The worst award ever

There's one prize I don't want my kids to achieve: Perfect Attendance. I hate that schools and media outlets celebrate and publicize students who don't miss a day all the way through the years. Because it means that unless that child is the luckiest boy or girl in history, he or she has come to school sick. All that does is put other kids at risk, not to mention the "perfect" student who really needs time to rest and get better. I had a 6-year-old tell me today that he came to school with an awful-sounding cough because he didn't miss a day of kindergarten and wanted the same record in first grade (or was it his parents who wanted it?). What can we do to get schools to do away with these prizes? Probably nothing, so let's do the next best thing: not have our kids aspire to win them.