Consequences for failing school
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Anonymous
No, all I am saying is a) it isn't all you, and b) sometimes even if you do all those things it doesn't work the way you want, so don't assume a child that doesn't meet your definition of success was parented poorly. |
Anonymous
You are smug, and this comes from someone who has two children who are straight A students and a third child who applies herself, is of average intelligence and only gets Cs. |
Anonymous
I meant who doesn't know that. |
Anonymous
OP here. I know DCUM loves to deal with mental disorders and disabilities, but my daughter is NOT suffering from any of these things. You don't have to believe me and that's fine. My daughter wants to fit in with the cool kids, hoping that it will keep her from being picked on about her skin complexion. If her friends aren't doing work, she won't. If they're talking, she's talking and being rude. She doesn't bother to bring books home. As I said, it's NOT a learning disability. She needs to not worry so much about what others think of her. That will ONLY come from within. We've had talks with her about this but ultimately, she's the one attending school and she's the one who will need to deal with the issues because kids get picked on for all sorts of reasons. I've told her that if we need to step in and handle the school kids we will but it is NO excuse for failing. She understands, says she's since been doing better (she insists that the report card was a wake up call). I am giving my DD the opportunity to prove she can step up and be responsible. As such, I will monitor her grades and see how the next few weeks go before I decide my next step. |
Anonymous
OP here. The problem is not acne. We are black and my daughter is dark-skinned. Don't really want to get into a colorism conversation but it's a terrible thing how silly and ridiculous some kids can be about dark-skinned young women. I was gifted (?) with a fair amount of conceit so this sort of talk never bothered me as a teen. |
Anonymous
I believe you, OP. My previous suggestion was to tie her school performance with her upcoming drivers license and part-time job. Those are big steps and if she's interested in gaining that level of independence, it may motivate her to work harder for passing grades. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thank you. I've told my daughter that she will need to pay for summer school for any classes that she fails this year. I've let her know that if college is her goal (and it is), she'll need to buckle down because sophomore and junior years are very important. My initial reaction was to go to the school and speak with counselors and her teacher. But, I'm not. I NEED to groom her to be more responsible. So, I've told her that she needs to speak with each of her teachers after (or before) class to apologize for her past behavior and let them know that she will do better in the future. She says she's already done this with one teacher, so that's a start. Again, if this were anything other than her just not doing the work, I'd respond differently. But, I'd like to give her this opportunity to understand her mistakes and try some self-correction. If this doesn't work, I'll step in but I want to at least give her the chance. |
Anonymous
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Parent of two straight-A boys here and a family of teachers. Education #1 priority in my home. We are strict as hell about it. We used to have a "no C's or you are grounded till your next report card" rule. We did all the right things. Everything was fine.
What threw us for a loop? Having a daughter who tests on the low end of average intelligence. All our expectations and plans went out the window. She tries hard, follows all of the same rules our boys do, and gets C's and maybe a couple of B's. Is it bad parenting? Nope. Its called being HUMAN. Sometimes, you don't get the straight A kid with the high intelligence come out of your womb. It happens. If it didn't happen, the world would be full of high intelligence folks, which is a pretty easy thing to determine is NOT the case lol. OP, what I would suggest is having your daughter IQ tested. See what you are dealing with. Where should your expectations be? You don't have to have the same rules for all of your kids. Its called good parenting to know your kid and have expectations and rules that are different and appropriate for each kid. I'd also suggest if you DO find that your daughter is not an academic star in the IQ department, figure out what DOES make her tick. Some people aren't super academic smart but everyone has something about them that can contribute great things to this world. Find that thing, and push HARD on her in that department, and suddenly you'll see confidence rise. This takes TIME. Be patient. Do not suggest going to the school. I think your daughter is in high school, right? At least at our high school, parents who step in and contact teachers etc to determine "what went wrong" as a PP suggested are viewed as bad parents, because they are not allowing their kid to be in control of their own issues. Its tempting to do it, but you'll most likely get slammed. I'd only suggest going to the school if you DIDNT suspect that this was, as you said, pure laziness. If you suspect depression/suicide/learning disabilities, that's a different story and being proactive at the school level is different. That's my two cents for today ! 
