It's also ridiculous post-covid and with serious viruses going around to expect 100% attendance. Just like with Luxon contemplating reducing sick leave, it's counterproductive to force sick people to go to work and school. It's libertarian ideology where people are just seen as automaton good workers. There is no consideration of our needs as humans or wider hauora.
Exactly. It doesnt even make sense. People will go to work sick and spread viruses around. That's already happening from the pressure from workplaces - even govt departments. I need to properly fact check but I heard that workplaces with unlimited sick leave have lower sick leave rates.
One method that really worked to get a lot of kids going to school was delicious and filling school lunches. It makes no sense to push kids to go to school and take away one thing that was enticing them to go!
Kinda like forcing us to go to the office (and expose ourselves to a variety of illnesses) and then talk about decreasing our sick leave! Gahh
And hard core, systemic bullying that no one seems to have a clue how to fix. That’s what keeps my ND kid home. At teen level, all a school can do is stand down the bully. The school has them sign an agreement to leave my kid alone, and ten minutes later, they are back at it. Rinse and repeat. My kid has been physically assaulted, threatened, intimidated, had wild stories spread all over the school multiple times, but sure. Let’s penalise us further for keeping our kid safe.
Support and compassion for the vulnerable are sadly lacking in every decision this government makes. I love the lovebirds and am glad your son has so much joy in them.
I heard David Seymour announcing this the other day and I was absolutely horrified. There are so many reasons not to punish kids and parents but to offer kindness, support and empathy instead. I was that child in the early 70s doing anything I could not to go to school (because of bullying) and would invent terrible illnesses and monsters in order not to go. Eventually my parents discovered the reason and I managed to find a way to overcome the power of that the bullies had over me. But poor mum and dad. They just had no idea what to do and every day was a struggle for them and myself. Clearly this Govt seems to have a huge empathy problem in that they lack it completely. On Saturday I attended a protest about youth homelessness. Check out this group Kick Back - The Front door on K road. It's a safe space for homeless youth and really worthwhile supporting. They kick back at the idea that any young person belongs in the too hard basket. We so need to support the next generation with everything we have, whoever they are, however they see the world and love them for it!
It's just so fucken frustrating that this 8%er and his hangers-on are dictating what feels like 80% of policy and legislative change. And it's all so hateful - no compassion, no insight, no thinking about what is behind the immediately obvious. So much money spent on short-sighted, reactionary crap. Cutting money from where it is needed.
And where is National in all of this? The party in this craptacular coalition that got more than 10% of the vote? Nowhere. They didn't sit down at the negotiating table with Seymour and his hideous cronies - Seymour bent them over that same negotiating table. Pathetic.
School refusal is such a hard thing to deal with. I 100% understand the trying to make conditions perfect in the hopes that my child would go to school. The absolute overwhelm in trying to keep them regulated. The lack of sleep because the anxiety for my child would start the night before. She is 14 and can’t explain the overwhelming anxiety she experiences with school. We have had to pull her out and enroll in Te Kura, and make massive changes to our lives to enable that. We are “lucky” that we own our business and could make those changes without impacting our income but it does affect our on going ability to earn money. It’s exhausting and very isolating being the parent. Society doesn’t understand and our child is even more isolated now because they don’t have the social life that school can help with.
Quite aside from all the very valid issues already discussed in other comments, the nature of many modern classrooms is probably enough to distress some kids. The current emphasis on noisy extroversion may be great for some, but there are a lot of quiet kids, who also need quiet to be able to concentrate. For them, being in a modern classroom is likely to range from unpleasant to hellish, depending on their needs. No wonder some of them refuse to go.
It’s tougher for neurodivergent children and families, but absenteeism is often a complex situation. I avoided school often as a child. I could conjure up a sore throat at will. I just needed to have some time out I guess. Prosecuting parents is medieval. They’ll be bringing back the stocks next. Understanding beats (!) punishment every time.
Just last week I sent an email to my ND daughter's Head of House to let her know my girl would not be attending an after school detention because her attendance was low & she is late to classes during the day. "I'm just doing the best I can to get her to go to school every day - she is struggling!"
To be fair I did receive a reply stating she would be removed from the list & to keep in touch so the dean could offer support wherever possible. But realistically there isn't any help as there aren't enough learning support staff to go round 😔
So awful. Those poor kids. Sometimes I wonder if a big problem with issues like this is people on the outside just don't want to believe our government would be so callous as to remove funding from these kids, or think "well, there must be a good reason", or just can't think about it at all or they would realise they need to do something about it.
Emily, it feels strange to write this on such a grim post but your writing is always so incredible. I don't know how anyone could read this and not be moved. Thank you for using your powers for good in spite of, y'know, it all :)
Once again, such an insightful post about our "different " children. My daughter is now grown up and managing her life pretty well, but the horror of her school experience still lingers. There was then no diagnosis (she is now 48), though we tried everything from pediatricians to school counsellors to figure out what she needed. We knew she was not intellectually impaired, she learnt to read early, but the bullying, especially as she got to high school, got worse and worse. In what turned to be her last year of school, she tried to kill herself. Schools and diagnoses have improved since then, but this nasty, greedy cabal seem intent on taking us back to that more ignorant time. Our children should be the priority.
