Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Hardest Thing

Sometimes the hardest thing a parent can do is to watch her child fail. It is even harder to allow him to fail. Cody is very likely going to fail Algebra this year because he simply will not do his work. I have tried everything I know to do to get him to do his work. He just won't. He doesn't even try.

His teacher IMed me yesterday and said he hadn't done an assignment that counted as a test grade. She told me that if he turned it in today, she would go ahead and count his score. When I asked him, he said that assignment was in his locker. He would get it in the morning and turn it in.

He hadn't done the first problem on it. He got a 0. A test score 0. His average now stands at 47. With only a week left of school, it is highly unlikely he can bring that grade up to passing. Even with a perfect score on his final, I don't know if that would be enough.

I don't know what else to do, except to tell his teacher to let him fail. Maybe that's what it's going to take to wake him up. As much as it breaks my heart to say it...

Let him fail.

*

4 comments:

Perpetual Beginner said...

Ouch.

*Hugs* and good luck!

Sus said...

How hard that must be for you. I don't envy parents sometimes.

Bag Blog said...

Know that you are a good parent, but it certainly is not easy. I think parenting boys (as they get older)is even more difficult for women. It is our nature to want to nurture, protect, coddle, etc. We are mothers. When Bo was about Cody's age and my husband began giving him tuffer chores and assignments, I wanted to help Bo or even do them for him. I remember Toby saying, "Lou, leave him alone. He can do this. I know what I am doing." It was hard on me because I did not want to see Bo fail or be hurt. Toby knew what he was doing. And you are doing what has to be done too.

Becky G said...

Thank you all for your words of encouragement. I know that doing the right thing isn't always easy, but it still has to be done.

For now, it's just a waiting game.