The stars were out last week at the Prom ... and those shining most brightly were the well-mannered young people who came dressed to beautifully and who behaved like the young men and women they are. There were other stars as well, those adults who came, created, contributed and cleaned in an atmosphere of caring so that the young participants would have a very special evening. Parents, school sponsors and supportive adults throughout our area united to make this Prom an event to remember with great music, professional-looking decorations, contests, door prizes, gift certificates and fabulous food.
The overwhelming outpouring of community contributions to the “PRO-Prom” program was a living lesson in love to the young people attending. Unlike paychecks or incentive programs which primarily reward or increase participation, these gifts were given because the contributors wanted to celebrate the importance of young people and their activities in a concrete and meaningful way. The miracle of Parents Reaching Out to kids in programs like PRO-Prom and PRO-Grad is that the message becomes one of “we care” rather than “we control”. It is a message that each parent wants his child to hear but often gets “lost” in the myriad mazes of child rearing. From earliest childhood, parental participation and example is the key to teaching values, morals, reading, responsibility, piano, athletics, crafts, skills, etc., etc., etc. Parents who are actively involved ... not spectators only ... but who are working to support child-oriented activities through time, cash and other contributions prove over and again that such efforts do show kids of all ages how important they are and how greatly they are valued.
Parents can help make young adult activities more fun and more successful by providing the scaffolding framework upon which these activities are developed. What first-time “fixer” of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner doesn’t come, quickly, to realize what an enormous among of just hard work goes into the preparation of such a feast? Over and over they say, “I don’t know HOW Mom ever managed it all!”, having never considered just how great the effort to make such a gathering special really was. Yet, year after year, one generation joyfully gave the gift of self and service to the next, providing a framework of love and support upon which future family gatherings would thrive. Unless they participate in the preparation, young Cinderellas and handsome princes attending the ball can’t imagine the amount of work before AND after the Prom.
Willing workers ... parents, students and school personnel, all as volunteers ... gave gifts of time to serve in whatever capacity required. The message has to be clear to our young people ... we care!
For those of us “old folks” at the Prom, the unexpected bonus of our participation was the joy we felt and saw throughout the evening. This “old-ladyCinderella” even got to dance at the ball with her handsome princes (husband and son), and that was my unexpected bonus of my participation. For the young people attending the Prom, the unexpected bonus was in really seeing, through the community, family and school support of the PRO-Prom program, that they and their activities are vitally important to us all. No matter how you say it, nothing matters more.
