Munchkin Grades are REALLY bad
I couldnt think of a witty Title for this sad blog.
I did not back off like was advised, I double-downed and got into the "Parent Portal" and saw her grades for Freshman Year High School. Shes failing 1/3 of her courses. 3/9. The irony is that the 2 shes doing the worst are electives that she SHOULD excel at: Orchestra (violin) and Art (shes great at drawing and loves it)
Score
B 83.8% - Sustainable Societies
C 75% - Integrated Math Course 1
C 77.36% - Biology 1
C 74.5% - JROTC 1st Year cadet corps 1
C 78.4% - Freshman Seminar: Health and Wellness
Poor - Orchestra
Partial Understanding - HN English 1
F 52.2% - Drawing And Painting
I emailed (per DH's request) the three teachers and am passing their phone numbers on to him. Ill log in tonight and show him exactly the WHY shes doing so badly. Missing work. Assignments not turned in. One of them in particular I recall her stating "ok Im going to my room now to work on that assignment!!!!"
She was working on it the entire weekend...oh well, Its all out there now. Dh can take it from here. Im just here to advise, and inform.
I dont know why I cant stop trying to stick my nose in there. I guess I figure someone has to give a hoot. When I had issues my parents really pushed me. I dont know how to turn that off, thats how I was raised.
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That's not like her, is it?
I seem to recall she had been a good student? Do you think its the remote classes?
She was a really good student
I think its the perfect storm of the foloowing:
1. Freshman Year - its simply harder than grade school
2. Distance learning = lack of accountability and communications
3. Her mother is lame
4. LAS = Lazy A$$ Syndrome
Shes just not turning in the work...and her father needs to sit down and look at WHY.
To be fair we are online here
To be fair we are online here in our district and BD14 was failing a couple of classes we know she can do well in. I guess from what some teachers have told us the kids who actually do well in school and work hard are really struggling with the online schooling and aren't doing so well. The kids who never show up are doing great because they are passing just for showing up. I can't tell you what to do, but with BD we changed one of her teachers...that's a whole other story and BD is doing much better in the class with a different teacher. We also sat down with BD to find out where the issues were, alot of them were her not asking questions or being assertive with the teachers when they didn't respond to her questions. We told her she needed to start asking questions and if the teacher didn't answer or respond then let us know and we could then contact the teacher to get answers. After that it seemed to help, BD is pulling A's and B's. I hate to say it, but a lot of the teachers are struggling with the online teaching as well and aren't doing so well on their teaching as they could be. I know not your kid, but just some suggestions.
Great ideas!
Munchkin is really smart and sweet. VERY passive as well. But also extremely lazy. All she has to do is draw and she gets a good grade. All she has to do is record herself playing the violin and she gets a grade. She just needs to DO IT. Ill discuss with DH. He needs help, he doesnt know what to do.
Yes, Munchkin normally gets really good grades, and its her freshman year and distance learning is not treating her well.
My issue is she is lying to us about completing assignments.
The teachers have all made themselves very accessible. But we do need to have a sit down with her, and talk it out, I think.
My YSD was an excellent
My YSD was an excellent student.. motivated.. responsible. As a result, we let her finish up her last 3 courses online and take some of those joint college credit courses too.. instead of attending in person her senior year.. her HS even agreed to give her a diploma from the online work.
Whelp.. it was a PITA. She was living with my inlaws.. had an office in the house next door that was our weekend place. Her MIL refused to follow up with her on work because she "didn't agree with online learning".. Dad was working offshore and didn't have phone service much.. so that left ME to call and "harass" her on progress constantly. I could log on and see her progress.. so I felt like a broken record.. and she was such a procrastinator.. it took months longer than it should have for her to finish. and remember.. she is a pretty good kid.. it's not like she was out partying.. it was just getting distracted and not having the constraints on her time.. made her feel like she had a lot of time to get things done.. until she didn't.
It sounds like there needs to be more than an occasional check in on a 13/14 yo kid. Someone.. dad, mom.. needs to be logging in several times a week to see progress... and if assignments aren't done.. consequences from them.
