Grade 6 grad? Let’s let kids be kids

I am pretty sure I graduated from Grade 6. Because I definitely started Grade 7.

But I honestly have no memory of my Grade 6 grad. I’m not sure we even had such a thing. More likely, it was probably just a picnic or hotdog roast in Laurier Park. And we probably walked there. Our families certainly weren’t in attendance. It would have been a party for us, with a few parent volunteers slicing watermelon.

When my daughter graduated from Grade 6, way back in 2008, her school made a bit more of a fuss. There was a daytime ceremony in the gym. The younger students provided entertainment and handmade gifts. We topped off with cookies and juice, and called it a wrap.

So I was gob smacked to read about an affluent elementary school in southwest Edmonton where parents are planning a Grade 6 “farewell” celebration with a budget of $4,700, featuring a catered dinner dance for 240 people.

When one mother complained, the parent committee responded by saying they had actually toned things down, and cut the budget from the $10,000 spent in previous years.

I don’t want to use this column to beat up on one elementary school, or one group of parent volunteers. But there’s something about this grad inflation that makes me deeply uneasy. Because while this party was unusual in scale, it’s just a part of a growing North American trend, as a recent essay on the American website TheEducationTrends.com noted.

“The graduation events and parties that are organized for elementary school are so professional and advanced, so expensive and elaborate that it raises questions about the values we teach our children. It’s one thing to play some music, bring some cakes and make a party for the children, but a totally different matter to hire caterers, DJs, special locations and outfits for an elementary school graduation. There now seems to be an entire industry behind these parties.”

A graduation is supposed to be a rite of passage marking a significant attainment, a milestone that you’ve truly worked to achieve. Perhaps, in a very high-needs school, finishing Grade 6 would be a true accomplishment. But for the majority of kids, does completing sixth grade merit huge celebration?

If we praise kids for everything little thing, what do we say when they accomplish something really special?

We actually patronize children and minimize their real achievements by offering fawning, empty congratulations for quotidian things that didn’t require serious effort.

Christina Rinaldi, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Alberta, researches the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. She attributes the yen for overblown elementary school grad parties in part to popular media culture, to such things as American reality TV shows that normalize lavish materialism. Parents are free to make that choice, she says. But they should consider the long-term consequences.

“A party is a nice way to have closure,” says Rinaldi. “It’s a way of acknowledging that you’re separating from your school family, and that you’re moving on. But a party like this is excessive. If this is what we do for Grade 6, what do we do when they hit the next milestone? How do we keep up this pace? If they get anything less when they complete Grade 9, they’ll say, ‘Why did that happen?’ It becomes an entitlement, something they expect, instead of something they’ve earned.”

But the issue isn’t just conspicuous consumption.

Our culture pushes tweens into being teenagers prematurely. A grad used to be something reserved for high school students, young adults of 17 or 18 who were exploring their independence and their sexuality. Sixth-graders of 11 or 12 are still children, and they should be allowed to enjoy their childhood while it lasts, not hurried into all the trappings of teenagehood.

“It’s like we’re in a race to have all these milestones completed,” says Rinaldi.

“They are children still. They are still developing. They don’t need to grow up so fast.”

I’m sure parents who plan grand parties for their kids mean well.

But I’m betting most of those kids would have been just as happy with a Rice Krispie square and a water fight.

Perhaps it’s the parents, especially those who’ve spent so much time volunteering, who aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to elementary school? But they, and their children, have so many more adventures to look forward to. And thank goodness.

Because Grade 6 isn’t the end of an education.

It’s scarcely the beginning.