"Wells has drafted a bill that would suspend parents' driver's licenses if their students are chronically absent from school.
Wells has drafted a bill that would suspend parents' driver's licenses if their students are chronically absent from school."
How does this fit within the ABC's of behavior?
We actually talked about this article in my Criminal Justice class as well last week. I feel that it is not correct to punish parents for behaviors that their kids may be choosing to perform, like skipping school. If the parents does everything that they are suppose to be doing, making sure the kid gets on the bus, dropping the kid off at school, then they shouldn't be punished for what their kid does next. The parent did their responsibility of making sure the kid got on the school bus or watching their kid walk into the school once they dropped their kid off. However they don't really have control over their kid if once he/she gets off the school bus they walk in the opposite direction from the school or if the kid does walk into the school but then walks right back out the back door. I feel that the schools should also be making sure that these kids are staying their at school, because its not all the parents responsibility. Plus if the parents are going to get their license taken away, how are they going to provide for their kids or make sure they get to school? I just feel that punishing the parents is not the correct step to this problem.
I do not see that this is going to help much. Yes, the schools are suppose to call the parents when their child is not there but that does not always happen. What about the children who call in as their parents and skip school that way. It is not the parents fault. Look at it this way, a single working mother raising two kids and one skips school enough to get her lisence taken away. You now have just taken her transportion away from her which will not allow her to get to her job. I guess that the bigger picture is not being looked at, at least from where I am standing that is how I feel. Punishing the parents in truely not the correct way to get children to come to school. I think that the environment has to be fun and the teachers have to make school fun and exciting. If this happens I feel that more children will attend school which will allow for this to turn out pleasurable.
Good example with the single mother. I completely agree that parents shouldn't be punished. Most do their best, but no one can control someone else 100 percent of the time. What ever happened to a little bit of freedom... it seems like laws are getting more strict as the years go by, pretty soon we will no longer be a democracy.
I agree. It wouldn't make much sense to negatively punish her and take her license away because that prevents her from doing so many necessary things for her family.
I think they might get a better result using reinforcement rather than negative punishment. If the group the state should target is the parents (and I'm not entirely convinced that's true), then maybe they could offer some sort of state tax deduction through their kids' attendance. That way the state can reinforce the target behavior (making sure their kids are in school), and if the parents fail, it isn't catastrophic to their well being.
I don't think that this is a very logical way of doing things. It doesn't make sense to take away someone’s drivers license just because their child hasn’t gone to class. I think that if a student refuses to go to class then the school should charge extra fees to the child’s tuition that would make more sense than suspending a person’s license. Most people rely on their license and vehicle for work and everyday life so that would be damaging to everyone in the family. I also believe that reinforcement would help get parents to play a better role in their children’s school lives. Maybe schools could reward students and parents for perfect attendance.
I don't think punishing the parents for their child not going to school, there should be alternatives to punish the child, not just the parent, they should have steps to take to deal with the child and find out why they miss so much school and what can be done to help get them to keep attendance up where it should be, they should reward students for their attendance if it's a problem. There are probably many reasons why a child doesn't want to go to school, not just laziness and sometimes it might be a problem that the parent cannot handle on their own.
I agree with this. From a personal standpoint I saw kids skip school all the time because someone else called them in that wasn't their parent. In this case parents do not have much control over it and if they punish their child I believe the situation will only get more uncontrollable. Reinforcement is the way to go here.
Parents go through a lot of warnings by a truency officer before fines are put in place. The school tries to work with the parent any way they can to get the child in school. My father works in the school system at Waukon High School and he works with the truency officer of the county frequently going to parents houses and knocking on doors to get the child to school. Eventually something has to be done to the parent who is not cooperating with the school system to get the child to school. My dad is always talking about how some parent whose child is deliberately not attending school is called up and the parents starts screaming at him/shuts the door in his face because they are offended (being accused of being a bad parent). Now if losing their drivers license was at stake, that might be more of a reinforcer to get the child to school anyway they can. And I agree with what Nolton said. They should definitly be some sort of positive reinforcement for your child showing up to school on a regular basis, for both the child and the parent(s).
While the idea of reinforcers for going to school is a nice idea to get them to go, I don't see a kid who doesn't care to go to school caring about any type of reinforcer a school could offer. Off campus lunch, a plaque, free periods, etc. etc. would not mean much to them. Punishing the parent is ridiculous. If they want their kid to go to school, they should try and provide a reinforcement for the kid, if that would even work. If the kid skipping school is a adversive behavior that needs to be decreased, then punishment should be administered. I believe taking away a teenagers license would be the most unpleasurable experience for them. Perhaps they will just be defiant, like they are in not going to school, and just drive without a license. ;)
I don't know exactly how I feel about this. I do think that parents need to be held more responsible for their child's actions, but I think this may be going a little too far. There are ways of the child getting to school and then ditching and I don't think the parents should be punished for something that they have no control over.
I think that this sounds ridiculous. However I am usually optimistic. So looking at it from both angles, I guess I would have to say that it is going a little overboard. I know parents should be responsible for their children to a certain extent, but I personally know great parents who have children that are rebels. I don't think that the parents should be punished for something they couldn't control 100%. On the other hand, there are many parents that don't care what their children do and aren't even in their lives past the age of 12. As much as I would like parents like that to be punished to an extent, this law would apply to everyone, including those parents that try and fail.
There are both pros and cons to this law. The pro would be that the child and parent would be reinforced by the child going to school. The child would be reinforced because he/she would learn the material and thus causing them to suceed in school more so than a student who didn't attend. The parent would be reinforced because, well they wouldn't go to jail/be fined. The cons of this would be that if the parent were to get fined/sent to jail because their child missed too much school, the parent might not be able to pay the fine and if they get sent to jail then that's time away from the child. Understandably, the child should be attending classes and it is mostly up to the parent to make sure that the child does so, however it is a little ridiculous that there enforcing such strick laws.