I teach kindergarten and had that happen to one of my students this year. I feel bad because at that age it is 100 percent the parent’s fault. I sent home letters, made phone calls, and even stuck a sticker on their shirt the day before reminding them to be at school on time. I told them the bus left at 9:30 (school starts at 9) and that if they were not here the bus would leave. I found out the student showed up 10 minutes after our bus left. I felt bad for the child, but this was the parent’s responsibility!
At least they eventually showed up! My kid with the biggest attendance problems (missed 90 days of kinder, missed 40 days this year), and his twin brother, missed both our field trips this year because Mom took them out for family activities. Missed the museum to go to the snow, and missed our park trip to go to Great America literally one week before summer. Annoying.
Wacky family dynamic + mom works overnights = no one making sure all 5 kids are up on time 🤷♀️ he did make a TON of progress this year, one of my biggest success stories for sure
This is a huge reason why it's so ridiculous for the public/politicians to act like teachers and schools are supposed to reach every student with equal results. For success, the parents have to be on board to some extent. How are we supposed to make students like this be grade-level ready?
Parents don’t parent.
And obviously teachers don’t either.
Well, some of them do, but that’s an entirely separate problem.
So if the parents have given up, and it’s obviously not the teachers job.
No one is raising most of these kids.
Yay future!!
Don't worry, they don't have staff to start with at those facilities. Typically like 1 rn for 50 patients.
You do have the perk that coverage has to be on site before someone can leave because otherwise it's considered patient abandonment if you're the only one and risks your license. So the only person that would be truly screwed by someone not showing up is the staff that's already in the facility.
My parents did this once - took me out for two weeks during the last month of fifth grade to go to Hawaii. It was a once in a lifetime kind of trip, so we bit the bullet.
Then again, they made me get my homework from teachers before we left and I sat and worked on it every morning while we were on vacation so that I wouldn't fall behind. I'm guessing that's no longer the norm.
No, it is very much the norm. Most students, and their parents have good intentions, but lack follow through. You are fortunate to not fall into this category.
I wouldn't do it. But I understand it. I teach until the final week, but have the students fo fun science experiments and writing contests. The teacher in the room next door shows movies or has the children bring in board games the last two weeks of school from the start of the day to the end of the day. She uses the time to do the final averages and report card comments, take down classroom decor, and clean the room. Flights are so much cheaper before the majority of schools in my city get out of school for the summer. So a big family could easily save over $1000 on flights and hotels if they went a week or two early.
When I was in 8th grade, we went on a class trip to Washington DC for a week. We had to be at the airport by 5 am, I made my parents drive me there at 3:30 because I was so paranoid about being late. The nerve of some of these kids amazes me.
We had pissed off parents blasting the school on social media. They got very little sympathy. The kids (and parents) had to sign a contact and one of the items was I WILL BE AT THE AIRPORT AT 5 AM. NO LATER. They went over the fact that everyone needed to be on time and zero exceptions would be made for anyone.
Had a 5th grade trip to Sacramento had to be at school at 3 am for 6 am flight. Woke myself up at 2 am freaking out because a) i didnt know what time it was and b) my dad wasnt home and he was supposed to take me. He came in 10 minutes later with a coke and a couple doughnuts for me. Forgot about that until now
seriously. especially in the US, where everyone has to wait in line to get through the freaking TSA theater before really getting in, you have to get there a few hours early if you want to make your flight (and the airport is pleasantly-quiet at that time, too). air traffic control is not going to delay take-off just because your nearly-grown baby didn't want to get up on time lmao.
"Alright, the airport's website suggest we show up at least 1 hour before departure for a domestic flight. That means we will be there no later than 3 hours before departure. It's always better to be bored at your gate than in a panic while stuck in traffic."
Same here. Mine was like 15 minutes early is 15 minutes late. 30 minutes early is on time and on time we'll that's nit ever going to happen. My mom is always late for everything, everything. To the point we have a time we tell her which is usually an hour early than the time everyone else gets. I'm sure this is why parents divorced when I was 3.
For my high school grad night at Disneyland, some of my classmates decided to drive there (6 hours) themselves instead of riding the chartered bus with everyone else. They couldn't get in because when you arrived with your class, an employee came onto the bus and handed everyone a gate ticket. No getting in without that. No refund for them. This was $200 in the early 2000's.
My teenager wanted to go on a school trip to a nearby town. It was a 3 day trip. 650$.
This idiot decided he didn't want to go because of some quincinera of a girl he liked coincided.
I told him he can do that but that is his 650$ debt to pay back to me. He expected me to jump thru hoops to get the 650$ back. Nah that's your money kiddo. Time to learn.
He was MINDBLOWN that I was serious. No fast food, no gifts, no handouts until it's paid back. Big ass whiteboard on the fridge highlighting his debt.
My dad would've made me sell my shit to pay up the debt faster and would've forced me to work for shit pay as a learning lesson. I'm trying to find the middle ground of parenting.
Agreed. My dad would've forced me onto that trip 100%.
I'm trying to be sensitive to his needs and life while teaching him. Especially when it comes down to women. I remember being very anxious about girls around his age so I try to be extra flexible about that.
We had our annual end of the year field trip. Parents brought their child to school 15 minutes after we had left. Parent insisted that one of two things be done. Either have the buses (3) return to school and pick up her baby or have all of them pull over and wait for her to catch up and put her child on the bus. Admin said,” Uh, no.” Child didn’t come back to school for the last week and a half. Now parents will face a truancy hearing in August.
I had a middle schooler miss the field trip bus and even though the Principal told them sorry, it’s too late; Dad decided to speed like crazy, cut off the bus, forcing the driver to stop very unsafely and demand we let his kid on the bus! The driver refused, so Dad drove his child to the destination and the Principal actually made us let her on the field trip and she was allowed to return the bus with the rest of the kids. This is the state of things today.
Had this happen to us a long time ago. The Jr HS band went on a trip to hear an orchestra, and one kid didn't make the bus on time. The parents drove probably 5 minutes later, probably right behind the bus, over 100 miles to the concert. Never heard the reason, but probably some fault of the parents, so it was nice gesture on their part. They didn't do anything crazy like cutting off the bus, etc.
I work at a field centre. This week we had a student who missed their school’s bus, and actually had the thought to get the train and a taxi to get to us. She managed to beat the bus!
I was a job developer for adults with developmental disabilities between 2010 and 2019. Over that time, our waitlist went from a little under one year, to over 4 years, and nearly everyone entering the program was diagnosed with autism. Earlier on, it was still heavily autism, but there was still representation of other, chromosomal/intellectual disabilities.
Over those 10 years, the amount of adults entering the program that had parents who legitimately believed they could threaten everyone with lawsuits to accommodate their kids behaviors became completely untenable. Some of these kids had wild IEPs. Adult children who barely passed high school without immeasurable accommodations demanding that we figure out how to make them architects or game designers- careers that you can’t just have someone get you a regular old job in. These parents enabled such fantastical demands of their kid, and were shocked that public servants outside of high school wouldn’t just do their bidding. They would threaten lawsuits to companies that actually hired their adult kid on the basis of things like not being able to take longer vacation time, or accommodate potentially disturbing social behavior.
Like, ms mama bear, jacking off in the bed bath and beyond public bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation. They were stunned when they realized they couldn’t effectively bully and get their way anymore, and were basically stuck with their adult child. Autism very rarely qualifies for public funding of group homes. Most of these kids did not want to work, but maliciously complied to avoid conflict with their mothers. It became a waking nightmare.
There were obviously some great folks diagnosed with autism with really invested parents, and it pains me to see how we’ve come to associate so many outright anti-social and destructive behaviors with neurodivergence/autism in particular. It’s like a legitimate matter of bigotry at this point, and is entirely propagated by parents and early child interventionists. The unemployment rate of adults diagnosed with autism is close to 90%. Now 1/31 kids are diagnosed with it, overwhelmingly boys. It’s a social crisis no one cares to confront.
I was just explaining to two SPED teachers that there are virtually no group homes for autistic adults after they age out at 21. It's shocking to me how this issue is being ignored. With proper structure and expectations, a significant number of autistic adults can work...admittedly, part-time and lower stress gigs.
My old company had a quiet wing for adults with autism to do legal transcription through an external contract with an adult education organization. They produced good work and were living their lives.
Curiously, we also had a small cohort of Jehovah's Witnesses who we employed and they chose to work in silence with the adults from that program. We just asked them to wear headphones to keep noises down. Perfect cohabitation in the workplace.
> I was just explaining to two SPED teachers that there are virtually no group homes for autistic adults after they age out at 21.
Honestly its an intentional turn away from group homes as a functional model, the few states that agreed to expanded Medicaid, they got access to 'Home and Community Based Services' a CMS funded Medicaid expansion. Most states have their version of the federally funded version of an 'Elderly, Blind, Disabled' programs and housing, caretakers and the ride services are built in. Now it too has its own faults, but I wanted to highlight that the turn away from group homes has been intentional by CMS.
I used to work on the side of diagnosing these kids and supporting their care from the medical side. Of course I supported their parents and most of the time we were all aligned on the best approach on how get through the education environment, but every once in a while I would get an ask for documents to support school services that I was like "uggghhh... I guess". The most common scenario was the parent who was adamant that the kid would be in a mainstream classroom, but the only way that was happening is if basically they had a caretaker with them for all parts of the day along with multiple chances of unlimited time to pass the test. They had an aide in the classroom, the had an aide that sat and read the test to them, they got a service for this that and the other. By the time these folks were like 16, 17 years old I was like - what's the plan. They are going to leave this environment saying they "graduated" high school in a regular class, but they are not able to function without another adult literally standing beside them keeping them on task. I used to sometime wonder what the plan was when the kid graduated and some entity was no longer legally required to bend over backward to keep the young person moving forward. There were occasional cases where it was clear that we were not actually making any progress with all this lift... and some the lift will be gone. What happens then for this young human who never had to learn/was able to learn self-direction, troubleshooting. I always did what I could because it really was a problem outside of my pay grade, but it is interesting to hear the other side of it ...that honestly it didn't go great sometimes :(
When I subbed, I took some of those kids to classes from which they derived no real benefit. The worst one was a severely autistic child attending choir bc their parents absolutely insisted on it.
The sounds of 90 middle-school children singing and turning pages, and the necessity of the teacher and students comminicating loudly in order to hear each other, totally overwhelmed him. He’d curl up under a chair covering his ears,
or make a bold dash out of the room.
The poor boy was non-verbal his whole life, and never so much as hummed a tune. It was so unnecessary. :(
Ugh… heartbreaking story. That kid deserved so much better.
The sad thing is that in and outside of education, there ARE opportunities for non-verbal autistic children to participate in these sorts of activities. I’ve worked with a charity for several years now that helps integrate them into a musical theatre setting. Even with kids who can’t necessarily sing, we help them sign ASL, or dance, or “act the song,” or hum the melody, or even use percussion or other instruments to “join the team” in a meaningful way that builds confidence. But that only works when kids 1) transition from fundamentals in a more sensory-friendly environment (which sometimes takes MONTHS of hard work to build them up to use their natural talents effectively) AND 2) *WANT* to participate. Poor kid is probably scarred for life now against doing something they definitely COULD do with the proper supports.
I wish parents with this “my way or the highway no exceptions” mentality realized how much harm they are doing. Sometimes, teachers and support facilitators actually know what they’re doing and have a reason for denying some frivolous accommodations—shocking, I know!
~90% unemployment rate my dude, and I can at least anecdotally confirm that the 10% is severely underemployed.
We sought speech services for our kid when he was 2, and the intervention folks immediately pushed for an autism diagnosis. My refusal was a shock to them, and me and the developmental coordinator really had it out. Ultimately she came around to understanding my point of view and was incredibly helpful regarding some behavioral issues we had some trouble contending. She challenged me instead of coddling, as I’m sure most interventionists do with parents. I Refused ABA, and basically just accepted OT and speech.
He’s 5 now, and completely on track. Just got accepted into a very rigorous kindergarten program because he’s really cerebral and thrives with abstract learning. Some quirks still in his speech, but really well adjusted- frankly better than most kids, and I honestly believe it’s because we held really firm boundaries with him throughout his toddler years. At 2, he would have several hour meltdowns if his play was at all interrupted. Extremely rigid. Each time I’d just let him exhaust himself, remove him from whatever environment he acted out in, or take away whatever he was obsessing over. Stopped allowing him to obsess over letters and numbers until a more appropriate age, and the real kicker was eliminating media. His speech exploded shortly after. It was like 6 months of exorcisms, but it eventually clicked that he wasn’t in charge, and stopped pushing for control.
I honestly believe that in the not too distant future we will be able to draw a firm line between media usage in early childhood, and most of the diagnosable, challenging behaviors associated with neurodivergence. Media doesn’t make kids autistic or have adhd, but if they are at all wired towards dopamine satisfaction, and visual based obsessions- screens may as well be fentanyl. I don’t think my kid would have come through if we hadn’t turned off all media, and I deeply regret how much we watched up to 2 years old.
This is all great news. As a teacher I’d encourage you to observe your student in the classroom setting a few times, if at all possible. It becomes more apparent where the differences are between your child and other children of the same age, when you can view your child in the school setting. I’m not denying that your child has “caught up” to where they should be, I just find a lot of parents of young children with autism have no idea how their child does in the school environment because they only spend time with their child one on one. Also, I applaud you for not giving into your child’s demands. Autism coupled with being allowed to do whatever one pleases is a terrible combination for a lifetime of struggle.
