If you have kids that take some classes at ps, how much micromanaging do you do?

[Perry]

I am so frustrated with my 9th grade dd. This is her first year back at ps, and she is really dropping the ball. She loves school, has tons of friends, and is very active in extracurriculars, but she isn't doing very well academically. She is capable of being a straight A student. But she has way too many late assignments, loses her homework, forgets about quizzes and tests, and rarely studies, so obviously her grades are suffering. This has always been an issue. We homeschooled for 5 years and she always had trouble with organization, and never took her schoolwork very seriously.

 

Midway last semester, we really laid into her. We essentially shut her down, taking away the ipod, facebook, phone, etc. She had to get at least Bs in everything for the week to be able to do anything with friends on the weekends. She had about 6 weeks of lost privileges before she got her grades back up.

 

The major incentive was that if she didn't finish the semester with Bs in all classes she would not be allowed to do poms next year. This is a huge deal for her, as her entire life revolves around dance and poms. She managed to squeak by with a B in everything except French, but I decided to let that slide as she has some mild language based LDs and foreign language is really a struggle for her.

 

So it's a new semester, and she's off to a bad start. F on her first math homework, didn't turn in her first biology assignment so she has an F on that too.

 

I'm sick of being the police. I'm sick of nagging her. I can MAKE her get better grades, but it would require me checking her homework and planner every single night, and I'm not sure that's doing her any favors in the long run.

 

Sooooo.....

 

How involved are you when your kids screw up? How punitive are you? Just wondering what other families do.

[kpupg]

I think we're pretty strict. We require all schoolwork and chores to be done before any privileges -- in your terms, that would be the phone, facebook, special activities, etc. And, yah, I STILL have to inspect everything to make sure it's done/right. It ain't done 'til the corrections are done.

 

I don't think requiring all Bs is unreasonable AT ALL.

 

My ds is also 9th grade and taking 2 tough courses at public school. The first few weeks, I checked over everything he did every day, looked for papers in his backpack, etc. After the first big exams, it was clear he was doing well, so I backed off and he has been running on his own ever since. But this is a kid who, once he has a system or routine in place, can govern himself within that routine. Also, our ps has an online grade tracker for parents, and I monitor that regularly. If I were to start to see problems there, I would crack down and start the daily checks again.

 

You didn't say how many ps classes your dd is taking ... I wonder if she might be having issues with the change of paradigm combined with the volume of work. I know my ds was astounded at how much busy work there was in his ps classes and it took him awhile to adjust to that, even just with 2 classes ... ???

 

It's no fun being a cop ... I usually get the bad-cop role in our family ... my sympathies ... :(

 

Karen

[Nicole M]

My concern with my own child was that I wanted to make sure he was in the habit of being successful. I did not want late assignments or poorly done work to become habit. So I micromanaged and policed until he was comfortable with success. I think of it more as support than micromanaging and policing.

 

For what it is worth, the best students I know from non-homeschooling homes have parents who "micromanaged" (checked assignments) all along. For them, it was not an unhealthy rescuing, but, again support. Some children need more than others.

 

That may not be what you wanted to hear. I'm sorry you're frustrated.

Edited January 12, 2010 by Nicole M

[Cera]

Has poms and dance ended for the year?

 

My kids are younger but I can see my oldest having this problem. In our house school is their job. If they don't have enough time to get their work done and study then they obviously don't have enough time to participate in extracurriculars and visit with friends. School comes first.

[Perry]

My concern with my own child was that I wanted to make sure he was in the habit of being successful.

 

This is exactly my goal. It's what I've attempted to do all along. But every time I back off and give her a little slack, she goes right back to her disorganized habits. I'm about ready to give up because it seems so pointless.

[Perry]

I think we're pretty strict. We require all schoolwork and chores to be done before any privileges -- in your terms, that would be the phone, facebook, special activities, etc. And, yah, I STILL have to inspect everything to make sure it's done/right. It ain't done 'til the corrections are done.

 

I don't think requiring all Bs is unreasonable AT ALL.

 

My ds is also 9th grade and taking 2 tough courses at public school. The first few weeks, I checked over everything he did every day, looked for papers in his backpack, etc. After the first big exams, it was clear he was doing well, so I backed off and he has been running on his own ever since. But this is a kid who, once he has a system or routine in place, can govern himself within that routine. Also, our ps has an online grade tracker for parents, and I monitor that regularly. If I were to start to see problems there, I would crack down and start the daily checks again.

