Spoke too soon?
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| Tue, 07-25-2006 - 9:46pm |
I posted below under renniemoms thread that dd14 and I have been going through a good patch lately. However, just today we hit a bit of a rough patch:
Some background is that dd14 has been in summer school and was doing well, according to her english teacher. Even though she only needed to take math, the middle school program required two subjects, which were math and english. Things were going well, and then her english teacher left on vacation and another teacher took over. This man is apparently a former military guy who had decided to rule with fear and intimidation. My dd claims she's terrified of the guy. I can believe it, because one day she chose to stay in math class rather than go to her second period english class, and she hates math.
The problem is, today she called me just before school let out to tell me that she and a friend had skipped second period and walked to Starbucks! She's using the fact that she hates the teacher, yada, yada. Also, she told me that she could have lied to me and I might never have known she went to Starbucks. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place because dd is the type to keep things from me (and I'm sure still does to a point). If I get too heavy handed, she will start keeping things from me all over again. What would you do? Would you punish her, just talk to her about it, or do nothing?
Of course, I will also call the school to complain about this teacher, but she has three more days left of school!

Probably what you SHOULD talk to her about rather than the skipping off to go to Starbucks or telling/not telling you is about her handling of a difficult situation. This isn't going to be the last time she is going to have to deal with someone who is perhaps not the most pleasant person. She'll have other strict teachers, and then she'll have demanding bosses, annoying coworkers and maybe even some day overbearing inlaws. And whenever she meets up with them she can't just take off to Starbucks!!! (Nor will she always have mummy to step in and solve the issue.) She has to keep her mind on what has to be done and focus on that vs the personalities she has to deal with.
If she has three days of school left, she should be finishing her assignments, getting ready for whatever final she might have, bite her lip and bid a fond "hope I never see you again" to that teacher. The lesson needs to be about not letting other people interfere with your goals....
Good advice! I agree that talking to her would probably accomplish more than punishing her.
Amelia
If only I had a nickel for every time I've had THAT conversation with one of my kids! You may not remember this about dd, but a year ago she was cutting herself to deal with her anger and depression. Mummy doesn't always intervene as you implied, but 'mummy' also cares that her dd is getting berated while knowing what kind of difficulties she has endured all year, and how hard she works at maintaining her self esteem. This may not be an issue in your house, and if so, you should feel grateful. I wish teachers would realize how difficult the teen years are for some kids - you can yell at some of them (my ds16 for one) and it won't phase them, you can yell at others and they will go home and hurt themselves. The abuse of authority is something that we should not, as parents, become immune to and continue to ignore and tolerate in the name of "learning how to get along with others."
Thanks, I do feel like I did the right thing now in not losing my cool and punishing her. I did talk to her about this, probably for the billionth time mentioning how she will have to learn to get along with difficult people all her life. She knows I will not tolerate any more school ditching. This morning she said, as I've been saying to her, "Only 3 more days."
I do agree that when new, unexpected things come up for the first time, as long as they're not extreme, it's a good thing to let it go and talk about it.
And I agree with you also about not making the kids feel that they have to tolerate being abused by someone in authority, I don't want my kids to be disrespectful but if someone crosses the line the kids should be able to stand up for themselves.
just my thoughts.. good luck
I went through this with DD. I pretty much had the policy of if she told me about something I wouldn't punish her. If this were my DD (she's real secretive as well), I would simply say well thanks for telling me b/c I would have been very upset if I found this out from the school principle. I would also tell her that I was going to call the school about the teacher and try to work something out but that skipping class isn't the right way to handle it and to please don't do it again. Then I would tell her, if it happens again, the consequences will be grounding, washing the windows, writing an extra paper for English since this is the class that she's missing, or whatever else you decide. I would most definitely make sure that she does the work she missed for that class even if the teacher doesn't accept it - make sure she understands that learning the material is important.
Good Luck!!