Truancy

The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

for California

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children skip school when they're struggling academically, when they want to test the limits of their power, when they're experiencing peer pressure to do so, when they're depressed, or when they're trying to avoid any other sources of stress at school, including challenging social situations.

Logical consequences

If your children are truant, tell them you have to escort them to their class and set them in their seats personally until you feel certain they won't skip school again. If this procedure embarrasses them, tough bananas. Have them apologize to their teachers for missing class.

Solutions towards self-direction

Teach your children the value of an education. Keep the lines of communication open between you and your children. Encourage them to air their troubles at school by freely lending them an empathic ear.

Use impartial descriptions and give information: "Your teacher told me you played hooky twice last week. Kids who miss a lot of school are required to repeat that grade. I bet you'd feel pretty bad seeing your friends leave for the next grade while you stay behind."

Use questioning, "What are our rules about not skipping school? Why do we have that rule?" "What do you need to do to keep yourself from being tempted in this way?"

Offer choices: "When you decide to stop skipping school, then I won't have to walk you there myself."

Examine the friendship circles your children are in. If the friends, too, are recurrent truants, forbid the association until your children can make better choices in their company. Talk to the other parents to come up with a united plan.