The past few days in Port Saint Lucie have brought record-breaking cold temperatures — freezing conditions that are unusual for South Florida and noticeable to everyone. Homes, cars, pets, and people all felt it. Naturally, parents adjusted. We layered up, checked the forecasts, and prepared our children for cold mornings.
What caught my attention, however, was not the weather itself, but the repeated phone calls from my daughter’s school throughout the weekend. Message after message reminded parents that it would be cold on Monday and instructed us to “dress our children warmly.”
That instruction is what prompted this reflection.
Parents do not need repeated reminders to care for their children. We live here. We felt the cold. We watched the temperatures drop overnight. We checked the same forecasts the school did — probably more frequently. Suggesting that parents would somehow send their children to school unprepared, unless prompted multiple times, feels unnecessary at best and patronizing at worst.
If the school was genuinely concerned about student welfare during freezing early-morning conditions, there was a more practical option available: close the school or delay opening. That decision would have acknowledged the severity of the weather and taken responsibility at the institutional level, rather than shifting it back onto parents through reminders that imply neglect or ignorance.
Instead, the school chose to remain open while issuing repeated advisories that effectively told parents how to do something we already do every day — protect our children.
There is a subtle but important difference between communicating information and issuing instructions. Informing families of a weather-related schedule change, safety protocol, or closure respects parents as capable decision-makers. Repeatedly reminding them to dress their children appropriately crosses into territory that feels less like concern and more like micromanagement.
Parents are partners in education, not liabilities to be managed.
Most of us don’t need reminders to grab a jacket when it’s freezing outside — especially not after a weekend of record cold. What we do need is trust, respect, and communication that assumes competence rather than compensates for its absence.
Sometimes, saying less says more.