A couple weeks ago I talked with my friend Sarah about my ambivalence in regards to volunteering at my kids’ school during one of our Mama Said episodes. I thought I would share the video here because I really do have some Big Feelings about it. Since filming that episode, I have volunteered a few times. (I did it out of guilt, not because I feel like the classrooms will fall apart without parental help. We attend a school where parents are very involved.) Again, I walked away feeling exhausted and drained for the rest of the day, and in one situation had a near-panic-attack that involved a broken glue gun and 25 children waiting on me to apply buttons to their snowman craft and me wishing a transporter machine would appear and whisk me away. I don’t know what it is with me and large groups of children, but I am NOT A FAN. (And in the video . . . when I mentioned the anxiety and dread I get the night before I volunteer, and needing to take a pill? Yeah. That was not hyperbole.) Anyways. I am curious if anyone else has similar feelings about volunteering at school. I can certainly see the benefits of observing my kids to see how they are doing. But MAN it’s hard for me to motivate when I’ve got a full workload of my own, a child at home, and kids in 3 different classrooms. It’s also hard for me not to feel like my guilt over not volunteering is the biggest First World Problem ever, but it’s there. Do you volunteer? Do you enjoy it? And if you don’t, do you feel okay about that decision?
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I volunteer for my daughter's kindergarten class for one day a week and it's for 2 hours at the end of the day. I think I enjoy it about 25 percent of the time because the kids love me and it's nice to work with them when everything is running smoothly. The other 75 percent is filled with anxiety like you mentioned because I'm introverted and the teacher is very sweet if the kids are behaving which is not too often. She is almost always having to deal with behavioral issues rather than teaching a lesson and that just brings me back to my school days of teachers getting angry. LOL I had been working full time for over a decade at a job that was physically taxing and the there were deadlines to meet always, thankfully my hubby is working and i am able to stay at home. My son in 4th grade and my daughter in Kindergarten so this is the first year of me being home and I kinda feel rather lost on how to schedule time and how much volunteering is too much because I just want to accomplish things at home or just have some sanity without the kids and do what I want.
I volunteer for my daughter's kindergarten class for one day a week and it's for 2 hours at the end of the day. I think I enjoy it about 25 percent of the time because the kids love me and it's nice to work with them when everything is running smoothly. The other 75 percent is filled with anxiety like you mentioned because I'm introverted and the teacher is very sweet if the kids are behaving which is not too often. She is almost always having to deal with behavioral issues rather than teaching a lesson and that just brings me back to my school days of teachers getting angry. LOL I had been working full time for over a decade at a job that was physically taxing and the there were deadlines to meet always, thankfully my hubby is working and i am able to stay at home. My son in 4th grade and my daughter in Kindergarten so this is the first year of me being home and I kinda feel rather lost on how to schedule time and how much volunteering is too much because I just want to accomplish things at home or just have some sanity without the kids and do what I want.
I was just looking this topic up because I feel horrible about not going on my daughter's field trip and not volunteering at her school. I have anxiety around children for some reason, but I want to be there. I work and I am going to college…I feel overwhelmed…and guilty. I don't know what to do…her field trip is on Tuesday. I would get back at 4 and then I would have to be at work at 6. Uugghhh