Photoessay #2905 - School

When parents come to parent group, school failure or school attendance problems are tops on their list of concerns.  Because it's easy to talk about.  The idea that parents must support school success swirl all around us.  Education is the key to success for our children.  Who could dispute that?  Of course, we want our children to go to school.  Absolutely.  That's their job.  It's the law.  A high school 'drop-out'?  Unthinkable!  We all know the studies about bad outcomes to young people who don't graduate from high school.

Especially when you consider the world view.  So many young people from all over the world yearn to go to school and it's  not possible for them.  Here we offer education on a silver platter.

But your kids won't go to school.  Surely we must be able to MAKE them.

You can't make your kid go to school.  And, in some ways, it doesn't matter.  Even in our two bit state, a young person has many ways to complete their education.  When they decide to do so.  They can still go to community college; the only requirement is to be 18 years old.

Just recently, I have worked with parents with young people who refuse to go to school. 

One young man (16) had a parole requirement to go to school.  For awhile, he went to the school, he just never went to class.  Let alone do the school work.  Even though the court sent a taxicab for awhile to get him to school, he never went.

Another young man (19) who stopped going to school his senior year acceeded to his parents' demand that he go to school.  He was sleeping in the backyard; the parents said he had to go to school to get back in the house (long story).  So, after many stalls, he enrolled in the school for homeless youth.  But he didn't really seem to be engaged, but the parents believed he was going to school.  Until they got the report that he had received no credits.

One senior person in our group talked about the time period when the son pretended to go to school and the parents pretended that he was going to school.  But he wasn't.

Another new parent is determined that his 16 year old son will go to school.  He battles every morning.  But, in that control battle, he always loses.  The son does not attend school.  Sometimes this dad thinks that he needs to try harder to get his 16 year old to school.

Another young man (15) has just been expelled from a public high school.  Richly deserved with his long line of infractions and non-attendance.

When confronted these situations, parents feel their world spinning around.  Feeling helpless, they wonder how could their own children go down this road?

The corollary is that, if the young person does not go to school, what will they do all day?  Hang out?  Stay home playing video games?  Most often, the parents HAVE to go to work.

Hard question....