Your 9th grader teams up with a friend with a school project

[Anonymous]

9th grade dd is a high-achiever. The friend is not. Friend badgers dd to partner on a biology project. DD reluctantly agrees. First stage is due tomorrow and friend has literally contributed nothing and has missed deadlines for agreed upon task. DD wants to drop friend as a partner but is worried about its impact on friendship. How do you advise?

I told her equal contribution for equal credit and it would be academically dishonest to put friend's name on something that she did nothing for. I also told her good friends wouldn't put her in this position.

[Anonymous]

I would tell her that she is stuck doing the work herself at this point, and when it is over she can reevaluate the friendship.

Group projects are always a minefield. She is stuck right now.

Your statement about it being academically dishonest: kinda secondary. She should just put her friend's name and handle this later with the friend. She should not shoot her own foot. And she should only go down the path of involving the teacher if she wants to own the resulting drama.

[Anonymous]

My daughter has been burned so many times by assigned group projects that she would never agree to partner with anyone who didn’t pull their weight.

Your DD will have to suck it up for this project and know better next time.

[Anonymous]

This is part of the reason for and lesson to be learned in group projects. Let your daughter handle it and have her discuss with the teacher how to approach the problems her group is encountering.

[Anonymous]

Is your daughter practicing her management skills? Is she problem solving through what to do when one leg of the stool is shorter than the others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your daughter practicing her management skills? Is she problem solving through what to do when one leg of the stool is shorter than the others?

We talked about this. I'm not sure what more she can do. The friend asked for specific tasks, so my DD gave them to her, in writing, with clear instructions, and came up with a process: They would each do their assigned tasks during the week and come together on Sunday to write a conclusion. All the friend basically was supposed to do for the first phase was write the introduction (basically 6-7 sentences) and find an academic source of a similar study using a school-provided database. They were going to get together yesterday to write the conclusion together, but the friend hadn't performed her tasks at all (they're using Google classroom/Google Docs so dd can see any progress) so DD canceled b/c she suspected what was about to happen was the friend expected to come over and write the introduction under dd's supervision (translated: DD would end up writing it). Since DD had about 6 hours of homework in other classes yesterday, so she basically said we're not writing the conclusion until you draft an introduction and find a second source and canceled their meeting. It's Monday morning and the friend still hasn't done it. So, DD basically intends to tell teacher she doesn't want to partner anymore.

I suggested she present it as a dilemma and ask the teacher for a suggestion. But DD is concerned that if the friend cannot perform these basic tasks she will be similarly disengaged during the actual project. Which is probably true. So, she wants to save them both a lot of trouble now. The problem is dropping the friend 24 hours before the first assignment is due puts the friend on the hook to come up with her own project (the current project is dd's idea -- friend just glommed onto it) and do the lit review in 24 hours.

It's also not a "group" project in the sense that three or four kids are involved. Just the two of them.

[Anonymous]

Your DD is not the only one who has dealt with this. Teachers all have different ways of handling it, and your child should ask her teacher for guidance. (And should have done so once it was clear her friend was not pulling her weight.) My children have had some teachers who didn't care, all children got the grade for the project whether or not they actively participated. Other teachers provided a "contribution report" that each team member filled out for the project detailing what they have done, what the other members did, and what percentage of the project they feel each member did. And I know of one teacher who split a group up and had them do the project independently, due to a situation like your child is reporting.

[Anonymous]

If your daughter can talk to the teacher privately, I think that would be a great idea. She might not get what she wants, but she will practice her communication skills in a difficult situation.

She should be prepared to finish the project by herself.

And in the future, I hope she can be assertive enough to say no. It's hard!

[Anonymous]

I always hated group projects for this reason.

My son carried many a group project in our elementary school. He carried all of the lazy GT kids whose parents lobbied to get them into the program and then the kids could never do the work unless the parents were doing it or on them constantly.

It comes back to bite them eventually.

I used to tell my son to stop letting his friend be his partner. My son was so gullible, believing every lame excuse the kid came up with. The kid would even fake sick on days a project was due.

Flash forward later---my kid is self-motived, several grade levels ahead in every subject. These other kids are still having their parents run interference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always hated group projects for this reason.

My son carried many a group project in our elementary school. He carried all of the lazy GT kids whose parents lobbied to get them into the program and then the kids could never do the work unless the parents were doing it or on them constantly.

It comes back to bite them eventually.

I used to tell my son to stop letting his friend be his partner. My son was so gullible, believing every lame excuse the kid came up with. The kid would even fake sick on days a project was due.

Flash forward later---my kid is self-motived, several grade levels ahead in every subject. These other kids are still having their parents run interference.

In this case, DD is gifted tagged kid and the partner is really just not motivated. Doesn't want to go to college, just cooking school. Which is a fine life path. But it does set up a fundamental difference in effort on a joint project.

[Anonymous]

I did the group projects myself often. We were assigned a partner, so there was no dropping or changing. I am not the management type, so I just did it and forgot about it.

[Anonymous]

Funny - I just cautioned DS about joining with a friend but from the other side of this. DS told me he and his buddy "Matt" are doing a project together (high school). I warned him that he could be endangering the friendship if he doesn't pull his own weight.

DS can be a bit lazy at times, a procrastinator. I'm pretty sure Matt is not. I know Matt is a good student and my impression is that he is very pro-active and ambitious (based on parent chit-chat). I warned DS not to make Matt feel like he got stuck doing more than his fair share. I reminded him of another kid's poor reputation in middle school for not contributing equally so no one wants to partner with him now. I told DS not to be that kid.

[Anonymous]

My kid just had a rough group project that probably will make his friendship with his BFF pretty rocky for a while. BFF is a type A, academic kid with parents who like to help with projects. DS is a smart kid who hates school and procrastinates, but gets stuff done well in the end. Not a good match. BFF ended up doing 90% of the project at home with his parents, doing each step before deadline and then presenting it to my kid as all done. It was pretty demoralizing to my kid, and must have made BFF feel like DS was a super slacker. Good times.

[Anonymous]

One of my kids has other students fighting to be his partner on projects in a particular subject for just this reason. He is very savvy in the subject, completes the project quickly and does a great job, and just goes with the flow in terms of his other partner's level of contribution, picking up the slack as needed. I have cautioned him that he is being taken advantage of, but he says it's not worth getting stressed out about it for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid just had a rough group project that probably will make his friendship with his BFF pretty rocky for a while. BFF is a type A, academic kid with parents who like to help with projects. DS is a smart kid who hates school and procrastinates, but gets stuff done well in the end. Not a good match. BFF ended up doing 90% of the project at home with his parents, doing each step before deadline and then presenting it to my kid as all done. It was pretty demoralizing to my kid, and must have made BFF feel like DS was a super slacker. Good times.

It's amazing how you position your kid as a victim in this...