People who are late for school every day or almost every day.

[MrsJAlfredPrufrock]

Why don't you just get up 15 mins earlier?

Not that you are Little Miss Perfect, or anything? I have done none of those things...

but dh will or has. He lost his job before Christmas so is available to take ds to school. Handy but not good overall for our household, or for the economy, or for our childminder etc. etc. etc.

Edam - Late is late. and if it's only five minutes, why not leave 5 or even 10 mins earlier? I can't believe you're defending the right to be late for school.

It does seem strange reading some of the responses on this thread about how defensive people get about their children being habitually late for school. This begs the question as to what example this is setting them as it will certainly not do them any good when they get to the harsh world of work.

I wonder how many of those who are routinely late are late for a plane, probably either not at all or once as the plane will not wait.

As for not being a morning person, never heard so much crap in my life! I am most definately not a morning person, but my OH got such a shock when we moved in together and saw me in action on a "school" day - straight up and out as that is what I learned as a kid.

6inch I know because they tell me. They think it is funny to be late.

I don't mean those that are occasionally late, that happens to everyone (although never us!). I mean the ones who are late every single day. It must be embarrasing to read the number of marked absences in their dcs school report at the end of term and to know that they could have done something to change that.

And get your children to floss in the evenings, the less they have to do in the mornings the better.

MrsJ - I don't know why you assume I'm always late, I'm not. Admittedly this is mostly because dh is doing all school drop offs at the moment. But still, I'm challenging the assumption that being late is a terrible crime and being on time makes you Little Miss Perfect and gives you the right to hoist your bosoms a la Les Dawson.

Edam - Being on time for school should be a given, for everyone. It's ridiculous that you think that makes me Little Miss Perfect.

No, I don't think being on time (or being late) makes anyone special, you are the one who is making a huge song and dance about it and insisting that anyone less perfect than you is damaging your children's education. IMO being early or late just means you are early or late, it's really not possible to deduce anything hugely significant from that bare fact.

I don't do late. My DC have been late for school on a handful of occasions (they are 17 and 13 now). Lateness has usually involved a family member being very unwell, a fall on the way to school and as they have got bigger transport problems. But the uniforms are on the cupboard doors the night before (as are my work clothes and always have been) all kit is ready the night before, etc.. I have always aimed for everyone to be ready 10 minutes before we need to leave so there is time for the emergency poo, etc.. Oh an lunches were always at least half made in advance.

Since DS was 8 have also had two school runs in opposite directions. Just organised and get palpitations if we are late. And I have never been looking for a shoe in the morning - always lined up the night before by the front door.

I think it depends. Our teacher is very understanding .

"RedHotPokers Wed 25-Jan-12 22:13:58
Not a morning person = a bit lazy, imo."

for real??

We are definitely and absolutely not morning people in this house - any of us. Left to our own devices, none of us would speak to anyone for about 2 hours after we surface (which is also when the DC would consider it to be breakfast time). Up and out in

I think being late is rude. I think not making an effort to be on time is rude.

Quite apart from the disruption, all that stress and rushing. And what message is it sending to your child? We are special/different? The rules don't apply to us? We don't bother with rules?

What are you going to do when they are late for a GCSE exam?

If you are late for a GCSE exam you don't get to take it. At least that was the rule at my school (albeit I am ancient and did O levels!).

Well children taking GCSE exams can get themselves to school - well I did anyway.
My 6yr old DD can't . She is reliant on me.

My neighbours across the street are late EVERY SINGLE DAY. I am frequently coming back to my home (often on foot ) as they are pulling out of their driveway in their car. It drives me irrationally barmy as I know that one of their DDs is in my daughter's class and disrupts everything and everyone as she wanders in (frequently without proper footwear/clothing/class materials). There is no excuse. It's just laziness. Or disorganized. Or BOTH.

When DD started school DH and I (we both have AS and shy away from social contact in general and are terrible with names) would always encounter a most lovely lady on our way back who seemed to be in no hurry to get her son there and nicknamed her, "that nice disorganised woman" Disorganised Woman had another DS in a pushchair until he was quite a large toddler / pre-schooler.

We didn't notice that to be honest and she would always stop and talk about various appointments saying, "oh what do they know? DS2 is just slow! You're just SLOW aren't you DS2?" as well as talking about how DS1 loved his books to the point of utter obsession so he couldn't be doing too badly at school and why were they always calling her in?

Years later when DH and I were lucky enough to have access to information which meant that our son was diagnosed with autism at 2.9, this same person had struggled for years with TWO much older boys born a year apart, both on the spectrum and with more difficulties than DS.

Every time I see her my face burns and I feel ashamed of the off-the-cuff nickname we once had for her Because she is fucking amazing.

Aside from those who have children with SN (where there may be perfectly reasonable reasons why they are frequently late), my own experience is that most habitually late people don't factor in enough "getting ready" or "just in case" time. Or they let their children run rings round them instead of ensuring they are ready to go out on time.

Ds has a friend like this. He lives very close to the school and walks there (so no traffic problems) and is an only child (so no unexpected sibling problems either) but was very frequently late for school. Until year 4, when he had a teacher who was very intolerant of children being habitually late. He is now much better at arriving on time. But his Mum is also very bad at timekeeping. She has given me a lift to things once or twice, and we have always arrived late (in fact once we were so late we had to give the event a miss altogether). It's because she doesn't factor in enough time. One time she suggested a time to pick us up to go somewhere which I knew would be cutting it fine to get there on time. Then she arrived at ours 5 minutes after the suggested time. Then there were roadworks........... If I had planned that journey, I would have set a more realistic time, arrived when I said I would, and factored in "emergency time" for roadworks/accidents etc. It would mean possibly arriving a bit early, but I would rather do that than arrive late and have ds miss some of his activity.

We are late by a few mins once ever few weeks. I have everything ready to go the night before and have time slots for breakfast/getting changed etc but sometimes things take longer/go pear shaped. I would rather get to school late in a calm mood then arrive frantic, cross and stressed on time though.

I was having this conversation with a friend just yesterday. She is VERY organised but still finds it a struggle some mornings and her kids (one teen, one nearly teen) are up at six. We were marvelling at how there always seems to be a shoe missing, a hairbrush gone walkabout, a mislaid tie etc.

We went through a phase of ds being late for school when dd was a toddler due to her tantrums that could literally go on for hours. Luckily she grew out of it. Recently i'm having the opposite problem, ds is making dd late. If I dont check on him every 2 mins he drifts off, staring at the wall, examining his hands etc. He just has NO sense of urgency at all. I can hardly supervise him dressing (14 year olds dont tend to like that ). I think I may have hit on the problem though, as of today I found out he has been using the internet on his phone long after i've gone to sleep to talk to an American girl. He had a stern talking to, that normally works with him but if not, I may be taking his phone. He was not happy, said I was treating him like a child....well, if the cap fits...

Punctuality is the most overrated of virtues, people get way too hung up about it.

If a kid turns up a few minutes late for school, does it really matter in the overall scheme of things?

The first hour or so at school seems to be devoted to dicking around with assemblies etc. so it is not like they are missing out on anything of educational value.

I don't understand why a parent would make a conscious decision that their dc will be late for school every day.

Good to know that some parents view registration, assemblies etc as 'dicking around'