I fucked around for years trying to be a ‘good’ parent and send my kid to mainstream school - when the system obviously didn’t understand him or want to really know who this kid was deep inside. Finally at 15yo we pulled him out of a dismal college and he went to Tech college and hasn’t looked back. Now, Youngest apprentice at a large firm. Working and learning - he said ‘ Mum you know how I was dumb at maths?’ And I sighed and said ‘No Bub you weren’t dumb and you never really were given a chance’ and he said ‘I’m top maths mum - it’s so easy’ - so adults, parents, caregivers, we show our love and do what we can and try to change things and then we show our love and do what we must for the kids who can’t wait around for someone else to change things. Kia kaha! #onetermgovernment
As an aside to everything everyone already wrote below, I have gone through almost this exact scenario more than once before now. It’s just something interesting to some people! And my daughter in Y13 hardly attended the last 6 months after her Gran died - the severity of her reaction was largely due to undiagnosed autism. I hate to think what we would have been able to do to avoid prosecution, probably nothing looking back.
I have had 2 x very difficult kids to get to school out of 6. I have one 14 year old left and I receive monthly or sometimes more frequent emails about it. She is a brat as one reason but secondly and before she became a brat she has menstruation that makes her need 1-2 days off every month assuming she has one cycle a month which currently is not our situation. She floods and she has nausea and vomiting for those 2 days. I have asked the school to develop something to ensure these days are not marked absent as this could be a nearly 50% of their school population problem. Not all people who menstruate have issues but the number is higher than realised due to the stigma and shame associated. I have asked if she could zoom into class, have work available to her online so she can keep up. The first email a man the acting deputy principal mansplained my girls menstruation in relation to his daughters. Then said it’s too hard for the school to do special things for some and that correspondence school means she can tap in and out of school as she needs. This doesn’t address the very real isolation or that correspondence school is t learning the same stuff. This still means she will fall behind and get poor marks and won’t get grades for some internal assessments and so on. I have emailed again asking the school to be proactive and modern and to pioneer how this could be done for students. Not just students who menstruate but students who are hospitalised, have chronic illness who have a mental health crisis and many more who could benefit. I am awaiting their answer. I believe I will be ignored again and the emails will continue until the truancy officer arrives.
It's also ridiculous post-covid and with serious viruses going around to expect 100% attendance. Just like with Luxon contemplating reducing sick leave, it's counterproductive to force sick people to go to work and school. It's libertarian ideology where people are just seen as automaton good workers. There is no consideration of our needs as humans or wider hauora.
Exactly. It doesnt even make sense. People will go to work sick and spread viruses around. That's already happening from the pressure from workplaces - even govt departments. I need to properly fact check but I heard that workplaces with unlimited sick leave have lower sick leave rates.
One method that really worked to get a lot of kids going to school was delicious and filling school lunches. It makes no sense to push kids to go to school and take away one thing that was enticing them to go!
Kinda like forcing us to go to the office (and expose ourselves to a variety of illnesses) and then talk about decreasing our sick leave! Gahh
And hard core, systemic bullying that no one seems to have a clue how to fix. That’s what keeps my ND kid home. At teen level, all a school can do is stand down the bully. The school has them sign an agreement to leave my kid alone, and ten minutes later, they are back at it. Rinse and repeat. My kid has been physically assaulted, threatened, intimidated, had wild stories spread all over the school multiple times, but sure. Let’s penalise us further for keeping our kid safe.
I'm so sorry Lou, that's awful
Support and compassion for the vulnerable are sadly lacking in every decision this government makes. I love the lovebirds and am glad your son has so much joy in them.
I heard David Seymour announcing this the other day and I was absolutely horrified. There are so many reasons not to punish kids and parents but to offer kindness, support and empathy instead. I was that child in the early 70s doing anything I could not to go to school (because of bullying) and would invent terrible illnesses and monsters in order not to go. Eventually my parents discovered the reason and I managed to find a way to overcome the power of that the bullies had over me. But poor mum and dad. They just had no idea what to do and every day was a struggle for them and myself. Clearly this Govt seems to have a huge empathy problem in that they lack it completely. On Saturday I attended a protest about youth homelessness. Check out this group Kick Back - The Front door on K road. It's a safe space for homeless youth and really worthwhile supporting. They kick back at the idea that any young person belongs in the too hard basket. We so need to support the next generation with everything we have, whoever they are, however they see the world and love them for it!
There is no extra support for kids with different learning capabilites. Nothing this govt does is equitable or makes any sense. So maddening.
It's just so fucken frustrating that this 8%er and his hangers-on are dictating what feels like 80% of policy and legislative change. And it's all so hateful - no compassion, no insight, no thinking about what is behind the immediately obvious. So much money spent on short-sighted, reactionary crap. Cutting money from where it is needed.
