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Teenager is late for school and misses first hour



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 19th 06, 04:22 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
[email protected]
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Posts: 1
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am. We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time. He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour. Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower. We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.

Should we pick our battles and excuse these and drive him separately?

We are worried that he will never succeed of anything.

  #2  
Old November 19th 06, 09:08 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Claire Petersky
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Posts: 18
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

Doesn't help you, but I sure wish that high schools started later in the
day. It's almost a reason to go to a private school, where they begin at a
more reasonable 9:00.

Why is it that the elementary schools begin the latest? The younger kids
wake up the earliest. And they are the ones who need supervision no matter
what, so parents employed out of the home have to get before-school care.

Meanwhile, the kids who want to sleep in, where there's studies that prove
that they biologically are inclined to sleep later, have to get to school
the earliest. It doesn't make sense! I read somewhere that you can raise
test scores by some significant amount (I don't have the citation), if you
let high schoolers start school two hours later.

Some people will say it's athletics. OK, so if you want to do something that
requires you to be at school longer, have those few people do their
atheletic thing at 7:00. Then it's their choice, rather than penalizing
everyone else.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

  #3  
Old November 19th 06, 09:09 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Cathy Kearns
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Posts: 111
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour


wrote in message
oups.com...
We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am. We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time. He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour. Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower. We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.

Should we pick our battles and excuse these and drive him separately?

We are worried that he will never succeed of anything.


Are you in the college hunt stage? Will a bad grade in this one class make
a difference in whether he's home with you next year or off on his own?
I've had relatives and friends that were accepted to a college, in the
spring, and then rejected in July when the schools got the final transcripts
and found they didn't finish their classes in the manor their applications
implied they would.

In general, it you are going for life lessons, I'd say quit taking him to
school late and excusing him from the class and let him fail. But as
senior, that lesson could make a difference in whether he goes away to
college, where he will learn to be responsible for himself; or whether he'll
be stuck at home while friends go off to school, all the while blaming his
lack of success on you.

You can try getting his counselor to tranfer him out of first period for
next semester and maybe pick this class up later in the day.(Classes before
8am for high school students isn't the brightest idea the educational
community has come up with...) You could offer to get him a car IF he takes
his sister to school everyday. He wins a car to drive, you get both of them
to school early. He loses car privileges if she doesn't make it to school
by 7:25. Or you can just go with what you are doing now.

But this is a cautionary tale, that teaching consequences should start
younger, when the consequences aren't as dire. If kids would just chose to
rebel younger....

  #4  
Old November 19th 06, 09:10 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Louise
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Posts: 19
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:22:27 EST, wrote:

We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am. We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time. He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour. Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower. We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.

Should we pick our battles and excuse these and drive him separately?

We are worried that he will never succeed of anything.


Some things aren't clear from your story, at least to me.

Have you always taken responsibility for driving him to school?

What alternatives does he have for getting to school? Is there a city
bus? A school bus? A bicycle? Friends with cars?

Is there a different school that he could get to on his own?

How does he get around to his activities, part-time job, and friends'
houses?

What are his reasons for going to school? What would happen if he
didn't? Does he have any ideas of what he'd like to do after he
finishes school?

I think you need to let him solve this for himself. I don't think he
will succeed until he has the chance to fail.

Unless there's a chance he's depressed or otherwise needs some
psychological intervention.

And if there are ways that you can gradually remove yourself from
taking responsibility for his younger sister's transportation to
school, I think you should start planning for that as well.

Best of luck,

Louise

  #5  
Old November 21st 06, 01:59 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Paula
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Posts: 14
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:22:27 EST, wrote:

We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am. We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time. He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour. Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower. We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.

Should we pick our battles and excuse these and drive him separately?


