I’ve encountered something this last week that I’m having a difficult time dealing with, so I’m coming to you, my faithful readers, to help me through this.
As you know, we moved from our hometown in Michigan to Colorado. The kids seem to adjust fairly well, though The Pro and PopQueen both were upset about moving away from their friends. We stayed with family for a couple months before we found a place to rent. This meant the kids moved into a new school district twice. The second one, was the one we were aiming for from the start because they are the best in the state and we want a good education for them so they can have a future.
So now, after being at the new school for a couple months, The Pro’s grades started slipping. I was checking the schools parent portal, Powerschool, weekly. I kept asking her why the problems and she would just shrug and say the work was harder. A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from school saying she had been skipping, they talked to her, gave her a warning, etc. So we took her phone away temporarily and told her it would be permanent if she skipped again and I would pull her from the basketball team. Then, last week we received a letter from her school. She has been SKIPPING classes again. She was suspended for a day and told she was breaking the law. She had like 17 absences in various classes and many more tardies. We talked to her about it in a meeting at the school, with no communication on her part. We (her parents) talked to her, mostly we talked, because she wouldn’t. We took her phone, PSP, MP3 player and everything electronic away and pulled her from the team. (She has since gone back because the team had 2 injuries leaving them up the creek without enough players and I felt it was her responsibility) Since then she hasn’t skipped, which is good, but I’m really struggling with this.
We’ve always talked to our kids about the importance of education. We’ve always told them they are expected to either go to college or the military. She’s a great kid and we have never had any major problems with her. I’m struggling to understand why she’d do this. With only 2 years of school left, doesn’t she see how important her education is…. Did we make the wrong decision by moving them away from everyone/thing they knew? How do I convince her that she has to look to the future instead of looking to the past? Should I find a way to work at home so that I’m there for the kids, cuz I certainly am struggling with that myself? When does this mommy guilt go away? Never, I’m sure, but how do you deal with it. Please, tell me how to deal with it…I’m feeling like the worst parent on the planet, ya know?
Wow, Dee, you’ve been dealing with some difficult things! I thought I had it hard with a two month old and sleep deprivation! Although, I keep wishing Austin and Sierra were older. Maybe I just need to appreciate this age now because they will be teenagers soon enough.
As far as advice goes, it’s hard because I haven’t dealt with this yet. Something that seems really odd, though, and I know most schools do this but why would they suspend “A” when she skipped school? They are trying to get her to COME to school, right?????
Just think about how you felt as a teenager. I knew you when you were around this age. How would you have felt if you had to move across the country and away from everyone/thing you have known your entire life? I don’t know about you, but I know I would have felt pretty **itty! Even now, Rick knows that I would NEVER leave Michigan. My life is here. How could I leave my sisters, brothers, friends I’ve known my entire life? They are my support and I NEED to be around them. Even though Rick’s family lives in New York, he moved here before he met me because of the car industry and his family knows he loves it here, also.
I’m NOT trying to make you feel guilty because the kids shouldn’t rule the home and if you and Rob wanted to move then you shouldn’t have to get permission from the kids, but just put yourself in A’s shoes.
Now, this advice might be a little extreme, so take it with a grain of salt. Did you ever think of “scaring” A a little by getting a local policeman to come over and tell her that if she does not go to school she will be punished by the law? That’s JUST a suggestion…like I said, I haven’t been through this. I’m just trying to think of more natural consequences to her behavior…like if you spraypaint a wall, you clean it up.
Is A making up any of the work she has missed when she skipped? That’s another thing that probably should be done. That’s also a natural consequence.
Something that I have found works well for me and Rick with Austin is Dr. Phelan’s 1-2-3 Magic. He also wrote a book regarding teenagers. It has worked wonders with Austin. You have to keep emotions out of it and focus on the problem, solution and the future, NOT the past. I don’t know if he has anything in there about skipping school, but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.
I will be praying for you guys!! I hope everything turns around. Stop feeling guilty. The choices she made were HERS, you didn’t make them for her.
Were we like this as teenagers????????????? LOL
Love,
Marcia
Marcia, thanks so much for your input. Yes, you definitely need to appreciate each age they are at. It gets harder, just in different ways. Not as much of a physical toll when they are older. (unless you count the taxi-ing around you tend to do…LOL). They suspended her for a day because they had given her several warnings. As for the scaring tactic, the school told her that by skipping after she got the warning, she broke the law. They told her if it keeps happening, they will bring the court system into it. Great! Just what I need, the schools AND the courts telling me what a crappy parent I am. Okay, so they didn’t come right out and say it, but that is how you feel sitting in their “team meeting.”. She can’t make up any work when it’s an unexcused absence, which is why her grades are also so bad.
I’ll check out that book when I go to the library this weekend. I think I’ve heard of it before. OH, and yes, actually, I do know what it’s like to move away. When I started 9th grade at Lincoln, after 2 months, my parents took packed us up and moved us to North Carolina. Then when we started 10th grade in North Carolina, after a couple months, they moved us back to Michigan. It was really hard and I remember crying my eyes out at Carol’s house the night before we moved away. Not to mention, my kids had several years warning that this would be happening.
Anyway, it’s all very stressful but I think we have her on the right track. We’ve got her thinking about her future. She’ll be doing some college planning workshops at school to help her see what’s in store for her future. And she’s going to start going to tutoring at school a couple days a week, so hopefully we’ll get her focused. Thanks for all your advice! And good luck with those little ones. Enjoy them while they are still so innocent.