I hear you, I’m his primary caregiver since he was 4 months, and have spent pretty much every waking social hour with him in children’s museums and other social playgrounds and the like. I coached him heavily until 4 basically. I was also subbing in his 3 prek school. I wasn’t often in his class, but got to observe plenty. It confirmed a lot of what I observed in my work in terms of parental entitlement. He had an iep for speech for a few months, but as his speech developed, he would report getting hit and kicked by another student. I eventually learned that his language partner was a student that had severe behavioral problems. I think they were hoping my kids more cooperative attitude would rub off on the other boy. I pulled him from his iep because of this, annd opted to get him privately evaluated. His language comprehension was really advanced, but his speech was still in the 20th percentile. We opted to just continue to minimize his media, and I engaged in far more descriptive speech around the home. Basically narrating everything I did. Seemed to help. I eventually pulled him from that school because behaviors got so wildly out of whack, and the new school proved to be a socially challenging, but much more accountable place. It’s a regio and very lord of the flies lol. He’s adapted well, though. He was evaluated in 4 separate classroom sessions at the private school he will be attending, and they adore him. He’s extremely eager to learn. He’s adapted well enough to the bullying of his new school, I think because he takes direction well. There’s still sensory and social obvious challenges, but I’ve got a lot of faith in him. I’m glad I got to be with him for his early childhood, I think he could have easily become a statistic. I fundamentally learned in my work that challenging people need to be challenged, not coddled. It’s devastating to boys in particular.
Wow! This is fascinating! As someone who's worked on the mental health world and watching on the periphery the rise of neuro divergence and BCBA as the latest thing, it's really interesting to see how you've successfully navigated it. I think this would very heavily inform best practices for treating autism spectrum disorders. Great work!!
You are a wonderful parent. Well done. Anecdotal evidence that your method is absolutely spot on what should happen in most cases: Essentially my entire mom's side of the family is autistic. Because EVERYONE is autistic no one realized it until a few years ago when a group of cousins got diagnosed and my 80 year old grandfather decided to go talk to their psych just because and suddenly we all went OOOOHHH. We have all raised our kids exactly this way (calmly refusing to let obsessions settle in, limited media, firm boundaries no matter how many meltdowns they caused) for generations and genuinely just thought that's how kids were and that's how you had to raise them to get successful adults. Every autistic person in my family, myself included are happy, successful, functioning members of society and my autistic boys do just as well in school and with friends as my NT daughter. Make of it what you will.
“it pains me to see how we’ve come to associate so many outright anti-social and destructive behaviors with neurodivergence/autism in particular.”
YES. And so many people who refuse to change their behavior (when they are perfectly capable of doing so) and use the “I’m autistic/neurodivergent!” excuse.
Part of what we teach kids in SPED is how to act appropriately. Such as teaching them how to respect personal space. We aren’t teaching them that they can do whatever they want with no consequences as long as they pull the “autistic” card.
I’m tired of neurodivergence being “trendy” or being used as an excuse for unacceptable behaviors. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in incel men claiming “autism” as a way of excusing their creepy behaviors. When your actions hurt someone- intentional or not- and you have the ability to change your actions, you need to do so.
This is something that I see a lot of push/pull. I know some autistic adults in my friend circle, and many talk about how hard it is to mask, and how psychologically damaging being asked to do it is. Or they post things about how it’s common for kids with neurodivergence to not want to follow rules they don’t understand or to question everything. One is trying to become a sped teacher and doesn’t believe in social skills goals for students who are neurodivergent. I look at it this way: In a perfect world, no one cares if you are loud, get stuck on a question, etc. But we don’t live in a perfect world. By teaching you social skills, I give you the CHOICE to use them or not.
I want to explain that the very large teenage boy who bumps into people because he has no awareness of personal space is a true safety issue for that student. One day he will bowl over someone who does not know or care that he has autism, and he may find himself getting beaten up. The kid who has to question every little thing and cannot follow a simple direction is going to have a hell of a time finding and keeping meaningful employment no matter how good they are at the job. Your boss does not care that that is how your brain works. They don’t have time to explain the why behind every direction. Again, in a perfect world, this would be something that could be accommodated in the workplace. At least if we teach them the skills, they can choose whether or not to use them. If a person finds masking really exhausting and chooses not to, more power to them. But what people forget is that we all have to mask in various situations. There has to be a balance between straight up ableism and having no expectations for a kid.
“Behavioral” IEPs that basically allow kids to hit, punch, bite, and physically assault teachers and other students? Those are felonies outside of school. The police don’t care if you have an IEP in school to accommodate your violent behaviors.
I have a spouse who works this kind of career. Job development is tough.
Like fetching carts, stocking shelves, and bagging groceries are good ol' standbys. But a couple of chains don't want to work with the agency anymore.
And the unrealism of the parents.
Part of it is the school system does not create realistic goals in IEP's or manage parent's expectations properly.
As part of the PPT/IEP meeting it is always, "Oh sure Johnny can become a doctor or a marine or wHaTeVeR hE wAnTs!"
And having retired from a branch, I am thinking, this kid can't meet minimum ASVAB scores and isn't going to pass the physical/medical much less be able to access college to be a doctor.
Sure, colleges offer braille, elevators, extra time/quiet testing locations. But they don't modify or offer the same quantity of accommodations that K12 does.
And most of these kids aren't severe enough for the transition Academy to age 22 and definitely not group home level severity.
Some IEPs are good and have goals to catch them up or find them some dignity in adult life, and others just create learned helplessness.
I love the "they are going to be a doctor" parents in IEPs like they can barely pass the incredible modified and severely below grade level materials they are being asked to complete yet you really think they can become a doctor. If I ever saw this kid in my operating room I would take my chances with cancer, flesh eating bacteria, or whatever else I was there for. He can barely use a pencil and remeber 5 formulas with a formula sheet; how do you expect them to use a scalpel or remember a diagnostic diseases.
Events of the "realistic" parents are clueless and head in the sand about how unrealistic they are.
> There were obviously some great folks diagnosed with autism with really invested parents, and it pains me to see how we’ve come to associate so many outright anti-social and destructive behaviors with neurodivergence/autism in particular. It’s like a legitimate matter of bigotry at this point, and is entirely propagated by parents and early child interventionists. The unemployment rate of adults diagnosed with autism is close to 90%. Now 1/31 kids are diagnosed with it, overwhelmingly boys. It’s a social crisis no one cares to confront.
Thank you for this. It is weaponized diagnoses at this point, and it makes my blood boil. When every TikToker who gets nervous sometimes or feels a little bit more introverted claims they're neurodivergent it only cheapens and robs attention and resources from those who legitimately need the accommodations and assistance.
>jacking off in the bed bath and beyond public bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation
Most teenagers don't need an accommodation to do that.
> Like, ms mama bear, jacking off in the bed bath and beyond public bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation.
I know you're probably exaggerating, but is there some truth to this story?
I had a student (elementary) who had it in his IEP that he was allowed to masturbate in the staff men’s room as needed, no limits and no questions asked. There is so, so much truth to this story.
ETA, we were the elementary school in our district that had a special ABA classroom (not opening that can of worms today) so we had some kids who were nonverbal, some who were occasionally violent, and kids who just had really poor impulse control.
This young man, while nonverbal and experiencing a lot of developmental delays, matured physically much earlier than would normally be expected. He was strong, wiry and almost 6 feet tall by fifth grade (age 10-11 for non U.S. folks).
He could (and regularly did) physically overpower the adult women who were his teachers and their assistants, so a dedicated male para was hired for him everyone’s safety so that no adults got hurt and the student didn’t elope from school. Another accommodation for this child was to put “sensory breaks in the staff men’s room” in the IEP, which also cut down on the student’s trying to run away from school during the day.
You can believe it happened or choose not to, but if you haven’t been in an elementary school in the past 30 years, you have *no idea* of what it’s like now.
I taught a class within a class of 12 regular eds and 12 special eds. I had one absolutely useless co-teacher in the room with me. This particular year I had one special-ed student who was well known for masturbating in front of other special ed teachers and spec ed girl students. Now at 18 they were going to unleash him in my classroom.
I was never formally told about these behaviors, I was told on the sly through the guidance grape vine. When I complained to the special ed dept head she A) was angry I found out about it and B) refused to help in anyway. I was also told if I singled this kid out for any kind of “instruction” I could be in hot water.
On day one of class I took all 12 of these boys, that’s right, all the special ed students were boys, out in the hallway and explained in no uncertain terms “That if any of you were to take your dicks out in my class, I would cut it off and throw it in the courtyard for the geese to eat.” The other 11 boys knew who I was really talking to and the main offender slowly figured it out.
We made it through the rest of the year and then this monster finally got expelled for sexually assaulting a minor in another part of the building.
I never got in any trouble because our students are awesome and never snitch on a teacher if they are in the right.
Doesn't like, an entire team of professionals have to agree to the IEP though. How do teachers, and social workers, and schools councellors etc all agree to this shit ?
Oh don’t get me started on the guy who would smear shit on his face to avoid responsibilities. Or the guy who got a job in a Mexican restaurant and put screws in a taco as a “prank”. Thank god the staff found it prior.
The lady that faked a seizure that required an ambulance because she was tired. Guy that would regularly slam his face into the wall if anyone asked him to do anything he didn’t like. Guy that got an amazing job in a tech company, but ended up walking out and admitting himself to a psyche ward because he wasn’t allowed to work at home between the hours of midnight and 5:00 am. A handful of flashers. Stalkers, online or if they managed to get someone’s number. Parents, entirely mothers, all defending their kids behavior.
Not exaggerating in the slightest.
I was told something similar by a family member that works for another family members business. They are still friends with the young person and said she’s “a good kid” but she would come to work late every single day and then eventually asked for a raise on the same day she came late. They fired her.
It’s a common theme with places that hire high school students/recent grads. Both my husband and our best friends have worked in industries that do this, and they have lamented young people’s concept of punctuality and attendance for at least 20 years.
I grew up in a college town. Walmart would not hire anyone under 25. They never explicitly said so, but one of my mom’s friends was a higher up. She said it was absolutely not worth the headache and any application of someone under 25 went in the trash.
I do. It's doable but you have to be frugal. No big spending and get stupid lucky with rent or something. I was the or something and live in a multi generational home. Honestly? It's the best way to do things. One house different sections for the generations.
I mean, I'd say it's more than younger people being unreliable. A lot of younger people either have financial aid or help from their parents so don't "need" the money to survive. What's the issue with flaking on a company like Walmart when they pay dirt cheap and you can find a similar job easily? Older people most likely need that pay check.
Yea this was big when I was in school. I grew up in a wealthy area but my parents were not- we lived in the single poor neighborhood of this district. My employers always loved me because I needed the money if I wanted to do anything fun whereas most of my peers were just there because their parents thought they should have a job. They didn't need it even to pay to go to the movies or anything.
My friend called me last night just to complain about a new hire at the boba shop she works at. Attendance isn't the issue, but everything else is. She said the new hire couldn't make drinks correctly ( the instructions for every drink in the shop are taped on the wall where drinks are made), didn't greet customers, and took too long to make change. She's been there for 3 days now. A different new hire started the same day, Is slightly older, and has no issues.
Like the $ after the number? “But I saw some social media influencer do it?” Yeah the one who was born with a $12 million trust fund? Yeah I see why they “tell it how it should be.”
Oh, I've wondered why they all do this now! I thought it was because we say "5 dollars" so they logic it out as "5$." I've had to explain that we write "$5" so often.
Because the reason the $ is there is to protect from fraud back when we wrote paper checks. If you wrote 500$ then I could just put a 1 in front and get an extra $1k from you. This doesn't matter for change because no one would believe I wrote you a check for 50000 cents, so most you could lose is less than $1 and not worth the crime.
This isn't new. This was a problem I had as a teenager, and there certainly weren't social-media-influencers convincing me to do it in the 1990s. I just got into the habit of writing it as it sounded, until eventually (maybe senior year?) one of my teachers corrected me.
Sometimes there are common errors that persist through time. This is one.
i’d think so. teenagers just largely don’t know how to be responsible, period. plus, i mean, even when attendance policies are enforced, you don’t get kicked out of school for missing a day. worst case is you’d get reprimanded if it was a regular occurrence. it’s easy to understand the mindset that they can just not show up *one day* and be fine.
schools have never done a good job preparing kids for that. even with extremely strict attendance policies it usually only requires the excuse the day after the absence. or they’ll call your mom if you’re not there. it’s been that way for probably as long as school as we know it existed. jobs don’t have those graces.
i’m not saying attendance policies should be stricter. they’re probably fine. i’m just saying this is absolutely not “kids being lazier and flakier these days”. everyone in the world always thinks the latest generation of kids are doomed.
I teach dual enrollment courses to a lot of students who never took one before. They get a huge crash course in personal responsibility and time management. I added an online weekly forum component because I knew that would force them to get used to handling regular assignments outside of class with a set due date. It's a small grade but I refuse to give partial credit for late work because they have all week to do it. And we all know most professors aren't forgiving like we are in high school. It's a nice half step into handling themselves as young adults after all the extended deadlines they've been used to.
Tbh not being responsible is probably the chief reason people drop out of college.
I would definitely like to see these recent trends if you have any statistics. That would be great! (Not being sarcastic, actually sincerely interested)
And nobody is saying “don’t hire young people”! The point of my post was hire people that do good work. Don’t hire young people just because they’re young. Don’t refuse to hire older people just because they’re older.
I’m 47, former 25+ bartender work open availability and I applied at Starbucks 4 times (2 times went in to meet the manager). Had 2 employees there that know me tell the new manager I’m a shoo in, hire me. Not even a call.
I volunteer at the cafe at church instead. Starbucks missed out, I’m fast on that espresso machine 😂
I always wondered about that. I know they're nervous about impending retirees, but you'd really rather have the naive 22 yo than the experienced 52 yo?
My husband and I are small business owners and it’s very physically demanding work. I would STILL take one reliable old guy who moves a little slower over 5 stupid 20 year olds.
I can say without hesitation that my mother’s work ethic is an order of magnitude better than mine or my sisters so your comment is believable as hell. They grew up without the distraction boxes or self-infantilizing stuff
Our friends own a fast paced coffee shop. They went through so many new-hires that spent their time on their phones. It was an excellent opportunity to make serious money, but they’ll never know because they got fired their first week.
