With one month now under our belt, the 2007-2008 school year is well underway. By all measure we are off to a great start. The 2nd Annual Tartan Family Round-up provided a warm beginning, Back-To-School nights were very well attended, the tone and atmosphere on campus is one of excitement and high energy, and all appears well and good in the SMES universe. For those of you who are new to St. Margaret’s, I hope the adjustment time for you and your family has been smooth and relatively short. Providing a warm welcome to you and your children is central to our mission.

One of the important efforts we make throughout the year is to work with the Parent Teacher Fellowship to provide meaningful and helpful opportunities for parent education. As we all know only too well, raising children today is challenging and the more we work in harmony together, the better able we will be to serve the needs of our children. We are fortunate at St. Margaret’s to have an active group of parents eager to bring to our campus well known speakers to offer their advice and counsel on a variety of parenting issues. Last year, Dr. Madeline Levine spoke powerfully about trends she has seen in her work counseling adolescents, and this year we are very pleased to announce that Dr. Wendy Mogel will be joining us at 8:30 a.m. on December 4th to share some of her thoughts on parenting and the love and care of children.Dr. Mogel is a nationally known clinical psychologist and parent educator, and her New York Times best-selling book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, has won rave reviews including Publisher’s Weekly’s acclaim as, “Impassioned, lyrical and eminently practical, this volume is a real treasure.”

Dr. Mogel is a powerful, knowledgeable and humorous speaker. Her work places her in contact with children and parents whose concerns and experiences are similar to those found at St. Margaret’s, and her perspective should prove very valuable to virtually all of you. Importantly, what she has to say will likely strike a responsive chord, for better or for worse. At the heart of her message is a point of view we have been emphasizing for some time now — a skinned knee now and again isn’t such a bad thing.

Beyond the occasional skinned knee and “The Blessings of a B-” (the title of her soon-to-be released new book), Dr. Mogel will likely cover a variety of topics from My Child, My Masterpiece, to Fear of the Ordinary, Lake Wobegon Parenting and eventually to Loving Our Children for their Own Sake. Just to wet your appetite, here is an excerpt from her book:

I meet many parents who are trying so hard to be perfect parents, to make everything just right for their children, that they’re draining away their pleasure in parenting. They’re too exhausted and too unconsciously resentful to enjoy the amazing show of childhood. For these parents, every minute needs to count. If Lana is playing in a puddle, Mom needs to turn the experience into a science lesson about microorganisms. If preteen Brandon is restless or in a bad mood, his parents strive to get to the bottom of it instead of letting him be.

There are a few varieties in the garden of perfect parents. Some stay-at-home-and-raise-the-kids moms figure that they had better do a superb job of it to prove to themselves and others that they’re succeeding at the art, craft, and science of child-rearing. Some full-time working moms want things to be very special for their children because they feel guilty for not being around as much as their own mothers were. The moms who work part-time do a bit of both! And then there are all of us “geriatric” parents. Provided with these precious little vessels for our hopes and dreams, we turn them into our latest project. With midlife recognition of mortality at hand, we’re set up to have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and our children.

My advice to all of these parents is to tolerate some low-quality time. Have a little less ambition for yourself and your children. Plan nothing — disappoint your kids with your essential mediocrity and the dullness of your home. Just hang around your children and wait to see what develops. Strive to be a “good enough” parent.

There is no question that Dr. Mogel will have some important things to say to us and in return, I am confident that we will enrich her experience with our own thoughts and concerns about parenting today. Please mark your calendar for December 4th and come take part in this great opportunity made possible by the Parent Education Coordinator, Bahara Stapleberg, and the PTF. We are very grateful for their support.

Warm regards,

Marcus D. Hurlbut