You may think once your child has gone off to school full-time (officially a First-Grader) that he/she no longer needs you...

You could not be more wrong...

Just consider the following three benefits of being an active part of your child's new school life.

1) You get to see your child more than before and after school. Whether you feel that you need this interaction or not, your child will surely appreciate it.

2) You get to know your child's classmates. You can better identify with who and what he/she is talking about when they come home from school.

3) You get to meet your child's various teachers, principals, school nurses, school secretaries etc... basically every adult who has any interaction with your child. These relationships alone can prove valuable in keeping you "in the loop" with what's really going on at school.

If these three basic reasons are not enough to motivate you, consider this: If you are not the parent volunteer for your child's class, somebody else will be... and thus they will know more about your child and his/her activities at school than you will. After raising and nurturing your child for the past five or six year, is this what you really want?

Danielle Hollister

Danielle Hollister is a single mom of a seven year-old son, who is her personal assistant in their home office, where she has been working as a freelance writer, editor and researcher for more than 10 years. Danielle?s work has been featured in online newsletters, like Briefme.com's Books & Literature ezine, on various websites, and in print publications. Before expanding her career focus to the Internet, she worked for more than three years as a freelance reporter for The Patriot-News, the only daily newspaper in her hometown of Harrisburg, which is the Capitol of Pennsylvania. She also spent two years as the assistant writer to the Director of Public Relations at Penn State Harrisburg, after graduating with high honors from the University with a Bachelor's Degree in Humanitites/Communications. While in college, she worked part-time to pay for her education as a Special Events Coordinator for the Central PA Chapter of The National Multiple Sclerosis Society and as an Editorial Assistant for Stackpole Publishing in Harrisburg.