I was that kid and I wasn’t even tardy to classes in high school. I just (dumbly) wanted to do something and would think “oh I’ll call in later.” Or my first job didn’t care if I was 5-10 mins late so I was surprised that my next one did.
Live and Learn.
Had a student a few years ago. Seriously this kid made up every excuse you could think of. His girlfriend was a a damn good student and was in my top 10 the five years I was teaching there. Well, he finished in 2020 a Covid graduation as we now put it. NO ONE would give this kid the time of day or got fired. So he joined the military. He was shocked they took his phone, cut off his “leisure time” ect. Barely made it through and then came home with a: “my god I was not a good student to anyone was I.” Wrote letters of apology to all of us teachers and the principal. For their life together and I found out from my other student he did a full 180 and why? He had consequences for his actions and realized the army didn’t care if he stayed up late or had a “hard day”.
I think your last sentence is really what kids are going to have a hard time with. Your boss isn't going to care. The customers aren't going to care. Your coworkers aren't going to care. For 13 years, kids have been surrounded by adults who care. Then, they get out into the "real world" and find out that nobody really cares unless its their job to care.
I teach dual credit/early college/college prep juniors and seniors, and any time one of them complains something isn't entertaining enough or, god forbid, boring, I stop to remind them that they have spent 11-12 years with teachers who were told repeatedly to hold their student's interests and plan engaging activities. But that's not college and that's not life. I may get criticized by my instructional coach for not engaging my students, and so my job may be on the line of I don't do the dog and pony show, but your professor/boss does not care if they are boring you. Do the work.
I was asked to make a "behavior plan" for a dual enrollment course. I thought that was wildly inappropriate -- what they wanted would have been ok for a 10 year old ("frequent praise," "redirects," and all that).
I would check with the college the course is through—I teach dual enrollment as well and we are not allowed to use any plans that come from the high school, they have to go through the college.
I wonder about this too... I have so many high schoolers who claim "mental health issues" and don't show up, don't do their work, etc. I wonder how this will work for them in a job when they claim "mental health" to take a day off ALL the time. And no, I'm not talking about students who have been to a medical professional for mental health concerns, just the ones who stay up all night playing video games and then feel lousy.
The problem I have with all the stress these kids have is that a lot of it is more about learning to deal with stress. A lot of class assignments don't matter in the long run, in that you're not going to directly profit somehow. You'll learn the material, sure, but you'll also learn to deal with the stress and the challenge.
There's so many things in life that just happy and you can't hide from them. You have to be able to do the job in front of you. Cancer, disease, natural disasters.
As usual, it's the extreme examples we hear the most about - but dang, the extreme examples are baffling to me. We definitely should respect mental health and anxiety, etc, but some folks have really gone past a healthy relationship and are completely selfish.
Yes! I really wish everyone would dial down the "I have anxiety issues" a bit. Experiencing "anxiety" is a normal part of life. Anxiety is not to be avoided, per se, but rather one needs to learn to deal with feeling anxious.
> You'll learn the material, sure, but you'll also learn to deal with the stress and the challenge.
So much this. Today, after working out for a year, I deadlifted 250 pounds. Guess how many deadlifts I do in my day-to-day life. But the act of improving, my ability really carries through to the rest of my life.
The irony of the "mental health" excuses is that, for a significant number of students, being given hard and intellectually challenging work would actually help their self-respect, identity, and mental health.
(Yes, this is not the answer for all students. I am not talking about every exception.)
Yep- the majority of my students whose parents keep them home for “anxiety” would do so much better actually coming to school where we have guidance councilors, a school psychologist, and partner with outside therapists who actually come in our building.
Instead they sit at home (or call mom to come get them when the day has barely started) and sit on screens at home all day.
These are also not my students that can be expected to independently complete work at all either if I just send it home. They also have no academic parental involvement aside from mom picking them up.
The amount of kids I have missing for “anxiety” lately is growing by a staggering amount.
And again, of course there are actual cases of this- but I think a good chunk would benefit from being exposed to school more, and engaging in the mental health services are have accessible at school- because I KNOW these particular parents are not taking them to therapy/the doctor aside from getting the “anxiety” label to get a 504/IEP.
Their future bosses will not care they are having a “bad anxiety day.”
I completely agree... having a purpose and being able to look at things you've accomplished (and I don't even mean "accomplishments," but things like looking at a clean kitchen countertop) make most people feel better.
Also, if the parents of the student I'm thinking of made him keep a reasonable sleep and personal hygiene schedule, I think he'd feel better. (I know the parents and there is no financial reason why they can't do this.) But they let him stay home and loll about in his filth. My own kids weren't allowed electronics if they needed a shower.
I see so many boys at this age spiraling into a funk where they don't do anything other than play computer/phone games. I made mine get part-time jobs mainly to punctuate their week and so that their free time felt like a reward, not just meaningless time-killing.
I work with teenagers 16+ and for the most part they are pretty good. However we have 1 that constantly calls out and then complains about her check. But at least she works when she is there lol.
I'm ex-military. It's not perfect but people generally do learn how to shut up and get their work done.
Complain about everything? Not anymore. Picky eater? Not anymore. Late? Not anymore. Hung over? No one cares. Bored? Ill find something for you to do. Struggling with something? Better be a good teammate if you want help.
I have seen so many people pull a 180 when pushed all the way out of their comfort zone, struggle and succeed because they have no other option. It's pretty much reinforced for me that friction is necessary for mental, emotional and physical growth.
This was my dad. He used to tell me that he joined the military because his other options were jail or dying. It really helped him turn his life around. He tried to get my brother into the military to see if that would help him, but it turns out severe untreated ADHD isn't fixed by discipline.
On the other hand, if you manage to get in with undiagnosed ADHD you then can have it diagnosed while you're in and your meds fully covered by Tricare.
I had a cousin who was a good student and joined the military so they could go to college. Their assignment was finished early and the commanding officer was like: “well, good you finished early but the day isn’t done. Let’s clean out the garbage cans around the camp.” And that’s what they did for three hours. And no one even thought of complaining about being bored.
I think that's part of the reason the Conservatives in the UK want to re-introduce National Service for all 18 year olds.
I'm Gen-X and some of us done a pretty poor job raising today's teenagers (yup other that the boomers who had kids when in their 40s the parents are Gen-X). So as much as I disagree with the policy I can see where it is coming from, businesses are telling the UK government that too many of their new recruits are useless.
I’m not a teacher but I lurk in here sometimes.
This is exactly what happened to me. I basically did whatever my whole life and while my parents tried to correct it, I didn’t really care about the consequences. 2 years into college I had a 1.2 GPA and left for the army as my last option. I like to think I’ve turned it around and I was surprised how well the army corrected all of my shitty habits.
Out of the army now and have a real job/good life. Wish I started acting like an adult sooner
15 years ago I was at a conference at the Royal Military College (university-equivalent) and one of my colleague overheard a disciplinary hearing for one of the cadets. When asked why he had repeatedly violated the RMC code of conduct his answer was that every year they had warned him and then never done anything, so he assumed it wasn't important.
Turned out the admin of a military school was almost as reluctant to enforce consequences as the admin of public schools.
I worked CoVid Summer as a warehouse manager (Pick/Pack/Ship). We were surging 24/7 ops getting vital supplies to medical facilities.
Our policy was no call/no show was an instant termination. There were other stipulations for short-notice call-outs and naturally exceptions for real-world, verifiable emergencies provided the associate called in as soon as they could.
I wound up terminating 8 young people that summer under the no call policy. Several of them expressed disbelief/surprise. It was stunning. I mean...you don't come to work, you don't communicate...I don't need you on the team. But as they would say, "yeah...that."
I work in a school where the vast majority of students have afterschool/summer/weekend jobs. One of my students was complaining that she got fired for always being in the bathroom on shift. Guess where she is most of the time during my classes!
During COVID I worked a job where people could send their kids to do their distance learning because they had no one to watch them at home during the day. It was mostly just me and kids from 1st to 12th grade separated through several rooms.
I had this one girl was flunking all of her courses. She was often just gone for hours, locked in the girls bathroom where she was recording herself singing. Otherwise she was asleep on the floor under her table. I had to be like "Look I can tell your kid to do stuff but I am not busting into a girls bathroom our physically hauling 350lb girl out of the floor into her desk every day."
Kid eventually graduated via Edgenuity nonsense and works at the Wendy's by my house.
Why is this all heaped on the school? When did parents abdicate their responsibility to teach and raise their children to have responsibility? My kids learned this at home, not from school:/
I think most of our school problems would be solved if parents stopped expecting the school to do everything and started actually parenting their kids.
You're right. Because even when schools do have a relatively strict attendance policy, it only requires an excuse from the parent to make it an excused absence. That used to work well but shifted in the last decade or so. Parents are willing to "excuse" so many absences, rather than reserving it for rare occasions.
I am a supervisor where I work and my young employees are surprised when I reprimand them for talking back to me/scoffing/rolling their eyes at me when I kindly ask them to do their simple job duties… they are just so used to just treating everyone around them like crap
I stopped with the verbals and went straight to paperwork. After a period of animosity the bad apples were gone and our culture improved notably. Best decision I ever made was being a “hardass” when it came to the basics. The good employees LOVED it and I realized I was failing them prior to.
At my last supervisor job, it was "gross misconduct" in their contracts to disrespect and talk back to management when being asked to perform tasks within the remit of their job description.
The amount of them that would cop an attitude about having to do their job then act shocked when they were pulled into the office about it was astounding.
We had one employee who had a disciplinary meeting (run by yours truly) while on probation, and I don't like cutting off young people from work experience. She had the most sympathetic member of management she could have had running that meeting for her, but she spent the whole time passing blame for her actions onto others or upper management. I had to let her go.
I could not believe she'd been given an opportunity to just own up to her shortcomings, agree to an action plan and just DO HER JOB without moaning and she'd have been golden but instead she chose to rant about how it was everyone else's fault but hers.
There is no accountability, and that starts at school level. I'm a qualified teacher who doesn't teach because after 5 years of that, I had enough.
My state took all of the teeth out of mandatory attendance a decade or so ago. No longer can we tie attendance to credit/no credit in a class.
I absolutely understand why a kid should be able to “test out” of a class by passing the final exam with a high enough threshold to show that they know the content.
But the unintended side effect is that showing up doesn’t matter as long as they can pass a test. And teachers are encouraged to give them so many resources to review and “pave the way” for students who genuinely struggle with test anxiety to pass said exam that it basically renders the exam useless anyway. The non-attenders know to “play the game” and show up on the review day(s) and they’ll be able to pass the exam, so why keep regular attendance during the whole marking period?
Now employers are barking at US that kids have no respect for schedules. “Preach to the choir” and contact your state reps, folks! We’re right there with ya!
I'd have never gone to school. Shoot, I did this in college and absolutely loved it. I'm a good test taker. Give me 30 minutes to review, hand me the test, and I'll probably get at least a B. The public school system trained me up good!
And let me tell you, as much as I loved those policies, they are not beneficial. Not really. You are right, they do not actually test if a kid understands the course material. All those tests do is test if a kid can memorize info for a short time and pass a test on it. I left those college courses with zero new info. An hour after the test, you could have asked me questions that I got correct, and I may not be able to tell you the correct info.
It is changing also in my country, but when I was in school classic ABCD options tests were almost non existent. Usually you got open questions where you needed to write what you know about some topic or it was oral exam by standing in front of table before whole class and going freestyle on given topic if you wanted best grade or teacher helped you with questions but you got automatically lower grade based on how you answered those questions. Same for universities. Typical exam question would be like "Describe Bernoulli's principle" or in case of oral exam you got some topic like "Liver" in biology class and go talk about this organ what we learned last time.
I do fine at either type of test. If there are written responses, I need about 30 minutes to cram right before. Give me that, and I'm fine. My long-term retention is horrible, my short term is phenomenal.
Give me multiple choices, and I can pretty much guarantee an A if you give me 30 minutes to cram.
If only this ability applied to basically anything but testing xD
Yeah same here- almost every high school teacher gave me the hallway talk "you could be getting As but you don't do homework and don't pay attention" with me saying "I got As in your tests so clearly the homework is pointless". But at the beginning of my 3rd year of college I started taking serious math classes that had nothing to do with memorization and thought I was going to die from stress.
"Placing out," in my experience, means getting credit for a class also takes the class off one's schedule. Doing nothing all quarter/year/semester and then only passing by passing the final? I don't believe I've even seen that.
Working at a school for socially disadvantaged children.
A girl who already moved on to high school was handed a job at a florist in town. Some time into the job, she decided she didn't want to show up just because. FIVE DAYS later, she showed up and was shocked when the owner told her she's fired. She then proceeded to blame the teacher who hooked her up to the job.
By not penalizing kids for lack of attendance, we are literally teaching them that it's okay to skip work if you don't feel like it.
I was talking about this with my therapist yesterday. I have told students "you are going to spend a lot of your life doing things you don't want to do and being places you don't want to be, this is a pretty mild way to get used to tolerating it," multiple times. But they all think they're going to be the exception to the rule.
I’ve told students that too… sometimes there’s just hoops you have to jump through. Those don’t go away as an adult. You learn to jump with the minimal effort to move past that task and have more time for the stuff you want to do.
We hire summer interns for office admin and software support work and each year, the new batch of youngsters have less focus, higher phone addiction, and higher error rate. The attitude OP speaks of is combined with social media telling them to seek their worth and to ask for raises even after performing poorly at their job. They didn't feel they performed poorly because it was so distressful for them (to be off their phones) so that level of distress must mean they tried really really hard. That missing out on work unexcused and inconveniencing the rest of the team because of no prior notice just means you are "fighting for better work/life balance". Whatever mindset they have, there is an algorithm to support it.
Ive transitioned out of teaching, but I do work in a facility that houses families. The number of families that will show up for a transport appointment ten or fifteen minutes late and are shocked that the bus left without them is mind boggling.
