well when YOUR child does this, your going to have to do what you feel you need to do to get him/her moving

but if this is your step son, I personally would ask the school for some OBJECTIVE advice for HIS mother.

you need to do nothing with this, if you do with the tactics and attitude you usually have towards your SS it will escalate and make it worse. I get where your attitude comes from I just dont get how you keep it going and going and going. It is like the defination of insanity and it isnt working. It wasnt working 3 months ago the last time I left a note.

step away from the situation Draco.

If it was my own kid, I would be working hand in hand with the school and the counselors put in place to help the child.

If this were MY kid, he'd be grounded for the rest of the school year. No electronics, no special events, nothing.

If this were my STEPkid - as is the case here - I'd let their parent handle it. And I would try not to get annoyed when, inevitably, their PARENT doesn't do what I would do.

Hmmm...I really do not know what I would do.

My kids would have NEVER just out and out disrespected the school, teachers, or parent by just boldly refusing to take a test.

But I am pretty sure my kids and your SS were raised WAY different.

I'm really amazed that this would be the first your DW would be hearing about this. At my school a parent would have been notified the very day of first refusal. Detention would have had to also be signed off on and acknowledged by parent. A second refusal to take test during detention? The kid would have been suspended here. Insubordination is not tolerated in the classrooms here.

Kid stuff like not shutting up, passing notes, blah blah in the main classes are considered 'misconduct' and they use the detention route. But outright refusal to participate in classroom work during class time rises above normal bratty kid misconduct and enters more serious nature category. So what is the school recommending in this 'hypothetical' scenario situation of yours?

I am just flabbergasted that the school didn't notify you guys earlier. I would be pissed at the school n would have told them that. All they did with not notifying you has glorify his behavior for him. He thinks he got away with it. I would have told the school off ~ saying notifying me would have made me refuse the trip for him. A beginning to his punishment.

His Christmas gift should be a donation to a local charity in his name.

My nephew was a bad ass like this ~ he stole my fathers mustang n went joy riding in it. Took the car airborne n severed the brakes. Never told my father ~ my father knew it was him ~ cause he asked my Dad if he could wash the car. Come Xmas time my father have him a card n in it said

Merry Christmas !

Gift would be 100.00
- minus 50 for breaks
- minus 20 for sunglasses
Leaves you with 30 bucks ~ enjoy !

If this were my kid?? Of course I'd be pissed. I dunno isn't an answer.

Something is going on with this child. It may be raging hormones, it may be ADHD, it may be meds (if he's being treated for ADHD), or it's a combination of things.

First and foremost, if this were my kid, I would take him away from home and school and have a little sit down with him. Not screaming or yelling but getting to the bottom of the real problem here.

If my child continued to clam up, then I would start with the removal of all privileges.

DH's kid purposely failed the 7th grade to prove a point, which was she didn't want to live with DH and I any longer. The grades slid, the attitude increased, then she started skipping school and finally ran away.

I suspect your SS is miserable and on the same track.

Draco,

It really, really, really is time to start considering medication for his ADHD. Karate is just not cutting it.

My D15's school has a parent portal where you can check all their grades online. She had a zero for a homework assignment. I emailed the teacher, who said she gave the class time to do the assignment in class. When I asked D15 what happened, she could not remember why she didn't do the assignment. This is a kid that always does her homework, I never have to get on her to do her homework. She will do skip doing anything else, hanging out with friends, watching TV, to do her homework. So I know it wasn't that she didn't want to do it.

This has happened a couple of times before, where for some odd reason she didn't do an assignment. She spaces out, doesn't focus and makes careless mistakes.

This past week we met with her psychiatrist who has diagnosed her as ADHD primary inattentive and prescribed her strattera.

If your SS needed glasses, I'm sure you would get them. Even though SOME of the times he does what he's supposed to, he's not consistent and that's the problem. The medication will help him be consistent with performing up to his potential.

I'd also be seriously questioning the teacher why I wasn't informed of this situation until now. My kid is sent to detention......no note home? Being blatently defiant.....no note home? Flat out refusing to do classwork.... No call home? Esp with an over night field trip coming.....and this is the first I am heading of any problem??????

