Wednesday, March 16, 2011

To Fail or Not to Fail

One of our children is currently flirting with failing a class.  The child is capable, and moreover, the parents and teacher are all willing and able to help, but the child is pushing everyone away.

Both of my children are hard-headed and often refuse to be teachable. I'm pretty sure this is a result of bad parenting, but it is where we are now.  So how do we go forward?

Yes, we can hire a tutor. Yes, we have taken away electronics of any kind. Yes, we are willing to take away extracurricular activities such as the sport the child plays and the scout and youth group activities.

I'm wondering if letting the child fail the class will solve the problem or make it worse.  Any thoughts?

4 comments:

Maude Lynn said...

That's a tough one. How old is the child? What class?

quilly said...

It depends on why she wants to fail, doesn't it? She's making a statement. Since she won't just come out and tell you what the problem is, you have to guess how best to react given what you do know.

Mary said...

Been there, done that. OS seemed to dig himself into a huge hole, but would pull out of it in the end. Is this a possibility? Will he/she be able to pull out of it? Does the school have tutoring? Can she/he find out about extra credit? Is he/she just making a statement? Can I possibly think of any more questions to ask you?
CH always wanted to take sports away, but I stood firm and told him "no"; for some reason having that routine seemed to help our kids. But, every kid is different.

SouthLakesMom said...

Funny how once I posted this the child was suddenly motivated to go see the teacher and work out a way to learn the material missed, and build from there.

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