Guidelines for Involving Parent Volunteers

Abstract

Parents of middle school children are often un prepared for the rapid changes in physical size and charac teristics taking place in their children. Nor do they realize that changes in interest and responses to other people are also a normal phase of early adolescent development. Yet it is at this point in the child's development that the school typically involves parents least. School parties, fun fairs, carnivals, and cookie exchanges which involved parents during elementary school years are often missing in the middle school. On the other hand, high school athletics, band, and school plays which involve parents are still in the future. Parents in the intermediate years sometimes feel that they have lost the privilege of being part of their child's school day. Too often middle schools have involved parents only as spectators or as fund raisers for school needs.