Truancy

[kellyg403]

We went through something similar with dsd18. She would get up in the morning, get dressed and act like she was going to the bus. But, we found out her 'friends'...(see my tag) and I use that term loosely...were waiting in a car around the corner. She would go out and hang all day and then get home just about the time the bus was coming. Until one day, I happened to be getting home at the same time as the bus, and thought I would drive the kids home and saw the whole thing unfold. Turns out she had skipped a good portion of the last two months of school. We tried everything. But if they don't want to go to school they find many ways to NOT go. In the end, she went to an alternative school and is getting a equivalent diploma. She will be too old to actually graduate from regular high school as she will turn 20 before she has enough credits. So this was the option available. The funny thing is..she has never missed a day of work and always goes when they call and she is off. She doesn't like school but she loves being paid to work? Its an odd situation. When we went to the school, it turned out she had missed 42 classes in two months and NOONE at the school had called, sent a letter or anything. She was missing this class or that class...not the whole day sometimes. She fell through the cracks..that is what the guidance counselor and the principal said. Yeah..she was just smartr!

The whole thing is..at a certain point there is just nothing a parent can do. Go to school with her everyday? But, unfortunately that is not something a single parent can do. Someone has to pay the bills. With these kids, sometimes controlling them MORE makes the situation worse. They don't live by the natural consequences the rest of us do. Her thought was she was still young, she had plenty of time for school but not enough time to party with her friends. The thinking is skewed. It was a drawn out every day affair just keeping her in the house at night. We had to install an alarm to keep her in her bed at night. As crazy as it has been...it just gets to the point where you just want them to learn on their own.

The judge may have done what the law said he had to but really, sometimes there is nothing the parent can do. And most of the time these kids don't really care if mom/dad goes to jail. They aren't going to school in the meantime anyway..so its just made their life easier.

Kelly

 

[LuvOrlando]

WOW, it just goes to show you how important the year leading up to young adulthood are. If parents don't get control of their kids when they are little and enforce rules as they grow you end up with a 150lb out of control mess. Unless illness is involved the problem is behavioral, and if it's behavior someone somewhere was not doing their job. It's my job to send them out into the world good adults, if I fail its flat out 100% my fault. BTW, in my book there is no failure greater that having the State need to pick up after a parent's mess. What a total disgrace.

The way I see it someday I will be judged for not only my choices but for the job I did as a parent. My kids aren't mine, they are God's and I was just given them to care for because He couldn't do it Himself. I take this very seriously.... it's a shame so many out there do not.

I get that sometimes parents lose a kid and need help but the whole attitude that they had nothing to do with it is what gets to me. First, accept your hand in it THEN seek out help, otherwise everything else is useless.

 

[kellyg403]

WOW, it just goes to show you how important the year leading up to young adulthood are. If parents don't get control of their kids when they are little and enforce rules as they grow you end up with a 150lb out of control mess. Unless illness is involved the problem is behavioral, and if it's behavior someone somewhere was not doing their job. It's my job to send them out into the world good adults, if I fail its flat out 100% my fault. BTW, in my book there is no failure greater that having the State need to pick up after a parent's mess. What a total disgrace.

The way I see it someday I will be judged for not only my choices but for the job I did as a parent. My kids aren't mine, they are God's and I was just given them to care for because He couldn't do it Himself. I take this very seriously.... it's a shame so many out there do not.

I get that sometimes parents lose a kid and need help but the whole attitude that they had nothing to do with it is what gets to me. First, accept your hand in it THEN seek out help, otherwise everything else is useless.

I would say that most parents do accept the responsibility. There is so much guilt involved dealing with a child who has behavorial issues. You can fight, you can yell, you can restrict/ground, you can go to school every single day, you can do whatever you think is RIGHT and still come out with a child who doesn't have any natural consequences. I would never have guessed that this child, my dsd, would be the one who would be in this situation. Up until 10th grade she went to school EVERYDAY. Right around that summer is when we lost her somehow. She got into the wrong friends, the wrong situations and decided how it was going to be. No amount of counseling worked, she just wouldn't talk. She was not diagnosed with an illness, just behavorial. We did everything, but the pressure of friends and addiction won every time. You can seek all the help you want, but when the child/young adult doesn't accept help because they don't see anything they are doing is wrong, all their friends are doing it etc you are lost in a world of limbo, fear and guilt. We never gave her up to the state to deal with. We did enroll her in an alternative school so that she could get her diploma/GED. She needs that for the future. But she is immature STILL and has this thought in her head that she can provide for herself working at a fast food joint, living with 6 of her bff's. Some young adults are like this. It is not poor parenting ALL the time. Its kids finding out for themselves what the world is like. Most parents in this situation HAVE done everything they could.

Kelly