My absence only climbed year by year… I don’t even want to count my senior year; it’s in the dozens certainly.

It was so hard for me to figure out when to go in and when to stay home. My mom was sometimes understanding and sometimes hardass on me (she also has fibromyalgia, so she knows what it feels like, but she would also use it sometimes as a sort of “I can do it so you have no excuse” thing). But I missed a lot of school days, some days genuinely awful and others where I wasn’t really so awful I couldn’t attend — but which I gratefully took advantage of because I was just so tired of pushing, always pushing, always fighting, always “toughing it out.”

I liked Linda’s comment; talking with your child about what the situation is and letting them exercise their decision-making skills will be valuable throughout their life. Also, I honestly think many adults could do with an understanding that we all need rest sometimes, sometimes it is better to scale back for a bit than to push through and possibly make it worse or make it last longer. It is impossible to lay down a rule for when to do one or the other; that’s something a person has to learn about his or her own body and mind, has to negotiate. But encouraging Lad to identify his own limits and respect them — that is a Good Thing, which will benefit him later on as well as others (as he brings an understanding of “everyone has limits, and they must berespected” to his interactions with others).

As far as applying disability politics to it, absolutely. The radical idea of understanding one’s own self and one’s own needs outside of the boundaries imposed by the outside world — of exploring and learning one’s own self, and learning to respect and appreciate. It applies to everyone. And even abled folk would be better off to have this understanding, and they will be better prepared to understand the experience of disability with that framework already set up, as well.

I’ve posted a followup note here.

* this particular injury not being a disability, of course

I can’t even remember how I was talked into it; I think I was simply too unimaginative to even conceive of not going.

We must be related, Liam! That was exactly me.

I hated missing school, especially when I was younger, and Mum always believed me if I said I was too sick to go. I’m sure there were a few times when I said/though I was too sick, and by the middle of the day realised I would have been fine.

When I hit about 14 or 15, it was enough if I just said I didn’t *want* to go, ie even if I was quite open about it that it was a mental health day (although I didn’t know that term at the time). Possibly Dad would have been more strict, but it was Mum who was generally the one getting us packed off to school. I’m pretty sure she treated my brother & sister the same way.

Even if we were sick, once we were in high school, her notes to the school would never give a reason – they would just say “Jo was not at school on [date].” She figured it was none of their business why I wasn’t there. All they needed to know was that I had her permission.

Anyway, I think she figured that she could trust me – and she wanted me to keep trusting her, too, in the sense that had she not let me stay home when I needed to, I might have played truant; as it was, although I occasionally skipped individual classes, I don’t think I ever skipped a whole day other than when I’d already told Mum I wasn’t going. Which had the advantage – to her :) – that she always knew where I was. Had I wagged without telling her, she would have had no idea that I wasn’t at school, and I know now that that thought would have completely freaked her out.

I’d ask him in the morning what he thinks – sleeping on it might make him feel better.

I think you’re making just the right call, though I can only say so from the way my parents treated me. I have no children and my only dependent is my cat who, quite naturally, only has 100% mental health days!