Stressed

I had a kid for detention today for failing to attend a detention for failing to do the homework, for the second time. One of those sagas. She's a nice enough girl, just a bit mardy, and she has blue hair, so we'll call her Blue Frown. She sat and did the work set whilst other kids trooped in and out of the room, collecting work and chatting with me. When they'd all gone, I thought I'd try and have a chat with her, so I asked her something - I think it was 'How come you're not doing the homework at the moment? Are you having a tough time?' and she started talking. It's starting to sound repetitive, I know, but it really does happen like that and it astonishes me every time. One short question and they talk for 20 minutes.

She said she hated school, and she's neither academic nor popular, so I wasn't very surprised. She only comes to school because she can't 'stress my mum out' any more. Apparently her mum was hospitalised with 'stress' for 3 nights last term, and her older and younger brothers are completely off the rails so Blue Frown is really scared her mum will go back to hospital. She said there are constant arguments at home since her dad left, 18 months ago, so she doesn't go home til 8pm. She tries to help her mum, but sometimes she can't help being cross at her brothers and then she feels really guilty.

I almost hate this sort of situation the most. She's clearly in a horrible situation, and frankly I'm not at all surprised she isn't doing her homework - and I don't blame her. But there's nothing serious enough, or that ticks any of the right boxes, to get agencies involved. There's nothing we can do, and she'll still get detentions for not doing homework. I did the only thing I could - I promised to never be mad at her for not doing homework: even though she would have to have detentions like everyone else, I would never be cross or stressed at her, and we would do the detentions and forget about it.