5 reasons you should celebrate Valentine's Day...or may be Not!

- Reason Number One: Celebrating Valentine's Day can distract you from the issues in your relationship.

- Reason Number Two: Celebrating Valentine's Day could be a sign that your relationship is failing.

- Reason Number Three: Celebrating Valentine’s Day could reveal to you that the two of you need to re-kindle your passion for each other and your relationship. 

- Reason Number Four. Celebrating Valentine’s Day may unleash an unnecessary spirit of competition in to your relationship.

- Reason Number Five: Celebrating Valentine's Day can show you that you can both do more to contribute to the success of your relationship.

TRUANCY & DROPOUT PREVENTION SYSTEM

What Causes Truancy?

Bad Influences

One of the common causes of truancy and disruptive behavior in children is the influence of friends and peers. Many times these peers are seen encouraging truancy as a status-seeking activity or as a way of joining in or blending in. The child's natural instinct to want to be a part of a larger crowd or group dynamic will take over, even if they are taught better habits. Often times this same dynamic is prevalent in the face of any resistance the child may put forth, prompting teasing or goading the child into truanting.

School

What is classed as truancy can depend largely on the school's attitude to the 'truant' or their problems. Relationships with teachers, seen as lacking respect/fairness, play a large factor in truancy rates among children. Often times this inability to get along with teachers and/or students will result in disciplinary problems which may lead to suspension, or expulsion. Of course, being away from the school either voluntarily or at the school's demand can have an adverse affect on the student's academic performance, resulting in not being able to keep up with school work, getting poor grades, or even failing. A school may also be remiss in not notifying parents/guardians of absences.

Bullying

Closely related to the issue of a child's relationship with school is the matter of bullying. Bullying is a prime component in the making of an unsafe school environment; if a child does not feel safe at school, or on the way to/from school, they are much more likely to become truant. Bullying occurs for many reasons and it goes beyond the one isolated instance of harassment either because of teachers’ inability to control, or problems arising from the child’s own personality or learning abilities. A parent might say they're keeping their child off school because they're being bullied. The school might call it truancy.

An argument for eliminating Valentine's Day.

Let me provide some background on how I used to view the holiday as a younger:

- Valentine's Day for Single Women: From what I observed, Valentine's Day was by far the worst day of the year for them. I remember going to work, and all of the girls in relationships would receive flowers, chocolate, gifts, etc., from their boyfriends and husbands. Meanwhile, some (but not all) of the single women would spend the day rotating between being in tears and cyber-stalking their exes Facebook.

- Valentine's Day for Women in Relationships: Valentine's Day was a great day for these ladies... as long as their significant others got the gifts right. If their friends received flowers or jewelry, while they received a Weight Watchers membership, it would quickly escalate into the worst day ever for them. It became a competition for who had the best and most thoughtful man, instead of a day for celebrating love.

- Valentine's Day for Men in Relationships: I'm sure these men exist, but I've never met a dude who says he loves Valentine's Day. He may tolerate it  but the day I come across a guy who says, "OMG! I can't wait for Valentine's Day!! It's the best day EVERRRRRRRR!" will be the day I change my nickname from Daddy Doin' Work to the "Funky Fatherhood Brotha." Most of the guys I came across when I was younger hated Valentine's Day because it meant spending money on a lavish gift while knowing that you'd have to outdo your other male friends in relationships. Again, it became a silly and pointless competition.

- Valentine's Day for Single Men: These guys were the exception to the rule. Back in the day, I remember my single male friends would go to bars and hit on the drunk single ladies in the hope that they'd score some digits. They'd always tell me that, other than Super Bowl Sunday, "Singles Night" on Valentine's Day was their favorite day of the year (for all of the wrong reasons).

Origins of Saint Valentine's Day according to Catholic ideology.

The Origins of St. Valentine’s Day

The roots of St. Valentine's Day lie in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was celebrated on Feb. 15. For 800 years the Romans had dedicated this day to the god Lupercus. On Lupercalia, a young man would draw the name of a young woman in a lottery and would then keep the woman as a sexual companion for the year. 

Pope Gelasius I was, understandably, less than thrilled with this custom. So he changed the lottery to have both young men and women draw the names of saints whom they would then emulate for the year (a change that no doubt disappointed a few young men). Instead of Lupercus, the patron of the feast became Valentine. For Roman men, the day continued to be an occasion to seek the affections of women, and it became a tradition to give out handwritten messages of admiration that included Valentine's name. 

There was also a conventional belief in Europe during the Middle Ages that birds chose their partners in the middle of February. Thus the day was dedicated to love, and people observed it by writing love letters and sending small gifts to their beloved. Legend has it that Charles, duke of Orleans, sent the first real Valentine card to his wife in 1415, when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. (He, however, was not beheaded, and died a half-century later of old age).

Extracted from http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/ValentinesDay/origins.asp

Love Yourself First

The art of loving yourself is not only important in the healing process from love lost, but also in finding love. I believe that we cannot truly allow others to love us, until we first love ourselves.

Another way of looking at this is to imagine each person in a relationship as a wooden stick. If one person is independent and the other is dependent, it’s like one stick is standing perfectly vertical and the second stick is leaning against the vertical stick. If the vertical stick moves horizontally, the leaning stick will fall. When two people are both independent and joined together through love, it’s like two sticks standing vertically. When they join together, they become a larger and stronger stick and they become interdependent and stronger. If one stick moves horizontally, the other stick will move with it.

Practice loving yourself: take yourself on a date, do things that please and relax you, spend quality time with yourself, write love letters to yourself, practice saying and feeling “I love you” in the mirror.

Truancy Statistics

Truancy and ungovernability case rates peaked at age 15 and runaway case rates peaked at age 16. In contrast, status liquor law violation case rates increased continuously with age: from 1.8 at age 15 to 6.3 at age 17.

While there is not an abundance of national truancy data, some metropolitan areas report thousands of unexcused absences each day.

(source: DeKalb, Jay, “Student Truancy,” ERIC Digest 125, April 1999.)

Data from Wisconsin show that during the 1998-99 school year, 15,600 students or 1.6% of enrolled students were truant per day. Truancy accounted for about 1/3 of total

absences that year. Truancy rates in the 10 largest urban school districts were twice as high as the state average.

Legislative Audit Committee of the State of Wisconsin, “A Best Practices Review: Truancy Reduction Efforts,” August 2000.

Students with behavioral problems are often assigned to a counselor, but school counselors have large caseloads. Public high schools employed one counselor for every 284 students in 2002. Large schools (1,200+ students) employed one counselor for every 335 students. Counselors in schools with over 50% minority enrollment were responsible for 22% more students than their colleagues in low minority enrollment schools – 313 compared to 256 students.

National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Response Survey System, “Table 12: Number of guidance staff and counselors, and the number of students per guidance staff and per counselor assigned to public high school students, by selected school,”

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/frss/publications/2003015/images/tab12.gif, October 1, 2004.