Missed Parent-Teacher Conferences Could Mean Jail Time for Parents

mm, what would you call a serious criminal? I think that a kid that goes around killing fellow students ranks up there! Parents that make too many kids and cannot keep track of them are to blame too.

Are you kidding me!!! I have a 15 year old daughter that has been loved and adored. I have attended every parent teacher conference since she was in kindergarden, I have gone to every volley ball game extra curricular acitivity and voulenteer in every event. Once she got into eighth grade my whole world blew up. She decided she was going to make the rules. I give her breakfast and make sure she has nice clothing and she ditches class to do drugs and goof off all day. I have been dragged to truancy court, have had social service sevices involved and now have an upper middle class daughter with all the privilages acting like a ghetto child. When I attend parent teacher conferences, I always ask what I can do to help my child. But it all comes down to that child has to attend class and not be out in the parking lot smoking or at the apartments next to the school doing drugs! i am tired of being punished for my childs bad choices!! She is part of the new culture of teen girls gone out of control and blame the parents1

Typical that the ACLU is against making anyone accountable for their actions. Maybe if one of these little criminals shoots an ACLU employee at 2 a.m. they would change their toon.
A better answer to this problem is to pass legislation that doesn't allow anyone with a lower than average IQ to breed. (or vote while we're at it). If stupid people weren't popping out stupid kids, this issue would be moot. Of course the ACLU would not be on board with this at all.

Simple answer. Snip them at birth.

Hey, you have the kid, you do the conference and you be a good parent. If you can't handle your responsibility, then put the kid up for adoption or don't have them in the first place or give one to an anti-abortionist. I am getting sick and tired of kids running amok and parents are responsible---not teachers, not the system, not neighbors, not the government; just parents. If you won't behave like an adult, then say goodbye to your freedom and your children.

it is terrible, most terrible of all, forcing the society to deal with unwanted children being born out of wedlock and uncared children for by the parents having them, most terrible of all for the children to have to grow up unwanted and uncared for by their own parents

They should have thought of that before they had a child they could not afford.

Dear mm,

You are sooooo very right! Back in the days where there was money to support education and enough teachers to go around, I was a teacher of K-3 Emotionally Disturbed/Mentally Ill students and during my internship I saw so many things that were absolute predictors of objectional responding behavior by both parents and the students, I wondered where the teacher's and the administration's learning curve was?

While the teachers' classroom management was totally punitive, bullying the children (and parents) into more appropriate behavior, rather than modeling and moulding behavior with primary, secondary and social rewards, and I would never stoop to bullying appropriate behavior, because what is that in and of itself, it is modeling bullying behavior, yes, that is where the teacher or the administration are bullying the child or the parent into a behavior they are trying to extract, and what kind of a response do they expect to get from forcing, pushing, threatening, heck I wouldn't go to a meeting if I felt like I was going to be verbally beaten up either.

Tell you what, I never had a problem after open house getting parents, except foster parents, it is not on their list of duties to get paid for and they really don't care, so for the most part you won't see a foster parent take the time to go to anything but a placement or IEP meeting which they are legally bound to. For my first open house, my students made a picture of anything that made them happy on the outside cover with sparkes glued on, and on the inside was the printed notice from the front office on the bottom, and on the top the students wrote, Please Come, Cookies, Juice, Friendly Service! and right from the start, parents, guardians, all family members knew they were invited because I was well prepared, in spite of my principal's warning not to be too disappointed if only 1 or 2 showed up, but I sent home the plain notice the week before and two days before I sent home the kids decorated invitations, sparkles and all, and when the night came and I had almost full attendance, and my principal dropped by half an hour into the meeting and my Agenda for the Year was on the board and was also on the handout with my email address for any questions they might have and I could give them a fleshed out answer, a survey for them to fill out of what they would like to see included on this year's agenda, and what supplies they needed but could not afford, and did they have a dictionary at home? and of course the school number to reach me every day until typically 4, about an hour after my job ended. Well, he nearly dropped dead, the room was so full, and parents were busy filling out the surveys, getting their kids punch and cookies, looking at their kids work in their folders, chatting, and me busy with a couple talking about their kid, and so he chatted with a couple of parents until 9 when it was over, and stayed to make sure that the parents left or I would be there all night, and he said, that was pretty impressive for any special ed classroom he ever saw. And I told him I just mentioned there would be cookies and punch for refreshments and color sheets so bring the kids and a survey of what they would like me to include in this year's lessons, and things they might need for supplies, and bring any questions they might have, and I guess since the meeting was mostly for them to speak and express their needs and wants it was more appealing than a meeting where they had to sit down and be quiet and listen to me, and they didn't have to find a babysitter, either, so it turned out really well, I thought, for my first open house, and he said, it turned out better than most of any of the classrooms he saw that night, what was it? he asked, and I said I thought perhaps it was respect and acknowledgement and now they know I respect them we could collaborate together as equal parties on the same team working for the same goal. And he nodded, and said to go home and get some sleep.

