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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.

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Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 3: Now, the first big week of school for so many

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Speaker 3: kids around the country is coming to a close. Today

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Speaker 3: is the last day of week one for a whole

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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

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Speaker 3: kind of ready for a day off. They'd like another

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Speaker 3: long weekend, please and thank you.

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Speaker 2: Well, I might be sharing too much, but we were

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Speaker 2: three days in, yeah, when one of our children may

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Speaker 2: have just asked for a sickie, and since we only

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Speaker 2: have one child at school.

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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.

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Speaker 3: She only did two days and she needed a day

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Speaker 3: off already. We dealt with it, and we're going to

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Speaker 3: talk to you about how to deal with it when

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Speaker 3: the kids just say I don't want to go to school. Now,

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Speaker 3: we're not talking about school refusal. A school refusal also

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Speaker 3: known as school can't, also known as emotion based or

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Speaker 3: emotion focused school avoidance is that's a topic for another

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Speaker 3: day right now, it's just when your kids are like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to go to school. I'm just not

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Speaker 3: feeling it. I'd really like to have a day off. Now,

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Speaker 3: that can turn into school refusal or emotion based school avoidance,

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Speaker 3: but that's not where we're going today. I have a

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Speaker 3: question for you before we dive into the meat of

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Speaker 3: our conversation today. When you were in primary school or

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Speaker 3: high school, were you one of those kids that were

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Speaker 3: asking for days off.

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Speaker 2: We moved to Australia in my last two years of

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Speaker 2: primary school and from then on I probably asked for

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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,

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighties, Mum, can I have the day off? I

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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.

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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

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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,

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Speaker 3: hated going to school, but I never bothered asking if

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Speaker 3: I could have the day off. Because mom and dad

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Speaker 3: were paying for a private school. It was very expensive,

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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

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Speaker 1: school and copted it because that's what I had to do.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, we need to talk about what to do when

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Speaker 3: your kids want a day off, because being at school matters.

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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.

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Speaker 2: Amount of times I've heard a teacher sprout of facts

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 2: there actually research that tells us whether or not our

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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

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Speaker 3: some kids who are unaffected, some kids who are massively affected,

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: is going to lead to. So here's what the academic

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Speaker 3: research shows. First off, on average, we see from an

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Speaker 3: academic achievement standpoint, regular school attendance is unsurprisingly correlated with

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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

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Speaker 3: do just fine because they're in really supportive homes and

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Speaker 3: they've got lots of resources, and they do take time

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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

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Speaker 3: those kinds of homes, and when they take time off,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't work out well for them. This is why

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Speaker 3: schools don't want families taking big holidays in the middle

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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,

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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.

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Speaker 1: It sounds a bit like parenting, So that's.

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Speaker 3: The really big challenge. But I mean chronic absenteeism. Prolonged

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Speaker 3: periods of school absence is associated with correlated to a

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: relationship between attending school and social and emotional outcomes. Now,

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Speaker 3: I want to be really careful here, because we're talking again.

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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

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Speaker 3: interaction with peers at school and regular interaction with teachers

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Speaker 3: in the classroom is great for social skills and for

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Speaker 3: emotional intelligence, for a sense of belonging, and kids who

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Speaker 3: miss school consistently often experience a whole lot of isolation,

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Speaker 3: and they struggle with forming relationships, and they can face

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: of our kids homeschooling, and what we're starting to see

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Speaker 3: is that this is a bit of a challenge. Our

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Speaker 3: kids are well adjusted and they can do well socially,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: a little bit cynical and skeptical when we try to

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Speaker 3: blanket the entire population with one rule. I guess for

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Speaker 3: our podcast, if we were to share a slice of

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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

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Speaker 3: way forward? And all week we've been trying to get

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Speaker 3: it down to one slice of advice. Today we're down

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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

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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

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Speaker 2: kids because we were having a lot of sicky.

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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

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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

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Speaker 2: regular sicky days to an acknowledgment that there was one

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Speaker 2: day that they could save up for any point and

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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

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Speaker 2: them on that day.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, which is a wonderful privilege if you can. Obviously

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Speaker 3: not everyone can do that. And if for some reason

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Speaker 3: this is happening a lot, they're asking for more mental

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Speaker 3: health days and then you can really do or if

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Speaker 3: for whatever reason you just cannot facilitate that, you can't

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Speaker 3: allow it. It just doesn't work for your lifestyle, your family,

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Speaker 3: your commitments, your requirements, responsibilities. This is when we move

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Speaker 3: to what I think is the second slice of advice,

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Speaker 3: and that is that we've just got to understand the

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Speaker 3: root causes. So if you kids pulling a sickie, getting

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Speaker 3: to the bottom of what's going on is absolutely vital.

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Speaker 2: So if our kids are asking for the random day off,

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Speaker 2: I think we can let it slide. You and I

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Speaker 2: have bad days every now and again, Yeah, we've got

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Speaker 2: a human don't feel like getting out of bed. I

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Speaker 2: just want to read our book because it's really good

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Speaker 2: and we're up to the great exciting part.

