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| Mon, 01-15-2007 - 1:41pm |
OK there is this mom at my work and she thinks that it is ok to let her 13 year old son to fail in 7th grade becuase he is supposed to manage his own homework and figure out his homework himself unless he askes for help. Is this ok?? I think that it is very wrong of her and that she should be making sure he gets it done and if he doesn't he gets consiquences. She came to me and asked me because he ex thinks that she should be making sure he does his homework. I asked her if she wants he son to fail because if he does he is going to think he is a failure. I only have a 9 month old but I think that I have pretty good grasp unless I am totally going in the wrong direction with the whole homework thing. help!!!

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On the one hand, I think she's right by allowing her son to suffer the consequences of his own behavior (in this case, lack of attention to his studies and responsibilities as a student). This is actually what many specialists instruct parents to do in the case where thier child/student is neglecting his/her schoolwork and despite thier pleas to get on track, the child is not turning in homework or studying, and this, failing his classes. How else will he truly learn the consequences of his behavior if he doesn't feel the pain from failing and perhaps having to retake a course the following year or being left behind by his peers who've moved on to the next grade/class? How long is a parent supposed to hold her child's hand to TRY and assure his/her passage from class to class, grade to grade? Will mom also be there when her child calls into work sick all the time because he's too lazy to tear himself away from PS3 and get to work? If the kid never learns to suffer the consequences, when will he learn that he needs to change his behavior? When will mom learn to cut the chord if she is always micromanaging her son and HIS schoolwork? Mom's job is to teach her child to take responsibility for himself, to point him in the right direction, to guide him to lifes earlier lessons. It is NOT her job to nag him into submission nor hold his hand through all the tough times that are inevitably brought on by his own negligence, is it? If the son is simply being lazy and negligent, yes, the mom should let him fail. And hopefully, the school will follow suit and hold him back or make him take summer school classes (and his parents should make him pay for them).
OTOH, if her son has some type of learning disability or needs a tutor or is truly having a hard time understanding and grasping the concepts taught in his class, then she's really falling down on the job. She should definitely get him into an extra help class or fix him up with a peer tutor through the high school. She could also request of the school to have him intellectually and psychologically evaluated to see if he has a learning disability or if he is simply a lazy bones.
And then there is the middle-ground. Creating a reasonable series of consequences for simply lazy behavior. She could arrange with his teachers to have his assignment book initialed by each teacher on Fridays to let her know if any assignments have been completed or not, any test/quiz failed or passed, etc. Likewise, she would initial it back to them for Monday. Our HS posts all HW assignment and upcoming test or long term projects - perhaps her school does the same. I used to print out the weekly assignments for each class on Sunday evenings for my now 17dd. She would have to initial each assignment when it was completed and I could ask to see it at any time. If she failed to turn in or complete an assignment, she wasn't allowed to make plans for the following weekend. It worked for a while and then we had to come up with another fresh idea. We constantly were coming up with fresh ideas. Now my dd is a senior and is repeating a civics class this semester. If she doesn't pass all her classes, she will not graduate in June. I stopped nagging her almost 2 years ago because it was a waste of my breath and energy. She attended summer school two years in a row and paid for them both - this past summer she was really upset about it and so I asked her how come she was taking summer classes. She whispered, "Because I was too lazy to do my work when I should have done it" and I said no more. She knows. And now? We just received a letter in the mail that should she fail one more class she will have the opportunity to take a summer class and graduate in August if she can't in June. I made her read it and she said, "I will pass mom." and so we shall see.
My point is that at some point you have to let go - you have to let them make thier own decisions, good or bad, and let them fail if they must - sometimes that's what it takes to learn. We can't micromanage them forever because then they will never learn to be self sufficient! So, depending on the situation, your co-worker may have the right idea for her son. Don't be so quick to judge, your son is only 9 months old. You never know what the future holds for him academically. Many gentle hugs~
Don't worry, Nikki, you are right here.
I didn't read all the posts, so sorry if I'm repeating...
I have an almost 13yo DS who is in 7th grade. He has always been very, very responsible about his schoolwork and I've rarely had to get involved with it -- ever. However, I do still ask (on pretty much a daily basis) if he has homework, what kind it is, if it's done, etc. Since he is the kind of kid he is, I'm lucky that's pretty much the extent of my involvement.
That said however, if he was in danger of failing, I'd be all over him, his teachers and the school to find out what the heck was going on -- In fact, I'd be there well BEFORE he got to the 'danger of failing' point, anyway. No way would I sit back and let him fail if there was something I could be doing to prevent it or something I could be doing to help. This is a bit young to sit back and let him figure it out and suffer the consequences, and once a kid gets in the mode/mindset, it's a tough one to reverse. Obviously, something is off somewhere and I think this boys' mom is doing him quite a disservice by not trying to help.
There are my .02 cents!
I agree with you that the mom of a 7th grader should not simply let her son fail, without making an effort to be sure he's doing his homework and preparing for tests.
