What do you do when your child is just like you?
November 5th, 2007 | by Vinny |
I was a terrible student. Terrible. I rarely did my homework. Don’t get me wrong. I was smart enough to do it, but I was too lazy to do it.
It would have been hard to tell from my test grades. I’m the kind of person who can do well on tests. Very well. Even without study or knowledge of material, I can sometimes do well. It makes my wife crazy, because she suffers from test anxiety and can study the material and still not do well. But I digress…
My son is just like me. He chooses not to do his homework. He is lazy about it. He’d prefer to do anything else. He goes through all of the same clarifying events that I went through. Failing grades because he has not completed enough of the assignments to pass. Failures on tests because of a failure to prepare.
Unfortunately for him, he inherited the laziness from me and the test anxiety from my wife. It means that without a significant amount of preparation, he cannot be successful on tests. This is creating great strife in the household. As I am not in the household most of the time, it creates strife long distance as well. It creates even more strife because, coincident with my departure to “Studio B” came a marked drop in homework completion rates and test scores. How guitly do I feel right now? Very.
So what to do? Here’s our plan at present:
- My wife has given up the evening job she was working (which will cost us a significant amount of money) so that she can be home to pick up where I left off with the supervision of evening homework.
- All televisions in the house are locked. No child can access television without a parent code. By the way, this is EXTREMELY inconvenient when trying to channel surf or avoid commercials. Change the channel, enter a code, change the channel, enter a code, etc.
- My son’s non-internet gaming and writing only computer is disconnected. No games, all work to be done on the family computer.
- No ipod for junior.
- No social life. Grounded until further notice.
Will these be successful? With the single exception of #1, no. How do I know? I AM him, remember? How would YOU do it differently than me? I’m running out of options. Parental presence and non-stop supervision appear to be the ONLY successful options.
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3 Responses to “What do you do when your child is just like you?”
By sam on Nov 11, 2007 | Reply
that blows. you didn’t say what grade he’s in. i’m kind of like that a little. I can study for an hour and it’ll get me a low 90. In 5th grade I got in a lot of trouble because I couldn’t write draft after draft of the same things all the time. My teacher made an agreement with me that I could do one draft and that would be my final. He told my 6th grade teacher too and it helped tons. Like at least they were paying attention to the content and not getting hung up on all the dumb teacher rules.
By Morgan on Nov 17, 2007 | Reply
I sorry that your kid isn’t doing to hot in school. One thing i don’t agree on is that your kid is lazy because you are lazy. i think your kid has the abilities of being a A, B honor role student. remember when your around your kid don’t be lazy becasue they will just copy what you do because they think ohh well it is okay because my dad did it. i think you should not ground his social life, because you have let him take a break and be a kid. I think that you need to make harsher limits. My mother tells me that high schools look at your grades and your conduct. which makes me want to do great in school because i want to choose what high school i want to go to ,not the high school choose me. You also may want to consider maybe changing schools because that may not be the right school for him. Giving you advice would be alot easier if you would tell what grade he is in, but it this advice goes for all grades. Hope you take advice and make sure to tell him about the high school thing i think it might make a big inpact on him. Also ask him what does he want to be when he grows up and just say he says a doctor well then tell him that you better make good grades inorder to be a doctor. Hope the advice works and hope you keep it up.
By The Contessa on Nov 24, 2007 | Reply
Hey Pahtner.
Not being a parent, I can’t imagine the guilt you feel. But I want to say this, no good deed goes unpunished. You have to be in studio B in order for life to progress at this time. So feeling badly about it isn’t going to alter that fact.
As for Junior, I think the downhill turn is the change in the household. This too shall pass.
Have you thought about a tutor from school? Someone who not only knows and is comfortable with the material, but is also NOT a parent, may help him better prepare during this time.
I’m around if you need me. Please don’t hesitate to call. I love that kid too!!!