Monday, October 6, 2008

Hi. My name is Procrastination.

I swear I mean to keep up with this, but this past week and the few days before it have been so busy and overwhelming. By the time I got around to even thinking about typing up a blog, I was 1) Too tired to care
2) The tween terrors were home and demanding attention and being nuisances of themselves
Or 3) I had to go clean something.

We've started having issues with OldestTween. She was diagnosed with ADD last school year. She started on meds and was doing great for the rest of the year, pulled up all her grades to A's and B's. Now come this school year, her grades started off good, but are now either close to failing or outright failing.
I talked to all her teachers, then took her back to the doctor, she upped her meds slightly, then I made a meeting with all her teachers and her counselor. Something had to be done before she failed 6th grade and ended up in the same grade as her sister.
So her teachers all tell me she is a joy to have in class, that she is very very quiet. SO quiet that you would only know she was there if you called on her.
Want to know what the problem is?
She isn't turning in homework. She gets a big fat ZERO for all the assignments she doesn't turn in.
I felt like such a colossal failure as a mom then. I mean homework, that stuff you do at home! Something that a mom and dad are supposed to oversee. I must have seemed like a nut as I stumbled over words trying to explain that I check her agenda every day, that I ask if she did her homework. Always getting a yes from her. She does do it, I watch her do it. But there are times she forgets it at school or forgets the textbooks she needs. She knows we have the rule that she is old enough to be responsible for her homework, that it is her job not mine to get it together, remember her books, etc...
I even started questioning that. Asking the teachers if I should be on top of her more. I was so relieved when they told me that I was doing it right. That she is old enough to do her own work without an adult reminding her constantly.
So they did put her on a 504 plan. She gets to go to her locker 15 minutes before school is dismissed to get her books to bring home. And instead of a different binder for each subjects homework, she has one. And she can turn in everything to one of her teachers instead of turning it in to each individual teacher.

We are still struggling. Like last night, she has had all weekend long to do 2 math worksheets, she did part of them, but then come last night I checked and she had only done half of one. And I just lost it. We had a her listening, me yelling session. I was just at my end of trying to get her to take responsibility for her own actions, for her homework. I told her if she didn't do her homework, including all of the missing assignments and bring up her grades to at least a C in everything, that tumbling would be taken away and she would owe me the money it cost to enroll her.
But if she did bring up her grades, I would add cheerleading to her after school activity.

I am really hoping that she can turn this around NOW and not later, because school just gets harder.

Between this and her going through the I am a almost teenager and know everything I am either going to go bald or grey.

1 comments:

Adlibby said...

Oh geez! Remember when we wanted those cute little chubby cheeked babies... Ahhhh! Nobody told me about THIS! I totally feel for you.

How does she handle the adaptations the school is making? My daughter totally freaks out at having to bring her binder home more often than the rest of her classmates, hates the reminder note on her desk... I fear middle school in the biggest way and for so many reasons. Do you think we should start a (pulling our) Hair Club for Women? ;)