Advertisement I realize he feels under the microscope and I don’t take his words personally, but I am also not willing to allow his disrespect. My wife is hurt by his words and wants an apology and thinks we have failed as parents. We want to know an appropriate direction that will satisfy both our needs.
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Colleen O’Reilly Wiemerslage, family columnist |
A: Your son does owe you an apology, and you have not failed as parents. On the contrary, you are taking your responsibility as parents seriously and trying to help your son become a successful learner. Anything less than that is not acceptable. You are correct in that he was probably reacting to the pressure of having his school and home tighten up the accountability, but he still does not have the right to swear at you and tell you to shut up. He has a choice … take care of business and you’ll be able to lighten up on the scrutiny. Consequences need to be part of the plan you have created so you are not punishing him in the moment. If work is poor or incomplete, then the consequence is his choice. You need to have a family meeting where the process is more clearly defined.
The meeting needs to include the following steps: 1. Define the problem, 2. State the plan (which includes the daily and weekly updates from school), 3. List the consequences for missing or poor work. The consequences need to be decided by the three of you. They should be immediate and reasonable. Suggestions might be one missing assignment or poor grade for the day equals losing something for the night, such as the phone, computer and/or TV. When the steps are well defined, he knows what to expect. Families usually get into screaming matches when parents impose a punishment that has not been established or lecture about what is already a done deal. We want to warn our kids of the impact their poor effort will have on their future, and because it scares us the fear comes off as anger. We are angry when our kids don’t take care of their responsibilities as students, and we nag them hoping to change their behavior. I have never met a kid yet who changed behavior because of nagging. Changing behavior takes consistent expectations and consequences that are well defined. Waiting for your teen to “get it” (mature) and dig deeper to push past lazy complacency can be as short as a quarter or more than a full school year.
You did not say what your discussion involved and whether or not you were angry or just factual. The latter is the best way to deal with the bad news that his teachers reported incomplete or poor work for the day. If you are angry, your son will be angry too. Our son was a reluctant learner in middle school and the beginning of high school or, in educational terms. a passive learner. We had to go through similar steps that I have outlined for you to help him learn to become an active learner. Active learning means students actually have to think about what is being taught and then process the information when they do the assignment. Immature learners (passive) do not understand the connection or are unwilling to push themselves that hard. Your son will improve as long as you follow the steps. Usually in the junior year immature students begin to understand how to shift into active learning. Some of this has to do with brain maturity as well, which occurs at varying ages. As the brain develops kids learn to sift information into abstract levels of learning. There are many books about abstract reasoning that might benefit you as you help your son improve. You and your wife need to expect your son to respect your efforts, and it is your responsibility to teach him that. Good luck and hang in there.
Q: I am a high school teacher and a parent of a teen. I have no difficulty managing my classroom and my students, but I don’t seem to be able to have the same finesse with my own kid. He talks back, constantly challenges the limits and does the minimum of work on homework, so he is minimally passing his classes with a 2.1 grade-point average. He is in a different high school from where I teach, but I know his teachers and stay in contact. I am embarrassed that I am a teacher and my own kid is such a poor student. What am I doing wrong?
A: Raising our kids and teaching are similar but different. Our students have expectations about school that they have learned and they walk into our classroom knowing what they are expected to do. As teachers we care about our students but not the same way we feel about our own children.
Do you think your son knows what you expect of him? I will assume you know your son is intelligent enough to do better than he is and that he does not have a learning disability of any kind. Are his friends good students? Do you treat your son’s learning differently from that of your students? All of these variables influence his academic success.
You didn’t give me much information about the process your family uses other than being in contact with his teachers. I suggest you begin using a process as outlined in the previous question. I understand your embarrassment because as educators we hope that we understand how to help kids learn and that we can apply it to our own children as well. However, our kids are not programmed differently because we like learning and are teachers. I taught science, but neither of our kids even liked science classes. I was disappointed, but they are not me. Don’t be so hard on yourself and take a new approach using the methods I have suggested. Part of your new start might be to find out what he is good at. His interests might not be offered in the school’s curriculum, but there are other ways to focus his talents. For example, a friend’s son loves computers, so they thought going to college and majoring in computers would be a great path for him. After several unsuccessful attempts, he found a small school that offers a music engineering program that is 1 ½ years long, and he loves what he is doing.
Your son may feel like he is a disappointment to you, and this could be adding to his attitude. This doesn’t mean it is OK for him to display the challenges he has been presenting, so you need to communicate and find out what his behavior is about. I hope the communication and a new look at where the two of you are going will improve your relationship. Creating this new partnership will benefit both of you.
Colleen O’Reilly Wiemerslage is a teacher, counselor, writer and parent of two adult children. E-mail her with questions at wiemerslage@aol.com.
