Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #919 A Slice of Advice on Chucking a Sickie

Transcript

#919 A Slice of Advice on Chucking a Sickie · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: Now, the first big week of school for so many
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: kids around the country is coming to a close. Today
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: is the last day of week one for a whole
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: lot of states, Week two for a bunch of other states.
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  Speaker 1: And if your kids are anything.
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  Speaker 3: Like ours, there is every chance, every chance that they're
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: kind of ready for a day off. They'd like another
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: long weekend, please and thank you.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I might be sharing too much, but we were
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: three days in, yeah, when one of our children may
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: have just asked for a sickie, and since we only
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: have one child at school.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: No finger's been polluted at that kid at all, and
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  Speaker 1: she took the day off. She actually took the day
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  Speaker 1: off three well.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: She only did two days and she needed a day
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: off already. We dealt with it, and we're going to
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: talk to you about how to deal with it when
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: the kids just say I don't want to go to school. Now,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: we're not talking about school refusal. A school refusal also
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: known as school can't, also known as emotion based or
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: emotion focused school avoidance is that's a topic for another
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: day right now, it's just when your kids are like, yeah,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I don't want to go to school. I'm just not
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: feeling it. I'd really like to have a day off. Now,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: that can turn into school refusal or emotion based school avoidance,
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: but that's not where we're going today. I have a
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: question for you before we dive into the meat of
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: our conversation today. When you were in primary school or
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: high school, were you one of those kids that were
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: asking for days off.
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  Speaker 2: We moved to Australia in my last two years of
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: primary school and from then on I probably asked for
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a lot more days What did your parents say.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we're going back to the nineteen eighties, right,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighties, Mum, can I have the day off? I
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: don't feel like going to school. What was the typical
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  Speaker 3: response from a nineteen eighties mum.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, just you've got to go to school. It's just expected.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I didn't ask for days off in primary school.
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  Speaker 1: I loved primary school.
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  Speaker 3: But something happened in high school to me and it
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  Speaker 3: was probably the worst thing that could have happened to
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  Speaker 3: me educationally. Don't really no, Well, actually I've got a
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: whole lot of rewriting history things but we don't need
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  Speaker 3: to go there. It suffice to say I hated, hated,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: hated going to school, but I never bothered asking if
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I could have the day off. Because mom and dad
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: were paying for a private school. It was very expensive,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: especially back in those days.
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  Speaker 2: Like so you just wagged instead.
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  Speaker 1: Well, once I got old enough to get away with wagging,
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  Speaker 1: yeah I did. But until then I just went to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: school and copted it because that's what I had to do.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Anyway, we need to talk about what to do when
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: your kids want a day off, because being at school matters.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Over the years, I've attended lots and lots of information
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  Speaker 2: nights for.
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  Speaker 1: Parents, parent teaching nights. Yeah, and the.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Amount of times I've heard a teacher sprout of facts
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: like for every fiftay minutes your kid misses school every day,
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  Speaker 2: they're missing you know, three weeks of school work or yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you know kind of. I can't remember all the details specifically,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: but the constant bombardment of a need to attend school
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  Speaker 2: and be there on time and don't miss the minute
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: or else your kids missing out.
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  Speaker 1: I certainly don't miss a day.
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  Speaker 2: So is there actually a correlation between our kids having
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a day of school every now and again, or missing
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  Speaker 2: fifteen minutes of the beginning of a class, or is
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: there actually research that tells us whether or not our
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: kids are going to be better off or worse off?
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  Speaker 3: There is, but we're talking about on average. Okay, so
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  Speaker 3: the word average really matters. That means that there are
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: some kids who are unaffected, some kids who are massively affected,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: and there's a bunch of kids in the middle who
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  Speaker 3: are probably somewhat affected some of the time, depending on
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  Speaker 3: the circumstances.
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  Speaker 2: First, I'm like a scientist, I know what, that's what
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  Speaker 2: I do.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So first off, let's.
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  Speaker 2: Be really maybe more absolutely a politician.
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  Speaker 3: No, Now, I want to give you some really really
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: clear stuff, right, I don't think I just don't buy.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, yes, if you calculate a kid being late
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  Speaker 3: to school every day by fifteen minutes at the end
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  Speaker 3: of the year, maybe they have missed three accumulative total
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  Speaker 3: of three weeks of school, but honestly missing roll call,
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  Speaker 3: it's not going to change their world. It's not going
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  Speaker 3: to rock their academic life. We might want to do
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: something about punctuality and our home if that's happening, but
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  Speaker 3: I don't think that we're going to find the same
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  Speaker 3: relationship that missing lots of days or lots of classes
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: is going to lead to. So here's what the academic
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: research shows. First off, on average, we see from an
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: academic achievement standpoint, regular school attendance is unsurprisingly correlated with
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: higher academic success. If you're not there, you can't do
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  Speaker 3: as well. Now, of course, there are some kids that
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: do just fine because they're in really supportive homes and
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: they've got lots of resources, and they do take time
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: off and they still manage to get through just fine.
