The fight goes on

*Public Service Announcement - long, frustrated parental rant incoming.  Take shelter in your nearest nuclear bunker*

No, I'm not talking Halo - that fight is over, or so I've heard.  I am talking the battle my wife and I are having with our eldest son, now 12 and in 7th grade.  Since he was young, he's had trouble keeping up with his studies, and has tested below grade level for the past several years.  It has been a constant struggle to try and get him caught up, with the addition of a tutor twice a week for several years.  However, the new struggle isn't how well he's doing on his work - it's getting him to do it at all! 

Throughout this year, we've been getting reports from various teachers that he is either late in handing in homework (mostly) or even a major assignment.  Each time, we have buckled down on him, revoking some of the privledges he has around the house (XBox, computer games, etc.), and usually seeing some immediate improvement.  However, as of late, it's spiraled downhill to a point where he is lying to us about the work he is doing, not copying down homework into his folder for some subjects, and ignoring assigned homework yet again.  My wife and I are at our wits end on how to break through to him that this is no joke ... another year and a half and the college transcript starts getting formed.  With the work habits he is developing now, it will be a sad piece of history that he develops in high school.

The latest incident was with a English project that was assigned the middle of last week.  He needs to read a book (the one he picked is about 200pgs), and then do a creative intpretation project on the material.  The teacher was good enough to give a full calendar, laid out to a daily basis, of how the students should proceed in getting the project done.  This included reading each day between now and this Friday.  Well, our son did some reading on Thursday and Friday, then ignored it on Saturday.  When we called him out on it on Sunday, he huffed and went off to do some reading.  He comes back 20 minutes to the second, telling us he just read the 30 or so pages he needed to.  Being a parent, I can smell bullshit a mile away, so decide it's time to call him out on this.  I take the book, skim the first 60 or so pages, and quiz him on the major topics and plotlines.  Guess what...couldn't answer a single question.  After a long discussion, he admits he hasn't been reading when he says he had.

That was the last straw.  This kid will now know nothing but school, meals, and sleep.  It kills both my wife and I that he can't be allowed to be a kid - when we both know that it is still important.  But everytime we allow something that is non-school related to creep into his life, it detracts him from his studies 110%, and that's not something I can abide.  We just don't know what we can do to change the way he thinks about school, and starts giving it the proper level of attention.

Oh...and when I said yesterday was the last straw, I misspoke.  This morning my wife gets an email from his English teacher who was forwarding news that she received from his Social Studies teacher - he's missed the last three homework assignments in that class.    So that'll be another sit-down with him tonight ... joy joy. 

Sorry for the rant.  Just another father trying to figure out how it all works.

B.

P.S.  To end it all on a positive note, first trip to the gym today was solid.  According to the heart rate monitor I wear, I started the day -989 calories.  Not too bad of a way to get this weight loss thing moving along.