We Made It: Last Day Of School Commencement Speech

Well parents we have survived another year. For many of us in the Atlanta area it is the last day of school. Can you believe it? We survived 180 days of school. That is a great feat. Who knew being the other side of this school thing would be just as hard as being the actual student. In fact from my time of being a parent with children in school I believe that is actually double the work and the worry. Many times I have wanted to call my parents and apologize and tell them that I now understand how they felt when I was in school. I can now where that badge of honor at the end of each school year that says I survived. We all even survived a surprise snowstorm this year that for many of us added extra days to our school calendar.

For the next 3 months we can now if we choose to put away the books and the backpacks. We can grab that extra few minutes of sleep. Plan that vacation that we have been meaning to take for weeks now, honestly we’ve been wanting to go for so long. At this point I might even try to convince my hubby to get us private flights by using a company like Jettly or one similar that we can find flights via a private jet, it would certainly be an experience for the whole family! Our children can stay up late and indulge in those activities that they love without having to worry of having to go to school the next day.

Now for some of us, summer vacation means summer camp, cheerleading camp, football camp, and many other camps. Summer may even include a few weeks of summer school. You still have to get up and go to work but hey you still have survived the school year. You have time to sit back and recuperate from the struggle of getting homework done, the fight to get those projects in, and constant reminders of signing papers and field trip forms. No more having to rush a kid out to the school bus you can breathe a minute. Of course, it may be different for parents who send their kids to boarding kids. My best friend’s boys attend one of the best boarding schools in Australia and she says the daily routine is a lot different for her. Apart from the daily phone calls and chit-chats, her boys seem to want nothing else from her. They do their homework, arrange their suitcases, and are practically independent already! Anyway, I’m happy for her, and the parent/teacher conferences are behind us now. We can go home at the end of the day, sit and enjoy ourselves with family.

Instead of these worries you can wake up and plan a day to the park. Maybe even go to the pool. An impromptu barbecue or any other fun things you can come up with. Your children can still learn but they are not in a building for eight straight hours. You can look forward to your 4th of July celebration and all those pretty fireworks, maybe this time you might even let your child raise the flag up the flag pole this year? Or maybe you’ve even bought them their own flag and pole to raise themselves come the 4th! They can learn at their leisure and pace. No more worries about the state mandatory test that they have to worry about throughout the school year.

I say all this to say please enjoy these next few weeks with your children as much as you can. They will fly by and next thing you know you will be back to that tough school schedule. Yes make sure your children take maybe thirty minutes to an hour out of their day to either go over what they learned over the year or learn something new but still have fun. HAPPY SUMMER VACATION! ENJOY!