to think that threat of imprisoning parents can't help with truancy?

[PlonitbatPlonit]

I recently found this information out from a friend of mine who is a researcher in law: In 2016, a total of 22,453 people were proceeded against for the offence of truancy (parent failing to secure attendance of child) and 15,663 were convicted. Of those proceeded against, 12,572 were women and of those convicted, 9,333 were women. In terms of sentencing, 89 women out of 127 people were given a suspended sentence and 10 women out of 13 people were given an immediate custodial sentence.

(I know this is a bit cheeky as an AIBU, but I am genuinely interested in your YABU/YANBU responses. However my friend would be keen to hear from parents who have been through any aspect of this system and I thought this bit of Mumsnet the best place to get some traffic!)

ARE YOU OR DO YOU KNOW A PARENT OF A SCHOOL REFUSER?
Researcher at Coventry Law School, Coventry University.
ARE YOU OR DO YOU KNOW A PARENT OF A SCHOOL REFUSER?
If you know anyone who has been threatened with imprisonment or imprisoned because a child refused to attend school please contact me at [email protected]
Please share widely.
I am concerned about parents being fined for their child’s school non-attendance and threatened with prison. I believe there should be research on this topic. I know there are parents of school refusers to whom this is happening. It's awful. Many of the young people have severe mental health problem. There are parents, often of children with autism or anxiety disorders, who, try as they might, cannot get their children into school. Some have received repeated fines and been threatened with prison. We can imagine the detrimental impact on both the parent and the child. I am hoping to hear from people with first-hand experience of the system: all information supplied will be treated with utmost confidentiality, I will protect privacy and will not reveal any identifying info. Only if individual histories are known can this situation be exposed and the law challenged.

YANBU. Putting a parent in prison is not going to make a child engage in a school they already clearly hate. It's just going to cause even more resentment and anxiety of the place. There's always a reason why a child does not want to go to school. They need to sort that out before throwing parents in to what I'm always being told "overcrowded" prisons. Also some kids wouldn't give a shit about their parents getting a fine or going to jail. They'd just say, well she/he is the one who is going to jail not me.

I mean what does a parent do with a 6 foot tall 15 year old school refuser. Put him in a buggy strap him in and wheel him there.

Well the givernment can't have it both ways........thye can't demonise (( especially single )) parents if they don't work AND expect them to be able to be in 2 places at once.

If parents have done everything in their power to get their child into school then they should be supported. Not punished.

I think we all get a bit of a shock when our child is as big as us and the realisation sets in that we can't make them do anything really, we have to have them on board too. It's not like a nuresery school aged child who we can pick up and march in sadly

Spelling mistakes aside I did actually attend school daily.

It's a nightmare for parents whose children are refusing school for anxiety reasons. Got a friend going through this at the moment,,,,the constant threats of legal action don't help them. And they've had fines for "failing to ensure (their)child attends school on a regular basis". The fact their autistic child is now bigger than them has not been taken into account.

It’s never made sense to me and as a school refuser as a child it made no difference to me when they threatened this to my parents to my school attendance.

I was secondary age and I’m sorry but no parent of a teen can force their child in and make them stay in school short of handcuffing them to themselves and staying all day too.

My mum didn’t get convicted because the School chose to ban me from site but also not falcilitate a move to another School. I was a extra funding child so they kept being paid for me being on their register.

I thankfully managed to get into college to actually gain my qualifications with funny enough I loved being there.

Absolutely strange.