If you have ever reached the end of your rope….. well, you are NOT alone.
It’s nice to be able to share your feelings with another ordinary mom of imperfect children. Read this letter, and maybe you will see your own feeling. Christy wrote:
“Help! Pat me on the back, hug me and tell me he’s not going to be a ditch digger! My son is skipping half the work in his grammar book, I can’t read what he writes, he’s taken a dive in math (which I put him in a class for), his writing…oy! The discussion he had with his dad went like this;
Dad: You need to have an 80 average.
Son: Why? 70 is passing.
Dad: Make that a 100 average, then.
This “just passing” attitude permeates everything. I don’t know what to do. I have curtailed as much of my own extra activities during school, in order to be more available. I’m starting to peruse different curriculum again but a different curriculum is not the answer. I have two more boys coming after him. I’m not sure I’m going to have any nerves left.”
Hi Christy,
I don’t have a real solution for you – sorry! I can give you some bits of encouragement.
First of all, if you can hang on by your fingernails, it will probably not be a huge problem two weeks from now. There will be other problems by then, LOL! Second, I did find it helpful to pull in the reigns when my kids acted like that. I think the natural tendency is to relax and say “oh well!” throwing up your hands. But I found that when I became MORE strict (like your Dad example above) that eventually the behavior improved. In contrast, my friends who would “lighten up” seemed to get much worse behavior in the future.
Have you considered demonstrating what “just passing” means in the adult world? We would talk to our kids about “airplanes fall out of the sky, or people die” – because my husband is an engineer for Boeing, and I’m a nurse. By explaining that we had to do our job excellently or their were horrendous consequences, I think they had some small realization that it would matter as an adult.
Is your son in a classroom setting? Sometimes in coops and other classroom setting you can get that “I’m passing” phenomenon. That was a major drawback for us in community college. There were students in community college that thought a 0.7 was passing. Sure it’s passing… but did they learn ANYTHING? Ugh! So check to see if a classroom setting may be affecting them.
On the bright side, each child is different. Your other kids may not do this!
Do you need a speaker at your next homeschool conference? Talk to your conference coordinator about having me come. I would love to meet you in person! Here is a list of my speaking topics, or you can read my profile on the Homeschool Speakers Bureau.
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