Screwed up.. how to explain this to my parents

Parents Forum
1

<p>hello parents!</p>

<p>i am in urgent need of your help.</p>

<p>i procrastinate ALOT. i mean ALOT. like bordering on ridiculous. i know... its horrible.. la dee da dee da. senioritus has got the worst of me. i have been absent due to family vacations/school trip so the make up work has really piled up. </p>

<p>im planning to finish everything by the end of this week. but my parents got an email from the school saying that they need to conference. my parents are super strict about grades... and i know ive been lazy, but i eventually get the work done in time. i know i cant do this in college, but my teachers are lenient- so sometimes i take advantage of the situation. </p>

<p>how on earth do i explain this to my parents? they are SOOOOO angry at me, you have no idea. i probably wont be able to read your response because... they are taking my laptop away =[ but HELP. how do i say the right things and do the right things so that my parents dont get angry!</p>

2

<p>I suggest:</p>

<ol>
<li>Get the unfinished work done. ASAP.</li>
<li>Own up to being lazy/senioritis/whatever and admit that you made a mistake. No excuses.</li>
<li>Stay calm if parents get angry. They will get over it.</li>
</ol>

<p>That’s all you can do. Handle the situation in a mature manner. </p>

<p>On the positive side, somewhere along the line we have all done something like this (I know I have) and we learn from our mistakes.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>If your parents care so much about grades, what are they doing taking a family vacation during school time???</p>

4

<p>Senioritis is a hard one for parents because (1) they don’t want to see college admissions rescinded because of it and (2) if parents are paying for your college education, it doesn’t bode well on how you will handled time management once you’ve left the nest.</p>

<p>Be prepared to demonstrate to your parents how you will adjust your time to get caught up and keep caught up on all your work, even if this means giving up some opportunity to do something really fun and interesting. This is called being mature.</p>

5

<p>How many days did you miss due to “family vacations/school trips”? We never pulled our kids out of school for vacation past the second grade, but I do know that it is common practice. You need to focus on completing this work ASAP. Also, if procrastination is an ongoing issue, you may have ADD without hyperactivity, which means that it is hard for you to focus and stay on task, but you are not hyperactive. Many schools fail to diagnose this since they think all ADD students are hyperactive.</p>

6

<p>While I agree with you, michone that ADHD – inattentive type is often missed, it is not up to the school to diagnose it. It must be diagnosed by a medical doctor. The school can confer with the student/family about behaviors that they see, but generally can not even mention ADHD unless there is a diagnosis. Once there is a diagnosis, the school, family, and MD hopefully can all work together to come up with a plan that will help the student be successful.</p>

7

<p>The more you make excuses, the more angry or disappointed you will find them. It was up to you to manage your time, or tell them that you couldn’t go on vacations. There’s obviously an impt lesson here that diligence = good grades and blowing stuff off = trouble and disappointed or angry parents. When you’re in college or holding down a job, no one wants to hear excuses. </p>

<p>All you can do is make it clear that you’ve learned an important lesson about priorities and time management. Either “man-up” or “pull up your big girl panties” (whichever applies) and take whatever grief you earned, just like you took whatever honors they gave you previously for doing a good job. It will blow over.</p>

<p>Screwing up and senioritis doesn’t equal ADD, or large percentages of every senior class would have it. There’s a reason why colleges warn seniors to keep up their grades.</p>

8

<p>Why is it that every time someone reads about procrastination and not keeping up with work it gets attributed to ADD? OP went on family vacations and a school trip. Senioritis is, in some ways, normal; perhaps even more so with a procrastinator. OP just needs to own up to the problems and get the work done. Maybe taking the laptop will energize him/her to make that happen.</p>

<p>Crossposted with Nonzeus.</p>

9

<p>“Explain”? No, I don’t think you “explain”. That would be akin to offering an excuse, something I’m sure your parents don’t want to hear.</p>

<p>You get on the road to adulthood and say “Mom, Dad…I screwed up. There’s no excuse for me not taking things more seriously. Its time I do so, and I want you to know that I’m committed to making a strong finish. What can I do to show you that I’m serious?”</p>

10

<p>Yes, it is the family vacation to blame,lousy parents ;)</p>

<p>Seriously, taking your children out of school for a family vacation “should” not be a problem, IF the children can do some of the work while on vacation and make up the rest when returning…The kids will long remember that great trip away,and not remember they missed 1 week of schoolwork…ease up people!!!</p>

