HS Independent Studies vs Community College

juansitges
Mon, 02 Dec 2013 18:57:21 +0000

Thank you both for your feedback! SmileAMile, under certain circumstances, I would totally agree; however, a lot of her (I will call her Sophia) bad behavior stems from ‘survival’. Her father, an active gang member and active drug user of Marijuana and recently Crystal Meth, is not at all a stable man - sidenote: her mother is re-married and no longer with her birth father. Because of his behavior, his enemies became Sophia’s enemies. She has been walking down the street and older girls have driven by, recognized her as her father’s daughter, and ‘jumped’ her. Everyone is accountable for their own actions, however at the age of 12, she had to learn how to defend herself physically, mentally, and emotionally. In turn, because of the violence, she adapted to her environment and acts out in bad behavior. I understand being strict and giving consequences to bad behavior, however there is only so much a parent can do to control. Most of her early teenage years up until current status, she is grounded. Her Facebook, cell phone etc have been take away in attempts to monitor her friends. Sophia has run away from home and snuck friends in the house when her mother is at work. Her mother even had a security system, including cameras at all entry points, wired in the house. Sophia has definitely given her mother a run or her money. There is so much more detailed information that I could take 10 pages explaining and then some.

Recently, Sophia has realized the consequences of her bad behavior and she is terrified. She knows that she has influences in her life that are negative and is trying hard to not partake in those activities with certain people. The reason I/we think it would be good to take her out of school into a new city is because she will be out of the area where she, and her father, is known. Granted, bad behavior will follow the person, however if she is a product of her environment, we want to change that environment with a new start and begin behavior modification in a fresh start.

If we do independent studies, the issue of lack of friends is there, so why not it be bettering yoruself at a cc… speaking of the situation, I LITERALLY just got a text from her mother:

“Sophia” got into a fight at school today!! She ditched school but went at lunch to be her up for talking crap about her. Now the school is looking for her and hte parents of the girl want to press charges. And Sophia is with her dad and said she’ll be home later".

This is why we want to pick her up and get her out of her environment. The single biggest contributing factor to drug abuse risk is having friends who engage in the problem behavior. If an individual’s friends have favorable attitudes towards drug use, this can also increase risk.

I think this is more of a venting session, so I appreciate your responses earlier!