I didn’t see a print article, but it was one of those little video stories on the CNN website. The mom is doing 30 days because the daughter’s truancy continued after repeated warnings from the courts. The daughter is now in state custody.
The mother said she physically dragged the kid (14 years old) out of bed, walked her to the bus stop, but stopped short of calling the cops on her.
I dunno…I believe the best place for a 14-year-old is in school, but to jail the mother for the kid’s chronic truancy? How far should the mother have gone to get the kid to go? Would calling the police have done anything but cost the family money and driven a wedge even further between the two of them? I really don’t know where I stand on this. Hoping to hear some varied opinions on the subject.
What would you do with a disobedient, screwed-up kid who refuses to go to school?
(Incidently, it sounds like the family doesn’t have a lot of money, as the reporter mentioned that sometimes the mom didn’t have a car to drive the kid to school herself.)
The mother is the one responsible for her kid’s upbringing. If she can’t raise the kid well enough that the kid goes to school when she is supposed to, then off to jail with her. No sympathy from me. (I teach, so I am biased.)
State custody for the kid sucks, but I’ll bet she’s in school every day!
I saw that story as well on our local news. The mom said “I tried everything I could think of.” The newscaster went on to say Oklahoma has a 10% truancy rate, and that arresting the parents is having a positive impact; the kids are making it to school now.
I’m torn about this. On the one hand, I think that as parents, people are responsible for their children’s actions and that this will encourage parents to take a more active role in making sure their children attend school. However…what about kids who actually get all the way to school, then after the parents drive off, simply walk off campus and ditch the rest of the day?*
It’s also difficult to enforce by punishing the kids; many don’t see suspension or even juvenile hall as a prohibitive threat.
*Of course I personally have never done such a thing. Ever. No matter how cool the road trip I would’ve been ditching for. Nuh uh.
The thing is, they could have gotten the kid to school without punishing the mother (providing she really did do everything short of throttling the kid…and we’ll never know). They could have taken the kid into custody and allowed the mother to live her life.
I don’t think I’m in agreement with the opinion that parents are responsible for everything their kids do. Sometimes it’s true, but tell me…how WOULD you get the kid to go if she really doesn’t want to? At what point would you say the child is acting independently? Would you jail the parent if the child murdered someone?
Because as a parent, I am legally responsible for my child until such time as he’s a legal adult. That includes making sure he gets to school. If he isn’t, if he’s cutting, then there’s a problem. And as the parent, I need to get involved and find out what that problem is and help resolve it.
Truancy is a behavioral issue, not an “I don’t like school” issue. The longer it’s allowed to continue, the more difficult it is to correct. Who knows how long this woman’s daughter has been cutting?
As for correcting the problem; it sounds harsh and horrible, but the threat of public embarrassment is usually enough to curb the attitude. As in “You will go to school, and if you refuse I will drag you down there still in your pajamas and make sure you’re in class. I hope everyone likes your night gown.” Or even show up and sit behind the kid. Go to lunch with her and her friends, etc. Please note, I am not talking about a child who decides they’re “sick” every once in a great while, but for a chronic offender, I wouldn’t have any problem with that.
I’m sure the kid is a chronic offender. You have to miss an awful lot of school for this kind of action to be taken.
I don’t want to sound unkind, but the mother didn’t seem to me to be all that bright. Maybe it would have been more productive to force counseling on the two of them and get to the root of the problem. My guess is this goes a lot deeper than anything the mother could do on her own. And if she’s not too bright, maybe she doesn’t know how to go about fixing the problem. I just don’t see what good the jail time is going to do. Will the kid go back home in 30 days? Does the cycle of the battle of wills begin again? I’m sure there’s a lot of information we’re not getting, but to me, the jail time seems like a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.
How is losing control of your 14-year-old a crime? Why do we assume the mom is a bad parent? How about trying to find out why the kid won’t go to school? When my youngest son started ditching school, I did what all good American parents should do – I blamed the school! Yes, it was unfair, but it forced the principal and the teachers to pay attention to the problem for a few minutes; we got things corrected and the the lad willingly returned to school.
Y’know, I meant to address this specific statement.
For a lot of kids, juvenile hall is just not a deterrent. All that would do would be to start a new cycle of behavior, one of a chronic offender. Jail for an adult is much more of a deterrent; it isn’t the status symbol of tough and cool that some kids seem to want.
You’re right, that mom did not seem very well educated. I did feel badly for her. I have the feeling that this has been going on for quite a long time and this is along the lines of a “final solution” for the school and the police. As I said, I’m torn. The child should be responsible for her own actions, but at the same time, involvement of a parent can make all the difference in the world.
And if they don’t care ? What if they’ve gotten bigger than you and simply shove you aside ? What if the school won’t let you follow her on campus; what if you can’t afford to take time off work ? Parents don’t have the kind of power you suggest; there’s a limit to what they can do with a kid who actively refuses to cooperate.
