Can fines and jail time scare adults into being better parents?Getty Images
Nearly every mom and dad approaches parent-teacher meetings with a certain amount of dread. (After all, few of us get the "dessert bar" suggested as an incentive by one teacher on the National Education Association website in the United States.)
But a Michigan prosecutor has proposed that parents who skip the sessions face serious detention. Under Kym Worthy's proposal, parents would be required to attend at least one teacher meeting a year - or face three days in jail.
"We have to find any means necessary to get parents involved," Ms. Worth reportedly told Detroit city council, adding that there is a link between absentee parents and adolescent crime. "We have to start talking prevention. Some children don't have a chance the day they are born." (Parents with high-performing students would be exempt from the law.)
Other school districts have tried adult penalties to punish parents into better behaviour, with varying results. In Leicester, England, parents get fines when their kids miss school without permission from the headmaster - even if it's for a mini-holiday. According to reports, in the last school year 599 parents got the 50 pound ($80) fine. The number of "persistence absences" in primary school also dropped by about 22 per cent, and the number of high-school students skipping class fell 18 per cent.
Less effective was a similar program (also in Britain) that fines parents when their children act badly and sends them off to parenting courses. According to a recent government report, parents received some form of punishment under the program nearly 78,000 times in the 2007-2008 school years, including fines and voluntary agreements to keep their kids under control. But many schools were reluctant to hand out the fines, for fear of damaging their relationship with parents.
What do you think? Jail-time and fines: Is that what it takes to keep parents on the ball these days?
Erin Anderssen