A Dad Went Viral For Saying Schools Should Ditch Perfect Attendance Awards

When many of us were in school, we would hear about our fellow students being rewarded for never being absent. This means that they did not miss a sing day of school throughout the year. One dad has gone viral since posting a short video about abolishing perfect school attendance rewards for kids. He says we have had it backward all along.

Is a perfect school attendance reward conducive to children’s development?

Schools throughout the world place a large emphasis on their school attendance. They do this to try to prevent kids from ditching class, so they get the most out of their education. However, this has added to the pressures that children endure daily. One father, who goes by the name @SpeechProf on TikTok, has gone viral after he posted a video asking to abolish rewarding kids with a perfect school attendance score.

He created the video by stitching it to another video, posted by @jayrscottyy, discussing the same topic. The stitched video shows @jayrscottyy saying: “Perfect attendance scores in elementary schools were an early deposit of the idea that taking time off is bad.”

The Speech Prof then starts speaking. He explained how he had recently gone to an awards ceremony at his son’s school. His son received an award for good reading. But, what caught this dad’s attention were the awards given to students with a perfect school attendance score. He is asking whether or not this type of award is conducive to the children of today’s development. “How are we still doing these?” He said in the video.

“Is that the message we should be sending?”

Covid-19 was traumatic for everyone on so many levels. We were unable to leave our houses for a long period of time due to an illness wreaking havoc worldwide. The virus took a toll in more ways than just getting sick, and many of us are still feeling the effects to this day. “After what we just went through and are still going through,” @SpeechProff adds, “how are we rewarding students for something that’s beyond their control?”

In the end, the parents are in control of their kids until they reach a certain age. Therefore, the parents are the ones who are either allowing them to take a day off here and there or making them go to school regardless of their mental, emotional, or physical well-being. “In the current state of the world we live in, should we really be encouraging parents to send their sick kids to school? Is that the message we should be sending?” said the Speech Prof.

Rewarding the responsible

In reality, mental illness is at an all-time high. There is so much going on in the world that it can be overwhelming for children to try to comprehend. The Speech Prof wants schools to start rewarding the children who do not have perfect school attendance scores. Those who their parents have taught responsibility. He said: “Or, should we be rewarding the students that are responsible citizens and staying home when they’re ill instead of coming to school and getting their classmates sick?”

The internet has blown up over his TikTok post. The video 48,500 times and there are nearly 4000 comments to read. One person who was one of those kids who received a perfect school attendance score every year commented: “I got perfect attendance every damn year. My mom was so DAMN proud of herself like it actually meant she was a good mom.”

Another person who agrees with the Speech Prof wrote: “Attendance in school by young children isn’t up to the child. It’s up to their adult.” Then, another mother commented about the pressure her son was under. She wrote: “Omg so true. This is exactly it. My kid has gotten so much pressure when he got influenza and covid this year.”

@speechprof

#stitch with @jayrscottyy can we get rid of perfect attendance awards? #parentsoftiktok #stayhome #gettingsick

♬ original sound – The Speech Prof