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The Forum > Article Comments > Parents should not be held responsible > Comments

Parents should not be held responsible : Comments

By Spencer Gear, published 22/9/2008

Parents should not be responsible or suffer a financial penalty for their child wagging school.

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People on welfare are not necessarily “battlers”; many of them are ‘bludgers’ who have never taken responsibility for their kids, themselves, or anything else in their idle lives.

They are encouraged in their idleness and ‘right’ not to take responsibility by do-gooders, and this author is actually telling them that they are not responsible by writing this article. The dysfunctional families he counsels must really love him.

“These battlers are the very people that Centrelink is encouraging to re-enter the work force”, claims the author. Come on! There are actions available to Centrelink to get these people off their backsides, but they are never taken, thanks to gutless politicians and public servants who are frightened of getting a punch in the nose if they try to enforce the measures. The people who get jobs are the genuine ones who go out and get work for themselves.

Mr. Gear’s friends and clients are so good at ‘battling’ to stay out or the workforce – and succeeding – that we see the country further overloaded by immigration just to get people who will work.

Taking away the responsibility of these parents to get their children to school every day is just another opportunity for the family to continue their line of unemployment.

In whinge No.4, Mr. Gear blames legislation for the financial plight of welfare recipients who perpetuate dole-bludging by not seeing that their kids attend school, but who cannot afford to have their handouts docked by the government. This old one cannot be taken seriously. Some people can live on the smell of an oily rag; others make a mess of their finances no matter how much money they receive. And, many people living on the smell of an oily rag are out everyday earning not much more, if anything, than the people on welfare.

Whinge No.5, reasons for not going to school, follows the general ‘victim’ trend of this article which is being encouraged.

Parents should be responsible, and pay if they are not, for school attendance.
Posted by Mr. Right, Monday, 22 September 2008 10:41:01 AM
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Fancy Julia adopting Mr Howard's policy. Besides saying sorry and signing Kyoto (both symbols with no substance) the Labour party has not come up with an original thought. I think it is hilarious.

The school waggers are more fruit of secular humanism. The breakdown of the family, removal of authority from the parents and the godlike status given to kids has left them rebellious, disrespectful and insecure.

A lot could of been avoided with a little loving discipline at home. Unfortunately many of them have not got dads (or at best a step dad) at home. Counseling will have as much affect as it does with prisoners (very little).
Posted by runner, Monday, 22 September 2008 11:37:25 AM
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The whole problem of truanting could be solved immediately if school attendance were not compulsory. The assumption behind the new legislation is that school is a blessing that children must be forced to enjoy, like it or not. That compulsion should be resorted to suggests that for a significant fraction of the school population, school is not regarded by either children or parents as an important commitment. If we dodge for the moment trying to make any absolute judgment about the benefits of schooling even the unwilling, it is a fact that having unwilling children forced to attend classes makes it ten times more difficult to teach any children in that class. Folk wisdom has something to say about dragging horses to water - you can do it, but you can't make the horse drink! Teachers should not allow themselves to become virtual guards in a prison school-house. Teachers should be offering classes that children find irresistibly enlightening.

Some of the factors that make the Chinese schools in the USA so successful in graduating highly motivated, success oriented students could be usefully emulated. See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092108dnmetchineseschools.1a39281.html

The descriptors include :
Student ages: Pre-kindergarten to high school

Entrance requirements: None. Students are assessed to determine proper placement in terms of class difficulty.

Faculty: Teachers are certified ............

Tuition: $100 to $500 a semester for each semester-long course.

Curriculum: SAT preparation, math, English language, Chinese language.

Classes are offered a la carte, and none are required.
Posted by veritas, Monday, 22 September 2008 12:52:30 PM
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The attitude of parents to school attendance starts in primary school, and if they let their children stay away for no good reason, or to take them fishing or to go on a two week holiday mid-term, the children quickly cotton on to the fact that school attendance is not important. Although parents are legally obliged to present their children at school, in practice some don't. If parents know there is a financial penalty for non-attendance, they may think twice about absenting their children from school in the early years and starting the cycle of wagging. And if teenagers know their behaviour is hurting the family they might think twice before playing hookey.

A few years ago there was a case in the UK where a teenage girl point blank refused to attend school. After trying all sorts of things to encourage her to attend, the authorities finally exercised their power to jail her mother for not getting her to school, which seemed an appalling thing to do, as Mum said she was keen for her to be at school too. But guess which little princess promptly backed down from her 'No-one can make me do something I don't feel like doing' attitude and trotted off to class? Perhaps the shock of financial sanctions is the circuit breaker needed to break a habit of truancy.
Posted by Candide, Monday, 22 September 2008 1:09:49 PM
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Candide
You may be right that this was effective in changing the girl’s mind, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right. Morally blackmailing children by threatening to harm their parents if the kids misbehave is repugnant, in my book.

Even if this form of coercion was acceptable, you haven’t addressed the equity issue the article raises – why only threaten parents on welfare, who arguably would have more difficulties getting their kids to school than stable middle class families?
Posted by Rhian, Monday, 22 September 2008 2:40:48 PM
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All the federal government is doing is playing the blame game when it is plainly unwilling to allocate resources for school counsellors. Students who encounter problems in education will always 'fall through the gaps' unless their parents have deep pockets and can afford private long term counselling, personal coaching and other support. Both public and private schools are not much different in that respect.

None of this should come as a surprise to parents because neither side of politics was ever willing to allocate resources for enough classroom teachers let alone remedial teachers and counsellors.

The federal government has done the full round now, blaming States, teachers and now the children themselves of course. Maybe it is time for voters to look at what Canberra actually produces, because it does seem to be about all care and no responsibility. There is a lot of money tied up in a federal bureaucracy that could not deliver education to one student even if it chose to do so. What about cutting those huge management overheads Ms Gillard and putting the money into teachers and counsellors?
Posted by Cornflower, Monday, 22 September 2008 3:28:00 PM
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