Sickness or comedy? Personal Education Leave Agreement.

I promised myself I'd find a better trick next time. So I tried stomach aches, headaches, and other unverifiable illnesses. My new strategies worked so well that, as an adult, they still served me when I held my first jobs. In addition to incurring costs for society and my employers, these fake excuses also brought me a lot of anxiety, guilt, and self-depreciation. Morally, I knew it wasn't very honest of me.

When my eldest started primary school, he suddenly developed a strange malaise that prevented him from moving only when I was in the same room as him. I then promised myself that my children would not enter this cycle of lies and pretense. There were too many disadvantages for the meager short-term benefits they would gain. So, my partner and I agreed on the best strategy: the boys would be entitled to personal days off during the school year.

Here are the clauses of the family agreement regarding personal days, largely inspired by what happens in the working world. Each child thus has two personal days off per school year.

1. Remaining days off can be cashed in at a rate of $5 per unused day at the end of the school year.

2. A day off must be planned and authorized by a parent according to availability.

3. It cannot be requested on the same morning.

4. It cannot be taken to avoid a test, an exam, or a presentation.

5. It cannot be taken in the first 30 or the last 30 days of the school year.

During their day off, the child is free to do whatever activities they want to distract and amuse themselves. Conversely, during a sick day, they must do everything to get back on their feet as quickly as possible. This implies that this day is spent in bed with only a book for distraction.

This family agreement on personal days allows our children to experience and observe several things:

• Education is an important value in our family
• Their physical and mental well-being is considered important
• Planning goes hand in hand with having fun
• Lying doesn't pay off
• Being sick is unpleasant
• Choosing between time and money is not always easy
• Delayed gratification has advantages
• Instant gratification has disadvantages

My children are now in 6th and 4th grade of primary school. The total of all actual sick days for both my boys combined since kindergarten does not exceed 5. As for personal days off, it costs us between $5 and $15 at the end of the year to honor unused days. This means that they are rarely sick and rarely absent from school for personal days. Thus, I sincerely believe that giving them the freedom to choose has allowed them to gain autonomy and develop their sense of commitment and responsibility.

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