[kburch]

I don't know what to call myself now!

On Wednesday, with the whole stealing incident, one of the things I found in D's bookbag was a note from his language arts teacher. This note was written to tell us that D had not turned in THE project for the quarter on its due date, April 22. It went on to say that NO reports will be accepted after April 28, a.k.a. this past Monday. Reports turned in with the letter signed by a parent would be docked 20%. Without the letter, they could earn at most 50%. Since we didn't see the letter until April 30, we figured that whatever happened was already a done deal, so we didn't bring it up with D at the time. We thought we'd give him a few days to notice the letter was missing and possibly fess up himself.

Nope. Just got a call from the L.A. teacher. D has not turned in a SINGLE thing from this assignment. Apparently the teacher has been sending home progress reports for grades, etc., for kids who were falling behind, but they were apparnently turned into spitwads or toilet paper or something. (Totally our bad for not telling all of his teachers to just e-mail us this kind of info. School and grades are D's problem, but it would have been nice to know what was up before now.) Now, mind you, this kid had an 'A' in this class as of 4/18. But, when you don't turn in the project you've been working on for the last two months, it kinda kills your grade.

So, anyway, the teacher calls to let us know that she's sending home a letter for us to sign, and if he brings that and his project in on Monday, he can still receive up to 50%. I politely (I hope - I sincerely meant it that way) told her that I was confused, as the previous letter said that April 28 was the LAST date they would be accepted. She said that that was supposed to be the case and said something along the lines of, "Hmm, that could be sending mixed messages, couldn't it?" I told her that I very much appreciated her concern about D's almost guaranteed failure, but that he seems to have been working very hard at earning it. I said that I would talk to DH about it, but most likely, there would be no letter and no project on Monday. She said she would leave it up to us and just see what happened on Monday.

Realistically, again, it's not even the failing grade that's bothering me. It's stupid, but like I said, he's been working hard at it. He has been FLAT OUT LYING to both his teacher and us for WEEKS about this project. Today, he talked to me on the phone while I waited to talk to his teacher. He had not a hint of remorse in his voice and said that he had been "meaning to ask us to type it for the last week and a half and kept forgetting." Forget the fact that the project was due more than a week and a half ago. We helped him look up the research for this report something like six or seven weeks ago. We knew they were working on it at school, so as far as we knew, everything was hunky-dory. He even mentioned that he was supposed to dress up and present his project last Friday, but said that since he forgot to dress up, his teacher said he could do it this past Monday. Since he had ISS Monday and Tuesday, we just assumed (bad us) that he had done it on Wednesday. Nope! Can't present on a report you haven't done. And he's been stringing his teacher along for over a week with "I'm not ready to present today"s and "Really, it's almost done, I'll do it tomorrow"s.

I just don't understand where this is coming from with him. This has NEVER been an issue with this kid. The lowest grade he's brought home that I can remember was one C+ at mid-quarter. When he got his progress report on 4/18, he was two B+'s short of having straight A's, which would have earned him having his Nintendo DS in his room for the next quarter. He seemed totally excited and motivated to pull up those two grades, so he could have it for the summer. And now this? I asked him on the phone if he thought we would not find out about this. He said no. Then I asked him how his plan was working out for him. He said, "Not so good." I told him that was my impression of the situation, too.

This has just been the week from **** from this kid, and I'm not sure if things are connected or completely unrelated. I'm just not sure what to do, 'cuz he is tanking and doing it fast. And while he is outwardly the "healthier" of my two kids, he is also the more emotionally avoidant and less likely to admit/explain feelings, motivations, thoughts, anything. Z will scream at me. D just shuts down and pretends nothing's wrong. And with all of the lying he's been doing, I'm not sure I could believe what he tells me anyway. What do I do with this kid, 'cuz we don't see our therapist again until the end of June.

[lucyjoy]

DO NOT bail this child out. He is smart and quite capable of doing his work alone and on time. Do not rob him of learning this important lesson NOW. He fails the class, loses the nintendo, and learns that his actions have consequences. Way better for him to learn that NOW then when is matters more.

I would say NOTHING to him and remove the game system.

[kburch]

Thanks.

I agree. I just didn't want to give a 'final' decision to the teacher without running it past DH first, even if I knew what he would say.

As far as the Nintendo goes, that's been out of his room since April 24, when we got the progress report with 2 B+'s. Guess it's a good thing, too, as he'd probably be failing more than one class if he had gotten straight A's and been able to keep it these 4.5 weeks. He put on such a great show of getting his stuff done, too.

Still, I wish I knew where this crap was coming from right now...

[Lorraine123]

I would say nothing to him. Let him fail, let him accept the consequences. The consequences speak much louder than you ever can. And besides, if it doesn't bother you, why do it???

[aspenhall]

I think the best way I could get mt dd to open up was to start making ridiculous guesses at the cause...(guaranteed I'd insult her intelligence) and she'd get all defensive and be virtually unable to resist correcting me... which would give me at least a hint of what's going on....

but it smells to me like a "pre-rejection" is brewing..."I let you down, so now you're gonna reject me...and I'll show you, I'll reject you first"

Or could he have been moved at the end of school at some prior point in life?

