TRUANCY

First, you need to assess with the student why he doesn’t want to go to school, or what he would need to be able to go there again. The solutions to this are sometimes surprisingly simple: A gifted child who was highly sensitive, of whom everybody thought he wasn’t challenged enough, was actually pretty content with the assignments. He just needed a calmer class (room), because the size of his class, a construction site and a broken heating system caused him so much distress that he was suffering from headaches almost every day.

The following is advice for stable and long-term truancy that is related to intellectual frustration and interpersonal disappointments.

In my experience, it is important to work on the relationship level first. The student needs to re-experience the following:

• Appreciation
• Contact with reality
• Reliability (i.e. Do not make any promise you cannot keep!)
• Potentially reestablish self-worth

It is also useful to create and continuously develop an individual concept of support and demand. A good roadmap for support addresses cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects, and establishes detailed and precise solutions. This roadmap can be designed as a process and should be regularly evaluated and expanded. Special education teachers have been trained in this and can be consulted for support.

I hope this websites helps you in creating your own support strategy by putting together topics and solutions that are relevant for your student.