Good Point

After school today I saw one of my students in the office so I asked her why I hadn't seen her in a couple days. Her mom, standing next to her, introduced herself to me and then the conversation went like this:

Daughter: I was at home.
Me: Where you sick?
Daughter: No.
Mom: Go ahead. Tell him why you weren't at school.
Daughter: My dad said that I don't do anything at school anyway, so I might as well just stay home.
(Mom, who sees her daughter every other weekend, wasn't real happy about this.)
Me: Well, your dad makes a good point."

Mom was pretty disturbed by my response. However, I have to give her a lot of credit. She reacted very calmly and pleasantly as I continued to explain. (I did add that that would not have been my suggested solution, but I recognized his frustration.) It ended up being a very good conversation.

I've been in this business long enough that I'm not naive enough to think that my lecture is going to magically straighten this girl out. However, I've been doing this a short enough time I still think it might.