After School Participation: Fill & Download for Free

From the wording of your question, I am assuming you are talking about a public school after-school program. The other piece of important information that is missing is your daughter’s age.First off, one way to ensure your daughter is not eating in the after-school program is to provide a doctor’s note that states she is not to eat for medical reasons. It will have to be on the letterhead of your doctor and signed by your doctor. Because of medical privacy laws, the medical reason does not need to be provided.The other way is to arrange for alternative child care after school for your daughter.The majority of after-school programs are run on shoestring budgets. They really are not meant to substitute for quality child care. They are often paid for by grants and other money obtained to provide after school snacks for low income children. Often, that money is spent wisely so it can cover all children who stay after school. The whole idea of after-school programs is to provide a safe environment for children for an hour or so after school. It is better than having children go home to be unsupervised.Many have a few adults that help students with homework. These can be volunteers or adults paid for from another program, like the Boys and Girls Club or other local organization. They rarely get paid minimum wage. They get a stipend. At my school site that stipend amounts to $5 an hour.Some have a couple of people that after the snack, just supervise the children on the playground.With so few adults monitoring, nobody is really available to make sure your daughter is not eating the snack provided. Most of the time the snack is provided in the cafeteria and to keep track of which child obtained a snack for accounting purposes and so the school gets reimbursed from the grant or from whomever is paying, each student has to swipe their lunch card or student ID card. So if your daughter does not get the snack, the school does not get paid for her participation in the after-school program. The one at my school requires students to swipe their ID at the cafeteria first to get their food before they can get after school tutoring or use the library. These things are only open to students in the after-school program. We have to show that students who get a snack are also using the other services. So if they swipe in the cafeteria and then do not swipe their ID at the room of their tutor or at the Library, they cannot get a snack the next day. If they do not get a snack, they cannot participate in the tutoring or after school hours in the library. When they swipe their ID, an alert sounds and they are sent out. Our program is funded in such a way the students need to participate in both.Finally, why should your daughter not eat a snack after school? I can see an issue if she has special dietary needs or if she is obese and you are trying to help her lose weight. The one thing the school cannot monitor is your daughter obtaining food from other students. Students who are on restricted diets that will not follow them will get the food that other students do not eat. There is no way to stop that. During the school day, if that is an issue, a 504 plan would be in place to have her eat away from the other students. That plan would also have a goal to teach her to self-regulate so eventually she could eat with the other students. If this is the case, you cannot expect the after-school program to continue with it, they do not have the adults to monitor it. At my site, those students would just go home and have their ID card set up so they could not get a snack and the parent would be responsible for ensuring the student was picked up within 5 minutes after school, before the cafeteria opened.I teach high school and I am amazed at how many parents want me to monitor what their students eat. In high school, that cannot be done. Teenagers will get whatever food they want and we cannot stop them.

After I quit Boy Scouts when I was about nine years old, my parents didn’t encourage or force me to participate in any extra-curricular activities. I joined the band in middle school, and made it through one year of marching band in high school, but my parents were indifferent to my participation in it. It mostly happened during school hours, and I hated it anyway. But most days, during those formative early teen years where having friends and being social is extremely important, I came straight home after school every day and kept to myself.When I went to college and got to know some of my dorm mates, they always talked about all of the clubs and sports they were in after school. When I mentioned that I never did any of those things, they told me that their parents forced them to do extra-curricular activities. Then, I started reflecting on the people I knew in high school and, sure enough, almost all of them were in at least one after-school club or sport at all times, and a lot of them complained about it.When I met my wife, her story was the same: parents who made sure she was always doing something after school. In her case, it was volleyball, and she enjoyed it, but she said that her parents would have made her do something else if she quit that.When we had our own children, she was adamant about them being involved in extracurricular activities as soon as possible… at least one per season. My oldest was on a swim team and did volleyball. My middle child has played t-ball, baseball, basketball, and soccer, and was in the Boy Scouts for a while there. My youngest… only six… has already done two years of ballet, two years of soccer, and one year of t-ball.I once spoke to a psychiatrist about some issues I was having when I was in my early 20s, and he said that they could be traced back to those early teen years and my lack of socialization outside of school. My parents either didn’t see anything wrong with me being alone in my room most evenings, didn’t notice it, or were too busy dealing with my older sister’s crap to do anything about it.

I’m a teacher. This is what you should do. Go to your teacher after school — not at lunchtime because teachers have supervision at lunch, are hungry, and feel stressed from the morning. They are more relaxed after school.Explain that you have severe anxiety and want to answer questions and participate, but that most of the time you can’t do that. (Tell him what happens.) But you have an idea that might work so that the teacher knows you are engaged in the class. Offer to write notes on questions and answers in class, and show the notebook to him every week. Tell him that you are a smart and hardworking student and are working on the anxiety thing.Ask if he has any suggestions.Here is something I used with a student. If he knew the answer and thought he could speak out loud, he gave me a twitching finger sign. I would ask him next. He would give a short answer. And then he would take deep breaths.For another boy, I would tap on my book when I was asking another student a question. That meant I would be asking the anxious student next.Talk to the teacher. Make it clear that you want to work at class participation. Then listen.But remember — after school, not at lunch.