Ok, I have 4 children, 18, 17, 5 & 4. I dont know what i am doing wrong with my 17 year old, I am soo fed up with her crap right now I dont know what to do next. I have had problems with her in the past and sent her to live with her dad. Yes I know and understand coming from a broken home can be difficult for children just as much as it is the adults. Her dad and I get along fine now and she does know she is very muched loved by both of us. She moved back in with me right after Thanksgiving 2007 I had to go to the school after winter break I was called by the assistant vice princaple because she had been skipping school, not once or twice always, she was harldly showing up at all, once in a while she would go to a class or two throughout the day and thats it. If I remember right the paper i got from him with her attnedance on it said she was absent 18 out of 22 days since she had moved in with me. I was furious. OF course she was grounded. I thought we worked passed this she told me and promised it would stop and not happen again, she really didnt have an excuse as to why or were she was going. Any way all said and done I truly believed her and thought it was over and she would stop. Well here it is today March 11th. And as I was sleeping yesterday Morning my oldest brought me the phone and said mom wake up its Jessica's school. So I get on the phone still half asleep and its her school councelor calling wanting to know why Jessica wasnt in school for the wassel testing. (This is our states testing required bye all to graduate highschool, I think all states have them jsut named differently) Any way I said what do you mean she is not there? ( I was still half asleep) And he said well she didnt show up today for her testing and I wanted to know if she was gonna be here at all for testing this week? And I of course said well yes and I dont know why she isnt there for it today, she left this morning at the normal time for school. So anyway the after the call I sat and the more I woke up the madder I got. And knowing my child, she always is full of excuses I thought well maybe she was just late.
So after about an hour or so I called the school back and asked to talk to her counselor again, Of course he was away from his desk so I left a mesage, This was about 10:30 am. By one I still had not heard from him so I called the school again and asked to speak with him, And that time he was at his desk. So I told him, now I just want to make sure Jessica wasnt just late for her testing, She is always full of excuses and before she gets in trouble I just want to double check and make sure she wasnt just late showing up. So he tells me just a minte and looks her up in the computer and says no she is still marked absent, he then tells me if you would like to hold on a minnute I will walk down to the testing room and see if she ever picked up her test. I said of course I will wait. So I waited he of course came back with a no she did not show up and did not take the test. I thanked him and as I was saying goodbye he stopped me and said he wanted to talk about her attendance record. It turns out as of febuary 8th she has not attended a full day of school. OH MY GOD!!! Was I pissed. I could not believe she is doing this again, after all the promises she made me. I was shocked. I talked to him and tried to ask for help, but he really didnt have a good solution. He asked about her life outside of school and I said well she has been grounded from the last time this had happened for a long time and then finally got ungrounded, and then report cards came out and she got grounded again, of course she was failing almost everything because she doesnt go to class. The only advise he had to offer me was to let her be ungrounded because his theory is she has no social life so she is using school time to have a social life instead of going to school. Which I agree thats what she is doing. But I would rather try to find another solution, because ungrounding her she will think she got away with it and can do it again and again with out being in trouble. I feel like this makes me look like a bad parent. I just dont know what to do. I signed up for a program today thought that I wish I had known about in the past. It is called parent connect, And it is a program that I sign up for on the internet so I can watch her daily at school, I can see IF she showed up for classes, if she was late, her homework etc.. So I am hoping this will help me to find out what she is doing. She also knows that I did this, so hopefully it will help, and she wills tart going to class.


Please if anyone has any suggestions or ideas please post back, I am really stumped her on what to do and could really use some suggestions. Even if you are a teen yourself I would love your feedback, Or reasons why maybe you yourself skip school. Thank you all for reading sorry it was so long.

lol it was a little long but the more i read the more interested it became

As for the story its self im not sure. i believe she is not listening to a word your saying to her and she seems like she is not bothered what you or her teachers have to say. Do you think it might have something to do with the friends she hangs around with ? Is she easly led along. Like if her friends say to her come on lets skip school again do you think she will just go along with them? Im not sure as you didnt say much about her friends she hangs around with. Are they a bad influance (sp) on her. Maybe look into that side of things a little more.

I skipped school when i was younger but not as much as she is doing. The reason i did this is because of friends doing it and i thought i was cool to do the same. I carried on untill my mother found out then i got the grounded treatment. Then my mother got my dad involved as he didnt live with us also and he gave me the grounded treatment and a few other punishments. I however listened to this and never did it again. Im not sure why she isn't listening to you. But i see a lack of respect here. Sorry if i wasn't much help but after reading it just wanted to let you know why i did it.

Thank you upnorf for your response all are welcome, I need all the ideas and help I can get.
Ok first of all I agree alot probably does have to do with her friends, she is not much of a follower but I could see her skipping becuase friends asked her, but I also see her as the one asking friends hey lets skip today.. lol Thats terrible to say but truthful I could see her doing this, and im sure she has. As for her friends I dont really know many of them anymore of who she hangs out with because since she has come back to live with me she has pretty much been grounded almost the whole time she has been here.. lol I do however know a couple of them one being her boyfriend and I do talk to him, he is a great student and I have asked him for his help to get in into her head that school is the most important thing right now, she is a junior this year and she is in serious danger if not being able to graduate if this keeps up, she has a long road ahead of her to make graduating happen. But again thank you for your response all are welcome.

No problem i try and help when i can



Without sounding rude or anything is this actually what she wants ? Does she want to graduate or do you think this might be another reason for her skipping ?

If she don't want any of this or she thinks she can't be bothered with it and feels you or her dad might be pushing her this may affect her too. Don't get me wrong am not saying you are just asking

Hmmm well sadly to say my family does not have a good track record when it comes to school, I for one did not finish school I dropped out at the start of my 9th grade, I am 36 now and I did a few years back go back and get my ged, I know its not the same but I felt I needed it at the same time, And of course do wish now that I had finished school, What adult dropout doesnt. But back to her, she says she does want to graduate and go on to college. I dont know why she would lie about this but that is what she tells me. And I do try to stress how important school is but you have to do it for yourself not others. She is a very arguementive child, I have told her all her life she would make a good lawyer because she loves to argue. She agrees with me and the last few years has said that is what she would like to go to college for, I have even told her dont do it because I say that do it because you want to. And she says thats what she wants so I dont know. She sure is not acting like that is what she wants, maybe I will have another talk with her about it. Thanks again.

well maybe she thinks that you or the rest of your family didnt do well in school so she might think she can get by life doing the same.

I didn't finish school just like my mum and dad, But having said this thats not the reason i didn't i was having such a hard time at school and started working when i was young around 16 so i opted to do that.

Maybe there isn't much too it it might just be a phase she is going through.

Oh well i hope you get it sorted out soon enough. I have a little boy and he's 3 i wouldn't like it if he started to behave like this when he's older. And if he didnt listen i can imagin how hard and frustrating it may be.

Good Luck

o wow the girl sounds like meh (: haha. well im about her age... so try getting into her head.. maybe she needs some attention from you? before when she dindt ditch, and went to school everyday, did she have good grades/do right, always did what you told her to? did you ever praise her for it? i think all she needs is some attention.. its a cry for help..

it could also be her friends.. since you did go trhough family problems, she might feel, they are the only ones who care, or know whats good for her.. even though they might be influencing her wrong.. [could be a boyfriend too]

good luck (:

[and yup everyone has those exit exams.. today everyone is taking the california exit exam here.. casee]

they think skool is boring and hate it most probaly but when you get older you miss school and u wanna go back aint i right?