11

<p>I don’t mean to hijack this post, but feel I need to speak out about family vacations. We care very much about grades/academics but there have been times when we have taken our kids out due to family vacations and it has not been detrimental. Both my family and H’s live in another part of the country and we are sometimes expected for holidays, weddings, reunions etc. We have tried to explain that the school calender where we live is very different than theirs , but they don’t get it. So our kids get pulled out and that’s the way it is. I know a family with HS students who have a set of circumstances where they have a lot of travel opportunities both in the US and international. Their kids miss school for these trips and yet keep up with the work and do very well. Fine with me.</p>

12

<p>Bumble: Stop browsing forum sites and go do your work! (I will if you will.)</p>

13

<p>OP, there’s not much you can say at this point. Did you miss deadlines you were given for make-up homework? Were you going to get full credit or partial credit if you completed certain things at certain times? Bottom line is you better assess how much doo-doo you are in and be prepared to be a “humble bumble.” And yes, I’d be upset with my kids if we actually pulled them out of school for a vacation (which I’m not a huge supporter of) and a school trip and they were given deadlines to make-up homework yet failed to meet those deadlines. We don’t stand over our kids and generally expect that they will do what is required of them, so yeah, I’d be not too happy. If the school called I’d be even more upset. You did mess up so get through this, do what you say you’re going to do going forward and best wishes for a successful completion of this school year (and I do mean that.) It’s possible the school is merely looking out for your best interests with regard to your senior grades and what that means to your potential college and if this is unusual behavior simply trying to save you from yourself, but it really doesn’t matter “why” at this point does it?</p>

14

<p>^^^ I have to generally disagree with the family vacations during school. Children, as students, have one job - to go to school. Just as I plan family vacations around my work, we plan them around our children’s work - school. Unless there is a special event (wedding, funeral, etc) students should be in school. My 2 cents, YMMV.</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>If you have so far gotten good grades to get into a school you and your family are happy with, you have always procrastinated but always managed to pull it off, I’m not sure I really see what the problem is. </p>

<p>I know this does not really answer your immediate problem but the reality is people work in very different ways. If you are able to wait to the last minute, or negotiate new deadlines for yourself ( or whatever you do, aside from something unethical), and yet pull of the grades you want and need, it’s not lazy, it’s smart. It’s not HOW you work but the OUTCOMES of how you work that matters. Your parents have one style (probably because they are anxious types), and you have another (because you need a deadline to get the same sense of urgency to meet your goals). </p>

<p>You may be able to keep this up in college or maybe not. I imagine you might flounder a bit at the outset with trial and error until you figure out just what you can get away with. So long as you are getting the grades you seek, there is not a problem. I have some brilliant students who have a stupendous social life, wing things a lot, and still produce amazing output. Likewise I have students that spend huge amounts of time ‘studying’ but really are not efficient or have misplaced priorities with their work, and do not necessarily do any better. Some of the students that have seriously honed their ability to wing it in HS do far better than the ‘perfectionistic’ students in HS because often in college you can’t possible DO everything asked of you anyway-- you need to be comfortable prioritizing, cutting corners, sometimes doing things at the last minute. </p>

<p>You parents are rightfully worried that you <em>might</em> screw up…but you have not yet. Parents of all stripes tend to worry sometimes (though I frankly can’t relate to their worry here, parental worry about <em>something</em> seems to be universal). Their anxiety- and what they see as you causing their anxiety- is why they are upset. </p>

<p>If your goal is to make them feel a bit better so you can not worry about them worrying, maybe these things would help: </p>

<ul>
<li>Apologize for putting them in this bad feeling situation.</li>
<li>Convey to them how bad you feel (you really do seem remorseful in your post, so it should be easy enough; you see the light of day now and absolutely swear things are different from here on in and go into detail-- don’t use generalities, but be specific because that makes it more trustworthy and real (and will also help you get moving).</li>
<li>Ask them for help- ask if they can give you ideas about how they overcame the inability to concentration or focus at times in their life: so start brainstorming solutions to the problem together (it might remind them that everyone has this sometimes and also that you are serious about fixing it)</li>
<li>Remind them that while this is not an excuse, you promise that won’t let them down just has you have not/never/seldom done so before: remind them of past similar conflicts and how it turned out (if this has happened before). Be careful here of course in how this comes out but the point is you aren’t making excuses, but trying to reassure them. </li>
</ul>

<p>^Now frankly I think it’s out of proportion for them to be all freaked out here, but given they are angry and you are upset about displeasing them, these are my suggestions.</p>

