Nigel didn’t finish his homework this week. For the last 3 months he has stopped turning it in regularly for various reasons. His teacher made it clear to him- after she called me- that the next time he failed to turn in his homework, he was going to be issued a “Short Form”.
This morning, Nigel was hysterical because while he did his math homework this week, he never did his language and his plan had been to get up early and do it this morning. But when he opened his backpack, he learned that he didn’t even bring his homework home from school yesterday and there was absolutely no way to pull it off this week.
This is when the begging started. “Mom, please call Mrs. Herring and tell her everything I had to do this week that made me not get my homework done.” (Given that Nigel has played a lot of video games this week, I pointed that out to him and declined.) “Mom, please just write her a note and ask her not to give me a “Short Form”. An aside- it is touching to me that Nigel feels like I can fix everything in his life and he has that level of trust in me that he would even ask.
Unfortunately I had to have the Personal Responsibility talk with him. After we established that it wasn’t anyone else’s fault that Nigel didn’t complete his homework this week- I explained to him that he knew what the consequences were and that he was just going to have to accept the punishment. I told him that situations like this have happened to me before too and sometimes we just have to take the consequences of our choices. We said family prayer and specifically prayed that Nigel would be brave in facing his teacher and that the Holy Ghost would help him today. And then I sent them off to school.
Here’s the crazy part. I almost acquiesced when he was crying and begging me to help him. I wanted to protect him and not see him hurt or be uncomfortable. It was so hard not to intervene on his behalf or offer to go with him when he talks to his teacher. I know that it was important to have him face up to this on his own and that I did the right thing. I even think that I might have said the right things when I was talking to him this morning. It was just so much harder than I ever expected.
4 comments:
I COMPLETELY understand. Follow through is THE hardest thing about being a parent. Thats how Heavenly Father does it with us though, so good job mom. He will be stronger for it.
You did the right thing and your son will be the better for it. Remember: discipline is something we do FOR our children, not TO them.
That is really hard! Eric went through a stage where he lied to me and told me he did it at school. So I asked his teacher and she said it wasn't true. Then he started doing his homework, but he wouldn't hand it in. I think he feared her judgment or something. She had to drag it out of him. With a combination of telling him he would get a reward for each week he handed it all in and that he would have to stay in for recess to do it, he finally came around. I also had to make a no video game rule for my kids on school days because they would rush through their homework carelessly if they got to play Xbox.
It's very good that Nigel cares about getting the "Short Form". Some kids wouldn't care.
The tough stuff of being a parent -
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