Dear Amy: I volunteer in a PTA-sponsored storytime program and as a soccer coach. In both cases, I was asked to participate because the organizer knew I had skills that would be beneficial (I work in children’s publishing and was a college athlete).
I dutifully prepare games and activities I think will be fun and age-appropriate. Unfortunately, they do not always go as well as planned. I am amazed how quickly and loudly parents are to express their displeasure when a craft or drill is going south.
— Coach Kim in New Jersey
Dear Coach: Parents can be obnoxious — there’s no question about that. But if you are finding that the parents are routinely disrupting the action during your volunteer time, you should take a closer look at, and perhaps rethink, these activities (or rethink having parents in the room during the sessions).
Dear Amy: My 14-year-old received a call from her grandmother (my mother-in- law) after she had received my daughter’s holiday thank- you note. Grandmother asked my daughter if she wanted to edit the thank-you note (because of poor grammar and punctuation). After the phone call, my daughter was a bit distraught, saying, “Well, I do not think I will ever send her a thank-you card again.”
My husband thinks his Mom is within her rights to correct our daughter’s thank-you card. I think she should be grateful that a 14-year-old has taken the time to write not only a thank-you, but also a letter that caught Grandma up on her life. This type of behavior from my mother-in-law is going to discourage such correspondence. What do you think? — Ungrateful for a Thanks
Dear Ungrateful: For goodness’ sake, did your daughter have to disrupt her ongoing work brokering the Middle East conflict in order to put pen to paper? On the other hand, it is very rude to correct someone’s personal correspondence. Obviously, this will only discourage further written communication.
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