WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH, DAY FOUR

Today's challenge:

"Everyone is supposed to wear a white shirt for the Christmas concert. Your son does not have one and is worried that he won't be allowed to sing without it. What is your solution?"

This is a tricky one. I have never been a parent, but for almost thirty years I was the teacher asking her students to wear white shirt, black pants for their concert or festival performances.

As a parent, I would start by discussing it with my son - how important is it to him to take part? Would he be embarrassed if I tried to find a solution, or talked to the teacher?

Bearing in mind that I have zero dollars left and can't buy him a shirt, if he wanted to participate, I'd ask around to see if any friends or relatives had something that we could borrow for the concert. If that didn't work, even though it would be super embarrassing, I'd talk to the teacher and explain our problem.

If he's OK with not participating, I'd let the teacher know the reason why (again super embarrassing) and leave it up to him/her to decide if my son can participate without a white shirt.

Worst case scenario (and I'm sure this has happened with some of my students over the years): my son stops participating in an activity he loves because he can't meet the dress code expectations.

There's no comfortable answer to this one for anyone, and the point has been made that, if I weren't on welfare, I'd whip over to Walmart and buy him a shirt (on my Mastercard, of course .. ). We really have no idea what it's like to do without, do we?