When DS17 was in 7th grade, I never did that because I didn't need to. He was very responsible about homework and studying until the end of his junior year in HS! Now is the time that I have to prod him. I do question him daily about what he needs to to for his homework and whether it is done when he sits down to watch TV. Never get into what the individual assgnmts are--at this age that would be way too much. But I do check them online after the fact, and if he's been turning them in late, he will lose privileges.
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I have a 15 yo dd in 10th grade and an 11 yo son in 6th grade. I still help both with their work to some extent. Neither of them really needs alot of help -- they get really good grades. But I find that if I do lend *some* help and show interest the quality of their work greatly improves.
The type of help I give is one of helping with researching things, organizing themselves, helping them focus their thoughts and ensure they cover everything. I don't give them answers. I may help them with tips on how to solve the problem or get the answer but never the answer. I also help with technical expertise when necessary.
However, I was also a top student myself. I was honour roll/dean's list all the way, tested as gifted, won contests and science fairs -- you get the picture. So I am comfortable providing help as I have alot of knowledge and background. Maybe this woman you work with doesn't feel the same way? I admit sometimes I get frustrated when my dd brings home some elaborate algebra questions and I have to dig way, way, way deep down into my memory to help her figure it out. I think to myself "What if I couldn't help her? What would she do?..." My mom who is an immigrant with a 4th grade education often tells my kids how she couldn't help me at all and I had to figure it all out on my own and that they should do the same. But I can't simply sit by and not help, watching them struggle if I know I can help.
So if she's asking I'd advise this woman she should be helping her son. He's too young to be left to figure it out himself. Schools and teachers are not what they used to be. There isn't enough time to help out the kids having trouble and they will just be left to struggle alone. It isn't fair to him and the consequences are too serious for him to let him flounder like that. When he's 18 and if he's still not serious about his work well, then its his problem but in 7th grade there's still time for him to turn himself into a good student.
Personal opinion here... it is ridiculous to let a child who is in 7th grade *fail* just to get a point across. I believe the *point* the child will get is that he is a failure, and nothing more. He will be more likely to drop out of school if he's *held back *.
I think 7th grade is a bit young for parents to back off this much, but I also think 16 is a bit old for parents to be involved in the kids homework to the point of checking things over, helping with research, etc.
I'm going to toss something out there that will probably be controversial, but....
When did kids become projects, that we value ourselves as good parents vs. bad parents based on how they turn out? When we were pregnant, it was baby Mozart, applying to the best preschools before the child was born, in order to get them on the waiting list, making sure they could read before they entered kindergarden to give them a leg up, then there were dance class, karate class, soccer lessons, music lessons, t-ball, little league, peewee football... the kids were micromanaged from the day they were conceived so that the greatest share of their time was scheduled for them, they had little opportunity to just be kids, exploring the world in an unstructured way - and to learn to manage their own time a little bit. Now as teenagers, we fret because they don't know how to manage their time, follow up on their assignments on their own, take responsibility for their own performance, and learn to take care of themselves. Where does it end? My SIL teaches at the college level, and is amazed at how frequently parents are still checking homework, checking grades, checking progress, and actually calling her to challenge her on a student's grade. There are a couple of 19/20 y/os that I work with who still have mom checking their work schedule, calling the supervisor to check on how they are doing, and last week one of them actually called the boss to challenge the performance appraisal that her daughter got, because she didn't get a merit raise. The girl is late for work about 50% of the time and calls in a couple of times a month, IMHO she didn't deserve a merit increase, she's lucky to still have a job. So where does it end?? At 20, 25, 30 y/o? I don't know the answer, but IMHO, somewhere along the line we need to quit micromanaging our kids' lives lest we find ourselves expecting them to call mom and ask permission to start a family. At some point the kids have to start takinig responsibility for themselves and managing their own lives, and doing it while they're still in the safety net of mom & dad's home is probably the best way. Doesn't mean parents should be fixing all their problems or sheltering them from the consequences of poor choices, but it is a lot easier to fail English at 16 than it is to loose a job due to lack of responsibility.
My kids haven't always dealt with increasing responsibility well either, have made poor choices and have sufferred the consequences of those choices. But, by the time they were 17 they were managing their own school and work lives with little input from me. DD 15 has a part time job, I haven't seen her work schedule in almost a year, and I haven't checked her homework in a couple of years. She's a cheerleader and manages work and school and cheer time on her own, with little if any input from me. I found that when she started dating her first b/f this fall, I had to occasionally remind her of her priorities, but after a few weeks she was back to handling things on her own again. Granted, she might be the exception rather than the rule, her brothers weren't this self-sufficient at this age, but they were on their way.
All of that said, I do think 12 or 13 is a bit young for parents to completely back off and expect the kids to manage on their own, but it is a good time to start the process of gradually fading away. It isn't so much a matter of "cutting the cord with one swift slice" but weakening it little by little until it goes away of it's own accord.
Rose
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