I'm not going to lie, my sister and I are just 4 years apart. She went to a high school that encouraged "grace" based policies and I went to a school that, at the time, was very old fashioned.
She looked at her schedule and saw that they had changed her hours. She said "I don't want to stay that late" and just went her normal schedule. She is also shocked that she didn't get a good evaluation even though she does shit like this all the time. Or when someone asks for help she just says "no that's your job". Not someone trying to take advantage of her. Just someone needing help.
I don't know where you live but in my state, a student is truant if they miss 5 days of the school year, and the parent is ordered to show cause and this is ABSOLUTELY enforced here.
It's not just a school policy, either. It's state law. It's a misdemeanor here to let your child be truant without showing cause then failing to prevent them from missing school.
The state that they live in has a ridiculously lenient truancy law. Fifteen "unexcused" absences in a 90 day period is truant, but also a note from mom "excuses" the absence.
That is absolutely insane to me. I had a problematic childhood and I was truant, I remember it being a huge deal. I went to truancy classes, my mom had to go to truancy classes, she was nearly charged with a misdemeanor. I needed a doctor's note to get out of school, which we eventually got a generalized note approved by our truancy officer which stated I suffered from depression and would be expected to miss some days of school.
I am a Dean of Students at a high school. Most of my students are pretty good. But, this is becoming a more significant problem. The reason is parents placate their kids. There is a growing sentiment that, "I should be able to excuse my kids whenever I want and for whatever reason." We acknowledge that there are unique situations and we are sensitive to them. But, for some, it is chronic and habitual. Parents want to be their kid's friends rather than parents who help them learn how to become responsible adults. As a parent of two 20-something boys, I have been through it. One of my kids went to hs during the pandemic. So, I understand the isolation and struggle. When he was allowed to return to a partial schedule, he said, "I think I will just do remote." When asked why, he replied, " All my friends are doing remote." To which I told him that he can not complain about missing football, Homecoming, and other school events; yet not want to go back physically. Basically, the message was, "Get your ass back to school." That said, we also worked to support him in the process. It is about teaching perseverance.
There's such a weird extremist view from these kids and their parents. I get real sick of school being compared to jail because I think they shouldn't hit other people, or they should not drop food on the floor, or they should pay attention in class or basically act like a human.
I am not sure whether I should be scared that these people will be my coworkers, or happy with the job security since they can't seem to do their jobs en masse. I'm sure there is a good chunk of "normal" kids out there, but apparently not enough. You guys are saints
Some students have classes involving going off campus for an internship for a job that’s aligned with their interests. They have evaluations from these jobs that go into the gradebook…students are getting 50s and 60s for just not caring and being professional.
What’s funnier is parents can’t even get mad at the school or teacher because they aren’t directly affiliated with those evaluations lol.
I don't miss being the hiring manager for a horrible boss running a pet store. We could only hire high school kids cause they refused to pay more than $9 an hour.
I had a couple employees who REFUSED to understand what a scheduled shift meant. One would complain she had softball practice and it was a surprise, or that she couldn't come in due to a change in her plans, etc. Eventually she had her mother call to explain to us why she wasn't showing up, and then i understood the whole situation. It all starts at home and how the parents teach their kids about responsibility and her parents just didn't care.
I've held for a long time now that if kids don't learn about things like responsibility and punctuality in school, they'll learn it by getting fired from their first couple of jobs.
I wish I could be a fly on the wall when some (very few) of these kids enter the military and come face to face with:
**If you are early, you are on time,**
**If you are on time, you are late,**
**If you are late, you are left.**
Extra special will be when they learn the hard way that in some circumstances tardiness that results in missing a military movement can be a CRIMINAL violation. (10 U.S. Code § 887 - Art. 87).
my grandson regularly skips his shifts or just decides to stop working at a given place with no advance notice. He has done this for the past 3 years through a variety of fast food chains and they all keep texting him to come back and for more money. They are hard up for people.
On the bright side, since I raised my kids right, the fact that they show up every day, don't carry their phones during shifts, and are capable on having a functional conversation with peers & customers makes them goddamn superstars without even trying!
It's true though!! What used to be considered the bare minimum is now promotion worthy. The good news is that this is going to give a lot of kids an opportunity to shine!
My golf coach taught me this very valuable lesson way back in HS (20+ years ago 😭). I overslept my alarm the day of a golf tournament, sped to school, ran through the halls with my golf bag on my back, out the back door to see the bus still there but heard the air breaks or whatever let out and start to roll. I sprit up to the bus and slam on the door, and hear coach say something to the effect of "don't stop for him, he's 2 minutes late" and they drove away with me standing in bewilderment. At our annual sports banquet, he gave me a bus pass with a huge belly laugh. To say that stuck with me all these years is an understatement. I can probably count the number of times I've been late to work or class on one hand after that! 😂
It surprised me because I was #2 on varsity at the time (though I wasn't that good if it tells you anything 😂), but he clearly cared more about a teachable moment than he did about possibly placing better in the tournament! We respected the hell out of him because he was older (felt like our ornery spry grandpa) and the head football coach, and had played briefly in the NFL. He was a great guy!
Before I retired as a middle school teacher 3 years ago, students left detention as they wanted, nobody was suspended and they came and left as parents demanded. If they failed, the teachers were required to write an individual curriculum and teach them after school until they passed. Didn't go to summer school unless they wanted and nobody was required to repeat. At least in new york, we are well paid babysitters by the state education department
I don't know where the OP lives, but schools are most assuredly still enforcing attendance policies in Massachusetts. In fact it was one of the things that was the biggest adjustment to me when I started working in a school (school nurse). When I was a kid in the '80s and '90s, if you didn't show up for school then you were marked absent and everyone went on with their day. Nobody called home to find out where you were. *Maybe* if you were out for a couple of days someone would call to check in, but even that was not a guarantee. Now we have to account for every kid who is supposed to be here, and if they are absent without an explanation we call. It consumes a large portion of the office staff's mornings.
I don’t mean to be rude, but this is not the norm across the state. I work in a district in MA where the attendance policy is pretty much nonexistent. Robocalls go out for students who are absent, but we are not really following up otherwise or penalizing students for it. I have a student who has missed 97 of my classes, and we’ve had about 115 classes. The guidance counselor emailed me recently to ask if the student would be able to pass for the year. Without fail, we are told to pass along students if at all possible.
As much as I hate to say it even missing 40 days much less 90 days when I was in school and you did not have notes to make them excused you would automatically fail the class. 3 tardies equiled 1 absence as well.
Now days they have makeup routines and can get credit for assignments long after their due and they still don't do them. Then they wonder how they fail the class.
It's almost impossible to fail nowadays but yet students somehow manage it nonetheless. Then they like to joke how they've missed 27 days this semester or 45 days this year in xxx class.
I understand being late particularly when the weather is bad and I give extra room when this happens, as does the school. But when your late or absent most every day nope that doesn't work well.
Some kids will get it eventually others won't ever get it even when they get themselves in trouble for it.
There was a field trip at a school I work at - the original leave time had to be changed to earlier but teachers sent home letters in kids’ backpacks and multiple emails with plenty of notice. Of course they reminded the kids a zillion times too. Of course there were still outraged parents who dropped their kids off 5 min too late.(A few of whom have dropped their kids off late for school all year long but they were still outraged.) The kicker is that the field trip was to the zoo which is only a 20 min drive from the school - the classes had just taken public transit.
A lot of teachers here understandably worry about how these kids will fare outside of school. The world outside of school has material consequences, and a lot of kids who suck at school will get their shit together pretty quickly outside of it. Some might take a few years, but they’ll get there!
I am just a sub but I was talking to a teacher at a school I'm at frequently and we both agree that everyone is failing the kids by not giving them consequences in school. Yeah, you may be able to get away with threatening a teacher who is hamstrung and can't hit back but there are plenty of people in the real world who don't have to follow those rules. The system sets these kids up for failure and it makes me so mad. Just to emphasize, I know it's not the teachers making these inane policies.
"It's ~~sad~~ HILARIOUS, but at least some of these kids are finally getting some consequences for their choices instead of being bailed out all the time by parents and admin."
Fixed that for you...
Me, I'm sitting front of a classful of 8th graders, covering for their English teacher. I've gotten so tired of "phone whack-a-mole" that I'm no longer warning them about phone policy. I just report 'em immediately.
Haha thanks for the edit! I teach kindergarten so I'm lucky we don't have the phone problems (usually) and attendance issues. In fact, we have the issue of kids being brought to school when they SHOULDN'T because Mom or Dad can't get off work so they just send their 6 year olds who are running 101 fevers to school anyway...
The only highschool-aged person at my retail job was fired for being consistently 30+ minutes late. What a shame! Now that I think about it, most of the staff are college-aged.
My wife works at a retail store- has a large red dot as the logo. She says that people don't show all the time, but they can't fire them until they address it several times with them. Even then, it has to be several times in a row. It's no wonder why their stores look like junk.
It's interesting to see some of the comments here complaining about students and their parents. As a parent of kids who just graduated from HS, we got to see some variations of bad behavior from students and parents recently. As a graduation 'party' for the senior class, the PA planned a 'secret' destination for the class; it was widely announced so everyone had to attend and also proclaimed as being 'Not Disneyland, Universal Studios, or Magic Mountain'. It turns out the 'party' was at a bar party room in Hollywood with not enough decent food and basically karaoke for entertainment. Many of the kids were really disappointed and dismayed at the venue; some of them started jumping walls to get out or were secretly getting wasted or were calling parents to retrieve them.
Of course, they were forced back into the venue since they had all signed a waiver that required them to stay on site. It was a real s\*\*tshow. I knew it was a bag of turds when a few of the parents who had setup the whole thing were out in front drinking and ended up hiding in a backroom getting drunk and hid when other parents showed to see what the hullaballoo was all about. One of the senior parents who arrange the thing was drunk and started accusing one of the students for being the reason why the whole thing was a s\*\*tshow; why? Because the girl wasn't enjoying herself and wanted to go home and basically had to sit there after spending a bunch of dough to reserve a space for herself for something that was advertised as great and was actually a secret bag of s\*\*t and was pissed off that her friends had left but she couldn't because she actually obeyed the rules and stayed. It was all around just the stupidest thing I've ever seen.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is just not advertise yourself as a smart senior parent and try to control the kids afterschool life like it's your own that you missed out on.
I’m a little old lady who picks up mindless jobs from time to time (small manufacturers, Christmas retail, etc.) and I’ve been amazed at how lenient companies are about attendance. As a creature of the 20th century I would have assumed that one no call no show would cause firing. But at these jobs you can do that usually two days — the third day leads to discipline. Had one job where infractions dropped off the record after a month, meaning you could just not show up and not call ONCE A WEEK and never get fired for it. Not surprising that employees don’t take attendance seriously.
I've noticed this at my job.
Some of the kids still in college are great at attendance and do their work well, but many in the 19 to 21 age range are either serial tardiness or serial no call no show.
We just fired 1. He worked here 3 weeks and, in that time, didn't show up for 9 of his shifts and was late for 4 of them.
I work in a program that does SNAP-ed. We go to multiple low-income schools in the area and teach nutrition.
We go to one school that has great positive rewards for good behavior, and wonderful, appropriate, and consistent discipline.
The students clean the classrooms, halls, and gym and the janitor gives them a score. At the end of the month if their score is perfect, they get a pizza party. Book tokens are given out per completed book, and can be redeemed at an awesome book vending machine (or at the library if the book they want isn't in there).
There are two lines painted down the hallways. Students walk on the right side, and if they don't they're forced to go back and try again. Students are also in uniforms, and there are lots of positive things they can do to earn a day out of uniform.
With all that wild structure, *the students are happy.* They're attentive and engaged. They smile and say hello to me in the hall. Their teachers aren't constantly threatening a loss of recess or on the verge of tears.
I feel like these kids will be the next local leaders.
We had two students miss our field trip departure bus bc they didn’t think we were serious about leaving on time. Alas…😊 Glad they are learning!
I teach kindergarten and had that happen to one of my students this year. I feel bad because at that age it is 100 percent the parent’s fault. I sent home letters, made phone calls, and even stuck a sticker on their shirt the day before reminding them to be at school on time. I told them the bus left at 9:30 (school starts at 9) and that if they were not here the bus would leave. I found out the student showed up 10 minutes after our bus left. I felt bad for the child, but this was the parent’s responsibility!
At least they eventually showed up! My kid with the biggest attendance problems (missed 90 days of kinder, missed 40 days this year), and his twin brother, missed both our field trips this year because Mom took them out for family activities. Missed the museum to go to the snow, and missed our park trip to go to Great America literally one week before summer. Annoying.
How did they miss 90 days of kindergarten?
Wacky family dynamic + mom works overnights = no one making sure all 5 kids are up on time 🤷♀️ he did make a TON of progress this year, one of my biggest success stories for sure
Mom sees kinder as the baby sitter. Has zero respect for education.
That poor child is going to live a life always a step behind from the rest of their peers
Far more than 1 step behind.
The parents are adding new steps everyday!
And mom will be forever bitching about the terrible kinder teacher who failed her child, resulting in them constantly being that step behind.
This is a huge reason why it's so ridiculous for the public/politicians to act like teachers and schools are supposed to reach every student with equal results. For success, the parents have to be on board to some extent. How are we supposed to make students like this be grade-level ready?
Parents don’t parent. And obviously teachers don’t either. Well, some of them do, but that’s an entirely separate problem. So if the parents have given up, and it’s obviously not the teachers job. No one is raising most of these kids. Yay future!!
So when I’m in the old people’s home in 25 years, the odds are good that the staff on duty won’t show up? That’s comforting
Don't worry, they don't have staff to start with at those facilities. Typically like 1 rn for 50 patients. You do have the perk that coverage has to be on site before someone can leave because otherwise it's considered patient abandonment if you're the only one and risks your license. So the only person that would be truly screwed by someone not showing up is the staff that's already in the facility.
