I guess you have a point

Last week my daughter, Hannah, had the opportunity to represent our elementary school at the First in Fitness competition.

During PE each child was given the opportunity to try-out for the events and only the top 3 kids in each category were invited to participate. There are 700 kids at our elementary school and I'm proud that Hannah earned a spot.

The kids who participated were pretty much out of school the entire day. I volunteered to chaperon a group at the competition because this was exciting stuff. In my head I pictured something on par with the Super Bowl. There's no way I'd miss this!

There were kids in my group from grades 3-5 and we had a fair amount of downtime between events. A bit more than halfway through I started fantasizing about balancing the checkbook, and then I started thinking longingly about folding laundry and scrubbing toilets. Is it possible to die of boredom? I looked over at the kids and saw at least two who looked like they were willing to pull the plug rather than actually find out. Being the veteran volunteer that I am I quickly snapped out of it when I realized the potential for mayhem.

Bored kids + no authority figure = TROUBLE

.

Let's face it, the kids aren't dumb. They know exactly how much power a volunteer chaperon has: ZERO. I quickly wiped the drool from my cheek, gave myself a mental head slap or two, and whipped out my bag of tricks. The good news is that the kids were desperate for stimulation and willing to play along. The bad news is I need to get a bigger bag of tricks. I had 'em for about 15 minutes.

My next ploy was to engage them in conversation. I talked about what a privilege it was to have been selected to represent the school. Their eyes quickly started to glaze over, so I asked them

what they'd learned from the experience. They were quiet for a moment and one of the children responded.

Child: I learned, like, sooo much today Mrs B!

Me: (Smiling encouragingly)

Child: I learned that if you work really hard and practice and really try your best that you can be a great athlete.

Me: (Looking meaningfully at the other children to see if they're absorbing the profound nature of the message that's been delivered.)

Child: And the best part about being a great athlete is that school isn't important. We got out of an entire day of school and my teacher said that I don't have to do my homework for yesterday or today.

Me: (Who put me in charge here anyway? I'd debate her on this if I felt as though she were wrong)

.

I guess you've got a point