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Anonymous
I'm a PP from page 2 who hasn't checked this thread for a few days. I'm also Chinese and have known many, many Tiger Moms over the years from my parents generation to my own. It doesn't always turn out well. I've known several Tiger families that had similar types of rules. Kids who were grounded and forced to study all day from when they got home until bedtime for a B. I've known several families who forced the children through essentially schoolwork hell to get them to achieve. And some achieve magnificently. I knew one guy who was pushed and pushed. He became a National Merit scholarship winner, earned a scholarship to Harvard and graduated magna cum laude. He went on to become a very successful doctor and he hasn't spoken to his parents since he graduated college. I've known any number of kids who became estranged to their parents because their parents were school taskmasters, but never actually parented them. Remember to be their parent. Education is important, but there's a lot more to parenting than school and getting them into the right college. |
Anonymous
| Well done! |
Anonymous
The value and merit of my child is measured by more than his GPA. True for any child, but I care most about mine. I thought it was pretty clear from my post that we're dealing with some stuff here - stuff we're not sharing? Good lesson: you usually don't know what is going on in a family not your own. Maybe my kid has an illness. Maybe I do. Maybe he's suffered some sort of trauma. Maybe he was abused. Maybe we have no money. Maybe he's just having a rough adolescence.... you can't know why we are not ini a position to "demand" in the only way you value. I think a number of people have made the humility point here. |
Anonymous
I'm the poster with straight A kids that I believe you called smug. If you are the same poster, you had originally stated that you have two academic superstars and one child with an average IQ. I'm a little confused by what you wrote. You state that you had a grounded until next report card rule for a "C"- why would you have that rule if your kids were straight A students? Were they not always straight A students/were there any consequences for B's? I would think it would be more likely that you would have a rule for "B's" if you were strict as "hell" - like you put it. Also you stated that you have two academic super stars and one child with average intelligence. In your prior post you wrote that you have a child with low average intelligence which is conventionally defined as someone who has a IQ that puts them in the bottom 20-25% of the population. If my child had an IQ in the bottom 20-25% percent of the population of course I would have different standards. I don't know what those standards would be but they would be at the top of what someone in that IQ range would be capable of achieving and I would work hard with my child. OP- I disagree with you making your child pay for summer school. I think the fact that she has to go to summer school is probably punishment enough for her and making her pay will just take away from the time that she has to devote to her studies. That being said, I'd be completely on top of her for the rest of the school year. The would be no activities, no friends, no car, no cell phone nothing until she brought her grades up. If she has been a C student for a while, you can't expect straight A's- but there is no reason why she can't bring her grades up to a B average if as you say she does not have a LD. However, she'll need a lot of support from you to do that. |
Anonymous
| OP sounds like you have a good plan and kudos for your daughter wanting to pull it together. FYI I've heard that colleges really like to see improvement over high school so if she can improve it will look good. I do suggest that if she continues to struggle with the fitting in thing, you see a CBT therapist (or rather, your daughter go to one). They can help with matters of insecurity and worry as it sounds your daughter is dealing with. Hopefully she can shift her attention from fitting in, look, etc., onto some genuine interests that she has or can develop. Best wishes. |
Anonymous
This is my first post in this topic. I didn't call you smug (but you kind of are). In the sense that you clearly don't have a child who no matter what you do, simply does not have the tools/ability to perform. And you don't have the abili to understand that may exist. The rule I made about nothing less than a "B" came from how i grew up. Just so happened the first two kids I had were able to manage it. The rule came from my own delusional thinking that just because I decided my kids would be a certain way, I could make it so...by hard work and riles and setting expectations. My kid who has low average IQ is not in the bottom 25 percent of the population. She's just at the low end of the average scale. Not low, low on the average curve. There's an entire "low" end that covers an entire other scale. At least in the test results from this neuropsych. The point is, she's not as smart as my boys, and I've learned to realize that parents' impact only goes so far. |
Anonymous
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^ ability, rules
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