[MaybeGracie]

Originally Posted by passthemanna

how do y'all deal with these contests? the ones that flood the school with entry forms, and if your kid is a "finalist" you have the "opportunity" to buy a $$$ book that is only available to "finalists." And just about every person that enters becomes a finalist, so it's really not an accomplishment. I don't want to disappoint my son, but I also don't want to shell out $40 for a book that will probably just sit on a shelf I fell for one of these things when I was a kid, it was cool and exciting at the time. As I got older I felt stupid for falling for it and bad that my parents spent $$$ on the books. I threw them away because it was depressing (and the books were ridiculously huge).
How do I not buy the book and explain these lame "contests" without hurting my son's feelings and hurting his desire to try to do things??

I did the exact same thing as a kid. I submitted a poem, it was "chosen" to be published, my parents bought the huge book, and it felt very cool. Now in hindsight it's just embarrassing. Pretty sure my parents still have the book though.

That's a hard thing to have to explain to an enthusiastic young writer, though. I find it so odd that the school permits those forms to be made available to the students; in my case, I think I saw an advertisement for the "contest" in a magazine. I think the best approach would be to explain how it's a scam, and then help him to find legitimate writing contests to submit his work to instead. That way he still feels encouraged in this area, and he learns to be a cautious consumer as well. The Lulu book of his own self-published poems is a great idea too!