{Parent's Corner} The Frustration of Teens & School

  I'm frustrated and I don't work well when I'm frustrated. My kids are the same way. Sending children to a virtual school is a challenge in and of itself. Sending them to a school that just opened can be even more so. Why? Because not only is your child adjusting to a new situation and program, so is everyone else. We've done virtual schooling for the past two years. We've had our problems but have come out on top. For the first time since starting the new school, I'm doubting my choice to move my kids.

My son, an 8th grader, has had the hormones kick in hard. He's a teenager now too, which really doesn't help. I'm fighting the teen years and the new school issues together at once. Effectively, with the new school he changed his attitude toward getting work done. In other words, he decided that the first couple of weeks worth of work didn't need doing. I'm not sure where the change came from, my sister says it runs in the family. That's not very reassuring.

A couple of weeks in, his teachers started telling me he wasn't getting things done on time (not turning them in at all, in fact). So, I had to go in and research what he hadn't been doing. This is a big change for me coming from a K12 school last year. I had everything at my finger tips to see how my children were doing. Now I have to log in to my child's account and dig. So, I dug. I found out just how far he was behind. I was shocked, to say the least. So, with encouragement from at least a couple of his teachers, I started working on catching him up.

Catching up a couple of weeks worth of work is easier said than done. Especially since the work keeps coming in the interim. He worked a couple of weekends to get most of his subjects at least to a manageable place. We're still working on the rest. I know he's a smart boy, but he's working the system. He knows how to show me he's working when I go in to check and yet he doesn't bother to FINISH what he started. He only owns up to it after I go back in and recheck.

So, we've reached a balance point. He now knows that the system is watching him back. He has his consequences for not completing work. He's doing the work, we have to watch to make sure it's all on time. At this point, it's a wait and see.