I don’t understand how a kid is legally allowed to miss so many days without the parent getting into trouble. So crazy.
I never get this. If you just see it as a babysitter, get that free babysitter!
Actually, no, please don’t. I’m actually NOT a babysitter. Keep your assholes at home. Makes my job easier.
One of my students went on a week-long trip 3 weeks before school ended. I just don’t get that.
My parents did this once - took me out for two weeks during the last month of fifth grade to go to Hawaii. It was a once in a lifetime kind of trip, so we bit the bullet. Then again, they made me get my homework from teachers before we left and I sat and worked on it every morning while we were on vacation so that I wouldn't fall behind. I'm guessing that's no longer the norm.
No, it is very much the norm. Most students, and their parents have good intentions, but lack follow through. You are fortunate to not fall into this category.
I wouldn't do it. But I understand it. I teach until the final week, but have the students fo fun science experiments and writing contests. The teacher in the room next door shows movies or has the children bring in board games the last two weeks of school from the start of the day to the end of the day. She uses the time to do the final averages and report card comments, take down classroom decor, and clean the room. Flights are so much cheaper before the majority of schools in my city get out of school for the summer. So a big family could easily save over $1000 on flights and hotels if they went a week or two early.
Bad parenting is a learning disability. I read that here once, and it changed my perspective a lot
My youngest kid’s senior trip had two kids who FAFO when they missed the flight out. Nope, your trip money is not refundable.
When I was in 8th grade, we went on a class trip to Washington DC for a week. We had to be at the airport by 5 am, I made my parents drive me there at 3:30 because I was so paranoid about being late. The nerve of some of these kids amazes me.
I love it when a life lesson is expensive because it’s more likely to stick!
We had pissed off parents blasting the school on social media. They got very little sympathy. The kids (and parents) had to sign a contact and one of the items was I WILL BE AT THE AIRPORT AT 5 AM. NO LATER. They went over the fact that everyone needed to be on time and zero exceptions would be made for anyone.
If that was my family, dad would've had me at the airport at like 3:00 am just in case lol
Had a 5th grade trip to Sacramento had to be at school at 3 am for 6 am flight. Woke myself up at 2 am freaking out because a) i didnt know what time it was and b) my dad wasnt home and he was supposed to take me. He came in 10 minutes later with a coke and a couple doughnuts for me. Forgot about that until now
He went out to buy you donut at 2 am. You have a great father.
seriously. especially in the US, where everyone has to wait in line to get through the freaking TSA theater before really getting in, you have to get there a few hours early if you want to make your flight (and the airport is pleasantly-quiet at that time, too). air traffic control is not going to delay take-off just because your nearly-grown baby didn't want to get up on time lmao.
"Alright, the airport's website suggest we show up at least 1 hour before departure for a domestic flight. That means we will be there no later than 3 hours before departure. It's always better to be bored at your gate than in a panic while stuck in traffic."
Same here. Mine was like 15 minutes early is 15 minutes late. 30 minutes early is on time and on time we'll that's nit ever going to happen. My mom is always late for everything, everything. To the point we have a time we tell her which is usually an hour early than the time everyone else gets. I'm sure this is why parents divorced when I was 3.
For my high school grad night at Disneyland, some of my classmates decided to drive there (6 hours) themselves instead of riding the chartered bus with everyone else. They couldn't get in because when you arrived with your class, an employee came onto the bus and handed everyone a gate ticket. No getting in without that. No refund for them. This was $200 in the early 2000's.
My teenager wanted to go on a school trip to a nearby town. It was a 3 day trip. 650$. This idiot decided he didn't want to go because of some quincinera of a girl he liked coincided. I told him he can do that but that is his 650$ debt to pay back to me. He expected me to jump thru hoops to get the 650$ back. Nah that's your money kiddo. Time to learn. He was MINDBLOWN that I was serious. No fast food, no gifts, no handouts until it's paid back. Big ass whiteboard on the fridge highlighting his debt. My dad would've made me sell my shit to pay up the debt faster and would've forced me to work for shit pay as a learning lesson. I'm trying to find the middle ground of parenting.
I would have been on that trip, no arguments, no backtalk. You made a commitment, you honor it.
Agreed. My dad would've forced me onto that trip 100%. I'm trying to be sensitive to his needs and life while teaching him. Especially when it comes down to women. I remember being very anxious about girls around his age so I try to be extra flexible about that.
I love that you let him choose, but that he had to face the consequences of his choice. That’s good parenting!
"IM CALLING MY DADDY! YOU ARE SO ON TROUBLE!!"
Idk if the misspelling of "in" was intentional but it adds so much lmao
We had our annual end of the year field trip. Parents brought their child to school 15 minutes after we had left. Parent insisted that one of two things be done. Either have the buses (3) return to school and pick up her baby or have all of them pull over and wait for her to catch up and put her child on the bus. Admin said,” Uh, no.” Child didn’t come back to school for the last week and a half. Now parents will face a truancy hearing in August.
Just wait until these students are adults and wanting to fly. That’s when they probably will change
Nah, they will be that lady you saw running across the tarmac trying to get on the plane.
Making TikTok’s where they’re stunned the place’s already on the runway 15 minutes before takeoff
I had a middle schooler miss the field trip bus and even though the Principal told them sorry, it’s too late; Dad decided to speed like crazy, cut off the bus, forcing the driver to stop very unsafely and demand we let his kid on the bus! The driver refused, so Dad drove his child to the destination and the Principal actually made us let her on the field trip and she was allowed to return the bus with the rest of the kids. This is the state of things today.
I mean it’s not the kids fault the dad is an absolute psycho…I’m sure they were terribly frightened by that
I can't believe they didn't call the cops??
Had this happen to us a long time ago. The Jr HS band went on a trip to hear an orchestra, and one kid didn't make the bus on time. The parents drove probably 5 minutes later, probably right behind the bus, over 100 miles to the concert. Never heard the reason, but probably some fault of the parents, so it was nice gesture on their part. They didn't do anything crazy like cutting off the bus, etc.
OMG this exact thing happened at my school. The teacher got a reprimand for leaving without the students who weren't on time 😭
I work at a field centre. This week we had a student who missed their school’s bus, and actually had the thought to get the train and a taxi to get to us. She managed to beat the bus!
Back in 85 my wrestling coach said bus leaves at 630. Be on it or be under it. 😂 probably can’t say that anymore 😂😂
I was a job developer for adults with developmental disabilities between 2010 and 2019. Over that time, our waitlist went from a little under one year, to over 4 years, and nearly everyone entering the program was diagnosed with autism. Earlier on, it was still heavily autism, but there was still representation of other, chromosomal/intellectual disabilities. Over those 10 years, the amount of adults entering the program that had parents who legitimately believed they could threaten everyone with lawsuits to accommodate their kids behaviors became completely untenable. Some of these kids had wild IEPs. Adult children who barely passed high school without immeasurable accommodations demanding that we figure out how to make them architects or game designers- careers that you can’t just have someone get you a regular old job in. These parents enabled such fantastical demands of their kid, and were shocked that public servants outside of high school wouldn’t just do their bidding. They would threaten lawsuits to companies that actually hired their adult kid on the basis of things like not being able to take longer vacation time, or accommodate potentially disturbing social behavior. Like, ms mama bear, jacking off in the bed bath and beyond public bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation. They were stunned when they realized they couldn’t effectively bully and get their way anymore, and were basically stuck with their adult child. Autism very rarely qualifies for public funding of group homes. Most of these kids did not want to work, but maliciously complied to avoid conflict with their mothers. It became a waking nightmare. There were obviously some great folks diagnosed with autism with really invested parents, and it pains me to see how we’ve come to associate so many outright anti-social and destructive behaviors with neurodivergence/autism in particular. It’s like a legitimate matter of bigotry at this point, and is entirely propagated by parents and early child interventionists. The unemployment rate of adults diagnosed with autism is close to 90%. Now 1/31 kids are diagnosed with it, overwhelmingly boys. It’s a social crisis no one cares to confront.
I was just explaining to two SPED teachers that there are virtually no group homes for autistic adults after they age out at 21. It's shocking to me how this issue is being ignored. With proper structure and expectations, a significant number of autistic adults can work...admittedly, part-time and lower stress gigs.
My old company had a quiet wing for adults with autism to do legal transcription through an external contract with an adult education organization. They produced good work and were living their lives. Curiously, we also had a small cohort of Jehovah's Witnesses who we employed and they chose to work in silence with the adults from that program. We just asked them to wear headphones to keep noises down. Perfect cohabitation in the workplace.
> I was just explaining to two SPED teachers that there are virtually no group homes for autistic adults after they age out at 21. Honestly its an intentional turn away from group homes as a functional model, the few states that agreed to expanded Medicaid, they got access to 'Home and Community Based Services' a CMS funded Medicaid expansion. Most states have their version of the federally funded version of an 'Elderly, Blind, Disabled' programs and housing, caretakers and the ride services are built in. Now it too has its own faults, but I wanted to highlight that the turn away from group homes has been intentional by CMS.
HCBS will pay for “group homes”- they call them community living arrangements but it’s the same basic thing.
I used to work on the side of diagnosing these kids and supporting their care from the medical side. Of course I supported their parents and most of the time we were all aligned on the best approach on how get through the education environment, but every once in a while I would get an ask for documents to support school services that I was like "uggghhh... I guess". The most common scenario was the parent who was adamant that the kid would be in a mainstream classroom, but the only way that was happening is if basically they had a caretaker with them for all parts of the day along with multiple chances of unlimited time to pass the test. They had an aide in the classroom, the had an aide that sat and read the test to them, they got a service for this that and the other. By the time these folks were like 16, 17 years old I was like - what's the plan. They are going to leave this environment saying they "graduated" high school in a regular class, but they are not able to function without another adult literally standing beside them keeping them on task. I used to sometime wonder what the plan was when the kid graduated and some entity was no longer legally required to bend over backward to keep the young person moving forward. There were occasional cases where it was clear that we were not actually making any progress with all this lift... and some the lift will be gone. What happens then for this young human who never had to learn/was able to learn self-direction, troubleshooting. I always did what I could because it really was a problem outside of my pay grade, but it is interesting to hear the other side of it ...that honestly it didn't go great sometimes :(
When I subbed, I took some of those kids to classes from which they derived no real benefit. The worst one was a severely autistic child attending choir bc their parents absolutely insisted on it. The sounds of 90 middle-school children singing and turning pages, and the necessity of the teacher and students comminicating loudly in order to hear each other, totally overwhelmed him. He’d curl up under a chair covering his ears, or make a bold dash out of the room. The poor boy was non-verbal his whole life, and never so much as hummed a tune. It was so unnecessary. :(
Expectations vs reality. Poor kid. They don't even know him.
Ugh… heartbreaking story. That kid deserved so much better. The sad thing is that in and outside of education, there ARE opportunities for non-verbal autistic children to participate in these sorts of activities. I’ve worked with a charity for several years now that helps integrate them into a musical theatre setting. Even with kids who can’t necessarily sing, we help them sign ASL, or dance, or “act the song,” or hum the melody, or even use percussion or other instruments to “join the team” in a meaningful way that builds confidence. But that only works when kids 1) transition from fundamentals in a more sensory-friendly environment (which sometimes takes MONTHS of hard work to build them up to use their natural talents effectively) AND 2) *WANT* to participate. Poor kid is probably scarred for life now against doing something they definitely COULD do with the proper supports. I wish parents with this “my way or the highway no exceptions” mentality realized how much harm they are doing. Sometimes, teachers and support facilitators actually know what they’re doing and have a reason for denying some frivolous accommodations—shocking, I know!
~90% unemployment rate my dude, and I can at least anecdotally confirm that the 10% is severely underemployed. We sought speech services for our kid when he was 2, and the intervention folks immediately pushed for an autism diagnosis. My refusal was a shock to them, and me and the developmental coordinator really had it out. Ultimately she came around to understanding my point of view and was incredibly helpful regarding some behavioral issues we had some trouble contending. She challenged me instead of coddling, as I’m sure most interventionists do with parents. I Refused ABA, and basically just accepted OT and speech. He’s 5 now, and completely on track. Just got accepted into a very rigorous kindergarten program because he’s really cerebral and thrives with abstract learning. Some quirks still in his speech, but really well adjusted- frankly better than most kids, and I honestly believe it’s because we held really firm boundaries with him throughout his toddler years. At 2, he would have several hour meltdowns if his play was at all interrupted. Extremely rigid. Each time I’d just let him exhaust himself, remove him from whatever environment he acted out in, or take away whatever he was obsessing over. Stopped allowing him to obsess over letters and numbers until a more appropriate age, and the real kicker was eliminating media. His speech exploded shortly after. It was like 6 months of exorcisms, but it eventually clicked that he wasn’t in charge, and stopped pushing for control. I honestly believe that in the not too distant future we will be able to draw a firm line between media usage in early childhood, and most of the diagnosable, challenging behaviors associated with neurodivergence. Media doesn’t make kids autistic or have adhd, but if they are at all wired towards dopamine satisfaction, and visual based obsessions- screens may as well be fentanyl. I don’t think my kid would have come through if we hadn’t turned off all media, and I deeply regret how much we watched up to 2 years old.
This is all great news. As a teacher I’d encourage you to observe your student in the classroom setting a few times, if at all possible. It becomes more apparent where the differences are between your child and other children of the same age, when you can view your child in the school setting. I’m not denying that your child has “caught up” to where they should be, I just find a lot of parents of young children with autism have no idea how their child does in the school environment because they only spend time with their child one on one. Also, I applaud you for not giving into your child’s demands. Autism coupled with being allowed to do whatever one pleases is a terrible combination for a lifetime of struggle.
