I don't know your situation. But children do need to be shown love through action. Find her.

I do believe our government controls the public school system. It is a very old establishment set up by men who think a certain way and become politicians. Decade after decade we teach the same core subjects. Slowly using less and less teachers for more and more children. Making the children sit still longer. Cutting recesses and anything imaginative. Control, control, control.

When my 13 year old son told me he skipped out of school again because he knew he was dumb. It caused him to burst into tears to really share with me that fact that he KNEW he was a second class, low rate, go no where DUMB, waste of life, useless, pointless IDIOT that everyone at school believed him to be. I took him out of school that very hour. No more public school. I was working at the time, but I knew he needed to be nurtured differently then public school could offer. We ended up going to K12. They sent a computer to our home, along with the curriculum. Its a great program that is growing. It is still school. You do still get a Diploma if you graduate. It is simply the school program done at home. It is offered in many states. Google K12.

We are not some big success story with our home schooling. Because I didn't try hard enough, and I wasn't strong enough to really expect him to do the K12 work, he ended up getting a GED instead of a HS Diploma. But we are a success as far as how he learned to view himself. It took us a few years to unlearn what society had taught my ADHD child.

Unlike me, he never did drugs. He doesn't drink. He likes himself. He is beginning to achieve goals he sets out. He doesn't have illegitimate children. He is thankfully, still unattached at 23. He is strong, handsome and growing. Living out of the home, paying his own way.

Public school isn't the answer for everyone. And life is so hard and demanding for us as parents - especially in the changing economy. We have this pace - this agenda. This business of family. Not everyone can keep up, and they don't have to. Being in the business of family is not living.

Talk to her. More importantly - listen to her. She is young, but she is a breath away from adulthood in the most traumatizing and dangerous years.

Best of luck to you all, my heart reaches out to all of you.