In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children

Parent Responsibilities

Yeah for parents!  You are the glue that keeps all this together :).  Your role with your youth is vital and our job is to do our best to support you in that task.

We have some tools we would like to emphasize this year to make everyone's job easier:

1-Please read "Crucial Conversations" this summer.  One way that everyone (especially me!) can improve is to improve our communication.  Please read this by the beginning of the school year and then we will study and refer to it again throughout the year.  Thanks!

2-Please attend as many parent mentor meetings as you can!   We are focused on making it a compact 1 hour session that will improve your ability to mentor and keep you informed of what is going on in class and how it impacts your student and you. We moved them to Friday night to hopefully free up your Saturdays and enable husbands and wives to attend as a date night. We will provide great treats and keep it to one hour. We would like to follow this format and then tweak it if it needs it:
Agenda:
Opening Prayer, Song, Thought
Break-out Sessions (20 min):
The following three sessions will happen at once-
-Vanguard concerns
-Vanguard Jr. concerns
-Dad Power: discuss ways you can help as very busy fathers

Gather and discuss article or principle for month (30-40 min):
This time is going to be dedicated to helping us as parents understand our common Vanguard vision and give us some specific ways to make our mentoring more effective.

3-Communication:
 -This group has a very ambitious mission and it can only happen as you are engaged with your student.  If you are in our group, you must check your email from our groups at least once a week and reply that you got it when it relates to you.  It is simple decency--the mentors put in a lot of time to make sure you have what you need to succeed, and you need to reciprocate by reading and acknowledging what they send out.  Silence will be interpreted as consent. Thanks!
-As your needs and abilities change, please keep us up to date.  For instance, if you see a way you can improve your son or daughter's environment or experience in Vanguard, feel free to step in and help!  Let us know ways we can improve!  If you have urgent situations come up, let us know and please be available to help others out when their situations come up.  As we prayerfully look for ways to help and strengthen each other and our community, it will be a blessing to our families.  Pray for talents that you can better help and serve :).
-Also, as you see ideas and concepts we will be studying throughout the year on our schedule, please feel free to suggest field trips, speakers, etc. that will complement and strengthen the youth's experience. 
-Follow this blog.  This will be our hub for getting info out to you and for keeping all the info in one place.  If you need help following it, please contact Monica Casselberry or Tova Biesinger.

4-Make sure your youth are prepared each week and attending Core class.  Our bylaws state:
All youth are expected to attend all meetings due to the interconnected nature of the classes. Please discuss extenuating circumstances with the advisors. If they are absent two or more times in a semester, they may be asked to withdraw for a while until they are able to make more of a commitment
Because of the nature of the classes, we make lots of connections, so when they are not there, they will miss out significantly.  We only meet 13 days in a semester for Core class and make the most of each time with simulations, etc. Similarly, they must be mature enough to be prepared each week with the material so they and others can more fully engage in a meaningful experience and discussion.  They are all part of the Vanguard Youth leadership team and need to be supportive and respectful to each other. 

One way to do this is through your weekly mentor meetings.  If your youth is not willing to do one with you or it doesn't work for your family dynamics, they need to be coming up with a plan of studying on their own as part of the requirements for coming to core class.   This is a powerful tool and can be individually adapted to make it more effective for your child.

5-Finally, the best way you can help your youth and our community is to have the background vision of this group.  CD's will soon be available for purchase for our recent Vanguard Training.  They will cost $3 each, and have recordings for most of the day.  Please get a training CD and review the material on it to gain better perspective and understanding. Thanks!




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