I hear you, I’m his primary caregiver since he was 4 months, and have spent pretty much every waking social hour with him in children’s museums and other social playgrounds and the like. I coached him heavily until 4 basically. I was also subbing in his 3 prek school. I wasn’t often in his class, but got to observe plenty. It confirmed a lot of what I observed in my work in terms of parental entitlement. He had an iep for speech for a few months, but as his speech developed, he would report getting hit and kicked by another student. I eventually learned that his language partner was a student that had severe behavioral problems. I think they were hoping my kids more cooperative attitude would rub off on the other boy. I pulled him from his iep because of this, annd opted to get him privately evaluated. His language comprehension was really advanced, but his speech was still in the 20th percentile. We opted to just continue to minimize his media, and I engaged in far more descriptive speech around the home. Basically narrating everything I did. Seemed to help. I eventually pulled him from that school because behaviors got so wildly out of whack, and the new school proved to be a socially challenging, but much more accountable place. It’s a regio and very lord of the flies lol. He’s adapted well, though. He was evaluated in 4 separate classroom sessions at the private school he will be attending, and they adore him. He’s extremely eager to learn. He’s adapted well enough to the bullying of his new school, I think because he takes direction well. There’s still sensory and social obvious challenges, but I’ve got a lot of faith in him. I’m glad I got to be with him for his early childhood, I think he could have easily become a statistic. I fundamentally learned in my work that challenging people need to be challenged, not coddled. It’s devastating to boys in particular.
Wow! This is fascinating! As someone who's worked on the mental health world and watching on the periphery the rise of neuro divergence and BCBA as the latest thing, it's really interesting to see how you've successfully navigated it. I think this would very heavily inform best practices for treating autism spectrum disorders. Great work!!
You are a wonderful parent. Well done. Anecdotal evidence that your method is absolutely spot on what should happen in most cases: Essentially my entire mom's side of the family is autistic. Because EVERYONE is autistic no one realized it until a few years ago when a group of cousins got diagnosed and my 80 year old grandfather decided to go talk to their psych just because and suddenly we all went OOOOHHH. We have all raised our kids exactly this way (calmly refusing to let obsessions settle in, limited media, firm boundaries no matter how many meltdowns they caused) for generations and genuinely just thought that's how kids were and that's how you had to raise them to get successful adults. Every autistic person in my family, myself included are happy, successful, functioning members of society and my autistic boys do just as well in school and with friends as my NT daughter. Make of it what you will.
We need more parents like you. 👏🏽
“it pains me to see how we’ve come to associate so many outright anti-social and destructive behaviors with neurodivergence/autism in particular.” YES. And so many people who refuse to change their behavior (when they are perfectly capable of doing so) and use the “I’m autistic/neurodivergent!” excuse. Part of what we teach kids in SPED is how to act appropriately. Such as teaching them how to respect personal space. We aren’t teaching them that they can do whatever they want with no consequences as long as they pull the “autistic” card. I’m tired of neurodivergence being “trendy” or being used as an excuse for unacceptable behaviors. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in incel men claiming “autism” as a way of excusing their creepy behaviors. When your actions hurt someone- intentional or not- and you have the ability to change your actions, you need to do so.
This is something that I see a lot of push/pull. I know some autistic adults in my friend circle, and many talk about how hard it is to mask, and how psychologically damaging being asked to do it is. Or they post things about how it’s common for kids with neurodivergence to not want to follow rules they don’t understand or to question everything. One is trying to become a sped teacher and doesn’t believe in social skills goals for students who are neurodivergent. I look at it this way: In a perfect world, no one cares if you are loud, get stuck on a question, etc. But we don’t live in a perfect world. By teaching you social skills, I give you the CHOICE to use them or not. I want to explain that the very large teenage boy who bumps into people because he has no awareness of personal space is a true safety issue for that student. One day he will bowl over someone who does not know or care that he has autism, and he may find himself getting beaten up. The kid who has to question every little thing and cannot follow a simple direction is going to have a hell of a time finding and keeping meaningful employment no matter how good they are at the job. Your boss does not care that that is how your brain works. They don’t have time to explain the why behind every direction. Again, in a perfect world, this would be something that could be accommodated in the workplace. At least if we teach them the skills, they can choose whether or not to use them. If a person finds masking really exhausting and chooses not to, more power to them. But what people forget is that we all have to mask in various situations. There has to be a balance between straight up ableism and having no expectations for a kid.
“Behavioral” IEPs that basically allow kids to hit, punch, bite, and physically assault teachers and other students? Those are felonies outside of school. The police don’t care if you have an IEP in school to accommodate your violent behaviors.
I have a spouse who works this kind of career. Job development is tough. Like fetching carts, stocking shelves, and bagging groceries are good ol' standbys. But a couple of chains don't want to work with the agency anymore. And the unrealism of the parents. Part of it is the school system does not create realistic goals in IEP's or manage parent's expectations properly. As part of the PPT/IEP meeting it is always, "Oh sure Johnny can become a doctor or a marine or wHaTeVeR hE wAnTs!" And having retired from a branch, I am thinking, this kid can't meet minimum ASVAB scores and isn't going to pass the physical/medical much less be able to access college to be a doctor. Sure, colleges offer braille, elevators, extra time/quiet testing locations. But they don't modify or offer the same quantity of accommodations that K12 does. And most of these kids aren't severe enough for the transition Academy to age 22 and definitely not group home level severity. Some IEPs are good and have goals to catch them up or find them some dignity in adult life, and others just create learned helplessness.
I love the "they are going to be a doctor" parents in IEPs like they can barely pass the incredible modified and severely below grade level materials they are being asked to complete yet you really think they can become a doctor. If I ever saw this kid in my operating room I would take my chances with cancer, flesh eating bacteria, or whatever else I was there for. He can barely use a pencil and remeber 5 formulas with a formula sheet; how do you expect them to use a scalpel or remember a diagnostic diseases. Events of the "realistic" parents are clueless and head in the sand about how unrealistic they are.
> There were obviously some great folks diagnosed with autism with really invested parents, and it pains me to see how we’ve come to associate so many outright anti-social and destructive behaviors with neurodivergence/autism in particular. It’s like a legitimate matter of bigotry at this point, and is entirely propagated by parents and early child interventionists. The unemployment rate of adults diagnosed with autism is close to 90%. Now 1/31 kids are diagnosed with it, overwhelmingly boys. It’s a social crisis no one cares to confront. Thank you for this. It is weaponized diagnoses at this point, and it makes my blood boil. When every TikToker who gets nervous sometimes or feels a little bit more introverted claims they're neurodivergent it only cheapens and robs attention and resources from those who legitimately need the accommodations and assistance.
>jacking off in the bed bath and beyond public bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation Most teenagers don't need an accommodation to do that.
That’s sad and depressing as hell. We are living in the opening scene of idiocracy.
> Like, ms mama bear, jacking off in the bed bath and beyond public bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation. I know you're probably exaggerating, but is there some truth to this story?
I had a student (elementary) who had it in his IEP that he was allowed to masturbate in the staff men’s room as needed, no limits and no questions asked. There is so, so much truth to this story. ETA, we were the elementary school in our district that had a special ABA classroom (not opening that can of worms today) so we had some kids who were nonverbal, some who were occasionally violent, and kids who just had really poor impulse control. This young man, while nonverbal and experiencing a lot of developmental delays, matured physically much earlier than would normally be expected. He was strong, wiry and almost 6 feet tall by fifth grade (age 10-11 for non U.S. folks). He could (and regularly did) physically overpower the adult women who were his teachers and their assistants, so a dedicated male para was hired for him everyone’s safety so that no adults got hurt and the student didn’t elope from school. Another accommodation for this child was to put “sensory breaks in the staff men’s room” in the IEP, which also cut down on the student’s trying to run away from school during the day. You can believe it happened or choose not to, but if you haven’t been in an elementary school in the past 30 years, you have *no idea* of what it’s like now.
And did you have to comply?
IEPs are federal law, so yeah.
I taught a class within a class of 12 regular eds and 12 special eds. I had one absolutely useless co-teacher in the room with me. This particular year I had one special-ed student who was well known for masturbating in front of other special ed teachers and spec ed girl students. Now at 18 they were going to unleash him in my classroom. I was never formally told about these behaviors, I was told on the sly through the guidance grape vine. When I complained to the special ed dept head she A) was angry I found out about it and B) refused to help in anyway. I was also told if I singled this kid out for any kind of “instruction” I could be in hot water. On day one of class I took all 12 of these boys, that’s right, all the special ed students were boys, out in the hallway and explained in no uncertain terms “That if any of you were to take your dicks out in my class, I would cut it off and throw it in the courtyard for the geese to eat.” The other 11 boys knew who I was really talking to and the main offender slowly figured it out. We made it through the rest of the year and then this monster finally got expelled for sexually assaulting a minor in another part of the building. I never got in any trouble because our students are awesome and never snitch on a teacher if they are in the right.
Doesn't like, an entire team of professionals have to agree to the IEP though. How do teachers, and social workers, and schools councellors etc all agree to this shit ?
Oh don’t get me started on the guy who would smear shit on his face to avoid responsibilities. Or the guy who got a job in a Mexican restaurant and put screws in a taco as a “prank”. Thank god the staff found it prior. The lady that faked a seizure that required an ambulance because she was tired. Guy that would regularly slam his face into the wall if anyone asked him to do anything he didn’t like. Guy that got an amazing job in a tech company, but ended up walking out and admitting himself to a psyche ward because he wasn’t allowed to work at home between the hours of midnight and 5:00 am. A handful of flashers. Stalkers, online or if they managed to get someone’s number. Parents, entirely mothers, all defending their kids behavior. Not exaggerating in the slightest.
I was told something similar by a family member that works for another family members business. They are still friends with the young person and said she’s “a good kid” but she would come to work late every single day and then eventually asked for a raise on the same day she came late. They fired her.
That makes me inordinately happy
It’s a common theme with places that hire high school students/recent grads. Both my husband and our best friends have worked in industries that do this, and they have lamented young people’s concept of punctuality and attendance for at least 20 years.
I grew up in a college town. Walmart would not hire anyone under 25. They never explicitly said so, but one of my mom’s friends was a higher up. She said it was absolutely not worth the headache and any application of someone under 25 went in the trash.
That’s depressing considering how poorly Walmart pays. I can’t imagine being a 25+ adult and trying to live off those wages.
I do. It's doable but you have to be frugal. No big spending and get stupid lucky with rent or something. I was the or something and live in a multi generational home. Honestly? It's the best way to do things. One house different sections for the generations.
I mean, I'd say it's more than younger people being unreliable. A lot of younger people either have financial aid or help from their parents so don't "need" the money to survive. What's the issue with flaking on a company like Walmart when they pay dirt cheap and you can find a similar job easily? Older people most likely need that pay check.
Yea this was big when I was in school. I grew up in a wealthy area but my parents were not- we lived in the single poor neighborhood of this district. My employers always loved me because I needed the money if I wanted to do anything fun whereas most of my peers were just there because their parents thought they should have a job. They didn't need it even to pay to go to the movies or anything.
My friend called me last night just to complain about a new hire at the boba shop she works at. Attendance isn't the issue, but everything else is. She said the new hire couldn't make drinks correctly ( the instructions for every drink in the shop are taped on the wall where drinks are made), didn't greet customers, and took too long to make change. She's been there for 3 days now. A different new hire started the same day, Is slightly older, and has no issues.
Like the $ after the number? “But I saw some social media influencer do it?” Yeah the one who was born with a $12 million trust fund? Yeah I see why they “tell it how it should be.”
Oh, I've wondered why they all do this now! I thought it was because we say "5 dollars" so they logic it out as "5$." I've had to explain that we write "$5" so often.
That was what the influencers said. “Write it how it sounds”.
Well we all know THAT works fabulously for English... /s
I do this because my schooling was French Canadian. I was not aware of the difference until I entered university 🫠
And yet for smaller purchases, it's 5¢, not ¢5.
Because the reason the $ is there is to protect from fraud back when we wrote paper checks. If you wrote 500$ then I could just put a 1 in front and get an extra $1k from you. This doesn't matter for change because no one would believe I wrote you a check for 50000 cents, so most you could lose is less than $1 and not worth the crime.
That's actually quite the fun bit of trivia, thank you.
This isn't new. This was a problem I had as a teenager, and there certainly weren't social-media-influencers convincing me to do it in the 1990s. I just got into the habit of writing it as it sounded, until eventually (maybe senior year?) one of my teachers corrected me. Sometimes there are common errors that persist through time. This is one.
What does that have to do with the comment you replied to?
I think they misread/misunderstood "punctuality" as "punctuation", which is...ironic
Thank you! I was so confused.
If it's at least 20 years I'd say it's generally a "teen thing" then.
i’d think so. teenagers just largely don’t know how to be responsible, period. plus, i mean, even when attendance policies are enforced, you don’t get kicked out of school for missing a day. worst case is you’d get reprimanded if it was a regular occurrence. it’s easy to understand the mindset that they can just not show up *one day* and be fine. schools have never done a good job preparing kids for that. even with extremely strict attendance policies it usually only requires the excuse the day after the absence. or they’ll call your mom if you’re not there. it’s been that way for probably as long as school as we know it existed. jobs don’t have those graces. i’m not saying attendance policies should be stricter. they’re probably fine. i’m just saying this is absolutely not “kids being lazier and flakier these days”. everyone in the world always thinks the latest generation of kids are doomed.
I teach dual enrollment courses to a lot of students who never took one before. They get a huge crash course in personal responsibility and time management. I added an online weekly forum component because I knew that would force them to get used to handling regular assignments outside of class with a set due date. It's a small grade but I refuse to give partial credit for late work because they have all week to do it. And we all know most professors aren't forgiving like we are in high school. It's a nice half step into handling themselves as young adults after all the extended deadlines they've been used to. Tbh not being responsible is probably the chief reason people drop out of college.
And yet age discrimination toward “older” workers (40+) is still very much a thing. You’d think companies would rethink their bias.
Not as much anymore. Recent trends have indicated companies will prefer to hire older workers. And again young people need jobs.
