I Should Have Nagged! {{{Venting}}

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-06-2006
I Should Have Nagged! {{{Venting}}
7
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 5:41pm

DD has known, since about oh, .... June 9, that her summer reading needed to by done and her summer assignments complete by the first day of school -- which is TOMORROW!

What do you suppose she has been pretty much all day, every day for the past five days? Yup, her summer assignments.

I had rather hoped that we could have spent this last day of summer vacation doing something other than this ... which is nothing! Just hanging around not much of anything, because it just seems too cruel to take DS off to the movies or something and leave her behind working. I am soooo frustrated.

I tried so hard not to nag over the summer, and did a pretty good job of NOT. But I did make a few polite suggestions about getting it done. Especially when the I heard' I'm bored' a time or two.

Now, it IS a fact that we ended being out of town a bit more than we expected to be at the start of summer. BUT, it is also a fact that there was PLENTY of time to work on this stuff before now! In fact, we had 5-6 days between trips when I specifically said "You really should spend these next few days concentrating on getting your homework done. It would be a real bummer if you ended up trying to cram it in the last few days!" Looks like that fell on deaf ears.

This morning she could tell I was frustrated. I told her it would have been nice if all this would have been done before now so that we could have done something special and fun to celebrate the end of summer. I can't believe she actually said this, but she did! "So do I, mom!" Like it's my fault?! Just who does she think is responsible for being in this situation? She is trying to make me feel guilty for admitting to being frustrated but it's not going to work.

It's already 2:30, she CLAIMS to be almost finished, but there still isn't going to be time to do anything. She hasn't got her backpack and supplies organized, her new school polos are still in a bag on the stairs (I asked her to hang them up 2 days ago) and miscellaneous things to prepare for tomorrow are still undone. Aarrgh!

 

 

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-18-2005
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 6:54pm

As hard as it is today, you did the right thing by NOT nagging. This is your DD's chance to learn about natural consequences. She spent the last five days of her summer vacation cramming, she'll rush around tonight or tomorrow morning organizing her backpack, and the polos are un-hung and maybe crumpled. Ah well.

The hard part for me would be that those consequences would be more negative for me than for my DD - and maybe that's the hard part for you too. I'm lucky that my DD is pretty self-motivated about work (and doubly lucky that her school doesn't assign summer work), but the backpack and clothes would be the same for her and she wouldn't be phased about it all.

I've had to work at NOT caring about the things that she doesn't care about - why should I get stressed about wrinkled un-hung clothes or a disorganized backpack if she doesn't? I try reminding without nagging, and the let her live with the outcome.

Sorry your last day of summer was no fun - I probably would have been mean and taken DS to a movie .

Sue

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-03-2005
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 8:28pm
We have summer reading assignments for advanced English here as well. After going thru what you just did last summer with my dd, I made a plan this summer. Book 1 had to be read, annotated, and the writing for it done by the 4th of July. Book 2 had to be done by August 1. The paper comparing the two books had to be done along with all typing and organizing of the assignment by August 15. If any deadlines weren't met then dd was grounded to the house until that portion was finished. I hated enforcing that but, it made her get it done and our last week before school started was way less stressful than last summer and she actually thanked me when she saw half her friends unable to go anywhere or do anything the last few days before school as they were struggling to finish the assignment. My dd will be a senior next year and we may go back to on level next year just to avoid the summer reading issue. She's taken the AP class all three years now and it gets tougher every year to lean on her to get things done. She will have already taken the SAT's and be applying to colleges so I might give her a break there if she does well this year. Well see..... Good luck to you... maybe I helped for next summer...Allison
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2003
Mon, 08-28-2006 - 10:40am
Thank Goodness in Canada, at least in our area, there is no such thing as "summer reading assignments". To me, a vacation is a vacation. When you get time off work, rarely are you expected to work (unless you have a very critical job). So why should students on summer vacation have to do any type of work? They need time to relax and grow from other experiences. Now, I'm all for reading. I am a great reader myself ... but summer is for vacationing in my view. We have the potential these days to live to be 100. We will work for most of those years with barely 3, 4 weeks vacation a year if we are lucky. Why not let these kids be kids while they are in school and give them a break?! As I said, thank goodness this isn't practiced in my daughter's school system.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-06-2006
Mon, 08-28-2006 - 11:15am

Well, she pulled it all off. She even managed to get her backpack organized, showered, hair blown dry and her clothes laid out for this morning by a pretty decent hour last night. She was giggling rather conspiratorily when she told me how "'there were e-mails flying back and forth all day today -- no one else is finished yet either". To which I replied, 'so I guess I'm not the only frustrated mom today?'. More giggling, an "I love you" and (gasp!) "well, at least we learned a lesson". Could it really be true??? I do hope so because this school year is probably going to be a tough one and it will be very, very long if we continue in this vein.

As much as I don't like it either, (summer vacation SHOULD be 'vacation' as it was intented) summer reading and assignments seem to be the norm. Every other high school student we ran into over the summer had some sort of reading and/or assignment to do -- not just from the San Diego area or from California, either. I don't know what the drive is to push these kids so hard, but I've felt from the days when my younger DS was in kindergarten, that it is just TOO MUCH. They'll all be burned out from school before they even GET to college. Sigh .... don't know what, if anything, can be done about this, though.

 

 

 

Avatar for mily12
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Mon, 08-28-2006 - 1:08pm

Sometimes you just have to let them suffer the concequences of their actions or lack of, as in your DD's case. I don't think you should have nagged. You remindered her a few times along the way and she chose not to listen. You fulfilled your part. Now it's up to her and her alone She made the choice and she now has to deal with it. IMHO, I would take your DS to the theater. Why should he have to pay for her poor decision?

Mily

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-06-2006
Mon, 08-28-2006 - 2:30pm

<>

You are absolutely right and I came to the same conclusion myself last night. I plan to apologize to him today when I pick him up and then try do a special something with him this week.

 

 

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2005
Tue, 08-29-2006 - 10:25am
I think it would be very fair to take DS to the movies or some fun activity. DD new that she had this responsibility and SHE choose to put it off. She might learn a very valuable lesson from this.