Areas › Worry and anxiety › The cost of avoiding

Missing school is not one thing. There is pleading that folds, pleading that becomes an hour of protest, arriving late, arriving and then sitting in the nurse's room by eleven, and not arriving at all.

Writing down which of those happened each day gives you something to watch. Most of the real movement, in both directions, happens inside days that would go down as present, and an attendance register hides all of it. A child who used to leave at eleven and now stays until two has had a good week, and should be told so.

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