Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Absentee

What does one do when one's child is obviously lying just to skip school for a day or two?

We've all been there before. I was not one of those who constantly missed school. School challenged me, it gave me an chance to express myself, and besides I had bestfriends who I wanted to meet and hang out with everyday.

But there was one time in grade school when a teacher seemed to have singled me out everytime we were in her class . I don't recall what I did to earn her ire, but she seemed really determined to make me cry most of the time. Since her subject was in the afternooon, my headaches, stomach aches, fingernail aches, kili-kili aches, all just happened to manifest in the afternoon. Pretty soon, my mom noticed and without confronting me, she investigated the matter in her own moms-know-best kinda way. And with my mom, that means making all my afternoon-subjects teachers her new bestfriends. Her move worked and my bully-teacher was soon sending my mom orders for greenhills-looking bags that my mom retailed at that time, and I do not recall the details, but she was very nice to me after that.

Nice story, huh? Unfortunately, these days, our children could be skipping school for many other, much more complicated reasons. What do we do if they want to constantly skip school? To me, once a week is alarming, and that is exactly what is happening with Ched. He suddenly has these asthma attacks, tummy ache, headache, fingernail aches and kili-kili aches that dont persist after I allow him to be absent. I want to investigate and maybe talk to all his afternoon-subjects teachers, but their school has a rule against speaking to a teacher while class is on-going except in emergency situations. Besides I don't think his problem is with a teacher. It could be just plain boredom, addiction to another activity outside school like playing computer games, a fight with a classmate, or a bully.

I am always tempted to accuse him of lying and insist that he goes to school whether he likes it or not. But I know that strategy won't solve my son's problems. Something else has to be done.

I clearly have not inherited my mom's Ms. Friendship crown. Nevertheless, I have to make a move soon.

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