 

You didn't say how many ps classes your dd is taking ... I wonder if she might be having issues with the change of paradigm combined with the volume of work. I know my ds was astounded at how much busy work there was in his ps classes and it took him awhile to adjust to that, even just with 2 classes ... ???

 

It's no fun being a cop ... I usually get the bad-cop role in our family ... my sympathies ... :(

 

Karen

She's full time. We dual enrolled last year for a couple classes, so she had a transition. Our district does some black classes and some regular. Last semester, her only academic courses were Geometry, French and History. There was some busy work, but it wasn't bad. The problem is all about the lack of effort. She has plenty of time, she just is disorganized and procrastinates.

[Perry]

Has poms and dance ended for the year?

 

My kids are younger but I can see my oldest having this problem. In our house school is their job. If they don't have enough time to get their work done and study then they obviously don't have enough time to participate in extracurriculars and visit with friends. School comes first.

 

One more month of poms, then tryouts are end of Feb. There's still time for me to say she can't try out for next year, if I decide to be the heavy, but I just don't think it will help. The threat of not being able to tryout is motivating for her, but if she doesn't do poms next year I honestly don't think it will make one whit of difference in her grades. She's got plenty of time, she just doesn't use it wisely.

[Nicole M]

She's full time. We dual enrolled last year for a couple classes, so she had a transition. Our district does some black classes and some regular. Last semester, her only academic courses were Geometry, French and History. There was some busy work, but it wasn't bad. The problem is all about the lack of effort. She has plenty of time, she just is disorganized and procrastinates.

 

Maybe she has too much time? That's a huge problem for many kids.

 

I guess I would start asking what she needs to be able to start structuring her own time. Do you have an after school routine? My son has a hard time with transitioning from school (the community college) to home. I also find I have a hard time transitioning from work to home. We've figured out some strategies to help begin our time at home in a more organized way. When I'm at home when my son gets back from school, I make sure I have something available for him to eat, or I make us both a cup of tea. We sit down and talk about which tasks he will tackle first, and, since he's a senior, I let him make all the choices. But I make myself available to help him. If we don't have this check-in time, he tends to spend time looking out the window, daydreaming, etc., and unable to get settled into his work.

 

Do you have a sense of what is causing her to procrastinate? I had to work pretty hard to figure out why my son was. I find with my own son, he is not actually lazy, but his personality combined with any kind of chaos in the schedule or environment (like if the house is out of control messy) seems to derail him. And when he was in school full time, he found school, even though he loved it and had lots of friends, to be exhausting. There is a lot of stimulation that goes on at school, and for many of us it is just hard to refocus and get down to business with homework after that kind of day.

 

I think if you can get to the root cause, which may not be what you think it is, then you might be able to adjust your strategy so that it is not so tiring for you.

 

Also, it's only the first week. We're all still getting our game on for the new year. My facebook page was filled with homeschool moms moaning about the wreckage that was last week. :D So cut yourself and your daughter a little slack, maybe, and don't panic.

[Jeannie in NJ]

yes, I micromanage. My dd, 1st year in school 9th grade, is in a Technical school that she had to apply for (only about 30% of applicates are accepted and once in the school, if they fail, they can just be bounced back to their local high school. Every day after school, I ask dd how her classes were, she tells me about each class and that jogs her memory about homework and upcoming quizzes and tests. I also go online to Powerschool and check each teachers homework assignments and upcoming quiz and test. I also look over dd's homework and help her study if she needs it. She made the honor roll because she and I both expected that she would (only 36 out of the 160 9th graders made the honor roll).

[Ruth in Canada]

I still have to do lots of prompting, but she's much better about being organized and carrying through. It was a very sudden--but welcome--change.

 

DH and I, on the other hand, remember our parents being completely uninvolved in high schoo. I pointed out to my parents that I was getting excellent grades and asked them to leave me alone. (Hopefully I asked politely!)

 

I think it all depends on the kid. Some of it is brain development, some is about consequences, and some about getting good systems in place.

[Ellie]

IMHO, her education comes first, so if not allowing her to participate in extracurriculars if her grades fall below a B counts as micromanaging, then I say micro-manage away, through her senior year if necessary.

 

One reason I didn't allow my younger dd to go to school was that I was sure she'd be like your dd. Our "compromise" was community college instead of high school.