I didn't say a word.

[Shari]

easy child 1 and I took Wee to the river tonight for an hour. When we left, cgfg was doing homework. I called husband when we got done and asked if they wanted to have dinner on the river...its 40 cent wing night. They came and we had 40 cent wings AFTER she finished watching the last 20 minutes of some tv show.

Got home at 8:30. Wee's colored pencils and shape punches and little tiny shapes were all over the floor. Obviously, Wee didn't have them out. She needed treats for a class tomorrow. Grr. I said nothing. Then she announced she needed to type a paper. Grr. I said nothing. Then at 10:15 she wanted on the internet to RESEARCH TWO ARTICLES AND WRITE A PAGE AND A HALF PAPER.

I said nothing. Logged in, and told husband what she was doing, and he was to babysit her online activities. He jumped her butt for having told him her homework was done. She said she told him it was done except for what she needed to do on the computer. NEITHER of them said a word at dinner, that we needed to get home to finished homework. Heck, when we got here, she was worried about treats.

He did. For a while. Then he took a shower.

I said nothing. She just finished the paper and went to bed. It is almost midnight.

I just read the papers. The first is a single paragraph. Supposed to be a page. The second is about the articles. She wrote a paragraph about each article. And half the paragraph is rephrasing the questions she's supposed to discuss in her paper (discuss why you think the people in the article did what they did...and in her paper it says "Why do I think the people did what they did? I think they did it because....")

Yeah...good grade here.

And I'm not saying a word. 'Cept mama better not say a blessed thing to me about ANY of it.

I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care,.......

 

[Hound dog]

Natural consequences dear. They work wonders. And you don't have to be the bad guy.

((hugs))

 

[Shari]

I am a firm beleiver in natural consequences, believe me. Afraid this is gonna be a LONG SLOW process cause she has a TON of enablers. But I'm not one.

husband would like to have another kid, too. Hades will freeze over first. And that's a natural consequence of his actions (or inactions). lol

 

[DammitJanet]

Good lord Shari...its hard enough raising HIM!

 

[shellyd67]

Good for you Shari ! My difficult child has major homework issues and always pushes for husband and I to do his work for him. It is a struggle. I really admire your silence. I am curious to see how she is graded on her work ....

 

[Shari]

I just looked. Its not graded yet.

But its not gonna be good. Its a sheet with 10 or 12 different assignment choices on it. Each choice is awarded a point value and she has to pick enough to equal 70 points.

Now, this would be an AWESOME assignment for her to make up some points on, cause she could do them all and get extra credit (I think there's almost 150 points available if you do all of the choices). She has picked all of the lowest value assignments. The 1st assignment was worth like 9 points. The 2nd was worth 20 or so. But, its to be a page and a half, double spaced, in times new roman font, of a particular size, and I'm not sure what else. IN addition to not writing a page and a half, none of those other requirements are done, either. And in my humble opinion, those are simple points. But hey, who am I?

 

[HaoZi]

You're the one with the experience and knowledge. She's the one that has to learn it the hard way. She has processing delays, maybe she just can't put it all together properly. Or like most teens just doesn't want to bother and is adding a lot of filler. Have you asked if she needs help?

 

[Shari]

Oh yes. This is a long-standing problem. She was in the 4th grade reading at barely a 1st grade level when I finally tried to step in. After a long fight (about a year), I got her mom to let me put her in tutoring and counseling, but I had to transport and pay, which I did, up until 7th grade, then her mom made the tutoring arrangments. But cgfg regularly did not go. She knows she needs help. At one point asked for it. But there's no accountability in her environment. And mom lives in a $200k house (probably more), drives new cars, has all the latest gaming equipment, 60" lcd tv, etc, and is laid off half the year every year, works at a factory the other half, so cgfg doesn't even see the importance of an education. And mom doesn't care if cgfg does the work or not...as long as cgfg is under the radar at school, mom is happy. Cgfg would have not gone to school after about the age of 8 if no one made her. She just does whatever she can to get out of the work at this point...and she will tell some whopper lies to get out of it.

Ask her what she wants to do when she gets out of school as an adult? She has NO idea. None. I really don't think she has any recognition that she'll have to support herself..If she thinks about it long enough and you press the issue, she might say "walmart worker". I'm guessing because that's what her half-sister does (who is also in her 4th year of college to be a teacher...)

She has some working memory problems. I was able to get some testing done that first year. She didn't qualify with school evaluation results alone, but if she had a second diagnosis, like ADHD, she would have qualified for a 504 or an IEP, and could have gotten some help in school. Her mom did take her to the doctor and get the diagnosis, but she didn't want husband and I involved, so she didn't reconvene the IEP evaluation team, so nothing ever came of it except mom and grandma went to the school and yelled at them to do what the doctor's recommendations were (which was tutoring and counseling, by the way). And then things got heated with Wee, and he started in the same district, and I realized if I tried to fight mom and grandma to get an easy IEP for cgfg, that mom was going to balk at every step of the way, it was going to look bad on me in the district when it came to getting what Wee needed. Not that it has gone well with Wee, but can you imagine what it would have been like if I'd spent 2 years fighting to get services for cgfg that her mom might or might not let her use (likely not), and then I came asking for more for Wee? It shouldn't be like that, but it is.

