Another question, how do I handle my
teenager refusing to go to school?
You know, that's a good question.
Let's talk about, um, a question I I, if I was
able to talk with you for a second
to this specific participant, I would wanna ask a question.
Do you know why they don't want to go to school?
See, what you did is, your question is, my,
my child does not want to go to school, refusing
to go to school, whatever it may be.
But there's a question,
why are they choosing not to want to go to school?
What, is there something that has occurred at school
that you either know about or don't know about?
Is it, is it, again, there's different reasons,
different explanations, and,
and I can throw out another one.
Maybe they got bullied, maybe they are falling behind
and they, or maybe they have a teacher that they don't like.
Or maybe something happened socially in their group
that they felt rejected.
Do you see that? There's a story behind, I'm, I'm not smart
as the others I felt behind.
And it's hard for, to me, make things up
or I, I don't like the teacher.
Again, there's always a story.
And if I could emphasize one thing,
when we identify a problem, we could focus on the problem
We're doing a lot better if we identify what's
driving the problem.
What a good friend of mine referred to as getting
to the root of the problem, getting to a root of the issue,
what's driving this?
And unless we know that, we're guessing.
So as a parent, I could say, Hey, you're gonna go to school.
I might have a child who's extremely resistant to that
and they refuse to go to school.
You know, they walk in the front door and out the back door,
or they don't go at all.
So, uh, it we're, uh, gonna be a lot better off.
A lot better off. If we try to understand their
why, why is that?
And, and if we can identify that, we're gonna be
so much more effective.
So much more effective.
So my invitation here is, is to identify what is the why
and have a conversation, which is a second point.
How do I converse
with my child about my concerns as a parent?
What do I, what should I do, right? Should I force them?
Should I, should I make 'em feel bad for not going?
What if the most effective thing is to understand their why?
Help me understand and also be able to explain my concerns.
It's not that we're not gonna explain our concerns, it's
how can we help this child understand our concerns
and how can we understand their concerns?
A mutual conversation that know in some situations,
I'm obligated to get my child to school right there,
there's certain laws that I, maybe I need to,
but I need to figure this out.
I need to figure out what the, working with the teachers,
the school counselor, working with the,
creating a team approach in this situation
so my child feels heard, understood,
and we come up with a plan
to help them address whatever their fear is
or whatever the reason is for them not attending classes.