Bottom line is that he needs to learn to get himself to where he needs
to be on time. A boss isn't going to care about how long he wants to
take a shower or how late he wants to sleep in. Explain to him that
you are hurting him if you let him grow up thinking that the world
works that way, especially since in just one year he will be out in
the world. Do not excuse his absences or tardies. Tell him that if
he is too tired to get up on time, he must need to go to bed earlier
and make sure he is in his room with lights out even if you have to
take the light bulb to bed with you so he either sleeps or lies there
bored. As soon as he can get up in time to get himself to school on
time, he can go to bed when he is tired instead of when you think he
needs to in order to be able to get enough sleep.

You say you have already taken all his privileges, but what are you
defining as privileges? As a counselor, I hear that all the time. I
can't make him do his homework is even more common. I ask what the
child is doing instead of homework and parents look at me like I have
lost my mind. But it turns out that the kid is riding his bike,
talking to friends on the phone, hanging out at the mall, whatever. So
you can't physically make a child do homework, but you can make sure
he doesn't do anything else until he has done it and suddenly he is
motivated to do it. As the parent, you control everything that
matters to your son. It's actually rare that the school has the power
to make a teenager do what they want. Unless they are motivated by
grades or sports team participation, what can they do? You, OTOH,
control his access to his friends, the car, his video games or
whatever else he likes to play with, the computer, the phone, the
movies, the mall, spending money, every last thing in his room... If
he needs to sit in room with nothing in a mattress in it in order to
understand the need to get to school on time, so be it, but I doubt it
will get to that level. Most likely there are plenty of things he
enjoys that require your permission or participation for him to enjoy.
Tell him that he doesn't get any of it on any day that he is late to
school.

You don't even owe him a morning shower. Tell him that if he gets up
too late to take a shower, he'll have to go to school without. Tell
him that he will be out of the house at 18 with no support if he
doesn't take his education seriously and doesn't pick up enough work
habits that he will be able to get and keep a job. My guess from what
you have said is that this is his way of lobbying for a car. If he
makes it a pain for you to get him to school by driving him and if it
is interfering with something that is important to you, like school
attendance and grades, he will wear you down to where you get him a
car. Tell him up front that there is no way on earth that you will
reward his behavior by getting him a car. If you do, you are asking
for him to do what you DON'T want every time he wants something from
you and who would want to train their kid to do that? Besides that,
why would any caring parent give a car to a kid who has proven himself
to be irresponsible about simple things like getting out of bed before
school has actually started? Tell him that if he gets his butt to
school on time, either by going with you when you take your daughter
or by finding some other way to get there on time (ride with a friend,
walk, etc.), then you might be willing to talk about a car. Before
then, you won't even discuss a car or any of the other things that he
might want from you.

You train people in how they should treat you. Make sure you don't
train your son to treat you badly because it will get him the stuff he
wants. Give him a chance to get what he wants by doing what you want
from him, but only by doing what you want from him. If he wants to
play bare minimum, remind him of how little you really owe him. Like
I tell my kids, what I owe them is enough food to keep them nourished,
some kind of roof over their head, etc. If they want to keep eating
the food they like, their own room, the toys, the fashionable clothes,
etc. then they should remember that nobody feels like doing nice
things for people who can't be bothered to treat them well. What goes
around comes around. Another one that works well for me is to look
them in the eye and tell them, "You know that there will come a time,
and it will most likely be soon, that you want something from me. A
ride somewhere, to go out to eat, to be able to do something with a
friend or have a friend over... And when that time comes, I will
remember how you have treated me when I wanted something from you when
I decide how I should treat you when you want something from me." They
know that I mean it. I will remember and I won't make a big deal of
it but I will refuse to do them a favor if they have been refusing to
do what I ask of them and I won't back down no matter how much they
complain, cry, throw a fit, beg or anything else. It has worked every
time after the first time that they put it to the test and learned
that I meant what I said and we all live happier for it, them as well
as me.

Good luck and stay strong. This is one of those battles to choose
because your son is too close to being out on his own to not
understand responsibility and earning a car instead of misbehaving his
way to one or greater access to your car.