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Speaker 3: I do have a little bit of reluctance around the

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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

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Speaker 3: that they're having off this term and they're so committed

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Speaker 3: to do it, I guess that's the day and we've

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Speaker 3: let them have that facility. Something that I was just

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Speaker 3: reminded of while you were talking though, It was a

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Speaker 3: time when our third daughter, who's now finished high school,

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Speaker 3: she was in about grade two or grade three, and

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Speaker 3: she didn't want to go to school one day, and

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Speaker 3: I spent some time with her trying to understand the

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Speaker 3: root causes. Couldn't really get very far, but understood that

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Speaker 3: she wouldn't go to school unless she had a new

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Speaker 3: school bag. I had to jump in the car and

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Speaker 3: go to the airport and fly to another city so

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Speaker 3: that I could help other people make their families happier,

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Speaker 3: which meant that on the way out, I said, Kylie,

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Speaker 3: I just need you to talk with Ella and help

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Speaker 3: to understand why does she need any school bag before

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Speaker 3: she'll go to school. You sat down with her, You

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Speaker 3: really worked hard to understand those root causes, and ultimately

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Speaker 3: what she said to you after a long time of

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Speaker 3: trying to understand, was I don't want to go to

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Speaker 3: school until I have a new school bag because when

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Speaker 3: people come to school with new things, they get noticed,

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Speaker 3: and I want to be popular.

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Speaker 2: I don't have any friends. Was actually what it's narrowed

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Speaker 2: down to. She didn't feel like she had any friends, and.

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Speaker 3: A new school bag would help her get the attention

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Speaker 3: that would make her feel like she had friends and

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Speaker 3: that she was popular and that she was noticed and

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Speaker 3: that she madded and she belonged. Once we understood that,

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Speaker 3: we didn't buy her a new school bag, Let's be clear,

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Speaker 3: but we did have some important conversations.

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Speaker 1: With her about friends and about what.

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Speaker 3: We could do to support her. We spoke to the

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Speaker 3: teacher like it really changed everything. That one conversation because

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Speaker 3: we got to the root cause. To me, that's really

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Speaker 3: the very crux of what we're trying to do when

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Speaker 3: the kids want a day off, especially if they're doing

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Speaker 3: it more than once and it's not just a mental

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Speaker 3: health day kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: So our third slice of advice actually beautifully expands on

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Speaker 2: that notion of getting to the root cause. The way

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Speaker 2: we do that is with your three e's, we explore

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Speaker 2: what's going on, what are the core issues that have

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Speaker 2: your child not wanting to be at school, and then

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Speaker 2: we explain.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, communicate a really clear rationale for what you're asking

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Speaker 3: and why why it's.

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Speaker 2: Important, and then from there we find ways to empower

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Speaker 2: our kids. You know, with Ella in that story, she

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Speaker 2: didn't have a school bag, but we talked about the

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Speaker 2: kids that she actually wanted to be friends with. We

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Speaker 2: found names. I then went and spent time at school

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Speaker 2: with the teachers and explained what was going on this

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Speaker 2: little six year old. She'd been taking money from my

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Speaker 2: wallet because again she thought if she had money then

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Speaker 2: she could buy things for her friends, and buying things

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Speaker 2: would buy friends basically, and so being able to include

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Speaker 2: the school in the process of helping her navigate friendships

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Speaker 2: and then work out which were the children that she

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Speaker 2: actually got on really well with that we could then

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Speaker 2: invite into our home and build relationships. And in that

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Speaker 2: way I was able to help and empower her to

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Speaker 2: make better friendships that would then carry her through the

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Speaker 2: school playground.

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Speaker 3: The other thing that explorer explaining power does is it

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Speaker 3: helps you to identify if there is something deeper that

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Speaker 3: could lead to school if fusal, if it's becoming school refusal.

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Speaker 3: This process helps you to discover that much much faster

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Speaker 3: because the kids feel seen, heard and value, they feel connected. Ultimately,

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Speaker 3: are well time sickie now and then, I think could

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Speaker 3: be a pretty small price to pay for overall well being,

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Speaker 3: and if the kids want to have a day off

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Speaker 3: every now and again. From both an academic and an

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Speaker 3: emotional point of view, I don't think that we need

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Speaker 3: to be militant about this. If our lifestyle and our resources,

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Speaker 3: if we have the capacity for it. Sending the kids

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Speaker 3: to school when they're really struggling doesn't usually benefit them

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Speaker 3: every now and again. It's fine, they get to school

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Speaker 3: and they're okay, But once a term, I don't.

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Speaker 1: Think it's a huge deal.

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Speaker 3: I know that there's plenty of people in education that'll

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Speaker 3: be cranky at me for saying it, But I think

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Speaker 3: as parents we know our kids well enough. If you

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Speaker 3: think it's going to be to their detriment, just send

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Speaker 3: them along, but do it kindly, gently, compassionately, with understanding

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Speaker 3: it causes and ex explaining and empowering. If you think

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Speaker 3: you know what, they're good kids. They're working hard, they're

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Speaker 3: keeping up a day off now and then it's okay,

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Speaker 3: just not too often and hopefully not in week one.

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Speaker 2: I think the most important thing out of all of

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Speaker 2: this is, even if you choose to not keep your

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Speaker 2: kids at home, they need to feel heard and seen

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Speaker 2: and valued. Their opinion needs to matter. And so while

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Speaker 2: it might not get them a day of school, they

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Speaker 2: know that you've seen them, that you've heard them, and

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Speaker 2: that you understand what they're feeling. But there's a rationale

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Speaker 2: and there's an explanation as to why today's not the

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Speaker 2: day they're going to be at home.

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Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from

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Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more

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Speaker 3: information about making your family happier, please visit us at

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Speaker 3: happyfamilies dot com dot a you and have a great

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Speaker 3: weekend