My Oldest Daughter is Trying to Kill Me…

Dani has been having trouble in school with her schoolwork, turning it in on time and stuff. I knew this already and am trying to help her with it. Well, on Wednesday she decided to miss school and not tell us. She did this a week before and I thought I handled the problem then but I was so wrong. On Wednesday, Will came home from his 1st job to change his clothes and get ready to go to his 2nd job. He went into our room to change when he noticed the house phone and a voicemail notification light on. He looked at the caller ID and noticed that the school had called at 10:15 stating that Dani didn’t go to school. He started yelling out for her and no answer. He went into her room and she was not there, so he called me to ask I knew anything about it, and of course I didn’t. He called the school and they verified that she did not make it in at all. So he went to her school and talked to the Principal to see if he can give him any advice. The Principal looked up Dani’s grades and attendance. Turns out that if she misses one more day she will be place on “Truancy” and she is failing a couple of key classes and that if she does not pass the 3rd quarter then she’ll have to repeat the 7th grade again. She has the choice to do summer school if it comes to that. The Principal then wanted to know if we knew any of the older daughters friends names, but I couldn’t think of anyone but one kid. Dani is supposed to be home around 3:15 or 5:30 if she goes to homework club. As I got home from work we heard Dani in the back yard talking. I called Will, who was still talking to the Principal and said that she had just arrived. He got home, and I had to stop him outside first to get him to tell me what the principal said. I’m glad I did that because it gave him an opportunity to calm down. He was so mad.
We went into the house, and called for Dani and told her to sit down, and asked her to write down all her friends’ names. She asked why and Will told her that he would tell her at the end of our conversation. So she started writing her friends name on a piece of paper. We then asked her where she had been and not to lie to us because we know where she has not been. She looked down and said she stayed home, because she missed the bus. I then asked her why she didn’t calls us to let us know, she said she didn’t want us to know because then we would be mad at her. I told her that its worse when you lie about it and even more worse when you hide it, especially when you erase if off of the caller ID so we don’t know if the school calls or not. We asked her where she went and she said nowhere she stayed at home all day. We asked her how many times she has ditched school and she answered at least 4 times. She said she sets an alarm clock 15 minutes before Will comes home from work and slips out thought the backdoor, jumps over the fence and waits till the school bus comes home and then walks back to the house like nothing happens. When she stays home she doesn’t clean or do anything because she doesn’t want us to know she was there. Will told her what the Principal told him about her grades and attendance and that she can’t trick us because we know everything. Its better to tell us early of the problem then us finding out later.

I can’t believe her. My heart is broken. I feel so betrayed. And stupid. She said she ditches because she misses the bus and then sometimes she doesn’t want to go to school because her friends fight with eachother and they always try to bring her in the middle of it. She also hates the way she looks and thinks she is fat. *sigh*

Will told her that he is not going to punish her, that would be my job to do. *thanks Will* But he said that he will give the list of friends to the Principal and have him call all of her friends parents and tell them that their kids might be ditching with her and that they might be failing because of the bad influence she is on their children. She started crying like we stabbed her, and said to leave her friends alone and they had nothing to do with her ditching. Of course, we know that the principal won’t do that… it’s not allowed. But she doesn’t know that. We told her we don’t trust her so we can’t believe anything she said. We told her that she brought this on herself and maybe this is the only way she will learn her lesson. Will told her the only way he will not tell the Principal to call the parents is if she starts bringing her grades up and stops ditching. She has 2 weeks to bring her grades up if not the deal is off. So we will see what happens. We told her the only reason we are doing this is for her. We love her and want her to grow into a responsible, mature woman so she can be whatever she wants to be when she gets older. I hope she understands.

Tiffany