And where is National in all of this? The party in this craptacular coalition that got more than 10% of the vote? Nowhere. They didn't sit down at the negotiating table with Seymour and his hideous cronies - Seymour bent them over that same negotiating table. Pathetic.
Um The leader of the national parliamentary party is overseas. It’s called “avoidance syndrome “.
School refusal is such a hard thing to deal with. I 100% understand the trying to make conditions perfect in the hopes that my child would go to school. The absolute overwhelm in trying to keep them regulated. The lack of sleep because the anxiety for my child would start the night before. She is 14 and can’t explain the overwhelming anxiety she experiences with school. We have had to pull her out and enroll in Te Kura, and make massive changes to our lives to enable that. We are “lucky” that we own our business and could make those changes without impacting our income but it does affect our on going ability to earn money. It’s exhausting and very isolating being the parent. Society doesn’t understand and our child is even more isolated now because they don’t have the social life that school can help with.
Quite aside from all the very valid issues already discussed in other comments, the nature of many modern classrooms is probably enough to distress some kids. The current emphasis on noisy extroversion may be great for some, but there are a lot of quiet kids, who also need quiet to be able to concentrate. For them, being in a modern classroom is likely to range from unpleasant to hellish, depending on their needs. No wonder some of them refuse to go.
It’s tougher for neurodivergent children and families, but absenteeism is often a complex situation. I avoided school often as a child. I could conjure up a sore throat at will. I just needed to have some time out I guess. Prosecuting parents is medieval. They’ll be bringing back the stocks next. Understanding beats (!) punishment every time.
Just last week I sent an email to my ND daughter's Head of House to let her know my girl would not be attending an after school detention because her attendance was low & she is late to classes during the day. "I'm just doing the best I can to get her to go to school every day - she is struggling!"
To be fair I did receive a reply stating she would be removed from the list & to keep in touch so the dean could offer support wherever possible. But realistically there isn't any help as there aren't enough learning support staff to go round 😔
So awful. Those poor kids. Sometimes I wonder if a big problem with issues like this is people on the outside just don't want to believe our government would be so callous as to remove funding from these kids, or think "well, there must be a good reason", or just can't think about it at all or they would realise they need to do something about it.
Emily, it feels strange to write this on such a grim post but your writing is always so incredible. I don't know how anyone could read this and not be moved. Thank you for using your powers for good in spite of, y'know, it all :)
Once again, such an insightful post about our "different " children. My daughter is now grown up and managing her life pretty well, but the horror of her school experience still lingers. There was then no diagnosis (she is now 48), though we tried everything from pediatricians to school counsellors to figure out what she needed. We knew she was not intellectually impaired, she learnt to read early, but the bullying, especially as she got to high school, got worse and worse. In what turned to be her last year of school, she tried to kill herself. Schools and diagnoses have improved since then, but this nasty, greedy cabal seem intent on taking us back to that more ignorant time. Our children should be the priority.
#onetermgovernment
I fucked around for years trying to be a ‘good’ parent and send my kid to mainstream school - when the system obviously didn’t understand him or want to really know who this kid was deep inside. Finally at 15yo we pulled him out of a dismal college and he went to Tech college and hasn’t looked back. Now, Youngest apprentice at a large firm. Working and learning - he said ‘ Mum you know how I was dumb at maths?’ And I sighed and said ‘No Bub you weren’t dumb and you never really were given a chance’ and he said ‘I’m top maths mum - it’s so easy’ - so adults, parents, caregivers, we show our love and do what we can and try to change things and then we show our love and do what we must for the kids who can’t wait around for someone else to change things. Kia kaha! #onetermgovernment
As an aside to everything everyone already wrote below, I have gone through almost this exact scenario more than once before now. It’s just something interesting to some people! And my daughter in Y13 hardly attended the last 6 months after her Gran died - the severity of her reaction was largely due to undiagnosed autism. I hate to think what we would have been able to do to avoid prosecution, probably nothing looking back.
I have had 2 x very difficult kids to get to school out of 6. I have one 14 year old left and I receive monthly or sometimes more frequent emails about it. She is a brat as one reason but secondly and before she became a brat she has menstruation that makes her need 1-2 days off every month assuming she has one cycle a month which currently is not our situation. She floods and she has nausea and vomiting for those 2 days. I have asked the school to develop something to ensure these days are not marked absent as this could be a nearly 50% of their school population problem. Not all people who menstruate have issues but the number is higher than realised due to the stigma and shame associated. I have asked if she could zoom into class, have work available to her online so she can keep up. The first email a man the acting deputy principal mansplained my girls menstruation in relation to his daughters. Then said it’s too hard for the school to do special things for some and that correspondence school means she can tap in and out of school as she needs. This doesn’t address the very real isolation or that correspondence school is t learning the same stuff. This still means she will fall behind and get poor marks and won’t get grades for some internal assessments and so on. I have emailed again asking the school to be proactive and modern and to pioneer how this could be done for students. Not just students who menstruate but students who are hospitalised, have chronic illness who have a mental health crisis and many more who could benefit. I am awaiting their answer. I believe I will be ignored again and the emails will continue until the truancy officer arrives.