A Tough Balancing Act

In class on Wednesday we discussed the importance of being an effective parent. A parent should be involved in their child's social and academic lives. The extent to which a parent is involved may vary and depends on numerous factors including age and maturity of the child to name a few. It is a tough balancing act for a parent because you do not want to be too involved in either your child's academic and social lives but a lack of involvement in either of these areas may be problematic as well. I feel blessed to have the type of parents that I have because I think you were involved at just the right intensity level. We were able to bond as friends but I respected them as the authority in my house. I felt comfortable talking them about profound or taboo topics and they felt comfortable discussing these topics with me as well. On top of this, my parents were a positive motivating influence in my academic life and were also more than willing (my dad may have been too willing) to lend a helping hand with studying or homework or even just advice on life in general. I hope my students have similar parents to mine because I feel this would make the classroom a more productive environment and thus make my job easier. This may be a selfish way of looking at things but good parents like mine I feel will lead to the greater well-being and success and happiness of my students which would be great! This balancing act that parents have the privilege of playing is one that I feel teachers may also be able to play. A teacher may have to balance the level of homework they give in a class to compromise for the different types of students in a class. A teacher may also have to balance their role as an authoritarian and as an almost "friend-like" companion or role model. I look forward to juggling this complex balancing-act and I hope that as a teacher I will be able to master this skill and perhaps even juggle while on a unicycle. In fact, this is my dream for all teachers, parents, and students: that they can learn to balance all that life throws at everyone and succeed in their role as a teacher, student, or parent, and human in general.