The w hole deal is you have to understand that they have unmet needs and you can either help them or haunt them. You are not going to help the child by haunting them, that one less social support they could have had in their lives. Don't stand there and compare them to yourself; yourself is a different person with different abilities born into a wholly different set of circumstances, so judge not. The only alternative left is to help them help their child. Now there's a positive pro-active approach that will eventually win them over to the side that says no, society is not out to get you (although in graduate school, that's not what we learned, but why reveal a bummer in reality, it isn't going to help, just keep positive and they'll do their darndest to overcome the social flaws that are meant to keep them down). And stay positive yourself, and in your ability to make a difference. Bless you.

EXACTLY!!!!! Exactly, exactly, exactly! Well said.

You are so right... what happened to making kids responsible for their actions??? What happened was the law makers called correction child abuse. So parents are not going to make their kids responsible due to this. I put my kids responsible for their actions when they were in kindergarden. Gave them an alarm clock and taught them to get up and get going. They graduated from high school and college and funded their own college edu. Waited till they were married a couple of years then had their own kids. That is responsible parenting.

Brandy, it appears that you are assuming that the kids who are out of control have to be welfare children. Not so. Bad behavior has no color lines. This generation tends to want to fit in more than wanting to stand out through education. It is not only the black child whose single mother is on welfare, but the middle class and the rich white, black, hispanic, asian and many other ethic groups that are rebelling at home, doing drugs, skipping school, getting pregnant and commiting crimes. This society wants to blame all of the ills on one race however, the truth of the matter is that juvie hall has all colors of children in custody.

A parent can be the best parent in the world and if a child wants to sneak out the window after the parents go to bed, then they will. A parent should go to parent teacher conference meetings, but again we are assuming that the child is doing bad in school. Smart kids do dumb things, too. We as a society need to promote self confidence, individualism, let the kids know that material things do not make a person, being popular and with the in crowd is not the endall, get them to set goals early on and help them to reach them and continue to help them with their life planning skills. This child was out after midnight robbing someone with a gun . . . the big question is why? Was he hungry, did he owe the drug dealer money for the drugs he was hooked on, was it done just for fun . . or what? There is no excuse for what he did, but what made it justifiable to him, a twelve year old? What made him take such a risk?

Part of this solution should be to teach the law to them and let them know that as a juvenile (minor) that they are not exempt from being prosecuted and jailed if they commit crimes. This is where we start by making them aware of the consequences. This should be taught as part of the school curriculum . . .just as we teach sex education and drug awareness. Not all students will abstain from committing crimes, but awareness does help to reduce the number of offenders. The juvinele offender is growing and a lot of them are being tried for heinous crimes and are put in adult jails. Every child needs to know that if they go this road what their fate is. In the twenty-first century sugar coating should be over!

I have a better idea, parenting licenses. You get knocked up without passing and/or meeting the basic requirements you go to jail..period.

It's cute how both parents and the government seem to think parents can really control kids. I went to prep school with kids who lived in houses as big as buildings, so don't think it's just the poor. Both my parents have PhD's, so it's not just the uneducated either. We skipped school, drank, did drugs, the whole thing. What were my parents going to do? Lock me in my room? I would act like I was going to school and then take off. When I got a little older, I grew a brain and realized that I would need a sense of responsibility if I was going to get anywhere in this world (Being threatened to be cut off helped too). I started taking school more seriously. Honestly though, there wasn't anything my parents could do about it and I'm not sure punishing parents is the answer.

Not all parents are on assistance!

Janet, Brandy said nothing about race. You were the one who equated public assistance with minorities.

I work in the educational system and would LOVE to be able to see more of that money being THROWN at public education. True, many kids today live in households with a single parent. I lived in an orphanage til I was 12 because my dad was in a TB sanitarium (got TB during war) and my mom could not afford to feed 3 kids and take care of us. She went to the church for help and wound up having us taken away by the state. NO food stamps, welfare, HUD available back then. We got to visit her on week-ends and were not up for adoption.
After divorce my mom remarried and we were SENT home! She married an abusive alcoholic. Better off in orphanage. Due to the depression she only went to 5th grade in school but taught self by reading. Worked as waitress and after stepfather died we depended on her tips to put food on table. I cooked first Thanksgiving dinner when I was 12. Never would have thought I should not. Learned to cook in orphanage.
She NEVER went to a parent conference was always working.
I worked and went to nursing school. Later decided I wanted to raise kids and when they went to school I decided to work in education.
We were taught Morals and work ethic and My kids both are well educated and taught morals and ethics.
What is missing is not Parents attending "Conferences" but "Morals and Ethics" My students parents did not learn it and so they do not practice it or teach it to their kids.
If I could learn it in a single parent home, with a parent who never went to conferences, so can Kids today!