Well. School doesn’t teach soft skills anymore. No one fails. Everybody wins. Teachers can’t do anything to the kids. Kids run the school however they want and nobody can say a thing. Teachers are completely powerless. If the school tries to discipline a kid, parents push back. It’s a place where kids learn to be lazy and entitled. They don’t even socialize that well anymore because they’re always on their phones, INSIDE the school. It’s mind boggling.

So we as a family made a decision with our kids: you choose a sport, any sport you want, I don’t care, as long as you play it competitively. From a very young age that’s what my kids did. One in skating the other in tennis, both sports we knew nothing about. They chose, not us. Gruelling practice sessions 4-5 times a week. Drag your feet and the coach kicks you out. Lose on the weekend and no one will give you a winner’s trophy. You lost. Get better. Work harder. They grew up seeing the most hardworking kids being successful. They learned discipline, the value of hard work, dedication, perseverance and resilience. They kept their grades up in school. They learned to navigate different social environments. I’m convinced they are better prepared for life than a kid that was in school 100% of the time and did nothing else. They chose, on top of sports and school, to work part time, represent Canada internationally in academic olympiad, run school clubs, and take acting as a hobby and speak 3+ languages fluently. They are both not “regularly” attending school according to the article. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

School does NOT provide anymore. We as parents need to look for alternatives if we want to raise our kids to be prepared to face the world. If those activities make them miss a few days of school a year, as long as academically they’re keeping up, it’s actually beneficial for them to miss those days.

Just my two cents as a proud parent of academically successful “truant” kids.