Marital separation and its effects on children

This week was hassling due to the things I had to do. Parents, student problems of whatever kind, form assembly, meeting parents are some of things I did this week. Time really seems to fly by!

I am today going to focus on one case in point, which remains imprinted on my mind. One day of this week, I phoned a parent of a Year 9 student because his son was misbehaving at school. He had also disrespected a teacher. The father is very willing to cooperate with the school SMT. In fact, when I phoned him, he offered to come to school on that day since he had a day off from work.

We soon realised that he wants the best for his unruly son. However, behind this man’s exterior, we could realise that there was a broken person. Slowly the  story of marital separation began to emerge.

As SMT, we decided to confront the boy in front of his father. The boy was surprised when he was summoned from his class to the headmaster’s office, and saw his father there. The boy’s mother is nowhere in the picture. The boy is also broken by his past, he needs professional help and the school will be providing this service.

At our school, we take the pastoral care of our students very seriously. We want their well being and we also want to ensure that they are emotionally and mentally stable so that they can focus on their academic endeavours.