--
Paula
"Anyway, other people are weird, but sometimes they have candy,
so it's best to try to get along with them." Joe Bay

  #6  
Old November 21st 06, 04:23 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Rosalie B.
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Posts: 984
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

wrote:

We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am.


Why are you driving either of them to school? Is there no
transportation?

We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time. He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour.


My kid's HS had the rule that a tardy was the same as an unexcused
absence, and 5 unexcused absences meant an automatic F. Since my
girls didn't want to miss school, and would do just about anything
needed to be there on time, after the first time dd#1 was tardy, I
told her that if she were later than to homeroom (the first 10 minutes
- and tardy to homeroom had no consequences) just not to go to school
at all, and I would write an excuse slip. I never had to do it
because except for a nightmare of car trouble that first day, she was
never late again.

[She drove one car and it died in town. So she walked back home
(about a mile), asking the gas station that was on the way to pick the
car up and take it home for her. She got into the truck, but she
thought there was some problem with it and she only went about 1/4
mile before she turned around and brought it back to the house. By
the time she started out in the third vehicle, she was about 15
minutes late and it was counted as an unexcused tardy because they
said she could have taken the bus and gotten there on time. The
reason she was driving was so that she could get home after band
practice.]

Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower.

He's getting up five minutes after school starts. So the first
problem is when he gets up. Why does he not get up earlier?

What is his first period class? Why does he want to miss it?

We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.


What does he say he would do if you bought him a car?

Should we pick our battles and excuse these and drive him separately?

We are worried that he will never succeed of anything.


He's succeeding at what he wants to do now which is driving you crazy
and putting the pressure on him to get him a car.

My response would be one of two things depending on whether you could
get him a car or not.

1) If you could get him a car, then I would say to him - if you want a
car, you will have to get up on time to get to school with us for a
whole semester (4 months). If you can do that, you have demonstrated
that you should have a car. However if you slip and we have to drive
you in separately, the time starts over again.

2) If you can't or don't want him to have a car, then I would say -
tough. If you don't go with us, then you will have to walk (or
whatever the alternate is) and we will not write an excuse anymore.

Keeping in mind that as people have said -failing grades in the senior
year will cause some colleges to reject him on that basis alone. My
niece had a spot at the University of PA, but she slacked off in her
senior year and got a C in calculus and so they rescinded the offer.

  #7  
Old November 28th 06, 03:29 AM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Barbara
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Posts: 271
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

wrote:
We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am. We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time.


You have me confused. If school starts at 7:40 and your daughter must
be there 20 minutes early, then she must be there by 7:20. How are you
*leaving* at 7:20? In any event, it seems like the school is quite
close to your home, since you can get there in 5 minutes or less. Why
can't your son walk there?

He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour. Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower. We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.

The problem isn't that his sister has to arrive spectacularly early, or
even that he enjoys long morning showers. The problem is that he wakes
up AFTER school starts! (How does he even make it by SECOND period?)

What does *he* have to say about this? Is this a new problem, or did
it happen last year as well? Is the school's schedule sufficiently
flexible that he can forego a first period class? Have you provided
him with the proper resources to succeed ( functioning alarm clock; any
chance his sister is hogging the bathroom so that he cannot get in
there until she leaves for school?).

Make sure he comprehends the consequences -- he may not graduate, he
may not be able to attend college. Also make sure that he is aware of
YOUR responses to such consequences (he will be required to get a job
and to pay rent if he remains at home while not in school?). At that
point, I think you just have to let him be.

As to the car, even if you would otherwise be inclined to let him
drive, it seems to me that he is not acting like a responsible adult,
and it would therefore be a mistake to give him a car.