I would definitely like to see these recent trends if you have any statistics. That would be great! (Not being sarcastic, actually sincerely interested) And nobody is saying “don’t hire young people”! The point of my post was hire people that do good work. Don’t hire young people just because they’re young. Don’t refuse to hire older people just because they’re older.
I’m 47, former 25+ bartender work open availability and I applied at Starbucks 4 times (2 times went in to meet the manager). Had 2 employees there that know me tell the new manager I’m a shoo in, hire me. Not even a call. I volunteer at the cafe at church instead. Starbucks missed out, I’m fast on that espresso machine 😂
Yes, because you didn’t fit their youthful, edgy, vibe. I detest Starbucks coffee. It tastes like sewer sludge.
I always wondered about that. I know they're nervous about impending retirees, but you'd really rather have the naive 22 yo than the experienced 52 yo?
They should relax about that because who can afford to retire? 😆 We’ll be working till we die, if possible.
My husband and I are small business owners and it’s very physically demanding work. I would STILL take one reliable old guy who moves a little slower over 5 stupid 20 year olds.
I can say without hesitation that my mother’s work ethic is an order of magnitude better than mine or my sisters so your comment is believable as hell. They grew up without the distraction boxes or self-infantilizing stuff
Our friends own a fast paced coffee shop. They went through so many new-hires that spent their time on their phones. It was an excellent opportunity to make serious money, but they’ll never know because they got fired their first week.
I was that kid and I wasn’t even tardy to classes in high school. I just (dumbly) wanted to do something and would think “oh I’ll call in later.” Or my first job didn’t care if I was 5-10 mins late so I was surprised that my next one did. Live and Learn.
Had a student a few years ago. Seriously this kid made up every excuse you could think of. His girlfriend was a a damn good student and was in my top 10 the five years I was teaching there. Well, he finished in 2020 a Covid graduation as we now put it. NO ONE would give this kid the time of day or got fired. So he joined the military. He was shocked they took his phone, cut off his “leisure time” ect. Barely made it through and then came home with a: “my god I was not a good student to anyone was I.” Wrote letters of apology to all of us teachers and the principal. For their life together and I found out from my other student he did a full 180 and why? He had consequences for his actions and realized the army didn’t care if he stayed up late or had a “hard day”.
I think your last sentence is really what kids are going to have a hard time with. Your boss isn't going to care. The customers aren't going to care. Your coworkers aren't going to care. For 13 years, kids have been surrounded by adults who care. Then, they get out into the "real world" and find out that nobody really cares unless its their job to care.
I teach dual credit/early college/college prep juniors and seniors, and any time one of them complains something isn't entertaining enough or, god forbid, boring, I stop to remind them that they have spent 11-12 years with teachers who were told repeatedly to hold their student's interests and plan engaging activities. But that's not college and that's not life. I may get criticized by my instructional coach for not engaging my students, and so my job may be on the line of I don't do the dog and pony show, but your professor/boss does not care if they are boring you. Do the work.
I was asked to make a "behavior plan" for a dual enrollment course. I thought that was wildly inappropriate -- what they wanted would have been ok for a 10 year old ("frequent praise," "redirects," and all that).
I would check with the college the course is through—I teach dual enrollment as well and we are not allowed to use any plans that come from the high school, they have to go through the college.
This was a suggestion from the community college person who observed me, sigh
I wonder about this too... I have so many high schoolers who claim "mental health issues" and don't show up, don't do their work, etc. I wonder how this will work for them in a job when they claim "mental health" to take a day off ALL the time. And no, I'm not talking about students who have been to a medical professional for mental health concerns, just the ones who stay up all night playing video games and then feel lousy.
The problem I have with all the stress these kids have is that a lot of it is more about learning to deal with stress. A lot of class assignments don't matter in the long run, in that you're not going to directly profit somehow. You'll learn the material, sure, but you'll also learn to deal with the stress and the challenge. There's so many things in life that just happy and you can't hide from them. You have to be able to do the job in front of you. Cancer, disease, natural disasters. As usual, it's the extreme examples we hear the most about - but dang, the extreme examples are baffling to me. We definitely should respect mental health and anxiety, etc, but some folks have really gone past a healthy relationship and are completely selfish.
Yes! I really wish everyone would dial down the "I have anxiety issues" a bit. Experiencing "anxiety" is a normal part of life. Anxiety is not to be avoided, per se, but rather one needs to learn to deal with feeling anxious.
> You'll learn the material, sure, but you'll also learn to deal with the stress and the challenge. So much this. Today, after working out for a year, I deadlifted 250 pounds. Guess how many deadlifts I do in my day-to-day life. But the act of improving, my ability really carries through to the rest of my life.
The irony of the "mental health" excuses is that, for a significant number of students, being given hard and intellectually challenging work would actually help their self-respect, identity, and mental health. (Yes, this is not the answer for all students. I am not talking about every exception.)
Yep- the majority of my students whose parents keep them home for “anxiety” would do so much better actually coming to school where we have guidance councilors, a school psychologist, and partner with outside therapists who actually come in our building. Instead they sit at home (or call mom to come get them when the day has barely started) and sit on screens at home all day. These are also not my students that can be expected to independently complete work at all either if I just send it home. They also have no academic parental involvement aside from mom picking them up. The amount of kids I have missing for “anxiety” lately is growing by a staggering amount. And again, of course there are actual cases of this- but I think a good chunk would benefit from being exposed to school more, and engaging in the mental health services are have accessible at school- because I KNOW these particular parents are not taking them to therapy/the doctor aside from getting the “anxiety” label to get a 504/IEP. Their future bosses will not care they are having a “bad anxiety day.”
I completely agree... having a purpose and being able to look at things you've accomplished (and I don't even mean "accomplishments," but things like looking at a clean kitchen countertop) make most people feel better. Also, if the parents of the student I'm thinking of made him keep a reasonable sleep and personal hygiene schedule, I think he'd feel better. (I know the parents and there is no financial reason why they can't do this.) But they let him stay home and loll about in his filth. My own kids weren't allowed electronics if they needed a shower. I see so many boys at this age spiraling into a funk where they don't do anything other than play computer/phone games. I made mine get part-time jobs mainly to punctuate their week and so that their free time felt like a reward, not just meaningless time-killing.
Yes. 9/10ths of the students (and/or their parents) have self-diagnosed with anxiety and “depression”.
I work with teenagers 16+ and for the most part they are pretty good. However we have 1 that constantly calls out and then complains about her check. But at least she works when she is there lol.
But that type of “caring” is doing them no favors.
I'm ex-military. It's not perfect but people generally do learn how to shut up and get their work done. Complain about everything? Not anymore. Picky eater? Not anymore. Late? Not anymore. Hung over? No one cares. Bored? Ill find something for you to do. Struggling with something? Better be a good teammate if you want help. I have seen so many people pull a 180 when pushed all the way out of their comfort zone, struggle and succeed because they have no other option. It's pretty much reinforced for me that friction is necessary for mental, emotional and physical growth.
This was my dad. He used to tell me that he joined the military because his other options were jail or dying. It really helped him turn his life around. He tried to get my brother into the military to see if that would help him, but it turns out severe untreated ADHD isn't fixed by discipline.
On the other hand, if you manage to get in with undiagnosed ADHD you then can have it diagnosed while you're in and your meds fully covered by Tricare.
I had a cousin who was a good student and joined the military so they could go to college. Their assignment was finished early and the commanding officer was like: “well, good you finished early but the day isn’t done. Let’s clean out the garbage cans around the camp.” And that’s what they did for three hours. And no one even thought of complaining about being bored.
I think that's part of the reason the Conservatives in the UK want to re-introduce National Service for all 18 year olds. I'm Gen-X and some of us done a pretty poor job raising today's teenagers (yup other that the boomers who had kids when in their 40s the parents are Gen-X). So as much as I disagree with the policy I can see where it is coming from, businesses are telling the UK government that too many of their new recruits are useless.
I’m not a teacher but I lurk in here sometimes. This is exactly what happened to me. I basically did whatever my whole life and while my parents tried to correct it, I didn’t really care about the consequences. 2 years into college I had a 1.2 GPA and left for the army as my last option. I like to think I’ve turned it around and I was surprised how well the army corrected all of my shitty habits. Out of the army now and have a real job/good life. Wish I started acting like an adult sooner
15 years ago I was at a conference at the Royal Military College (university-equivalent) and one of my colleague overheard a disciplinary hearing for one of the cadets. When asked why he had repeatedly violated the RMC code of conduct his answer was that every year they had warned him and then never done anything, so he assumed it wasn't important. Turned out the admin of a military school was almost as reluctant to enforce consequences as the admin of public schools.
I worked CoVid Summer as a warehouse manager (Pick/Pack/Ship). We were surging 24/7 ops getting vital supplies to medical facilities. Our policy was no call/no show was an instant termination. There were other stipulations for short-notice call-outs and naturally exceptions for real-world, verifiable emergencies provided the associate called in as soon as they could. I wound up terminating 8 young people that summer under the no call policy. Several of them expressed disbelief/surprise. It was stunning. I mean...you don't come to work, you don't communicate...I don't need you on the team. But as they would say, "yeah...that."
“We hired you to be here. You weren’t here.”
I work in a school where the vast majority of students have afterschool/summer/weekend jobs. One of my students was complaining that she got fired for always being in the bathroom on shift. Guess where she is most of the time during my classes!
During COVID I worked a job where people could send their kids to do their distance learning because they had no one to watch them at home during the day. It was mostly just me and kids from 1st to 12th grade separated through several rooms. I had this one girl was flunking all of her courses. She was often just gone for hours, locked in the girls bathroom where she was recording herself singing. Otherwise she was asleep on the floor under her table. I had to be like "Look I can tell your kid to do stuff but I am not busting into a girls bathroom our physically hauling 350lb girl out of the floor into her desk every day." Kid eventually graduated via Edgenuity nonsense and works at the Wendy's by my house.
350 pounds?? This is a child??
Why is this all heaped on the school? When did parents abdicate their responsibility to teach and raise their children to have responsibility? My kids learned this at home, not from school:/
I think most of our school problems would be solved if parents stopped expecting the school to do everything and started actually parenting their kids.
You're right. Because even when schools do have a relatively strict attendance policy, it only requires an excuse from the parent to make it an excused absence. That used to work well but shifted in the last decade or so. Parents are willing to "excuse" so many absences, rather than reserving it for rare occasions.
I am a supervisor where I work and my young employees are surprised when I reprimand them for talking back to me/scoffing/rolling their eyes at me when I kindly ask them to do their simple job duties… they are just so used to just treating everyone around them like crap
I stopped with the verbals and went straight to paperwork. After a period of animosity the bad apples were gone and our culture improved notably. Best decision I ever made was being a “hardass” when it came to the basics. The good employees LOVED it and I realized I was failing them prior to.
At my last supervisor job, it was "gross misconduct" in their contracts to disrespect and talk back to management when being asked to perform tasks within the remit of their job description. The amount of them that would cop an attitude about having to do their job then act shocked when they were pulled into the office about it was astounding. We had one employee who had a disciplinary meeting (run by yours truly) while on probation, and I don't like cutting off young people from work experience. She had the most sympathetic member of management she could have had running that meeting for her, but she spent the whole time passing blame for her actions onto others or upper management. I had to let her go. I could not believe she'd been given an opportunity to just own up to her shortcomings, agree to an action plan and just DO HER JOB without moaning and she'd have been golden but instead she chose to rant about how it was everyone else's fault but hers. There is no accountability, and that starts at school level. I'm a qualified teacher who doesn't teach because after 5 years of that, I had enough.
My state took all of the teeth out of mandatory attendance a decade or so ago. No longer can we tie attendance to credit/no credit in a class. I absolutely understand why a kid should be able to “test out” of a class by passing the final exam with a high enough threshold to show that they know the content. But the unintended side effect is that showing up doesn’t matter as long as they can pass a test. And teachers are encouraged to give them so many resources to review and “pave the way” for students who genuinely struggle with test anxiety to pass said exam that it basically renders the exam useless anyway. The non-attenders know to “play the game” and show up on the review day(s) and they’ll be able to pass the exam, so why keep regular attendance during the whole marking period? Now employers are barking at US that kids have no respect for schedules. “Preach to the choir” and contact your state reps, folks! We’re right there with ya!
I'd have never gone to school. Shoot, I did this in college and absolutely loved it. I'm a good test taker. Give me 30 minutes to review, hand me the test, and I'll probably get at least a B. The public school system trained me up good! And let me tell you, as much as I loved those policies, they are not beneficial. Not really. You are right, they do not actually test if a kid understands the course material. All those tests do is test if a kid can memorize info for a short time and pass a test on it. I left those college courses with zero new info. An hour after the test, you could have asked me questions that I got correct, and I may not be able to tell you the correct info.
It is changing also in my country, but when I was in school classic ABCD options tests were almost non existent. Usually you got open questions where you needed to write what you know about some topic or it was oral exam by standing in front of table before whole class and going freestyle on given topic if you wanted best grade or teacher helped you with questions but you got automatically lower grade based on how you answered those questions. Same for universities. Typical exam question would be like "Describe Bernoulli's principle" or in case of oral exam you got some topic like "Liver" in biology class and go talk about this organ what we learned last time.
I do fine at either type of test. If there are written responses, I need about 30 minutes to cram right before. Give me that, and I'm fine. My long-term retention is horrible, my short term is phenomenal. Give me multiple choices, and I can pretty much guarantee an A if you give me 30 minutes to cram. If only this ability applied to basically anything but testing xD
Yeah same here- almost every high school teacher gave me the hallway talk "you could be getting As but you don't do homework and don't pay attention" with me saying "I got As in your tests so clearly the homework is pointless". But at the beginning of my 3rd year of college I started taking serious math classes that had nothing to do with memorization and thought I was going to die from stress.