It would help if she was given some parameters on specific time/place to complete her work.. basically give her a schedule that she can adhere to so she doesn't have this feeling of open ended time in which to complet things.
Agree totally
She has 2 weeks to complete a school years worth of orchestra assignments as well as items from 2 other classes if they will let her.
I plan on getting a list of assignments and telling DH who will have to hold her accountable on a daily basis. She is a good kid! I dont want her to get discouraged and give up.
Mom, Toxic Troll is lame. She doesnt do anything. Dh is discouraged as well. But I know he will step up to the plate now that he as seen her current grade standing. It was a kick in the gut for him I think.
When I read your title, I
When I read your title, I thought OH NO. I looked at the grades and thought, "oh, those aren't so bad!" Those are solid Cs and C+ grades! We would have been thrilled if SS got those grades, lol.
I know she is usually a good student. I will say, we are seeing at my work that kids are really struggling with remote learning, even kids with good parents.
It would seem that way
But shes normally an A and B student. And shes simply not doing the work and telling us she is.
I want to sit her down and find out WHY. But as was mentioned in the comments, I think she lacks the personal discipline needed because there is so much extra time to do the assignments.
All the kids are struggling
All the kids are struggling with remote learning. Adults have a hard time motivating themselves to do remote school. There really is no need to panic, she is passing everything and when life gets back to normal, she likely will, too. There is no way colleges will look down on kids who normally get good grades and struggled during the pandemic.
I know the reason why
Its called immaturity.
Yes. YSD has been remote
Yes. YSD has been remote learning since the spring, and is excelling in her classes. While there are issues with remote learning it's so EASY it's not even funny. YSD is even upset about the LACK of assignments, some teacher uninvolvement, and stupid assignments and testing - almost all of it's open book testing and assignments can be as easy as "download this document within the next 3 days."
If the kid isn't motivated and there's no one watching then they will fail. Not surprising.
" High school we are not
" High school we are not going to hold her hand, its all on HER. "
I got this from your other post about the subject. I get where you are coming from, but to be honest, to date.. she likely has had to very little independent work. The idea that she is going to be able to maturely and responsibly manage an increasingly difficult workload of learning without oversight really isn't reasonable. Lobbing a few "how is it going" questions isn't going to cut it. yes, she has assignments from the teacher.. but when you have Soooo much free time.. it's not always easy for people to be the self starters they need to be to get it done. She needs help. Clearly she needs someone to follow up... and follow up in a meaningful way. She needs to be taught time management... study habits.. organization. These are not things she is likely to develop all on her own out of necessity. I know it's tough.. she is with mom a lot so you (and by you.. I mean your household.. your DH included).. don't have full control over her schedule.
But, Follow up doesn't have to be dad calling and cussing her out for not turning in an assignment. Follow up can be.. oh.. not done yet? why don't you and I sit here on the phone while you pull up that assignment and we can see what needs to be done to complete it now. Helping her to set a schedule might be telling her that he expects her to be working on schoolwork from X time to X time.. and then maybe calling to remind her that "it's time for school work".. and then checking with her to see if she completed all assignments. It may even mean that when she comes to your home that the first order of business is to log in to see what assignments are there and sitting WITH her as she completes them... no moving on to fun until it's finished. Is it fun sitting with a teen as they work on their homework? no.. but dad should do it if that is what needs to be done to keep her on track. That way.. something may end up a few days late.. but not weeks.
Perhaps after some amount of time, he will find she is keeping to the schedule on her own.. and that assignments are being turned in without reminder.. or many fewer.
The etheral "well.. you want to go to college.. so you won't get to if you don't do this music assignment".. that is not an immediate feedback for her.. she needs to be kept on track more closely.. and he can do it via zoom/facetime..phone calls.. it doesn't all have to be in person. He doesn't have to yell either.. and the consequence for not completing things.. completing them when she comes to visit before she will be allowed to do things she wants.. perhaps he takes her phone till she is done.. some kind of motivation/consequence.
Thank you!
Great suggestions. All very doable.
He has threatened to take her phone "if she doesnt make it right".
My suggestion is that we start with a daily schedule of work to make up and submit. And a daily check in no matter if she is with her mother. She must complete and submit the daily scheduled make up assignments as well as any current work.
