No parent should have to deal with dilemmas that arise from back to school pencils and pens. The parents should feel confident about the pencils and pens that they select for their children to use at school because after all they are only writing instruments and any of these tools should be fine for use at school.

Parents are faced with the dilemma shortly after they receive the school supplies list. They find themselves in a dilemma because every class for each child in the house will require a different type of writing instrument. Some of them will be pens that the parent used when they attended school many years before, and some of them might be writing instruments that the parents have no clue about what they are whatsoever.

The most typical back to school pens and pencils will be pens that have black or blue ink in them and pencils that are rated as #2 for the type of lead that is in them. Some children might have their own viewpoint on the type of pencil that they can use because there are #2 leaded mechanical pencils on the store shelf that the child likes better than the ones that they will have to sharpen somewhere in class one day.

The parents start to compare the costs of buying one package of pencils that will need sharpening some day, and then adding the cost of the sharpener to the list of school supplies that must be multiplied so that there are enough of them for every child in the house. Some parent's think that the mechanical pencils will be more economical in the long run but they never stop and consider how many containers of lead that they will be tasked to buy throughout the school year for each child.

For those parents that really look at the school supplies that they buy, they might have to think twice over whether to buy the pencils that have ridges that go completely around the pencil and the pencil selections that are fully rounded. If the parent is in tune with shopping for school, they might know ahead of time to ask the student which pencil shape that they prefer to use each day.

Then the parents must face a dilemma on pens. The school list might ask that parents buy colored pens. The only problem is that the list does not specify which colors are best for the classes that all children will be taking. The older children might only need basic black because they will be drawing schematics in the engineering classes that they take in college and the various notes that are sure to accompany those classes.

The dilemma might get further into a major quandary when the parents realize that they can not take advantage of bulk purchases of pens because the variety of pens is so varied that none are offered in the quantities and types that the children will use throughout the school year. The parents finally decide to end the dilemma over pens and pencils by choosing patriotic colors of red, white and blue. The white pens can be used as white out which is another item on the school supplies list that the parent must buy before the back to school supplies list can be finished.