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  Speaker 3: But there are plenty of kids that don't come from
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: those kinds of homes, and when they take time off,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: it doesn't work out well for them. This is why
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: schools don't want families taking big holidays in the middle
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: of school term, because every day counts from that point
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  Speaker 3: of view.
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  Speaker 1: The reality is quite often.
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  Speaker 3: Many of the families that are doing that can probably
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  Speaker 3: help their kids to stay up to date or catch
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  Speaker 3: up when they get home, but.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bad look. The other thing that goes on
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  Speaker 1: here is.
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  Speaker 3: It potentially it teaches the kids some stuff that's not
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  Speaker 3: really great for them. It's important for to understand consistency,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: but I think The big thing is that it makes
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  Speaker 3: life much harder for teachers who have to continually repeat
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  Speaker 3: teaching content to students who have missed out.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It sounds a bit like parenting, So that's.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: The really big challenge. But I mean chronic absenteeism. Prolonged
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: periods of school absence is associated with correlated to a
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: negative impact on kids' educational attainment, leads to learning gaps,
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  Speaker 3: leads to decreased proficiency, and corese subjects leads to lower
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: chances of graduating from high school, which does affect life outcomes.
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  Speaker 3: Probably also worth highlighting, really briefly, there is also a
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: relationship between attending school and social and emotional outcomes. Now,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: I want to be really careful here, because we're talking again.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: On average.
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  Speaker 3: The reality is school is not awesome for every child
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  Speaker 3: from a social point of view, and therefore from an
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  Speaker 3: emotional point of view, some kids have really big challenges.
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  Speaker 3: But on average, what we do see is that regular
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: interaction with peers at school and regular interaction with teachers
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: in the classroom is great for social skills and for
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: emotional intelligence, for a sense of belonging, and kids who
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: miss school consistently often experience a whole lot of isolation,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: and they struggle with forming relationships, and they can face
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: challenges in developing essential life skills around being social. And
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  Speaker 3: let's face it, quite often school is a place of
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  Speaker 3: safety for a lot of kids. That's where they go
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: so that they can get the social and emotional support
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  Speaker 3: that they're not getting out of school. We've got two
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: of our kids homeschooling, and what we're starting to see
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: is that this is a bit of a challenge. Our
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: kids are well adjusted and they can do well socially,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: but they don't have the same level of frequent interactions
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  Speaker 3: with others. So while they're not struggling from a social
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: skills point of view, there is a bit of a
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  Speaker 3: loneliness thing. It's different for them. And the last thing
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  Speaker 3: that I would say is that we know that completing
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: education is often associated with better educational and employment prospects,
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  Speaker 3: higher earning potential, improved quality of life life overall. So
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: does missing a day matter? I mean, the education departments
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  Speaker 3: would say every day counts. I agree with them in
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: principle on average, but I think that I think that
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  Speaker 3: it's probably overstating it, it's probably overemphasizing it doesn't pass.
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  Speaker 1: The sniff test for every family and every child.
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  Speaker 3: And that's probably why people sort of, I guess, become
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: a little bit cynical and skeptical when we try to
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: blanket the entire population with one rule. I guess for
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: our podcast, if we were to share a slice of
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: advice on what to do when the kids are asking
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  Speaker 3: for a day off, I would say, what's the best
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: way forward? And all week we've been trying to get
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: it down to one slice of advice. Today we're down
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: to three. Couldn't quite get one.
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  Speaker 2: So six four three, we're down to three.
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  Speaker 3: So your favorite one. And we've done this for years
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  Speaker 3: with our kids at your instigation. Took you a while
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: to convince me that it was right, but I love
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  Speaker 3: it now. I think you should talk about your one first.
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  Speaker 2: So one of the things that I instigated with our
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: kids because we were having a lot of sicky.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Days, unexpected, random, annoying sickies.
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  Speaker 2: Was scheduling a mental health day. So they knew that
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  Speaker 2: there was one day a term. It wasn't scheduled in
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  Speaker 2: it was. They could pull the mental health card day
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  Speaker 2: out at any point during term, but it was one day,
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  Speaker 2: and so whenever they would ask for a sickie. I
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  Speaker 2: would say to them, is this your mental health day?
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  Speaker 2: And they'd look at me and go, Okay, I think.
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  Speaker 3: I wanted on another day school today.
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  Speaker 2: And so it really made them think about whether or
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: not they felt that this was really needful or if
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  Speaker 2: this was just I'm just having a lazy day. And
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  Speaker 2: it made such a difference because we went from having
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: regular sicky days to an acknowledgment that there was one
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: day that they could save up for any point and
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: that was actually almost They didn't have to justify it.
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  Speaker 3: It's just day's the day, Today's my mental health day.