How many times was SS given detention? If he was given detention, that had to mean he got home later from school. Didn't you guys notice when he came home from school late?

exaxtly draco and im sure you may delete this comment but oh well. personally i think this child has zero self esteem and I feel this is at your hand. i read alot od your stuff and dont comment bur i really do think you take some normal teenage stuff and blow it up into something huge. and for why? because he isnt yours and your extremely hard on him. the boy has two parents and they need to handle it. and if it goes badly so be it. your constant insertion of your hard on for this kid is understandable, but your part of this problem let the solution be theirs. even in your not back to people you said we have not spoke to him. it should be his mom and dad speaking to him not we, you have zero skin in the game

In all honesty?
Kid would be coming home to a military stripped room and grounded to that room. I'd ask the school to place them in lunch detention. If they disrupted class the teacher would be asked to send them to the detention/ instrument room (Some schools have them. They are sound proofed rooms that have nothing but a chair in them. Occasionally a piano.) to do their work. They can sit and shrug at the wall.

yes but 3little, this isnt you kid. but it isnt draco's kid either

Draco,

If you're going to be involved in your SS's education I think you need to step it up then. Either you're in or you're out.

When the counselor called and said SS didn't show up for a meeting with her, someone should have called counselor and found WHY SS needed to meet with her.

Now that you've found out SS had two lunch detentions, someone needs to let SS's teachers know whenever anything like this happens you need a phone call.

I don't know if SS is deliberately refusing to do his tests, or if he's spacing out or what. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

But if you're going to be involved you need to be involved ALL of the way. You need to be checking his homework assignments in the parent portal. And if you notice that a teacher isn't updating the information, you need to call/email her and if she doesn't respond then you need to call/email the principal. SS is 13, teachers aren't going to call home now for every little thing (even though they should have called home about the lunch detentions). At this age the teachers expect the child to be responsible for making sure their homework is done.

I think your DW may benefit from taking a couple days off work and attending classes with SS. Yeah, kid will be embarrassed to pieces, but who cares. Kid doesn't care what the other kids think when he basically tells teacher to 'FU, I'm not taking your test' , so how SS feels about DW presence as if SS were back in pre-school doesn't concern me.

She needs to see what's going on in the actual setting during actual class time. Who does the kid sit by? Are his friends influencing the poor behavior? Can SS see and hear the teacher? Is the teacher calling out SS more than anybody else during the same class. Does the teacher's teaching manner put the kid in zzzzzzz mode? Is SS taking notes and writing down assignments? Blah blah blah.

Once DW observes quietly from a corner for a day or two and has a chance to experience exactly what her son experiences it, she can confer with the teacher again. Discussing any trigger points or issues she observed that could be feeding the defiant behavior. Is he sitting next to a kid that laughs at SS's BS? Is there a kid distracting SS and a simple move up by teacher's desk might make paying attention easier? How are SS's friends doing with same teacher?

If it truly appears to be a personality conflict between teacher and SS perhaps a change to a different math teacher. It could be the teacher didn't start off 'picking' on kid but by the time teacher has had his fill of defiant behavior and/or slacking off kid both SS and teacher have stopped trying with each other. On the other hand, if it's not a school setting issue or a teacher personality conflict, something else is going on and your wife needs to identify and deal with it whether that is behavioral therapy for SS, school RTI type program or whatever. seriously, DW can discipline SS at home 24/7 but none of it will help what's going on until DW identifies exactly what she's dealing with and why.

no draco dont put words in my mouth. overstepping is a very small part of what I see.

what i see is the same thing I see here in my own house. you and i take ownership of everything because we are anal and controlling and know what we feel is right. unfortunely that flies with children that are our own, it does not fly when the child is not our own.

an example. and just an example. my dh and your dw are somewhat the same, if they ignore an issue it will go away. so we step up because we are well aware of our spouses down falls so we swoop in and take care of things. I have expectations here it is a c or above average, dh agreed and it has been the rule for 8 yrs. sd gets here at 15 and suddenly a 59 is ok. failing! i pushed and pushed until I finally realized it was a breeding ground for resentment.

the key was an issue Draco, so much so you blogged about it. but even if the key wasnt an issue let me explain this to you most kids dont look for things, esp teenagers. why would they when mom or dad will do it for them.

you can not be a father figure to a kid that has a father.