Too much information!

Our columnist Michèle Binswanger is dreading the rising flood of flyers from school. She fervently wishes: Less, please!

Once again, the school is being incredibly good to us parents. So good that it could drive you crazy. With the start of the school year, the information brochures, invitations to events and talks, requests for help, letters to parents and what not are fluttering around again. As a working but not incredibly well-organised mother, I can't see my nerves getting the better of me.

Burn-out therapist

When did everything become so complicated? My mum worked and put four children through primary school. In all those years, she says, she only attended a handful of parents' evenings and nativity plays. She can be glad. Because with the information and activity neurosis of schools these days, she would need a secretary with four children. Or a burn-out therapist. I only have two children, but they bring papers home almost every day. They provide information about planned excursions, offers, «Fit for Activity» days or whatever else is coming up.

Recently, my daughter handed me a sheet of paper in which one of the three part-time teachers announced that she would not be able to fulfil her teaching duties on a certain date. She wanted to know whether she should organise a substitute or make up the lesson. Enclosed was a list of possible make-up dates. Of course I can help a teacher decide how to organise her cancelled lessons, but is that my job? If I were an organisational genius, I would have aimed for world domination or something similar from the start. It didn't come to that, I'm over it. I don't need maternal substitution therapy.

Some parents don't give a damn about anything

I am happy when my children do interesting things at school. Even after a hard day's work, I like to spread them sandwiches for the outing, try to attend their theatre performances and musicals when my schedule allows, and I get through the parents' evening twice a year. I've never had the impression that I would have missed something important if I hadn't been there. And on these evenings I slide around on my chair like a drifting continental plate. But it's about the symbolic act that stands for positive cooperation between school and parents.

I urgently need an information sheet on the subject of staying mentally healthy with school-age children.

I understand very well that teachers want committed parents and seamless cooperation and inform them accordingly. But it's like this: some parents write an email to the teacher with CC up to the Director of Education about every grade. Others bring home-baked goods to every school performance and help clean the floors at the end. And there are also those who couldn't care less - probably including their children. They are happy to be able to park them at school because then they know where their children are.

I know the teachers only mean well. They take their job seriously. They want to involve the parents. It's not easy for them. Nevertheless, a few fewer sheets of paper, a little more to the point and less rushing to provide information would go a long way towards relaxing me. Otherwise, I urgently need an information sheet on the topic: Staying mentally healthy with school-age children: A Step-by-Step Guide.