Really angry at son - need some perspective

Parents Forum
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<p>I agree that the parent going directly to the teacher, after the kid HAD put in increased effort and increased his grades, was over the top. Not that I don’t sympathize, because believe me I do, but I have learned much in the course of parenting 2 teens.</p>

<p>We went thru this to some degree with my D. She repeatedly told me, “The more you nag me, the more it makes me NOT want to do my work.” Eventually I heard her. After I had told her innumerable times, “You are limiting your college options if you don’t get the absolute best grades you can,” I finally heard myself. I finally realized - it’s HER life. If she doesn’t get into her dream school because she refused to do her Spanish homework because she hated the teacher, then SHE will have to live with that consequence. </p>

<p>And you know what? When I backed off, she continued to work pretty hard. Maybe not as hard as I’d have liked, but hard enough to get B’s in honors classes. And we’re both a lot happier.</p>

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<p>I have learned with my kids that they want support, but not too much lecturing, advice, involvement. I also read something really interesting just a few hours ago, about the natural human tendency to resist suggestions – some people are wired to resist more than others, so getting too involved or interested can really backfire, causing the other person to <em>lock in</em> to their opposition to your suggestions. I guess the trick is to know what is going on and be helpful without being intrusive. Still haven’t mastered that, but I believe it is true.</p>

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<p>eden, I have some random thoughts I’d like to share: </p>

<p>For a child who is not living up to his/her potential, the real worry here is determining if there is a pattern of self defeating behavior that will sabotage happiness/health/success in the future. This is separate from the immaturity, rebellion, know-it-all-itis, moodiness, grandiosity, etc. seen in adolescent angst.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that the laid back (type B) personality types tend to have some health advantages in middle age. The ability to “go with the flow” seems to be cardioprotective.</p>

<p>Sometimes, going against the norm and angering those in charge demonstates a degree of creative energy that will ultimately bear fruit. Last night, I happened to watch the movie Patton, and there was an initial segment with Francis Ford Coppola, the screenwriter. Turns out he was fired because of his unique opening scene in the movie ( the one with the big flag where Patton makes a speech to the audience, if you know the movie). Years later, Coppola was acknowledged and rewarded for that very same effort.</p>

<p>I live in NY and was greatly affected by the events of 9/11. You may recall that at the time of the first tower crash, the employees in the other tower were advised to go back to work. In this instance, the trait of noncompliance lead to survivorship.</p>

<p>Personality is a very fascinating thing and there is fluidity throughout the course of a lifetime. It’s the development of character through life experiences that defines who we are, and really, our children are just beginning that journey. Hopefully each one will find purpose and internal motivation along the way, and sometimes the best we can do is look for windows of opportunity where they can hear us. </p>

<p>I am reminded of the words of my father who said to me, “The hardest part of old age is that having acquired some wisdom, you can’t pass it on to the next generation.” </p>

<p>Lastly, thank you for starting this thread. My daughter and I read it through together ( it was one of those windows where we were in bonding mode) and it had an impact on her…for the moment, anyway.</p>

<p>Oh, one last thing: I find that when my kids really make me angry/frustrated, keeping a few baby pictures handy seems to help me get in touch with some positivity…and reminds me I’m in it for the long haul!</p>

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<p>I don’t have kids, so I can’t offer insight from that perspective, but looking back on high school (I’m a senior) I was in a similar situation as your son a couple of times. </p>

<p>If he you two had a long history of you pushing him for really high achievement I would say bring down the hammer. I know my dad would always say something along the lines of “When have I EVER tolerated a half-a**ed effort from you?” and then demand that I do it or I would be grounded for a very, VERY long time. </p>

<p>But since it doesn’t seem like you do, I remember my mom would ask me to do it, for her. She would bring up how much she does and how little she asks, and then leave it up to me. I would usually complete it because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, I just wanted control over my life. </p>

<p>Also, on reflection, while I use to hate it when my parents would talk to my teachers behind my back, I realize that it was probably part of the reason I was so successful. You are your kid’s greatest advocate, the more involved you are the more likely that the teacher is to help your kid and not tolerate slacking. </p>

<p>Don’t be afraid to invest in your kid’s success, just make sure he knows it’s done out of love and not out of a desire to control him.</p>

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<p>Nice insightful post, psychmom.</p>

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<p>Yes, and also wonderful post from Tyler09! Thanks for your high school perspective - I found it enlightening.</p>

