We've said to do skydiving first, it'll be my husband who takes her to do them, who I'm pretty sure he's content on keeping his feet on the ground! ... View more

My husband and I talked to her tonight and she has said that she would go to school "if they paid attention to her". I asked her for further detail and she said she wanted them to stop going so slow and to teach her something. She said sometimes she would answer a question at the start of the lesson, but everyone else hadn't known it so they spent the whole lesson on it, or when she asked further questions during time they weren't doing much or students were catching up, she got told the answers were too far ahead or she needed to understand the lesson's work first. She said she had approached all her teachers to get harder things instead and almost all of them dismissed her except for one (her biology teacher). He brought in his university textbook and let her pick chapters and do the chapter questions from that when she was bored, which she quite liked, but he stopped doing it in the following term because the head of science said she couldn't be allowed to do things ahead of the rest of the classroom. It was from then she started skipping class. I passed on the ESP idea to her and she is SO keen, she was super chatty about being torn between three of the courses which was refreshing to see after all the issues the past month! On that note, there apparently isn't any courses that are super aligned with what she wants to do, and she likes the idea of the calculus math courses, but wants to do the 701 course because it "sounds harder and more interesting" but she isn't going to be doing a maths degree for any of the careers she's interested in. Do you have any experience with those actual courses? My husband and I have also found some online navigation and outdoor education courses for her that we are going to ask the school if she can do at her or the teacher's discretion. Would you recommend looking into certificates or diplomas? Is there a diploma aligned with atmospherical and/or earth sciences (that's what she's said she's interested in)? My husband nor I finished the final year of high school, so we have no idea when it comes to higher education courses as our work put us through our qualifications. As I work shifts, my husband owns a business and we live way too far away from public transport, we couldn't bribe her regularly enough with university lectures to be fair, so we're just going to take her to them when we can. So we've offered if she goes to school, she gets to learn one "new extracurricular thing" and she's come back with a list of three things she wants to learn to do by herself: skydiving, fly a helicopter (very firmly not a plane, it must be a helicopter) and scuba diving. We didn't see that one coming but she's excited at least! Thank you so much for these suggestions, she's excited about them - hopefully it transfers over to understanding it means she has to go to high school classes now! ... View more

Is it okay to bribe her? Especially at this age? We have never bribed our kids to do anything before (we didn't have this problem with our older daughter), from behaving to doing chores, so she isn't personally familiar with it. I feel like if I tell her that if she goes to all her classes we can go to a university lecture, or she can go learn something new somewhere, then she might respond well. However, that leaves me questioning if I'm a) rewarding her for bad behaviour, b) she'll be clever about it and figure out some way to get the best of both worlds, and c) she's old enough to notice us slow down and stop being so reward-regimented. ... View more

We seem to be butting heads more than ever. I'm invested in her knowing attendance is important, but she has zero interest in going anymore. Over the holidays and weekends since holidays began, we've gone to a few museums and university lectures open to the public and she loves it, but refuses to participate in conversations about high school. I went to the school again after Mary RO's comment and the response was they have done everything they can already in giving her material for an extra two subjects, were only aware of external programs for struggling students, and that it is not possible to have her do grade twelve subjects without doing them in grade eleven. I can understand this, but it just seem like they have very little interest or care in the matter unless she's getting bad grades. I asked how she was going to get good grades if she's never at school, even to submit work. Apparently she had submitted assignments via email to her teachers, and did go to school for exam block periods, however going to classes was not on her agenda. We haven't received her grade results back yet. I might try again with the curriculum material, thank you. The organisations will also be something I'm keen to look into for her as I'm presuming I won't need the school backing us for that. She says something in science, particularly to do with land and environment and that she enjoys learning how the natural world works. Her current 6 subjects are geography, biology, chemistry, physics, english, math methods, and her school has given her the materials for specialist maths and engineering. Unfortunately her school does not provide the earth and environmental science course, which I think she'd be very excited to do. ... View more

Unfortunately, the problem is that it seems to be going in the opposite direction and now that she knows I know, it's becoming a matter of just refusing to go to school at all. ... View more

Hi, (and thank you so much!) She seems to talk freely with me about the situation, however I'm not entirely sure of anything considering how long she deceived the school and myself in that I was receiving their communications. I had a conversation with the principal and her year co-ordinator to try sort out what's gone wrong and how to encourage her back to school. They said attendance was of most importance and they needed me to get her back to school ASAP, but upon me asking for further programs or activities for her or to help make school more interesting or engaging for her, they said to not worry about anything because her grades are all good. I asked to speak with a school guidance officer and upon talking to me, again said I had nothing to worry about, despite me not being able to encourage my daughter to come with me. She has always been a very adventurous girl, we've always assumed she likes it because nature and outdoors helps calm her fast thoughts and keeps her stimulated mentally and physically. She does rock climbing and mountain biking, and will go surfing, camping and paddling with her friends on the weekends or after school. She also works as a lifeguard at a beach, so she's got a lot of experience with "risky" activities, and independence to choose what she'd like to try and she knows she's allowed to try new things. She said when she is skipping classes or school that she'll just go anywhere, usually by herself unless a friend is with her trying to encourage her to go back to class with them. She's said she's commonly at the local public library with her own laptop to "actually learn something", to local playgrounds or parks, to the local bouldering rock climbing gym (who I am hesitant to ask about why they didn't question a 15yo climbing during school time as I don't want to embarrass her at a place she loves to go), or the forest behind our house that has climbing and biking routes, and a lake. I have asked both her and some of her friends (mainly the older ones as I figured they'd be more observant/tend to have a big brother relationship with her), and they've all said everyone loves her, even moreso now that she's rarely there. She said she'd love to go back to school, but there's no point when she doesn't learn anything. She said she felt that she got no attention and gets scolded when she tries to find harder things to do in their textbooks or online on their laptops, and they dismiss her straight away when she asks for more work when she finishes before everyone else. That's why I suggested changing schools to her, but she firstly doesn't think it'll change anything, and secondly we are not in the catchment for any other public schools and so would have to send her to a private school, which she identifies as "too fancy". It is also likely she would have to go to boarding school if we sent her to a private school as the closest one is well over an hour's drive away. She said she didn't care about having to make new friends and social groups. ... View more