school supplies!

Timing is definitely an issue, but I think some of it
just comes down to the fact that some people will trade money
for convenience and others will trade convenience for money.
Some would prefer for all the costs to be bundled and to pay
one fee and be done with it. Others want the costs spread
out or would prefer to get their own (either for control or
because they think they can get a better deal). People just
have different preferences, so it's darned hard to satisfy
all (or even most) of them. Everyone would like enough lead
time, of course, but even with lead time you're not going to
satisfy everyone.

Whilst all that is undoubtably true, I wonder if another factor is
simply a less than ideal ability to see the true cost of things and make
decisions and budget accordingly. When I take my kids to gymnastics, I
often end up wandering around and will see things on the notice board
for older gymnasts about money and I was really pleased to see that they
are very upfront about costs, though it's also obvious from various
letters that complaints are frequent, yet it really seems they have it
organised, this years competition dates were up in August with it
clearly marked which were compulsory for which teams and which were
optional, along with estimated expenses. They seem to accept that there
will be variations - so it's strongly encouraged to have a professional
choreograph your floor routine and teach it to you, but if you really
want to avoid that, then you can, with bars and beam the expectation
appeared to be that most would do their own, but paying for choreography
was an option etc.

But my bet is that I know more about it than many of the parents, just
from picking up random snippets of information - and it's not surprising
if not knowing where exactly the money is going that parents quibble at
the cost.

I remember when I was probably around 10 or so, a parent of one of my
sisters friends was moaning to me that she had to buy a pink leotard for
ballet, with her explaination being that her child already had a pink
leotard, I knew which leotard she was talking about and it was luminous
pink and a completely different style to the ballet leotard she was
being asked to purchase - and this was for an exam, not just for class,
in the UK, it's typical to not have strong dress codes for things like
dance classes, imagine what she would be thinking if that was in the US
where the dress code is usually strict for classes with no uniformity
across dance schools, in the UK, a pink ballet leotard is just that, if
you need one for an exam then that is the style you'll wear regardless
of where you take it, which school you go to etc.

Even having done a lot of dance myself, I still find some dance
information confusing and if I look at a supply list and think what on
earth is a dance belt then how much more confused would the mum with no
dance background be? When you sign up even a toddler for an activity it
would be quite useful to have a handout that gave you the estimated
costs year on year until age 18, so you can make the choice that you
don't even want to allow your child to be interested in that thing if
you really don't like the thought of that much money! I wonder how many
dance mums are surprised when their child starts pointe work and after
having budgeted for classes, suddenly gets a shock when the frequency of
purchasing shoes suddenly goes up dramatically! The life span of a
pointe shoe is a fraction that of a canvas ballet shoe.

Cheers
Anne