Father Jailed for difficult child's School Refusal

JJJ

Active Member
This judge is nuts. According to the article, the dad would get her to school and she'd run. That doesn't sound like he was sitting back letting her be a truant. How did they expect him to force a 17-yr old to go somewhere she refused to go?????
 

AmyLeigh_1

Having a Mommy Meltdown
I haven't seen the article yet...but my step-son (ADHD, drug issues) left home at 16. He quit school, moved out of our home, and was in trouble with the police on more than one occasion. The CAS were also involved because of bio-mom (We have custody) but we were never held responsible for his actions....I guess we were just lucky!
 

Christy

New Member
That is unbelievable! The judge is using the father to motivate the daughter to get her diploma but at what cost to the dad?
 

janebrain

New Member
This really angers me--I could easily have been that father! My difficult child 1 would take the bus to school and then just leave. She would walk out of classes if she felt like it--the teachers were not allowed to stop a kid from leaving. I guess the good thing is we had filed a PINS (person in need of supervision) on her so she had a probation officer who knew what was going on and could see we were doing everything we could to make her go to school and follow our rules. She ended up getting a GED at one of her rehabs but if we had pressured her to do that I bet she would not have done it. It was all her own idea--it was something she wanted for herself.

I sure wish that judge had a difficult child of his own to deal with--let him see how easy it is to "control" an 18 year old! And what does this teach anybody? Basically it teaches the 18 year old that she is not responsible for her actions, her father is! Oh, I am just steaming!

Jane
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
When my teen daughter was becoming truant a lot, to avoid just this problem, I put in for homeschooling. Fortunately, in our state, they don't monitor. She DID do her homeschool cirriculum and I didn't have to worry about phonecalls if she disappeared at school.
by the way, I thought you were allowed to drop out at 16. So what's the big deal? Why punish the father? If she's really "out there" she won't care.
 

Andy

Active Member
Wonder what would happen if the father filed an official complaint with the school district about this school allowing his daughter to leave school grounds? Did the school ever call him to tell him his daughter didn't show up at such and such a class? If it is like my daughter's school, parents wouldn't know until report card if their child wasn't where they put him or her and if he or she was not doing the homework assigned!

I get so tired of people not helping but then jump all over you if something goes wrong even if you had nothing to do with it.
 

Christy

New Member
Midwest Mom,
I'm curious, was your homeschooled daughter successful in graduating or getting a GED? We homeschool our son because his school experience was a nightmare. I am amazed and thankful that there is little homeschool supervison in our state.
Christy
 

ChefPaula1965

Oh my aching back!!
Wow, this is incredibly unreal...
They tried to take my h and me to court because of Andre being a truant.... of course alot of his "truancy" was because he was in drug rehab at the time.. the school had actually sent all ANdre's class work and his transcript and temporarily transfered him to the school there..........
This such an example of BIG government medling with our personal lives and irks me to no end..
It is an outrage, and I would encourage this dad to get a good lawyer, sue the school for contributing to his daughter's truancy as someone already said.. since he was making sure she made it there... I would also encourage him to sue for defamation of character since the put him in jail and risked him losing his job...
What an abberation
!!!!!!!!! :furious::furious::furious::furious::furious:
 

meowbunny

New Member
I really do wonder what the judge expected the father to do. I understand wanting to hold parents responsible, but why not pick on a parent who isn't trying?

I was threatened with jail for my daughter's truancy by the school no less. It took my daughter's social worker to shut them up. No matter that there were IEPs, complete histories of all interventions attempted, etc., the school wanted their $$ for her attendance or have her drop out entirely. Educating her was not their issue. I refused to let her drop out. I refused to let them hold me accountable. Thank goodness there was a good social worker to tell them that the county would sue the school district if they tried to come after me.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I had this happen to me both in the same way and in reverse.

Jamie had really bad stomach problems from the time he was about ten to early high school years. They suspected they were ulcers caused by the tension of living with Cory...lol. He had seen upteen docs and had procedures done but when the pain hit there wasnt much to do but give him his medications and let him wait it out. He took these pills and this liquid stuff that basically numbed his tummy but he was one miserable little boy in the meantime. He just laid there in a ball.

Well...the docs told me to not send him to school if he woke up that way and to have the school let him either come home or lay in the nurses office if it happened there. I worked full time then. This was an ongoing problem that didnt need a doctor visit everytime it happened obviously.

The school social worker came down on me like a ton of bricks saying I had to take him to the doctor every single time it happened! I got in her face saying I would NOT be taking him, I didnt have the money for co-pays every time it happened, I couldnt take off work every time it happened...blah blah blah. She dragged me into court!

Well then we come to Cory. He skipped 88 days in 8th grade....same grade they jumped all over me with jamie! Not once did they threaten me with court. Not once did they try to get him to stay at school. I would literally drive him to school, physically hand him to a teacher with his hand in her/his hand and drive off...and he would leave out the back door and be back at my house before I could get in my office good. I didnt hear about all his absences for weeks or months. One time I found out he wasnt in school because I got called by the cops when he was picked up for shoplifting!
 

