milee
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Post by milee on Apr 5, 2015 20:00:23 GMT -5
These are completely different issue. Not really. If a kid is missing a lot of school there's an issue that needs to be addressed whether the kid is forging notes or the parents are actually writing them. There's only an issue that needs to be addressed if the kid isn't getting good grades and exhibiting good behavior, IMHO. If the kid is otherwise doing fine - great grades, good behavior, etc - we shouldn't be wasting time or money figuring out why that kid isn't in class. Unless it's because we want to figure out why s/he is doing so well so we can replicate the formula.
Why is it so many of our public systems seem to be focused on making everybody equally miserable rather than figuring out what makes things work well even if those things aren't the same for every person?
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Apr 5, 2015 21:57:17 GMT -5
Okay, I want to know how my house rules compare to others. GW is 18 in her last year of high school. 1. There is a curfew of 11 on my work nights and 12 on weekends, this is flexible for special events. 2. No boyfriend in the bedroom. I eased this one up when we had the other 2 girls because there really was nowhere to have space to themselves but I have reinstated it now. They have a family room downstairs that they can have to themselves. 3. School attendance every day unless sick or on vacation. 4. Do own laundry, clean own room and bathroom and clean up after self in the kitchen, taking turns emptying the dishwasher. 5. Let me know where you are when you go out. How do my rules compare? 1.I am flexible on the curfew on weeknights and weekends too I guess, but really 11-12 is about my limit for any night. When the kids go to movies/bowling etc sometimes it stretches out to 12:30-1 am but I am not real flexible beyond that. We don't generally let DD sleep over at friends (never have) and she rarely has her friends sleep over. Last night DD went to the late movies with her cousins. It was about 12:45 am when she got home. I don't go to sleep until she gets home. I have to set an alarm so I make sure she gets in...I tend to just conk out b/c my thyroid was removed so around 10-11 pm I just get to the point that it is very difficult to stay awake. DD does not push this too much. She goes out at least one night each weekend, but is home usually around midnight. I would say she is usually in by 11 pm most weeknights...if it was 11 every night I would not get enough sleep...I really need to be in bed by 10 or so. My DS is 21. He has a friend that lives down the street (in a 3 bedroom house) by him self...his Dad moved in with his GF and left his son living by himself. Sometimes DS comes home, sometimes he sleeps there...I usually just text him to see if he is coming home, if he says no, I just go to sleep. I have had a few years to adjust though. Honestly when DS had a GF, he and the GF were usually here by 12 pm. I knew where he was but we didn't like the GF...I am glad she is out of the picture but I recognize that he did less partying then. 2. No boyfriend in bedroom. Meh. Only b/c DH would go nuts. But I don't want DD's boyfriend to move in either. We practically had DS's girlfriend living her for a few years and no one really liked her. But, If you stand to firm on this your kid might spend too much time at someone else's house and there may be no rules there at all. I would rather have them at my house and know what is going on. Thankfully both my kids are single right now. 3. School attendance every day unless sick or on vacation. Pretty much so, but if DD asks me to call her out early and says they have short schedule etc I usually trust her and call her out. The business students were having a party on Thursday. She asked me to call her out during her 3rd hour so she could go pick up the food for the party. I asked her if her teacher couldn't just give her a pass and she said no. This was not an unsupervised party becasue the two business teachers were part of the gift exchange, so I called her out. She probably missed 20 minutes of school. 4. Laundry. I don't find laundry a big deal. I do most of it, DS dosn't bring much laundry home from college anymore. DH often offers to fold towels. If I ask him to empty the dryer, he will do it and hang the clothes up. DD and DH will do their own laundry or occasionaly ask me to do it. I Seperate by color and laundry type and often mix everyone in the family's clothing together in one load. Laundry was a bigger chore before I got my super capacity Samsung Washer and Dryer. Wish I had bought them 2 years ago. My kids don't generally clean the bathroom. DH mostly cooks. Everyone else cooks occasionally, I do most dishes, everyone else does them occasionally too. DH almost always makes our bed. DD sometimes tells me I am a mean Mom, or I don't let her do anything that her other friends get to do. She told me this week all her friends are in Florida or on Vacation. I just kind of said too bad so sad...yeah I am a mean Mom. It is also hard if there are differences in what you let an older child do vs. younger or Male vs. Female. DS whent to the Rave for a few concerts when he was in HS. the first few he went to with the neighbor's son and the guy is a cop. i just thought well if he thinks it is ok, maybe I am just being overprotective. Since then I have heard about uncontrolled underage drinking and drug use prolifierating there. DD wanted to go a few weeks ago and DH and I said no. She asked why she was being told no when we had let DS go. I just told her the truth. I was surprised at how little push back I got from her. My kids know they are spoiled rotten by us, so they may try to push the boundaries but if we hold the line, they usually settle down and accept our word.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Apr 5, 2015 23:05:54 GMT -5
These are completely different issue. Not really. If a kid is missing a lot of school there's an issue that needs to be addressed whether the kid is forging notes or the parents are actually writing them. You're not stupid, and I'm not stupid. So, I know I can explain this and that you can understand it. If a kid brings a note to the office in the morning that says "Jorge is allowed to leave school today at 2:10. Signed Jorge's dad." and we can tell it's forged, then that's a different issue than a kid missing a lot of school. We have to protect the student's safety as opposed to deal with an attendance issue.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Apr 5, 2015 23:09:11 GMT -5
Not really. If a kid is missing a lot of school there's an issue that needs to be addressed whether the kid is forging notes or the parents are actually writing them. There's only an issue that needs to be addressed if the kid isn't getting good grades and exhibiting good behavior, IMHO. If the kid is otherwise doing fine - great grades, good behavior, etc - we shouldn't be wasting time or money figuring out why that kid isn't in class. Unless it's because we want to figure out why s/he is doing so well so we can replicate the formula.