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<p>I guess I want to resurrect this thread as a Mom who went thru senior year with DS1 on a nice, wooden, rollercoaster of craziness - because he did not seem to do his work, because his grades fell to Cs at points, because he would not complete scholarship applications and the like. I guess I just want to say that there were things I was not aware of, and things he never made me aware of, that made the situation seem worse in retrospect. Grade deflation at his school was one - kid with sudden C grades was a shock in our house… got a C all through Calc BC but got his AP scores - A 5 on the test ! How could that be? Ok, APLIt - B-C range all year - A 5 on the test ! History C at the outset of the year, moving to an A at year end. Guess what - a 5 on the test. Somewhere, he learned the material - which is what school is about, and I just measured his learning by the deflated class grades ! Boy, do I feel bad about that ! Now, in retrospect - I guess those grades hurt him in admissions as his senior year grades but there is some after the fact vindication in knowing that he really did learn…</p>

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<p>Desparity between 31 and 3.0 will be looked at as laziness, lack of desire to work hard… which is probably true in most cases.</p>

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<p>peppermint lounge (and others in the same situation): your son’s situation is very common. It reflects an attititude–carefully cultivated in professional education circles–that hard work is more important than basic smarts. Thus, many teachers grade students on the work they do, not on the understanding of the material. A final grade may be 80% daily work–homework, projects, that sort of stuff–and only 20% tests. It’s astonishing to me how many teachers take the time to grade homework.</p>

<p>I say this as a former teacher: watch out for teachers who think grunt work–homework, projects, group projects, that sort of thing–is more important than test performance. They don’t challenge the smartest students to learn more, and those students don’t do well because they’re bored silly. </p>

<p>Our son transferred from a school that emphasized that the students should work hard to one that emphasized that students should work smart… His grades went from a C- (average–he had exactly 70.1% in each class, did exactly the amount of “work” needed to pass, when combined with his high test grades) to an average somewhere in the high 90s (test grades and major individual projects/papers).</p>

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<p><<i’ve accepted=“” him=“” for=“” who=“” he=“” is.=“” i=“” fear=“” the=“” woman=“” marries=“”>></i’ve></p>

<p>I feel the same way about MY SON! He is WAY smarter than me, but is a last minute person and I’m a planner. The sooner we accept that our kids are NOT the blank slates we thought they were, the easier (!) it is to parent them. I’m getting better at this (after nearly 20 years of practice)</p>

<p>God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the WISDOM to know the difference.</p>

<p><<“inappropriate perfectionism”>>
I too have this affliction. The really hard part is to not inflict this behavior onto others. I am hardest on myself though.</p>

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<p>dmd77…that is an excellent post ! </p>

<p>we were astonished to learn that our son’s math teacher was giving more credit points for showing work than points awarded for the correct answer !</p>

<p>i am wondering how one can tell which colleges operate in the same way…rewarding grunt work over test performance? can you help with that question ? on another thread, one poster suggested that the large state universities tend to emphasis test performance over grunt work? are lac’s more likely to reward grunt work over test performance? apologies to op, not trying to hi-jack the thread. </p>

<p>peppermintlounge…good post too :)</p>

<p>i really think what we are seeing is the negative effects in the classroom of the no child left behind act, state, and district assessments. the brighter kids are bored silly. there is no incentive for the teachers to challenge them.</p>

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<p>Condor30: I will point out that you see the work hard/work smart differences a lot here on CC. Parents will say “my kid spends 5 hours a day doing homework and gets all As” as if that’s a good thing; IMHO, I’d rather see the kid rip through the homework in half an hour, ace his SATs, and get all A-s. I remember being told many years ago that the best efficiency experts are the laziest people, because they’re the ones who would rather do a job in the least possible time.</p>

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<p>I am going to counter dmd77. In life we don’t always get to do everything we like to do, like homework or boring projects at work. Many smart kids don’t do their homework because they think it’s pointless, and that’s how they get lower grades in high school. I think there is a lesson here where one must just suck it up sometimes and just do the work, if you want to get that A. I don’t encourage my kids to pick and choose what they do. If they want that A, then they should figure out what it’ll take. Similar to work, if I want that big bonus at year end or just to keep my job, I better figure out what my boss wants. If I really do not like what’s asked of me, I should look for another job, but continue to do what I need to do at work in order not to jeopardize my job (my family’s livelihood).</p>

<p>Almost every college does not award busy work. Homework becomes very small part of total grade. If you don’t do the homework, you won’t pass your test. Homework in high school counts, because it is a way of teaching kids to be responsible and to study. In college, final grade is made up of a midterm test, final, maybe a project. That’s why college is so hard. If you mess up a test, it is very hard to climb out of that hole.</p>

