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How much blame should parents be dealt for their kids poor grades? Also, do you think that they should be fined if their kids miss an inordinate amount of days at school (with no legitimate excuse?)

Yes, I think they should be fined. It really sets a kid up poorly when parents don't think absences are a big deal. So, for sure, there should be a punishment for parents of kids who miss repeatedly without a medical excuse.

God no. That's just fighting the fire with more fire.

I really can't see how the KID is going to learn anything about taking responsibility if when he does something wrong his PARENTS are the one who have to pay for it. Isn't that just going to teach him that somebody else will always have to pick up the slack for what HE did?


Reminds me of last year this woman got arrested and lost custody of her 13 year old because he skipped 110 days, the kid himself didn't get punished I don't think, the mother did...but as some people pointed out, parents are not always aware when kids cut school so why shouldn't the kid be the one being made severely sorry for his stupidity since he was the one responsible? That'd just be teaching him that he can do whatever he wants and somebody else can be punished for his bad behavior.

It depends on the situation. If the parents are dropping them off & then they flee it's not like the parents can hold their hand from class to class. If they just don't care what the kid does, that's another story. But there has to be consequences for the one responsible-the kid. We're not talking about first graders here. These kids need to be the ones held accountable.

And if they want to get into the grades issue then I guess the teachers would need a fine too. Some of them aren't putting forth any effort either. The truth is some of these kids are going to try & succeed, some are going to try & fail & others just don't give a damn. This is nothing new. The system itself has encouraged the problem by loosening the standards so much. We have kids graduating from high school who can't read or write their own name by putting the focus on self esteem rather than education & responsibility.

CeCe wrote:

It depends on the situation. If the parents are dropping them off & then they flee it's not like the parents can hold their hand from class to class. If they just don't care what the kid does, that's another story. But there has to be consequences for the one responsible-the kid. We're not talking about first graders here. These kids need to be the ones held accountable.

And if they want to get into the grades issue then I guess the teachers would need a fine too. Some of them aren't putting forth any effort either. The truth is some of these kids are going to try & succeed, some are going to try & fail & others just don't give a damn. This is nothing new. The system itself has encouraged the problem by loosening the standards so much. We have kids graduating from high school who can't read or write their own name by putting the focus on self esteem rather than education & responsibility.

There was one report back in 1993 that found 1/3 of the high school graduates couldn't even read their own diplomas. That was almost 20 years ago, I hate to think how much worse it is today.

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I really can't see how the KID is going to learn anything about taking responsibility if when he does something wrong his PARENTS are the one who have to pay for it. Isn't that just going to teach him that somebody else will always have to pick up the slack for what HE did?

The way I see it is that it is important they be in school, and the lesson in responsibility is secondary to how important it is they attend. I had a really crappy neighbor with even crappier sons and she couldn't care less that they went to school...until she faced personal legal problems because of it. So, then she forced them to go.