Be Excellent To Each Other

When my daughter rose last year to accept the third-grade perfect attendance award, my husband and I looked at each other in surprise.
We weren’t aware that she hadn’t missed a day that year for illness. (Forgive us — with four kids, it’s sometimes hard to keep track.) And while I congratulated her, I tried not to make a big fuss. I’ve never been a fan of perfect attendance awards, coming down on the side of critics who contend that such public tributes encourage students to show up at school sick.
But in May, my daughter told me that she was determined to stay healthy because she was just two weeks away from again snagging the perfect attendance award. I was even more surprised when her twin brother piped up, lamenting that his one sick day disqualified him.