[Ansteorra] Youth Collegiums

Wed Jan 23 08:53:46 PST 2008

These might work, but they are all very negative and might easily backfire. The MOC should not be disciplining parents unless the Seneschal has delegated that to them. 

I would tell the parents when they dropped off their kids when they should pick them up (and try to get them to commit some time to MOC). I would tell them kids left more than xx minutes after closing would be turned over to the Seneschal. I would announce each closing via the heralds. Kids left over would be turned over to the Seneschal. They can warn the parents the first time and for subsequent problems, ask them to leave the site.This would not be public, but the parents could make it so if they wished. If they were asked to leave site for more than a couple of events, we could refer it up the Seneschal chain for other action. 

At worst case, parents who leave the site without entrusting their children to a guardian with proper paperwork could cause the Seneschal to call the local police with an abandoned child complaint. A local day care in my area did that a few years ago (it was their stated policy) and it was very, very effective (though the parents rarely used that day care again).

In service,
Caelin on Andrede

________________________________

From: ansteorra-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org on behalf of Patrick R
Sent: Wed 1/23/2008 10:23 AM
To: Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc.
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Youth Collegiums

Picking up on a few of the ideas in previous posts, I have a few suggestions to remover the problem of irresponsible parents.

  In court don't name the parents who were good parents and picked up their children. Name those who were irresponsible and did not pick them up. If humiliation works with children it should be good enough for the parents as well.

  Ask the heralds to announce a page for the parents that have not picked up their children. Of course the page would have to indicate they were irresponsible and broke their word to pick their children up.

  Require a refundable deposit for children activities. You get your $20.00 back if you pick the child up on time. If parents start thinking of it as baby sitting make the deposit more. Ummm nice way to make some money if the different groups took turns with the children.

  There are other ideas that while would be acceptable period ideas could cause problems with local laws.

  Dante

Donna Nesbit <themaefare at yahoo.com> wrote:  I am glad you suggested this as I thought about it also. In addition, not picking up children in a timely manner can be considered neglect. Now I know that we do not want to run off people, but if the local senshal happened to come over to children's activities 20 minutes or so after the set closing time and talked to each parent (nicely, but firmly) about being on time, it might get the point across. This would be especially effective if the heralds had announced closing time several times. I know some parents will have good reasons for being late and some will be irate, but after several groups do the same thing, the point might get across- Parents are responsible for their children!!! We expect parents to be responsible for their children!!!

Penelope

Bridget the Stargazer
wrote:

I can't remember where I read about it but either at an event (or at the events of a kingdom), they would have a herald announce the parents who needed to collect their children. The parents were warned this would happen beforehand so if it happened to them, it was their own fault.

Say lunch is scheduled for 12:00pm. It could be heralded at 11:45am that parents/guardians need to collect their children to feed them during the break. The same thing could happen near the end of the day's activities. If at 12:15pm or 15 minutes after the day had ended, the children were not collected, a herald could announce the uncollected "valuables" at Children's Activities.

Taking a moment in court to say thank you to the parents who DID collect their children promptly without mentioning those who didn't (they will shamefully know who they are) might encourage others to do likewise in the future.

Just a couple of thoughts,
Bridget the Stargazer

> 1. Youth Collegiums - was Children ... (Chiara Francesca)

>
> For the last 5 or 6 years or so on and off I have run youth collegiums.
>
> The classes were all held in one location, the large open hall in Canton. At
> no time were any children alone with just one adult. They were sharing the
> hall with a minimum of 100 adults. Some had parents actually participate in
> the classes. Other parents taking advantage of the air-conditioning in the
> hall happily sat in there with us. :)
>
> I still have all my notes of what worked and what did not. What classes we
> taught, how many students were there, and which classes were the most
> popular.
>
> The best part: I can tell you right now without looking for those notes that
> the most popular classes were the ones the parents or other adults took with
> the kids cause they thought it was a cool class and lasted only 30 minutes
> to an hour each.
>
> The biggest problem: lunch. Parents that were not there already would not
> come to pick up the kids to feed them lunch. Then at the end of the day once
> again, they would not come to pick up their kids. I am totally open to
> solutions to this one, there has to be one that does not involve stopping
> this kind of activity.
>
> Other than that we had youth from ages 5 to 50+ filling every class and
> enjoying themselves.
>
> I think it is a pity that we never hear the good things about these kinds of
> classes and collegiums for kid.
>
> Chiara Francesca

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