A mother has been jailed for eight weeks for allowing her 13-year-old son to play truant, it emerged [Tuesday].
Christine Baker, 40, was handed the custodial sentence at Wolverhampton [England] magistrates’ court…after pleading guilty to failing to ensure her son attended school regularly.
The court heard that the child went to less than one third of lessons during the last summer term and made it to just a quarter of classes in the preceding year.
Is your city this tough on truancy? Should it be?
Tough? The kid had to miss 3 full months out of 4 before anything was done about it? Mom was warned ahead of time? Tough would be going after the parents at the end of the first week.
If the mom was given warning and an opportunity to comply, I don’t see the problem. As the parent she’s responsible to get him to school. Thus, if she fails in her responsibility she should be held accountable.
I might disagree IF the kid was older. Like maybe 17. At that age he’d be old enough to get himself to school.
Outstanding. Parents should be held much more liable for their children’s actions, IMHO. Granted, once a child gets to be a teenager, there may or may not be anything the parent can do. It would be one thing for a parent to say: “Look at all the things I’ve done to try to get my child to behave.” It’s quite another to allow the behavior and make excuses.
I applaud the school district’s assertion that they rely on the cooperation of families in their child’s education. Too many times parents expect the schools to shoulder too much of the burden. It’s too bad that our school systems aren’t allowed to dole out the “swift kick in the ass” that so many students, and parents, so richly deserve.
The school is supposed to be working for the parents, not the other way around.
I still don’t get it. If a kid doesn’t want to BE IN SCHOOL…what is he/she going to learn anyway? Why don’t we have trade schools for the kids who just don’t want to, or able to handle a traditional classroom setting?
For kids who have had school issues, learning difficulties, and the like…..who is being served by making them stay in school? They only disrupt the kids who WANT TO BE THERE, and waste everyone’s time.
I say find some apprenticeship programs, trade schools, and alternative learning programs for these kids, and let them get interested in something instead of punishing them more. Let them work…let them contribute to society.
Learning should not be punishment!
Get government out of education then watch the competing learning centers open up to educate people – not just kids but adults, too. Yes, there will be a shaking out to begin with but there will be something for everyone who wants to learn – and it will be affordable for all.
I think the parents are held resposible but if a child refuses to go to school what is the parent supposed to do. If this mom would of took him to school and he left is she still responsible for him leaving even though she took him to school?
OK….most kids will conform to their parents wishes and attend school.
I have just spent several years trying to get my partner’s son first to attend school, then go to work, then accept household rules, then not to abuse his mother, then not to smash up the house, then not to self harm, then not to suicide. Despite his having been statemented for special educational needs throughout school, and thus well in touch with the cliica powers that be, it took his mother and I to eventually recognise that he has a lifelong disability and that every clinical professional in his life bar one failed to ID his malady.
Bad luck on us. But it did make me realise that brave words on parental control lack substance in the real world. If a child does refuse to go to school, what options are really open, and who really gives a damn but the odd self-righteous local bureaucrat or up their own local politician.
I would suggest that any child who has decided on non-attendance at school and had the backbone to deploy that decision must have a powerful reason. If parenting is weak, and the child strong and misguided then meaningfulsupport should be available from social services. The issue to be addressed is why the child will not attend, and to provide a solution. The reason could be valid for everyone, but it may only be valid to the individual. Truth is it is a reason, not a crime.
Blaming the parents or parent is a full on cop-out.
Parents are no longer able to use force, or corporal punishment. In my case I have had to restrain our in-house truant during domestic violence that came about simply from refusing an unreasonable demand. The home has taken some heavy collateral damage, but it taught me that if you manage to get through the teen years with a difficult child it is more by luck than judgement.
The emotional damage of such incidents is real and enduring. Families with hardcore problems need support, not prison sentences.
The parent’s position in the UK has been weakened by successive governments, yet they have the audacity to blame parents. This week a mother has contested and lost an action against the confidential medical treating of kids under 16 for STD’s and pregnancy termination. This has been heralded as a teenage victory, and as empowerment of the child !!!
So a parent should not know that their 14 year old has contracted
syphillis ?? Or from whom ?? Or whether there was a criminal element to the pregnancy that has been concealed ?? Or why your daughter is crying herself to sleep at night. ?? The only empowerment achieved is this hypocritical society and its’ endorsement of deception and the spin of corrupt government.
The clear message being to not trust your parents. Now where have we heard that before ??
I have to say, it isn’t easy to get a child to go to school at that age. I have a 15 yr old that I have trouble with getting to go. I also had a time with my 18 yr old. I had to take my 18yr old out of school and get her GED to stop the bull shit.. I don’t want to have to do the same with my 15 yr old.
I agree that if they don’t want to be there what are they learning? I do relize that schools have regulations they have to follow. But maybe there is a reason that some children don’t want to go to school.
Some schools have stupid rules that are only pushed on certain kids. Not all. I think that all schools have bullies and some bullies are the school systems itself. Some school staff continue as adults to bully children,