The Hidden Danger of PTO Stress
I really love our February cover story on reducing PTO and PTA stress. It has lots of great tips and advice for making your PTO life, if not easy, more manageable.
And those tips are important because of the hidden danger of PTO stress—what it can do to your recruiting efforts. Sure, too much stress is bad for you personally and likely even affects your family and relationships. But it’s also the biggest impediment to you finding a great successor or a great next leader for your PTO.
Ever wonder why it’s so hard to recruit new leaders? Often it’s because the likely candidates see the stress levels of current officers and want no part of it.
So my tip this week is: try to relax. You can do it. If there is too much to do and not enough help do it, then have your group do less. There is no law that says the fifth fundraiser or fourth family night have to happen. The right number of events and efforts for your group is the number you can make happen sanely with the volunteers you have. Your heroic, selfless, stress-inducing efforts to do more can wind up making your parent involvement efforts even more difficult in the long run.