16

<p>It’s a money thing- public schools get paid for each day the student attends, doesn’t get paid if they don’t. Privates get paid no matter what. Top publics will not let you make up work for more than 1-2 day sickness, if student is out for a week even if sick, someone has to contact each teacher for work during the absence. Publics don’t even give a pass for college campus visits in April. Not in Cali.</p>

<p>Family vacations are dying. With year round sports and camps/academics during summers(to get into college!) a lot of families are not playing together. Then, when the kids go to the dark side, everyone says “should have had dinner together, vacationed together”. At most jobs you can hardly depend on planning a vacation 4-6 months in advance anymore- something always comes up.</p>

<p>So for us, vacations happened when they could- didn’t seem to change the college outcomes at all, and we have lots of great adventures and memories. The Kids are well educated beyond the classroom, which as a family we value as much as classroom learning. </p>

<p>But, I understand others point here- it’s just seemed to us this family time was rushing by and if we didn’t grab when we could we would miss it.</p>

17

<p>@Bumble: It’s actually pretty simple:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Apologize, but skip the explanations. They will only view them as excuses. (Especially skip “explaining” that the vacation they took you on caused you to fall behind. They will view this as blaming them for your failure.)</p></li>
<li><p>Make up a list of every item that needs to be made up. This will mean going to each teacher and owning up to your problem and getting them to help you create your list.</p></li>
<li><p>Make up a realistic schedule of when you can get the items on the list done. For the next several weeks(?) you should schedule as much of your “free time” as possible for working on your list. No going out with your friends on Friday/Saturday nights etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Stick to the plan</p></li>
<li><p>Treat the whole episode as a life lesson.</p></li>
</ol>

18

<p>Be honest and cooperative. If you face your problems (instead of hiding them as some students tend to do), the hopefully your parents will support your recovery mode.</p>

19

<p>The best thing you can do is hussle to produce quality work to catch up and be sure to stay focused throught the rest of this year & when you start college. No excuse will cut it. Just own up to messing up and talk about the concrete steps you’re taking to improve, your schedule for getting completely caught up. Make appointments with your counselor & all your teachers to get agreement on your proposed schedule to catch up. Be sure your grades are good enough not to jeopardize your college options.</p>

<p>Good luck!
By the way, regarding family trips/vacations, there is a time & place. The family needs to weigh the benefits vs. the costs, including disruption to the student. The last vacation we pulled S out of school for was during his 5th grade year. The teacher literally gave him 2 inch stack of work to do & he came back to school a month AHEAD of his class & found school even more boring than usual for a long time. It was at S’s request that we never did another trip that conflicted with school. By the time they reached HS, their chronic illnesses did not make travel much fun. We have NO REGRETS for any of the wonderful family trips we took and it did greatly broaden our kids’ perspectives on life; we are so glad we did travel when they were healthy enough to enjoy it, as it really helped sustain all of us through some very gloomy times.</p>

<p>For our D, we allowed her to come to Parents Weekend with us when she was in her 3rd semester of CC because that was the college she would be attending in a few months. She worked with all her instructors so she didn’t fall behind and she found it invaluable to re-connect with her HS friends who had just started at that U. For us, the tradeoff was well worth it & she only missed a few days with all her instructors’ blessing. D was SO glad she came–it was a prolonged orientation visit with her best friends! It made her January transition so much smoother!</p>

<p>It is ALWAYS the student’s obligation to be sure to work out with the teachers AHEAD OF TIME what they’ll be missing and how to keep up so they don’t dig themselves into the hole you’ve found yourself in. Procastination is deadly and really limits your ability to have options, like taking trips during school time without falling FAR, FAR behind. </p>

<p>Time management is key and you have a weekend to try to salvage what you can and position yourself so you’re closer to caught up come Monday.</p>

20

<p>I honestly don’t understand the issue people have with family vacations during school. If a) it is not impacting anyone else- not extra work for the teacher, impact on the school, impact on group projects and b) the student can handle it and its not adversely affecting one’s school performance- why should it matter? </p>

<p>Often what is learned on travels is far far more developmental and educational than what was covered in a week of class. Not to mention the value of family time is incredible. You will remember the rest of your life the trip to Japan with your parents; you will absolutely not remember the week of algebra and english you missed. The former will impact you forever, the latter will not make an iota of difference. </p>

<p>I guess it just aligns with my values. Substance and outcome over arbitrary rules. Producing valuable outcomes, not just putting in face time. Learn to juggle life. Life is extremely short, embrace special, memorable experiences when you can. With consideration to the big scheme of things, a lot of day to day is sheer noise, stuff that a year from now will never, ever matter or be remembered. It is actually okay and maybe even really healthy to have a B on your transcript.</p>