Barbara

  #8  
Old December 10th 06, 08:50 PM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Dawn
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Posts: 10
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour



On Nov 21, 6:59*am, Paula wrote:
Do not excuse his absences or tardies. *


Careful -- in Texas (or at least in our part of Texas) the parents can
be held legally responsible for a child not getting to school... that's
a younger child, though -- so maybe in High School this is a viable
alternative. In Middle School (where we struggle with this issue) we
could be fined or jailed for unexcuses absences.

Tell him that if
he is too tired to get up on time, he must need to go to bed earlier
and make sure he is in his room with lights out even if you have to
take the light bulb to bed with you so he either sleeps or lies there
bored. *


This seems to make so much sense, but in reality it probably won't work
unless the parents are willing to stay up all night long or take every
lightbulb in the house to bed with them. How do you keep a nearly
grown young man in his bed or even require that he be there at a given
time? I haven't found a way -- I've certainly found ways to strongly
encourage it by taking away privileges, but tricks like this just start
a cat and mouse game that is both tiring and counterproductive -- and
worse, take the focus away from the main issue at hand.

You say you have already taken all his privileges, but what are you
defining as privileges? *As a counselor, I hear that all the time. *I
can't make him do his homework is even more common. *I ask what the
child is doing instead of homework and parents look at me like I have
lost my mind. *But it turns out that the kid is riding his bike,
talking to friends on the phone, hanging out at the mall, whatever. So
you can't physically make a child do homework, but you can make sure
he doesn't do anything else until he has done it and suddenly he is
motivated to do it. *


*some kids* Others will just sit around or find ways to amuse
themselves without all the stuff. First you need to understand why the
kid doesn't want to do the homework.

As the parent, you control everything that
matters to your son. *It's actually rare that the school has the power
to make a teenager do what they want. *


And also rare that the parent actually does. And most importantly, the
parent must think about more than the academic success of their child.
Sometimes success in school is not the top priority with some kids.

This is off the OP's original question, but I think some of the "my way
or the highway" advice here works only with a kid who is just refusing.
That's not the case for all kids who are having trouble in school.

-Dawn

  #9  
Old December 11th 06, 01:25 AM posted to misc.kids.moderated
Paula
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Posts: 14
Default Teenager is late for school and misses first hour

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:50:05 EST, "Dawn"
wrote:

On Nov 21, 6:59*am, Paula wrote:
Do not excuse his absences or tardies. *


Careful -- in Texas (or at least in our part of Texas) the parents can
be held legally responsible for a child not getting to school... that's
a younger child, though -- so maybe in High School this is a viable
alternative. In Middle School (where we struggle with this issue) we
could be fined or jailed for unexcuses absences.


In my part of California, the parents can also be fined for unexcused
absences. If worse comes to worse, however, and you can't get your
child to school without physical force beyond what is allowed parents,
you can call the sheriff or police. It sounds weird, but we used to
do it when I was a counselor at a middle school and school staff
couldn't go out on a home visit. In the cases I knew of, the kid
always went to school with the police, but if he didn't, the fact that
the police had been called and couldn't get the kid to school
established that the parents had done what they could to get the kid
to school and they would not be fined.

Furthermore, it would not help in cases where attendance is bad enough
for the authorities to get involved with an eye to fines if the kid's
absences are excused. They know parents write notes to excuse
unexcusable absences and it would be stupid to let them off the hook
for school attendance just by writing notes. If there are a certain
number of absences, the parents come up for review, even if the
absences are excused. The parents had better be able to prove that
the child was sick enough to be gone that often or they will be fined
no matter how many notes they wrote. In fact, they are more likely to
be fined by those who run our local attendance review board if they
did write excuses because they are seen as being a big part of the
problem by letting the kids think that it is okay to skip school
because their parents will excuse it. If the parents have refused to
write excuses and have backed up school discipline for absences, they
at least look like they have been trying instead of being in league
with the kid who doesn't want to attend.

--
Paula
"Anyway, other people are weird, but sometimes they have candy,
so it's best to try to get along with them." Joe Bay

 




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