Janet’s Book Nook

I made it! I was a little concerned on Wednesday that I might bow out graciously and not fulfill my commitment to volunteer for Vacation Bible School at my church. I made it though. I have to tell you that I was a little shocked  at the behavior of some of the adults. We had about 600 kids each day. I was on the games team and we had a rotation every 20 minutes of kids playing the games. Some of the classes were large and so some of the kids might now have been able to complete all of the games. They each got to play at least some of the games. The second day we had adult counselors who were complaining that their kids didn’t get to play all of the games. One of the issues was that these people did not make any attempt to control the behavior of their kids once they entered the play area. They thought it was break time to stand around and talk. If it takes us 10 minutes to get the kids where they need to be and then 5 minutes to tell them how to play the games then they have 5 minutes to actually play. That day we made an effort to make things better and assure that all of the kids would get to play everything. The first day we gave the winning teams prizes, the second day we gave everyone a prize, the third day we gave everyone a prize, the fourth day we gave no one a prize. We had a limited number of prizes left for the last day. We decided that whichever children completed the relay tasks correctly would receive a prize. The last part of the relay was roping a horse made out of wood. It wasn’t easy to do but it was doable. We had no issues with the first group of kids who were 3rd and 4th grade kids. They understood that they got a prize if they hit the horse with the rope on any part of the horse. The second group were 5th and 6th graders. This is where the issues began. We were running the relay as boys against the girls. We got to the  end of the heat and there were 5 girls in line waiting to rope and 9 boys. The girls continued to rope as they had been from the beginning. One of the counselors for the boys decided to start yelling just touch the rope and move on and I will give you a prize. I was shocked! We were at a VBS and this man was telling these boys to cheat so that they could win. Then when we announced that they had cheated he wanted to take our prizes to reward the cheaters. I was fuming. The next group was the second graders. This time our issue was that the counselors thought that every child should get a prize and not just some. When we explained that we didn’t have enough for all of them and that we were only rewarding those who completed the task correctly some of them decided to sneak behind out backs and take prizes to give their children who didn’t get prizes. What were they trying to teach these kids? Then we had a boy who was crying because he didn’t get a prize. The counselors wanted us to give them a prize for the child. We are talking about 7-8 year olds not babies. When we refused because we thought it would turn in to a crying fiesta by all of those who hadn’t received prizes they asked another child to give up their prize for this boy. So now they have taught this child that rules don’t apply, if I cry I will get what I want and that authority means nothing. I was distraught. We were there this week to teach these children life building lessons. Character building lessons. Lessons that will help to change the people they will become. I doubt that I would be interested in knowing these people because I am a rule follower. I have always believed that rules exist for a reason. If there are rules that I don’t like I believe it is my responsibility to work with administrators and governors to get the rules changed. If they aren’t changed- I follow them. I would have had more respect for these people had they come to us afterwords and said…"I don’t really think that the prize distribution is fair nor is it working" I would have gladly passed along the info (which I ended up doing anyway) so that it could be changed for next time. So, next year we are going to have to figure out how to give prizes to every child for 5 days straight. YIKES! Or we will have to refuse to give prizes at all. It really is a shame because one of the greatest lessons I learned as a child was that your actions determine your rewards in life. If I work hard I get more money or a better job. If I practice at sports I get better and I win games. If I put effort in to a game then I can do well and get a prize. Instead these people have decided that it is better to teach these children that we should make accommodations for those who can’t or won’t follow the rules. In other words…what you do doesn’t matter because we will just do for you what you are unwilling to do for yourself.