One of the issues that I am having is that we are no longer recieving daily updates on class assignments...and Im not getting technical assistance on it.
Obviously, it is key for the
Obviously, it is key for the parents to understand what the child has as assignments.. and is able to check whether they are submitted. How can they help if they don't know where the gaps are.. right?
He can also help her with project and task organization skills.. perhaps at the beginning of the week she has a to-do list sectioned by each class with daily assignments and online zoom obligations in calendar format... and she can "check off" each item as it is completed.. that calendar can be a shared document.. and she can add new tasks as they are assigned.. she could even have a section for tasks that are larger and span a longer time.. like a semester end paper.
There are lots of things online to teach kids study and organization skills. It may seem simple but even learning an effective way to take notes in class to use as a study guide is super helpful. I had a class my sophmore year of HS that had NO book. It was a humanities.. art/culture/history course. It was taught by two teachers in our school basically a class they made up and all the materials were overhead slide or just discussions in class. They taught us how to take notes.. we all had "humanities" notebooks that we created so we could study for their tests.. it taught me a lot about taking effective lecture notes.. and they gave us some tips that helped. Munchkin could likely use some help.. there can be a big difference between elementary school and beyond.. and the further you fall behind.. or rush over concepts... sometimes you never really recover because you don't have a good enough grasp of basic underpinning concepts.
I don't think that approaching her as... you have been lazy.. we are upset at you is going to be as effective as.. We know you are struggling with the new learning set up... here is how we are going to help you succeed.
I can relate
The child is younger but now that DH sees that he's recently bombed a quiz he is having to call week nights to make sure he is studying. We only have 5 days out of the entire month with him and the mom blamed DH for him failing....So he is now just checking in on him weekly to make sure he studies with him to have some kind of chance to pass. Please pm anytime. I can relate to a lazy BM. It's crazy to see. I also know what you mean with needing to look into things. This is how he knew he was failing because I was able to message the teacher and get the app info. I didn't go further for the other apps bc DH didn't ask for help with it so he's able to see the main gist of what's going on. If it were me I'd have access to all information. It is a great habit to have imo but in this situation it can be tricky bc you don't wanna overstep. I get what you mean.
OSD 12 currently has a 0
YSD 12 currently has a 0 average. She has not completed even one assignment. BM and SO have been aware of this, through observation, progress reports, emails from the teachers, and phone calls from the social worker. Yet nothing changes. Neither parent has taken anything away. Sat with her to make sure it's getting done. Supervised her in any way.
As much as I feel sorry for the kid her parents are failing her. I am not getting involved other than told her she is welcome to ask me for my help or sit with me and my son when we are doing his work, especially since they are in the same grade, taking the same classes.
She has not taken me up on my offer. Deep down I am starting to think at this point she is doing it as a desperate attempt to get her parents attention. Especially since I was able to negotiate with the school that she attends every day and gets tutoring on Fridays. She still has not done any work and she is the type of kid who wants her parents attention.
SD10 has struggled with
SD10 has struggled with school since Kindergarten. BM never bothered to put her in pre-school. She knew zero letters, numbers, even how to hold a pencil. She has ADHD but BM refuses to medicate. She is in 5th grade now and has C's and D's in all subjects. The academic part is hard for her, but her attitude SUCKS. Her teacher emailed everyone the other day saying "she can't even help her because she refuses to take out her materials and get started." I'm at a loss and so are her teachers. DH and BM can handle that and watch her fail out of high school and then probably go live with BM. They give her ZERO consequences for not doing her work, they just both tell each other "we're catching up on it." BM has reached out to ME about school since I'm a teacher (probably started a couple of weeks ago when she heard I was pregnant). Prior to this, I haven't heard from her (besides court) for 5 years. I asked BM if she needed help setting up a parent account, tracking grades/assignments, missing work, etc. In the same breath she says "no thanks, working full time and keeping up with school is impossible" "I just want everyone to get on the same page so we can help _______." BM continues to be all talk and zero effort to help SD. I honestly think the only reason she reached out is so she could save face with the teacher and say "she's trying". BM and SD are incredibly lazy.