A student, let's call him "John", hasn't been coming to school at all. And, when he does, it's at about 11:45am. There are two ways that this can be handled. One way is that we can think his mom is neglectful, assume she doesn't care about school and is a terrible parent. We could say that there's nothing we can do and just BCD about the situation. But the other way, the JW way, is to provide some support and love to the family. (Now, don't get me wrong, some families don't want our help and some are neglectful and don't care about school; but it's not up to us to assume which families are which.) Everyone deserves the JW way. Here's what happened this week when love was an intervention.
A phone call was made to John's mom at about 11:45am to find out where he was. In a stern but loving way some questions were asked of mom like, "What's going on? I'm worried! How can we help?" And, in that moment mom was ready to accept help. She happened to be in the car at the time on the way to school with John. Mom and John were invited into school so we could figure out what was going on. We all knew mom was struggling, she just got out of a shelter in August, she'd escaped domestic violence and addiction. John had experienced all of these things right along with her. When they got to the office we started talking and uncovered that Mom works nights while aunt stays over night so John isn't alone. John is not falling asleep at night and is trying to stay up and get on his phone, play video games and watch tv. Mom is at her wit's end, his aunt is at her wit's end, John is exhausted and it seems as if the family is spiraling out of control. So, with love being an intervention we listened to mom and came up with a plan. The plan is simple-John goes into his room at bedtime and does not get to come back out, mom will wake him up at 8am for school. We explained to John that it is going to be hard for a few days until he gets into a routine which leads me to my favorite part of the plan. We made a "quiet box" for John. We filled it with things like putty, fidgets, a sticker book and the BEST PART is that on the top of the box it says "GET OUT OF BED, WE NEED YOU HERE!" and then all of his teachers signed it. AND GUESS WHAT?!?!? John has been to school on time and well rested for the past two days! Mom is happy, he is happy and love truly is an intervention.
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