When Your Child Refuses to Go to School
Make sure you speak respectfully and with authority as you help your child get back into a school routine.
Have your child evaluated for anxiety, depression or bullying issues. Follow through with professional treatment.
Set up a meeting with teachers, school counselor, your child and yourself. Write out a plan. Have everyone sign it.
Set up a written reward contract for a reward to be given as soon as your child is picked up at the end of the school day. (Cell phones, computers and video games are privileges, not parental obligations. All electronics need to be charging in parent’s room at night.)
Set up e-mail or other daily communication with all your child’s teachers. Don’t expect your discouraged child to be completely open and honest.
Change who drives your child to school. Leave 10 min. earlier.
Print out Parents Legal Guide to Public Schools in your county. Highlight truancy passages. Have your child read and sign those paragraphs.
Let your child know about legal consequences of truancy, i.e., arrest, or suspension, restriction or delay of driving privileges (Section 13202.7 of the Vehicle Code) or permanent records that may inhibit college acceptance or other employment opportunities. After a fourth truancy a child can be made a ward of the court and sentenced to community service and court-approved truancy prevention programs.
Do not call in or write excuses for your child. Let them take the consequences given by the school. Do not re-punish at home.
Celebrate small victories. Let your child know you believe in them.
If one parent is more strict and one more concerned about the child’s emotional well-being, find a written compromise or seek therapy. Do not let your child overhear you arguing about them.
Be kind to yourself and your partner, children naturally try to divide to gain power. It’s a normal part of growing up and hard on parents. This doesn’t last forever.
Model for your child how to handle difficult feelings and ambivalence gracefully.
A student is truant after missing, or being more than 30 min. late for 3 days during a school year, without valid excuses. After this, in a public school, the student is reported to the attendance supervisor or the superintendent of the school district. After one conference has been attempted with parents, the child is considered Habitually Truant. A Habitual Truant is then referred to SARB who can report the child to the District Attorney or Probation Officer. The child may then be arrested, or returned to the school, parents or youth center if they don’t go to school. The school may then direct the parents to bring the child to school. Whether the child is in private or public school, fines of $100 for first offense, $250 for second offense and $500 for subsequent offenses can be levied on parents if they do not get the child to school.
Dr. Lois Nightingale, Psychologist PSY9503 714-993-5343
Rights of Children of Divorce
Children have the right to:
1. Continue to love both parents without guilt or disapproval (subtle or overt) by either parent or other relatives.
2. Be repeatedly reassured that the divorce is not their fault.
3. Be reassured they are safe and their needs will be provided for.
4. Have a special place for their own belongings at both parents’ residences.
5. Visit both parents regardless of what the adults in the situation feel, and regardless of convenience, or money situations.
6. Express anger and sadness in their own way, according to age and personality (not have to give justification for their feelings or have to cope with trying to be talked out of their feelings by adults).
7. Not be messengers between parents; not to carry notes, legal papers, money or requests between parents.
8. Not make adult decisions, including where they will live, where and when they will be picked up or dropped off, or who is to blame.
9. Love as many people as they choose without being made to feel guilty or disloyal. (Loving and being loved by many people is good for children; there is not a limit on the number of people a child can love.)
10. Continue to be kids, i.e. not take on adult duties and responsibilities or become a parent’s special confidant, companion or comforter (i.e. not to hear repeatedly about financial problems or relationship difficulties).
11. Stay in contact with relatives, including grandparents and special family friends.
12. Choose to spend at least one week a year living apart from their custodial parent.
13. Not be on an airplane, train or bus on major holidays for the convenience of adults.
14. Have teachers and school informed about the new status of their family.
15. Have time with each parent doing activities that create a sense of closeness and special memories.
16. Have a daily and weekly routine that is predictable and can be verified by looking at a schedule on a calendar in a system understandable to the child. (For instance: a green line represents the scheduled time with dad, and a purple line represents the scheduled time with mom, etc.)
17. Participate in sports, special classes or clubs that support their unique interests, and have adults that will get them to these events, on time without guilt or shame.
18. Contact the absent parent and have phone conversations without eavesdropping or tape-recording.
19. Ask questions and have them answered respectfully with age-appropriate answers that do not include blaming or belittlements of anyone.
20. Be exposed to both parents’ religious ideas (without shame), hobbies, interests and tastes in food.
21. Have consistent and predictable boundaries in each home. (Although the rules in each house may differ significantly, each parent’s set of rules needs to be predictable within their household.)
22. Be protected from hearing adult arguments and disputes.
23. Have parents communicate (even if only in writing) about their medical treatment, psychological treatment, educational issues, accidents and illnesses.
24. Not be interrogated upon return from the other parent’s home or asked to spy in the other parent’s home.
25. Own pictures of both parents.
26. Choose to talk with a special adult about their concerns and issues (counselor, therapist or special friend).
© 2018, Lois V. Nightingale, Ph.D. psychologist psy9503, director of the Nightingale Center in Yorba Linda, Ca. and author of My Parents Still Love Me Even Though They’re Getting Divorced,
Building Resiliency in Children of Divorce
Building Resiliency in Children of Divorce
Resiliency, the ability to overcome serious hardships, has been researched and show to be a trait that can be fostered in children. When resiliency is nurtured and developed in children of divorce, it can reduce the negative effects of not only the disruption of the divorce, but it can also increase emotional strength for future disappointments in their lives.
Dr. Nightingale’s books can be found at amazon.com/author/loisnightingale