CrazyinVA

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I'm going to be a bit of a devil's advocate on this one. I think there is a huge piece of this story missing .. we don't know what the father did or didn't do to uphold the court order, or to try and get his daughter to school.. Could be he completely ignored it. NO, it's not his fault that his daughter left school day after day, but if it were me, I would have been up that school's butt, knowing MY rights were on the line because some judge had already put in place such an order. You have to CYA (Cover Your A**) in matters like this, I learned.

When Youngest was refusing to go to school, I was advised that I should call each and every day and tell them she was refusing to attend, to cover my butt. It was made very clear to me that as lon gas she was a minor, I could be held accountable for her truancy. I did whatever I had to do to cover my butt. When she begain skipping, she was put on CHINS and it became a court issue between the school and the courts.

My point is, no we cannot physically control what our children do, but, we can take every step possible to be sure the school KNOWS we are doing everything humanly possible. I made sure the school knew I was trying to get Youngest there, and I made sure the judge knew, when we ended up in court, that I had treid day after day to get her to go, and she refused. The last time we were there, there was a woman who'd been thrown in jail for this same thing... an extreme case of the other end of the spectrum, she could have cared less whether or not her daughter was in school and gave her no consequences, she just gave up. Becuase I made it clear I had bent over backwards to do whatever I had to do? The judge didn't blink an eye at me.

I'm just saying, as usual, the media doesn't give us the complete picture here. Something is missing. This didn't come out of the blue, the father had already been ordered to ensure his daughter graduated... why? I can't help but wonder what the father did or didn't do. Again, not saying he can control his daughter, but if I'd been him and there was already a court order in place telling me to be sure my kid graduated? I'd be darn sure to be documenting every effort I had made to prove I had complied with the spirit of the order.
 

slsh

member since 1999
I say put the school officials in jail if judge wants a body locked up. If dad and step mom got her there, then it's school's responsibility to keep her, in my humble opinion.

Of course, I've got a kid who will never graduate at this rate because he decides at 9:00 a.m. that he's done with school for the day.... and everyone just stands by and watches him leave.
 

klmno

Active Member
What bothers me the most about this is that it is indicative of every agency in our society right now that acts like they know what is best and wants to prove that they have ultimate authority, but what they actually achieved- and the only thing they achieved- was to pit the parent against the child. It might be true that he was a good parent or it might be true that there is more to this story and he failed in some way. in my humble opinion, it doesn't matter, because instead of the community giving him or the kid whatever it is that was needed to improve the situation (like backing for him or therapy for her or whatever), they just threw the last straw in and left a situation where either the parent tries to cover for the kid or spends his time having to CYA- when he should be able to spend his time doing what he thinks is best for the kid- punishment or therapy or whatever. Maybe my way of thinking is amiss, but I thought it was supposed to be that the community backed up the parent (as long as it is a fit parent) instead of doing things that increased tension in a family.

If we support, provide for, and don't abuse our children in any way (physically or emotionally) and don't allow people in our homes (intentionally) who do and we are not incompetent parents, then shouldn't we be allowed to raise our children as we see fit? I'm saying if we aren't parents who teach our kids that breaking the law is ok or hurting someone is ok- but parents like we are on this board- should the government have authority to tell us how to raise our kids? If they spent as much time and money into help for our families instead of what they are doing and supported the right of the parent, would our families be better off and our kids turn out a lot better for themselves and for the community?
 

klmno

Active Member
Sorry for the previous "preaching". I think I have a little resentment left over from my testimony to the court earlier this year. I asked them why, when a parent conceived a child, provided for a child, was never abusive to a child, and never did anything incompetent regarding the child, then the child gets in trouble, why would they go to the parent in front of the child and say "you need to do this". Why would they not go to the child- ALL OF THEM- and say "listen to your parent"? I guess I keep thinkgin that since it is our taxpayers money that pays their salaries, and this is just their job- not their family- that the community agencies and law enforcement are here to provide a service that the common people have decided was best for us all- but it is coming across to me more like we have a government that is going to tell us parents what decisions to make to raise our children and we are going to be in trouble legally if we don't do exactly what they want.
 

ChefPaula1965

Oh my aching back!!
KLMO, I agree with you 100% ....
the lesson taught to this child is:
"don't take responsibility for your actions.... what you do is your parents' fault" .... Why does the government have to meddle with our parenting if we are providing what the child needs and protecting the child from what he/she needs to be protected from?? Why do our tax dollars have to go to such things as this.... we are all working on teaching our kids to take responsibility for their own actions and then a stupid judge (paid by our tax dollars) comes in and destroys all that we have worked so hard at building up......
As far as I am concerned this is an outrage... Nothing was accomplished but destroying that parent in front of an already dishonest, disobedient child... Wow, and she already has her own kid??
Paula
 
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