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  Speaker 2: And I also made the time to be available for
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: them on that day.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is a wonderful privilege if you can. Obviously
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: not everyone can do that. And if for some reason
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: this is happening a lot, they're asking for more mental
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: health days and then you can really do or if
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: for whatever reason you just cannot facilitate that, you can't
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: allow it. It just doesn't work for your lifestyle, your family,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: your commitments, your requirements, responsibilities. This is when we move
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: to what I think is the second slice of advice,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: and that is that we've just got to understand the
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: root causes. So if you kids pulling a sickie, getting
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: to the bottom of what's going on is absolutely vital.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: So if our kids are asking for the random day off,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: I think we can let it slide. You and I
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: have bad days every now and again, Yeah, we've got
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: a human don't feel like getting out of bed. I
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: just want to read our book because it's really good
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and we're up to the great exciting part.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I do have a little bit of reluctance around the
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: kids having their mental health day to finish your book,
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  Speaker 3: but this is the thing. If it's the only day
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: that they're having off this term and they're so committed
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: to do it, I guess that's the day and we've
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: let them have that facility. Something that I was just
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: reminded of while you were talking though, It was a
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: time when our third daughter, who's now finished high school,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: she was in about grade two or grade three, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: she didn't want to go to school one day, and
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: I spent some time with her trying to understand the
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: root causes. Couldn't really get very far, but understood that
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: she wouldn't go to school unless she had a new
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: school bag. I had to jump in the car and
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: go to the airport and fly to another city so
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: that I could help other people make their families happier,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: which meant that on the way out, I said, Kylie,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I just need you to talk with Ella and help
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: to understand why does she need any school bag before
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: she'll go to school. You sat down with her, You
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: really worked hard to understand those root causes, and ultimately
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: what she said to you after a long time of
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: trying to understand, was I don't want to go to
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: school until I have a new school bag because when
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: people come to school with new things, they get noticed,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: and I want to be popular.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I don't have any friends. Was actually what it's narrowed
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: down to. She didn't feel like she had any friends, and.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: A new school bag would help her get the attention
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: that would make her feel like she had friends and
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: that she was popular and that she was noticed and
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: that she madded and she belonged. Once we understood that,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: we didn't buy her a new school bag, Let's be clear,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: but we did have some important conversations.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: With her about friends and about what.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: We could do to support her. We spoke to the
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: teacher like it really changed everything. That one conversation because
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: we got to the root cause. To me, that's really
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: the very crux of what we're trying to do when
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: the kids want a day off, especially if they're doing
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: it more than once and it's not just a mental
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: health day kind of thing.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: So our third slice of advice actually beautifully expands on
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: that notion of getting to the root cause. The way
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: we do that is with your three e's, we explore
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: what's going on, what are the core issues that have
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: your child not wanting to be at school, and then
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: we explain.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, communicate a really clear rationale for what you're asking
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and why why it's.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Important, and then from there we find ways to empower
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: our kids. You know, with Ella in that story, she
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: didn't have a school bag, but we talked about the
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: kids that she actually wanted to be friends with. We
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: found names. I then went and spent time at school
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: with the teachers and explained what was going on this
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: little six year old. She'd been taking money from my
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: wallet because again she thought if she had money then
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: she could buy things for her friends, and buying things
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: would buy friends basically, and so being able to include
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the school in the process of helping her navigate friendships
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and then work out which were the children that she
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: actually got on really well with that we could then
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: invite into our home and build relationships. And in that
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: way I was able to help and empower her to
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: make better friendships that would then carry her through the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: school playground.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: The other thing that explorer explaining power does is it
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: helps you to identify if there is something deeper that
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: could lead to school if fusal, if it's becoming school refusal.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: This process helps you to discover that much much faster
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: because the kids feel seen, heard and value, they feel connected. Ultimately,
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: are well time sickie now and then, I think could
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: be a pretty small price to pay for overall well being,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: and if the kids want to have a day off
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: every now and again. From both an academic and an
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: emotional point of view, I don't think that we need
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: to be militant about this. If our lifestyle and our resources,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: if we have the capacity for it. Sending the kids
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: to school when they're really struggling doesn't usually benefit them
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: every now and again. It's fine, they get to school
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: and they're okay, But once a term, I don't.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Think it's a huge deal.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: I know that there's plenty of people in education that'll
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: be cranky at me for saying it, But I think
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: as parents we know our kids well enough. If you
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: think it's going to be to their detriment, just send
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: them along, but do it kindly, gently, compassionately, with understanding
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: it causes and ex explaining and empowering. If you think
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: you know what, they're good kids. They're working hard, they're
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: keeping up a day off now and then it's okay,
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: just not too often and hopefully not in week one.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I think the most important thing out of all of
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: this is, even if you choose to not keep your
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: kids at home, they need to feel heard and seen
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: and valued. Their opinion needs to matter. And so while
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: it might not get them a day of school, they
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: know that you've seen them, that you've heard them, and
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: that you understand what they're feeling. But there's a rationale
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and there's an explanation as to why today's not the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: day they're going to be at home.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: information about making your family happier, please visit us at
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: happyfamilies dot com dot a you and have a great
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: weekend