double sided tape so it wasn't dripping glue everywhere) so it was rather symmetrical and "adult" looking so he didn't get any credit... Shame that the "obvious" adult input wasn't actually adult at all!

This reminds of my SIL. They had a 'decorate the pumkin' thing at her kids school last year. It was supposed to be for the kids to do but her DS (5) isn't into crafty things so she decorated it herself. She was really proud of it as she'd tried her best.

It won first prize, the judges said it won because it was the one which looked the most like a child had genuinely done it...not like something the parents were trying to pass off....SIL was laughing her socks off. She'd tried her very best too.

My oldest DD is very neat, and takes ages to do arty crafty things. They often come out far better than anything I could do, and I know people probably look at them and think that she couldn't have possibly done it herself. She wins sometimes at school, as they know her, and know her abilities, but she doesn't win outside school competitions, possibly because her work is just too good for a 6 year old.
The chicks on my other DDs bonnet showed she had done it herself though, they were all stuck by their heads with their legs in the air, looking rather the worse for wear!

In my experiance though, the ones that win are the ones that have made the things themselves, at least at my kids school it is. The teachers can always tell who has had too much help.

Ds had to make an easter bonnet so I cut an egg shape out of a piece of card and gave it to him along with glue, glitter and various other bits and bobs. Once he'd finnished I stuck it onto a cardbaord headband.

He won