First of all, close you eyes, take a couple of deeeep cleansing breaths so you can easily suspend reality and pretend that I posted this about a year ago when I wrote it. Ready? Good. Read on.
I spent some time recently clearing out my brain, ranting about, discussing Sweet Pea’s recent shove out of the boat opportunity to demonstrate his competence at managing his own academic life. Do you like how positively I spun that? I know. Thanks, it took me a while. The reality is more like Husband and I had had it up to here and something had to change because things were getting real ugly real quick. You can read about it here.
This is a television. Sweet Pea hasn’t seen one with moving pictures on it in weeks. The Amish watch more TV than Sweet Pea these days.
Now for the update. As of three full weeks into the new marking period- three full weeks of no nagging, no checking of any assignment and minimal mentioning of homework at all. Also three full weeks of no video game or regular tv time. We did strategically schedule two family movie nights over the weekends, and a trip out to the movies so he didn’t lose all hope. It is amazing what a motivator a screen is for this kid. As of three weeks into the grading period, his lowest grade was a C+. That was from a bombed assignment that was graded at the very beginning of the marking period (everything else in that class has been a B or an A!) He also had a B+ and the rest are A’s!! I know, I couldn’t believe it either. I am not going to declare this a resounding success yet, there is still lots of time for things to go south.
As of the END of the marking period, Sweet Pea had all A’s and B’s. He actually had all A’s and B’s this entire school year, even before SInk or Swim, but this marking period was certainly the least painful for me. I won’t speak for him, but I suspect he would say the same. We have gotten to a new normal where we worry less about his work and he handles more himself. Does he forget stuff? Yes. Does he blow stuff off? Sure does. Do Husband and I freak out? Only on the inside. That was the overall goal, so… (whisper) Yay!
Sweet Pea rocked his grades like Phelps rocks the pool!
The bottom line is that Sweet Pea has really risen to the occasion and given us a reason to not need quite so much wine at the end of the week. We have five and a half more years of school (Heaven help us) but the last three (especially) have been a real learning opportunity for the parents of Sweet Pea. We are lucky to have a supportive teacher at school we keep in touch with and a babysitter who is totally cool with actually watching the kids and not letting them watch tv for the two hours she is here (I know, she’s a keeper!). But I will say that while this certainly could have gone horribly wrong, I am sooooo glad it didn’t!
So parents of reluctant students, don’t give up!! If a couple of boobs, exhausted schmos like Husband and me can get a break from the unpleasantness that is Sweet Pea doing a Language Arts project (with tri-fold, matted color pictures and 7 paragraphs of text) so can you. Dream big, people.