As well, punishing the parent gives the kid a huge weapon; “let me do what I want and get me what I want, or I’ll stay away from school and they’ll haul you off to jail, Mom”.
That was partly tongue in cheek; I’ve threatened my daughter with that. And it isn’t really power, it’s respect. I think it has a great deal to do with staying as much in your kids day to day lives as possible. Single mothers certainly have it more difficult doing this than married moms or SAHM’s, but it still boils down to a behavioral problem. And it isn’t as if it starts overnight. It’s something that builds gradually til you have a full blown problem like this.
I’m not saying she’s a bad mother, I’m saying it seems that at some point she started losing her connection with her daughter and that problem grew into what it is now. At that point, what do you do? Drastic measures? Call the police and school, which is where she says she stopped short of? “I’ve done everything I can to get my child to school, she refuses to go.” Involve the school counsellor. Get help. But don’t throw your hands up and say there’s nothing you can do. You let it get this far. You need to take responsibility for helping your child get back on track.
My wife is on the office staff of a Junior HS, and has learned that there are a lot of bad parents out there – parents who pull their kids out of school to babysit; parents without even rudimentary first aid skills, so they bring their kids to the office with untreated burns from the night before, hoping the school nurse can fix 'em up. So going after the parents for truancy would be addressing these situations.
Sometimes it’s the parents. But sometimes, a parent’s best efforts are not enough. I think the courts may have evaluated this situation and determined that the mom wasn’t doing enough, but I’m not convinced she was doing less than she’s capable of.
Also, it is possible that the truancy problem is fairly new. This kid may have started running with a rough crowd and may be involved in drugs (a huge factor in truancy issues). There may be drug/alcohol problems at home, etc. I guess we’d need to know more details. I still don’t see how jail will help the situation. Not in the long run.
From what I see in my classroom, cronic truancy seldom starts in high school, it starts in first grade when getting the kid to school is just not a priority in the household. In some cases, mom works nights and doesn’t quite get home in time to get a kid off to school, or they are moving or they are evicted, or her boyfriend stole the car, or something. The kid learns that his education is just not as important to his parents as whatever the drama du jour is.
I believe jail time for these parents may be a wake up call, but not by the time the kid is in high school. By then it is too late. The habit is established and the parents really don’t have the control to fix it. I wonder if some kind of short-term combination of jail/boarding school would work, or even dormitories connected to some public schools for those kids with completely unstable home lives.
Middle class parents with wayward kids can pack them off to expensive private “schools for wayward children” and let someone else take the responsibility. If that doesn’t work, it’s not to hard to get a kid in to a mental institution for as long as your insurance will pay for it.
Less well-off parents just have to hope their kids go to jail before they can cause get in any worse trouble. Now we want to throw the parents in jail, too. Why don’t we try using the money it costs to keep people in jail to create programs to help truent kids get the education they need- be that alternative schools, trade education, mental health services, etc.
This sort of thing doesn’t affect just bad parents, but can affect anyone who has or chooses to raise kids with emotional problems. There are plenty of saintly souls out there raising other people’s kids who just can’t undo the damage that’s already been done. I know a few people who’d get thrown in jail for this law, who’s only crime was opening their home to a kid in need.
I know this sounds harsh, and I’m probably going to get jumped for it, but if her kid is out of control, how can she NOT be a bad parent?
Unless a child has serious mental or emotional problems, they don’t suddenly turn into “bad kids” overnight. It’s usually a build-up of behavioral problems that were not nipped in the bud when the child was young.
Likely, the girl in the story has been behaving badly for years, and her mother never really did anything to address it, so now the girl is out of control and won’t accept discipline at all.
[QUOTE=Lissa]
I know this sounds harsh, and I’m probably going to get jumped for it, but if her kid is out of control, how can she NOT be a bad parent?
QUOTE]
Peer groups, undisclosed sexual abuse, numerous ways really. Contact with people isnt always easy to control, particularly in some situations, eg if you’re living in a trailer park or the like.
I do think jail is a part of the solution, but be nice to have a few options in between, or as well.
And if she’s not? If she comes to school and then ditches or somehow avoids school in other ways, may we then jail all of the busybodies at whatever department of interference that is in charge of her now?
Not necessarily. It has been known, on rare occasion, for a pubescent teenager to develop an “enhanced” personality. I don’t have any statistics on hand, but my guess would be that this happens to approximately 99.999999999% of teenagers.
Honestly, how many 14 year olds do you know that weren’t some sort of discipline case in one way or another?
I think we need to give our courts a little credit – if a mother can appear before the judge and say that she dropped the kid off at school, one would think that would be sufficient to get the mother off the hook.