Why is it so many of our public systems seem to be focused on making everybody equally miserable rather than figuring out what makes things work well even if those things aren't the same for every person?
This is quite the philosophical debate that I have on almost a daily basis. If a student can sufficiently prove "proficiency"/"competency" then what does the attendance rate of that student matter? However, it takes a full time clerical staff member to deal with the records and report to the state daily attendance for a school of 500, because that's what the state wants. I cannot change that at the school district level. It is incredibly frustrating.
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wvugurl26
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Post by wvugurl26 on Apr 6, 2015 6:24:12 GMT -5
I personally don't think so, but I can understand how some parents would think you should somehow be held responsible for what a kid does while ditching school. Mostly I'm still in shock you have the time and manpower to do handwriting analysis of parent notes. Our district struggles to keep the libraries, computer labs, and whatnot going. They better not be wasting money paying for extra front office help to check handwriting. However, if my kids ditched school and did something stupid that would be on them, not the school, as far as I was concerned. If they forged a note to ditch I would fully expect the school to tell me they don't have the manpower or training to do handwriting analysis on every note that comes through the office. Their job is to educate my daughters not protect them from every possible stupid thing they might try. You would say this but I'm certain there are parents who would be trying to hold the school responsible.
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milee
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Post by milee on Apr 6, 2015 6:42:54 GMT -5
There's only an issue that needs to be addressed if the kid isn't getting good grades and exhibiting good behavior, IMHO. If the kid is otherwise doing fine - great grades, good behavior, etc - we shouldn't be wasting time or money figuring out why that kid isn't in class. Unless it's because we want to figure out why s/he is doing so well so we can replicate the formula.
Why is it so many of our public systems seem to be focused on making everybody equally miserable rather than figuring out what makes things work well even if those things aren't the same for every person?
This is quite the philosophical debate that I have on almost a daily basis. If a student can sufficiently prove "proficiency"/"competency" then what does the attendance rate of that student matter? However, it takes a full time clerical staff member to deal with the records and report to the state daily attendance for a school of 500, because that's what the state wants. I cannot change that at the school district level. It is incredibly frustrating. I'm sure it is. Sorry if my posts made it seem as if I blamed you personally or any of the local school reps we deal with. I do know this is a "don't shoot the messenger" situation and you/local peeps are only following the state and federal rules. It's the state and federal rules I disagree with, not the people just trying to do their jobs.
Funny we're discussing this issue since the idea of not shooting the messenger just came up IRL the other day. DS and I were at a store buying ice cream and a really obnoxious man in front of us was yelling at the clerk about how awful it is that the store doesn't have the chip and PIN credit card machines. He was not only being nasty, but talking down to her as if the reason the store didn't have this technology was because she couldn't understand it. I actually stopped him and made a small joke about how she probably wasn't in charge of ordering credit card technology for the national ____ chain and maybe we could let her do her job.
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Apr 6, 2015 7:48:12 GMT -5
I WISH a "no girls upstairs" rule had been necessary for me in HS I suck. The people I know who got away with things usually did so after Mom and Dad were asleep. Waiting until 1am to sneak out of the house -- having a friend pick you up down the block... ground floor windows are your friend (for sneaking people in as much as sneaking out). Or they'd all congregate at the house whose parents weren't home or didn't care. It still amazes me sometimes how that ended up happening. My parents went away for an extended period of time once when I was 16, and they left us with a sitter! DH and I went to the Rosebowl when DS was a Senior in HS...DD would have been a Freshman. I was not leaving my house to be the New Year's eve party house. We had my in-laws stay at the house while we were gone.
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