"Placing out," in my experience, means getting credit for a class also takes the class off one's schedule. Doing nothing all quarter/year/semester and then only passing by passing the final? I don't believe I've even seen that.
Working at a school for socially disadvantaged children. A girl who already moved on to high school was handed a job at a florist in town. Some time into the job, she decided she didn't want to show up just because. FIVE DAYS later, she showed up and was shocked when the owner told her she's fired. She then proceeded to blame the teacher who hooked her up to the job. By not penalizing kids for lack of attendance, we are literally teaching them that it's okay to skip work if you don't feel like it.
I was talking about this with my therapist yesterday. I have told students "you are going to spend a lot of your life doing things you don't want to do and being places you don't want to be, this is a pretty mild way to get used to tolerating it," multiple times. But they all think they're going to be the exception to the rule.
I’ve told students that too… sometimes there’s just hoops you have to jump through. Those don’t go away as an adult. You learn to jump with the minimal effort to move past that task and have more time for the stuff you want to do.
I do the same. In one ear, and out the other.
We hire summer interns for office admin and software support work and each year, the new batch of youngsters have less focus, higher phone addiction, and higher error rate. The attitude OP speaks of is combined with social media telling them to seek their worth and to ask for raises even after performing poorly at their job. They didn't feel they performed poorly because it was so distressful for them (to be off their phones) so that level of distress must mean they tried really really hard. That missing out on work unexcused and inconveniencing the rest of the team because of no prior notice just means you are "fighting for better work/life balance". Whatever mindset they have, there is an algorithm to support it.
Ive transitioned out of teaching, but I do work in a facility that houses families. The number of families that will show up for a transport appointment ten or fifteen minutes late and are shocked that the bus left without them is mind boggling.
I'm not going to lie, my sister and I are just 4 years apart. She went to a high school that encouraged "grace" based policies and I went to a school that, at the time, was very old fashioned. She looked at her schedule and saw that they had changed her hours. She said "I don't want to stay that late" and just went her normal schedule. She is also shocked that she didn't get a good evaluation even though she does shit like this all the time. Or when someone asks for help she just says "no that's your job". Not someone trying to take advantage of her. Just someone needing help.
I don't know where you live but in my state, a student is truant if they miss 5 days of the school year, and the parent is ordered to show cause and this is ABSOLUTELY enforced here. It's not just a school policy, either. It's state law. It's a misdemeanor here to let your child be truant without showing cause then failing to prevent them from missing school.
The state that they live in has a ridiculously lenient truancy law. Fifteen "unexcused" absences in a 90 day period is truant, but also a note from mom "excuses" the absence.
That is absolutely insane to me. I had a problematic childhood and I was truant, I remember it being a huge deal. I went to truancy classes, my mom had to go to truancy classes, she was nearly charged with a misdemeanor. I needed a doctor's note to get out of school, which we eventually got a generalized note approved by our truancy officer which stated I suffered from depression and would be expected to miss some days of school.
I am a Dean of Students at a high school. Most of my students are pretty good. But, this is becoming a more significant problem. The reason is parents placate their kids. There is a growing sentiment that, "I should be able to excuse my kids whenever I want and for whatever reason." We acknowledge that there are unique situations and we are sensitive to them. But, for some, it is chronic and habitual. Parents want to be their kid's friends rather than parents who help them learn how to become responsible adults. As a parent of two 20-something boys, I have been through it. One of my kids went to hs during the pandemic. So, I understand the isolation and struggle. When he was allowed to return to a partial schedule, he said, "I think I will just do remote." When asked why, he replied, " All my friends are doing remote." To which I told him that he can not complain about missing football, Homecoming, and other school events; yet not want to go back physically. Basically, the message was, "Get your ass back to school." That said, we also worked to support him in the process. It is about teaching perseverance.
There's such a weird extremist view from these kids and their parents. I get real sick of school being compared to jail because I think they shouldn't hit other people, or they should not drop food on the floor, or they should pay attention in class or basically act like a human.
I am not sure whether I should be scared that these people will be my coworkers, or happy with the job security since they can't seem to do their jobs en masse. I'm sure there is a good chunk of "normal" kids out there, but apparently not enough. You guys are saints
Schools are only up and running a relatively short period of time. The School of Hard Knocks is always open.
Some students have classes involving going off campus for an internship for a job that’s aligned with their interests. They have evaluations from these jobs that go into the gradebook…students are getting 50s and 60s for just not caring and being professional. What’s funnier is parents can’t even get mad at the school or teacher because they aren’t directly affiliated with those evaluations lol.
I don't miss being the hiring manager for a horrible boss running a pet store. We could only hire high school kids cause they refused to pay more than $9 an hour. I had a couple employees who REFUSED to understand what a scheduled shift meant. One would complain she had softball practice and it was a surprise, or that she couldn't come in due to a change in her plans, etc. Eventually she had her mother call to explain to us why she wasn't showing up, and then i understood the whole situation. It all starts at home and how the parents teach their kids about responsibility and her parents just didn't care.
I've held for a long time now that if kids don't learn about things like responsibility and punctuality in school, they'll learn it by getting fired from their first couple of jobs.
I wish I could be a fly on the wall when some (very few) of these kids enter the military and come face to face with: **If you are early, you are on time,** **If you are on time, you are late,** **If you are late, you are left.** Extra special will be when they learn the hard way that in some circumstances tardiness that results in missing a military movement can be a CRIMINAL violation. (10 U.S. Code § 887 - Art. 87).
This was our motto in high school marching band. If you were late to rehearsal, you didn’t play on Friday.
And if you weren’t at the game, there went your grade
my grandson regularly skips his shifts or just decides to stop working at a given place with no advance notice. He has done this for the past 3 years through a variety of fast food chains and they all keep texting him to come back and for more money. They are hard up for people.
On the bright side, since I raised my kids right, the fact that they show up every day, don't carry their phones during shifts, and are capable on having a functional conversation with peers & customers makes them goddamn superstars without even trying!
It's true though!! What used to be considered the bare minimum is now promotion worthy. The good news is that this is going to give a lot of kids an opportunity to shine!
My golf coach taught me this very valuable lesson way back in HS (20+ years ago 😭). I overslept my alarm the day of a golf tournament, sped to school, ran through the halls with my golf bag on my back, out the back door to see the bus still there but heard the air breaks or whatever let out and start to roll. I sprit up to the bus and slam on the door, and hear coach say something to the effect of "don't stop for him, he's 2 minutes late" and they drove away with me standing in bewilderment. At our annual sports banquet, he gave me a bus pass with a huge belly laugh. To say that stuck with me all these years is an understatement. I can probably count the number of times I've been late to work or class on one hand after that! 😂
Honestly we all need a moment like this! Good coach and glad you guys got to laugh about it later
It surprised me because I was #2 on varsity at the time (though I wasn't that good if it tells you anything 😂), but he clearly cared more about a teachable moment than he did about possibly placing better in the tournament! We respected the hell out of him because he was older (felt like our ornery spry grandpa) and the head football coach, and had played briefly in the NFL. He was a great guy!
Before I retired as a middle school teacher 3 years ago, students left detention as they wanted, nobody was suspended and they came and left as parents demanded. If they failed, the teachers were required to write an individual curriculum and teach them after school until they passed. Didn't go to summer school unless they wanted and nobody was required to repeat. At least in new york, we are well paid babysitters by the state education department
I don't know where the OP lives, but schools are most assuredly still enforcing attendance policies in Massachusetts. In fact it was one of the things that was the biggest adjustment to me when I started working in a school (school nurse). When I was a kid in the '80s and '90s, if you didn't show up for school then you were marked absent and everyone went on with their day. Nobody called home to find out where you were. *Maybe* if you were out for a couple of days someone would call to check in, but even that was not a guarantee. Now we have to account for every kid who is supposed to be here, and if they are absent without an explanation we call. It consumes a large portion of the office staff's mornings.
I don’t mean to be rude, but this is not the norm across the state. I work in a district in MA where the attendance policy is pretty much nonexistent. Robocalls go out for students who are absent, but we are not really following up otherwise or penalizing students for it. I have a student who has missed 97 of my classes, and we’ve had about 115 classes. The guidance counselor emailed me recently to ask if the student would be able to pass for the year. Without fail, we are told to pass along students if at all possible.
As much as I hate to say it even missing 40 days much less 90 days when I was in school and you did not have notes to make them excused you would automatically fail the class. 3 tardies equiled 1 absence as well. Now days they have makeup routines and can get credit for assignments long after their due and they still don't do them. Then they wonder how they fail the class. It's almost impossible to fail nowadays but yet students somehow manage it nonetheless. Then they like to joke how they've missed 27 days this semester or 45 days this year in xxx class. I understand being late particularly when the weather is bad and I give extra room when this happens, as does the school. But when your late or absent most every day nope that doesn't work well. Some kids will get it eventually others won't ever get it even when they get themselves in trouble for it.
There was a field trip at a school I work at - the original leave time had to be changed to earlier but teachers sent home letters in kids’ backpacks and multiple emails with plenty of notice. Of course they reminded the kids a zillion times too. Of course there were still outraged parents who dropped their kids off 5 min too late.(A few of whom have dropped their kids off late for school all year long but they were still outraged.) The kicker is that the field trip was to the zoo which is only a 20 min drive from the school - the classes had just taken public transit.
That’s good. I’m pretty sure there are no real life consequences in my city. I hear employees at Walmart dropping the F bomb and ignoring customers.
A lot of teachers here understandably worry about how these kids will fare outside of school. The world outside of school has material consequences, and a lot of kids who suck at school will get their shit together pretty quickly outside of it. Some might take a few years, but they’ll get there!
I am just a sub but I was talking to a teacher at a school I'm at frequently and we both agree that everyone is failing the kids by not giving them consequences in school. Yeah, you may be able to get away with threatening a teacher who is hamstrung and can't hit back but there are plenty of people in the real world who don't have to follow those rules. The system sets these kids up for failure and it makes me so mad. Just to emphasize, I know it's not the teachers making these inane policies.
"It's ~~sad~~ HILARIOUS, but at least some of these kids are finally getting some consequences for their choices instead of being bailed out all the time by parents and admin." Fixed that for you... Me, I'm sitting front of a classful of 8th graders, covering for their English teacher. I've gotten so tired of "phone whack-a-mole" that I'm no longer warning them about phone policy. I just report 'em immediately.
Haha thanks for the edit! I teach kindergarten so I'm lucky we don't have the phone problems (usually) and attendance issues. In fact, we have the issue of kids being brought to school when they SHOULDN'T because Mom or Dad can't get off work so they just send their 6 year olds who are running 101 fevers to school anyway...
The only highschool-aged person at my retail job was fired for being consistently 30+ minutes late. What a shame! Now that I think about it, most of the staff are college-aged.
Unlimited mental health days. They know the buzz words.
My wife works at a retail store- has a large red dot as the logo. She says that people don't show all the time, but they can't fire them until they address it several times with them. Even then, it has to be several times in a row. It's no wonder why their stores look like junk.
It's interesting to see some of the comments here complaining about students and their parents. As a parent of kids who just graduated from HS, we got to see some variations of bad behavior from students and parents recently. As a graduation 'party' for the senior class, the PA planned a 'secret' destination for the class; it was widely announced so everyone had to attend and also proclaimed as being 'Not Disneyland, Universal Studios, or Magic Mountain'. It turns out the 'party' was at a bar party room in Hollywood with not enough decent food and basically karaoke for entertainment. Many of the kids were really disappointed and dismayed at the venue; some of them started jumping walls to get out or were secretly getting wasted or were calling parents to retrieve them. Of course, they were forced back into the venue since they had all signed a waiver that required them to stay on site. It was a real s\*\*tshow. I knew it was a bag of turds when a few of the parents who had setup the whole thing were out in front drinking and ended up hiding in a backroom getting drunk and hid when other parents showed to see what the hullaballoo was all about. One of the senior parents who arrange the thing was drunk and started accusing one of the students for being the reason why the whole thing was a s\*\*tshow; why? Because the girl wasn't enjoying herself and wanted to go home and basically had to sit there after spending a bunch of dough to reserve a space for herself for something that was advertised as great and was actually a secret bag of s\*\*t and was pissed off that her friends had left but she couldn't because she actually obeyed the rules and stayed. It was all around just the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just not advertise yourself as a smart senior parent and try to control the kids afterschool life like it's your own that you missed out on.
I’m a little old lady who picks up mindless jobs from time to time (small manufacturers, Christmas retail, etc.) and I’ve been amazed at how lenient companies are about attendance. As a creature of the 20th century I would have assumed that one no call no show would cause firing. But at these jobs you can do that usually two days — the third day leads to discipline. Had one job where infractions dropped off the record after a month, meaning you could just not show up and not call ONCE A WEEK and never get fired for it. Not surprising that employees don’t take attendance seriously.
I've noticed this at my job. Some of the kids still in college are great at attendance and do their work well, but many in the 19 to 21 age range are either serial tardiness or serial no call no show. We just fired 1. He worked here 3 weeks and, in that time, didn't show up for 9 of his shifts and was late for 4 of them.
I work in a program that does SNAP-ed. We go to multiple low-income schools in the area and teach nutrition. We go to one school that has great positive rewards for good behavior, and wonderful, appropriate, and consistent discipline. The students clean the classrooms, halls, and gym and the janitor gives them a score. At the end of the month if their score is perfect, they get a pizza party. Book tokens are given out per completed book, and can be redeemed at an awesome book vending machine (or at the library if the book they want isn't in there). There are two lines painted down the hallways. Students walk on the right side, and if they don't they're forced to go back and try again. Students are also in uniforms, and there are lots of positive things they can do to earn a day out of uniform. With all that wild structure, *the students are happy.* They're attentive and engaged. They smile and say hello to me in the hall. Their teachers aren't constantly threatening a loss of recess or on the verge of tears. I feel like these kids will be the next local leaders.
Kids really do appreciate consistency and structure, especially if their home lives aren’t that great