Hi there,
First time poster.
I’m wondering how people cope with being the parent of a high flying cadet whilst also being a member of the Squadron’s staff.
For context I’m an ex cadet and veteran and my child and I have recently joined the local squadron. My child is an exemplary cadet and has had lots of opportunities because he signs up for stuff.
Recently we’ve had a disgruntled parent kick-off and withdraw their cadet from the squadron (saying they were on the verge of leaving anyway) because my child got an opportunity that theirs didn’t, citing that they think that I am nepotistic. For more context the other cadet was not a regular attender and had not signed up for many extra-curricular activities at all.
Fact remains that I am an active staff member who has spent almost every weekend since January away with cadets in various guises.
Has anyone experience with how to do this whilst not upsetting parents who think that my child is getting preferential treatment?
It needs to be dealt with with transparency and facts.
This needs to be stated to the parent so they understand. ‘You get out what you put in’ has been a common saying. If you want to do the big ticket activities, you need to be a regular attender and do various off squadron stuff too!
To stop accusations of nepotism you need the OC to be making decisions based on specific fact that they can use to defend any decision.
Selection criteria, distance from any decisions regarding your child, and data or some other recorded supporting information to support decisions.
It’s unfortunately unavoidable that there will be people that may be disgruntled and throw a stab out either just to get it* in or because they refuse to see reality. You can’t win 'em all; sometimes you have to shrug it off as a them problem and not worry about it too much.
I’ve seen and known plenty parent/child dynamics in the ATC, including OCs and above. If you’ve ticked off any conflict of interest mitigation, then what matters more in my mind is that other CFAV on events see the child earning their place/rank as opposed to other parents.
(*The way that someone will throw up something petty that is insignificant alone but they’re just getting anything they can think of out there to justify whatever or try to cause hurt as they make their exit)
Unfortunately an accusation which will always happen when you’ve got a parent/child in same Squadron so do not feel alone in it.
Transparency is the biggest thing
But ultimately no matter what you say at some point there will always be someone who just decided that that cadet is getting favouritism.
My only warning would be don’t let it effect them the other way and you end up accidently being harder on your kid than you would for others in an effort to make sure its fair.
Promotion is often one you would see it, ours is a board and no less than 3 staff will score various bits. Then the average is what the cadet would score, I don’t remove the parents from the process as for me I also don’t think that is fair (I.e. The parent could be a harsh marker therefore every ones average is lower other than their kid be because they didn’t get a score, or they are high scores and the kid gets a lower average because they didn’t receive a score)
Its just checking in with yourself as you go, and go if this was investigated could I hand on heart say I would of done this with another cadet. If the answer is yes then carry on.
Hopefully your OC is supportive of you, as ultimately the buck lays with them for any decisions made on the Squadron.
Thanks @Giminion I believe you may be correct that it will be unavoidable.
It does appear that this particular parent in this instance has decided to throw mud at me on the way out, for reasons I cannot fathom as I would never behave in such a way, even if I was upset about something like this.
Thank you for taking the time to reply
@Letsthink430 Thank you so much for your support here.
I think for me this has opened a wound of meaning that my child cannot be celebrated as a cadet on the Squadron because someone will always be thinking that he is being rewarded because he’s my son. It could not be further from the truth because he does bloody earn it he’s taken to it amazingly well, Im so proud of him.
I think you’re correct about promotion processes and recognition.
I honestly did not expect this to be a problem, so maybe I was naive.
Thanks for your reply
I can speak from experience when I was a cadet and my father was uniformed staff.
He would recuse himself from all decision-making, promotion conversations etc.
I now follow this model for all decisions on my squadron. I will ask parent-staff for opinions on things, but I’ll ensure it’s detached from commentary with a conflict of interest.
For the recent RAF Leeming Chinook AEF opportunity, it just so happened that all my selected cadets were the kids of staff members, so the fact I’d been clear in advance how I would make those selections (based on age, because it’s such a rare opportunity, then accounting for quality of service and time served).
So it meant that a cdt sgt didn’t get it but two cdt cpls did, and their parents are staff — but once they met the threshold for good service, I went with those who’d have less time for another opportunity to arise.
As others have said, transparency. And try not to change the methodology too often.
I had a similar but different experience. When I was a cadet my Dad was on Civ Com as RAFA rep and also RAFA Branch Secretary. It never made any difference to me at that time.
When my son joined I was already a RSO. I made sure if I went to his squadron it was as a parent and never in uniform unless on official business or invited to a formal event.
He was a successful cadet in his own right. CWO, Staff Cadet, DofE, Gliding Scholarship etc without any issues, and at the back end of his cadet service, his mother was Civ Comm Chair.
He went on to join the RAF as a regular and is enjoying a successful career.
I think the message is, like others have said, is to keep your parent role and staff role separate as much as possible. It was a bit easier for me being distant from the squadron but it never caused him any issues thankfully.
Both of my children were cadets whilst i was Wing Commander. I asked staff to treat them as cadets and as equals with their peers.
Transparency throughout is your best way forward. Create memories as well, it is important as a parent to have them.
Hope this helps.