Could this teacher have offended him or inavertantly hurt his feelings somehow?

Could he simply be terrified of growing up/moving forward...passing another milestone...

[crick]

Is straight A's too much pressure? Meaning do you think he fell into the "well, if I'm not perfect, I don't get rewards so why bother trying at all because I'm not going to achieve all that anyway" mode of thinking?

I agree he'll need to take his F for the project and that's a hard lesson to learn, but again...much better to learn it now than when he's in the higher grades.

However...and this tends to be just me maybe, but I believe school consequences are for school related things and not sure he needs another consequence at home? I don't know, don't know him obviously.

My oldest is a kid that shuts down when upset or angry and for us I find the more we get on him about things the more he internalizes and inwardly punishes himself. While it doesn't excuse him from lying etc., I do think sometimes there's just a point this type of child reaches where for them there's no point in telling the truth because they'll get in trouble anyway. kwim? Again...I don't know D, so take it for what it's worth.

[kburch]

I agree that school consequences are school consequences in general. The thing I was (and at some level still am) struggling with was whether or not to deal with the "dishonesty" as a separate issue from the grade.

The kids do not get punished for their grades. We do tell them that we determine how much extra responsibility they can handle based on their grades. Our kids have 'room' time, not 'bed' time, so having the Nintendos in their rooms at night was a huge responsibility thing. They had never had that available before. We told them that they had been doing well at school, and we wanted to give them the opportunity to show their responsibility to us (which they claim in abundance and insist we never let them show us) by having the game systems in their rooms and still getting straight A's (grades of which both kids are more than capable). It does not mean that they never get to play video games if they don't have straight A's, just that they aren't left at their disposal to play until 3 or 4 in the morning, which they did several times. They had the Nintendos for about 3 weeks before grade reports came out, and like I said, at the time, D had an 'A' in class he is now failing. So, as far as we knew, he was handling it O.K., though not well enough to have it for the next 4.5 weeks. If he hadn't seemed so motivated and confident about bringing up his last two B+'s to A's by the end of the quarter, I don't think this would have shocked me so much.

The weird part about all of this is that I really don't think he's convinced he's going to fail. He *appears* to think that because he had A's and B's on other small assignments that this big fat 0-out-of-200-point missing assignment is not going to decimate his grade. He hasn't talked about this at all since he got home and only made a quick comment to DH when it came up in the car after school, which consisted of the "but I have lots of A's and B's in that class and, oh yeah, can I type something this weekend?" thing. This is a smart kid, so I really believe he knows better and doesn't think he's actually fooling anyone. But I think he still imagines he's going to find a way out of this, and there just isn't one. I'm pretty sure he's going to find himself sorely disappointed.

As far as the teacher goes, we don't know her particularly well, but from what we can tell, D does not like her. He says she's unfair. What we are seeing is that he never shuts up in her class, and she seems to be the only teacher who actually consequences him for this misbehavior. (Most teachers let him get away with murder because he's very smart and quite charming.) If he seems to think he's going to punish her by flunking the class, who are we to stop him?? (This seems to be a common theory, and one which Z tested out earlier this year. He decided, thankfully, that it really wasn't working. Somehow, it just wasn't bothering the teacher or us like he thought it would, and he was the only one it was negatively affecting. Go figure! LOL! I'm hoping D will come to the same realization eventually.)

[kburch]

O.K., are you all sitting down? I don't want anyone to faint and get hurt...

His F is, of course, OUR FAULT! We are the mean, mean horrible parents who won't let him turn in his report a full week after the late paper deadline. How could we be so evil? But he'll take the F, because that's obviously what we want. Isn't that noble of him? (Why don't we have a vomiting smiley? I need one.)

[aspenhall]

Let him turn it in....
But warn the teacher not to let it affect his grade

[Lorraine123]

I too would let him turn it in. No way would I take the blame for this. But, he still gets the F.

[lovemy6]

Poor parents, being blamed for son's choices.

At least mine blames the teachers for him failing (and probably not graduating ). I've been walking around so long with my foot up his butt that I'm now limping since I took it out. Unfortunately, now he's beyond failing

[kburch]

I might have let him turn it in except for two things:

1) If he does turn it in, I have no way of guaranteeing that his teacher does not give him points for the assignment. We talked to her, and I think we're on the same page, but we've been flat-out stabbed in the back by school officials before.

2) He still has to type up the entire report, which he had apparently made no previous effort to do, either at home or at school. I refuse to spend HOURS of my weekend supervising him at my computer (as he can only use it with direct supervision) so he can type up a report that must receive no credit. It's a waste of my time and will not fix anything, as the zero he will receive even if he turns it in will still be our fault. After all, his teacher would have given him half credit if *we* gave permission, and we said NO.

So, I guess we're just outta luck in the "being blamed" department.

[lucyjoy]

Well, it's your fault now but when he's older and having his work done on time effects his paycheck, you can take credit for teaching him the right lesson.

I would not discuss it with him anymore.

[crick]

Of course it's your fault! LOL! Much easier to take it out on you than think about all the ways he could have made different choices. When my kids blame me for their choices, I thank them and tell them because I want to be a good role model for them and teach them their lessons, I'll take responsibility for my actions.