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<p>I fully agree with this statement. Many of these bright kids DO have the information and thus do well on that ONE AP exam. BUT while taking the courses, they neglect to so the required work, or don’t turn it in…or are less than prepared in other ways.</p>

<p>Kids need to understand that just KNOWING the information will certainly get them the grade on the AP exam…but DOING THE WORK required (regardless of how “menial” they think it is) is as important…and this will remain important in college and in their jobs.</p>

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<p>dmd77 thanks. i agree with you.</p>

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<p>My DS1 was never one for busy work - never ever, and I think that was part of the issue with senior year grades. He himself said that the APexams were so much easier than any he encountered in his classroom - which speaks to the rigor of the class work - as well as his tendency to procrastinate with the assignments…What I wish is that some of the admissions officers could have seen the deflation pattern (Cs rising after the first quarter and 5s on all the exams) rather than having viewed his senior year grades as a negative - hard to believe a weighed gpa of 3.9 was a negative, when by the end of the year, only the C in APcalc remained…ah well, he will be very prepared for college, and he will enter with a semester and a half completed via the college board…so, as he put it - he can go abroad and not worry about completing the requirements for his major…silver linings after a disappointing series of admissions decisions…</p>

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<p>Maybe some of it, but my “hated high school/love college” thought a great deal of the homework was useless. I’ve seen enough silly homework assignments pass through our living room that in many cases I have agreed with the kids. But of course, we all know the kids aren’t graded solely on what they learn…a huge chunk of the grade in on how they conform.</p>

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<p>I had the same kind of kid as dmd’s. The solution for getting him to to the homework was to give him truly challenging work, not make-work. Too many teachers say to bright kids: “Finished the exercises? Do some more!” These are the kids least in need of doing “some more”! They got the idea already! What they need is to work at the next level of difficulty.</p>

<p>In college, students in math/science will get weekly problem sets. They must show their work as well as the answer. But the problem sets will not be “make work,” When my niece spent a year with us, she considered taking BC-Calc, and I accompanied her to PTA night. The teacher claimed she was giving 40 problems per week (I hope I’m remembering right and it wasn’t 40 problems per day!). S learned BC Calc on his own with way fewer problems than that. In college, S had perhaps 10-15 problems per week, but many were real bears that took several hours of thinking about then writing up; and none were duplicate make-work problems.</p>

<p>While I appreciate Oldfort’s suggestion that much of work in life is boring, I also think that people can deal with boring if they see a point to it; a carpenter repeats certain motions time and time again, but he has in mind what the finished product will be; he sees that if he does not do a good job of prepping, that piece of carpentry will be flawed.</p>

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<p>I am in the IT world where we have procedures in place to prevent people from changing code without proper testing and sign offs. I could not afford to have a cowboy think he is smarter than other people, therefore those rules do not apply to him. I’ve had a few and they were a liability to the group as a whole, and I’ve had to let them go. Sometimes the end result does not justify the process.</p>

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<p>What will happen to these kiddos if they think the “homework” and “assignments” in college are too simple or boring? Will they just neglect to turn those in too?? What do they expect their grades will be then? Or do they expect that everything they do in their futures will be intellectually invigorating.</p>

<p>I LOVE my job…I really do. BUT I have things that are challenging and interesting to me (I love those things) and things that are just plain boring. Guess what…my employer expects me to do the boring things too. It is part of my job.</p>

<p>If this homework is SO easy and SO boring…surely these kids should be able to complete it very quickly and get it turned in to their teachers. They shouldn’t need to be agonizing over it for hours. They just need to get it done.</p>

<p>I’m sorry…I do agree that homework shouldn’t be busy work…and believe me, my kids had their fair share of the busy work kind. BUT it didn’t matter…not doing it would have affected their grades…my kids learned to DO what the teacher required whether they found it invigorating or not. </p>

<p>I don’t call it grade deflation when students don’t get great grades because they don’t do the work assigned. Grade deflation is when the overall grades in a course are lower and it’s usually because the school has made a decision that an A is given to students who are indeed outstanding…a B to above average…and a C to AVERAGE.</p>

<p>My son went to Boston University which is VERY well known for grade deflation on the college level. It’s not because the kids don’t hand in their assignments…it’s because of the decisions of the professors to not reward mediocre work. </p>

<p>I feel someone who does not fulfill the requirements of the course deserves what they get. It’s not like the teachers don’t let them know what the requirements are. Just buck up and do the work.</p>