Am I a jerk?

[SpiderTear]

Posted this in Oy!IT and realized it should probably be in here.

OK so I have this really good friend who is more like family to me than anything. She had been a single mom for about five years and did the best she could with what she had. Her son, who is fifteen, has several learning disabilities. If I did not know she is such a "puritan", I would think he suffers from FAS or FASE. He is slow to pick up an things, is easilly lead by his peers and is mentally more like twelve or thirteen.

Blah blah blah...... so anywho yesterday he felt he deserved a day off from school and decided not to go. Having so much fun not going to school, he also figured he did not need to come home until a half hour after his curfew. His mom and step dad did the standard grounded for a month, no computer, no phone and no cable in his room. All that was fine and dandy, but I thought he needed a bit more to persuade him that going to school was in his best interests.

I grew up with what you would call strict parents (especially nowadays) so I took a page out of their book (although they never had to do this to me). I went to their house at 5:30 this morning, got him up made him breakfast and drove him to school. At the school I took him to the office to check in and see if he needed to serve detention and to check his attendance records. After that we went an introduced ourselves to his guidence couselor so if things became too much for him he knew who he could go talk to while at school. Then we went to home room and I left.

I told him that if he ever skipped school again that I would not only walk him to home room, but i would spend all day at school with him.

So am I just being a jerk? Am I over reacting? It was his first time so should I just let it go and let him work on it? Should I never have children?

[bear]

While I understand your friend is more like family to you did the parents know that you stepped in and did this? As a parent, if I had a friend that took it upon him/her to do something like this with my kid without my knowing I would be furious. While the way your friend addressed the issue may not have been acceptable or severe enough to you, unless she sought your advice I’d see this as overstepping some serious boundaries.

That said if the parents knew ahead of time what your plan was and welcomed your advice and support I don’t think your actions with the kid were jerky. Spending all day at school may be a bit excessive for a second offense given that you would be walking him to the office and home room and that should alert the school that you have concerns regarding the child’s attendance. I’d be more apt to give the school the opportunity to do their job which should include notifying the parents when the child is absent all day or part of the day.

[SpiderTear]

Oh no she absolutely knew what I was doing. She goes into work at 4am and her husband at 6am so neither were available to do this. The school never alerted her to his absence. She happens to know someone who works in the office and they called her unofficially.

[bear]

Then I would have her communicate to the office that she expects to be notified whenever he is absent all day or part of the day. They should be doing this anyway.