So I talked mom into letting me take her to tutoring and counseling. I set it up to be tutored by a teacher after school. She wouldn't go. A million lies as to why. I'd try to pick her up and take her back and make her go, but mom wouldn't let me do that. She lied to the counselor, also, and without communication with mom (mom's hubby doesn't like her talking to husband or I) its very hard to untangle a 4 way web of deceit, and again, there is no accountability, so what, really, were we getting...except me taking off even more work and spending more money on a kid who has 90% of the adults in her life enabling her behavior.

I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. I call her cgfg because she's been cultured to be a difficult child. She wasn't one to start out with, its all learned behavior that's encouraged. Mom and both sets of grandparents have all encouraged her to lie at different points...so why wouldn't she continue...? I think she would have been easy to have gotten the help she needed in 4th grade. Would that make it a breeze now? Probably not. But it surely would have helped. As it is, I figured its just best if I just take a complete backseat to her education. I'd love to step in and help her write a paper. I used to do that, but she just got to despising me cause I made her do work when no one else did...since I'm around 1 night a week maybe, and literally everyone around her agrees with her that I'm just a pain in her backside, I didn't figure I was doing anything positive for her by expecting her to actually make an effort on the work.

She knows I will help her. She just has to ask. I'm just done watching, reminding, or stepping in without being otherwise asked to.

 

[HaoZi]

While mine is much younger, there are a lot of times she'll act out instead of asking for help, but if I ask her, she'll tell me if she needs/wants help. It's not that mine doesn't know to ask, and I don't quite get why she won't (I'm not even sure she gets why she won't), but it's one of her things. on the other hand, if you've offered and she said no, I can totally see going the natural consequences route.

 

[Shari]

Oh yeah. YEARS of offers. And years of lies about not needing it, now. And when I am literally the only one expecting anything fromher at school, I'm against a brick wall with her.

 

[HaoZi]

I hope she catches on before that brick wall falls on her, looks like short of tying her to the chair until it's complete you've done everything you can. Hate to say it but I foresee the same brick wall with my kiddo.

 

[susiestar]

Given Gma's behavior with cgfg's mom, it is likely that cgfg will not have to work after high school, or not for quite a while. in my humble opinion if will be a flippin miracle if she gets a GED or graduates with-o a drug problem and a child or two. Simply the nature of that kind of permissiveness/neglect and things cgfg has already tried. I don't think the weight issues would stop her from getting pregnant because teen boys are not always that discriminating, and if they are there is alway some pervert who wants a much younger girlfriend.
I think her mom should be taken out and shot for the way she has raised that girl. Cgfg bears some responsibility for her own actions, but her mother has worked HARD to not teach her ANYTHING except that if she makes enough fuss she will get whatever will shut her up.

How can you like yourself, or make good choices, if that is the basic rule for your life as a child?

If her mother tries to send her to you in a couple of years when she develops all the teenage attitudes/problems, tell her "No, thank you.". Cause there is NO WAY that you should get stuck with THAT. It also would be VERY bad for Wee to live with, in my opinion.

I really hope and pray that at some point cgfg realizes exactly what her mother has done to her all these years and starts to make much better choices with her life.

 

[Jena]

all i can say is good for you for just biting your tongue and not jumping in to just as you said enable her like everyone else has done. your right natural consequences and you dont have to be the "heavy' this time for that to occur. as far as another kid, lol i just laughed at what you wrote your quite funny when your p*ssed!!!

go get some sleep. your right as usual, just breath............ you cant' fix everything you can only do best you can do and the rest well it'll all go however it goes

by the way never knew the whole story till just read it, your a good person for fighting for her that way working with the interesting mom in it also. not alot of ppl would do that

 

[Shari]

I hope your kiddo doesn't have the same brick wall, HaoZi (how do you say that????). I hope intervention helps you. I truly believe it would have helped cgfg. She didn't used to act like this. AT all. She's just slowly gotten progressively worse with both effort in school and lying. Its hard for her and I'd love to help. If I hadn't "helped" already, she'd most likely have failed last year. As it was, I broke the silence because we were worried she was running around town and telling mom she was going to tutoring. That was not the case, but in asking, we had to divulge that she had a TON of missing work. Her mom actually yelled at me about it, andd cgfg quietly made up the work before grade checks came out, but had that not happened, by grade checks, she'd have had nearly 30 missing assignments...a hole likely too deep to have dug out of.

Susie, that is my fear, also. And several other people. Her actions around boys is gross. Has been for 3 years. She becomes a giggly morphing blob...if the boy is interested in heavy metal, SO IS SHE! If he's into oragami, SO IS SHE! Its bad. Anything for attention. No self esteem. Poor school performance. Yeah...pretty much not a good mix. I just pray and have set my own limits for her interactions with me. If she wants to hang with me, she has certain criteria to meet. She knows it.

Thanks, Jen. Her family (and husband's for that matter) don't agree. I am never quite sure why I tolerate that woman screaming at me, but it really doesn't phase me. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, but ever is still too much. I should be a great big nothing in that picture, and instead, I'm generally the target. Oh well. I just try to make it funny and go on.

 

[HaoZi]

Your last paragraph reminds me of that Superbowl commercial http://www.spike.com/video/budweiser-yelling/2532912.
I pronounce it how-zee, but I could be wrong. It's two words I liked the definition of thrown together to create a screen name.
I am so glad my difficult child is still at that age where boys are only friends and kissing stuff is gross, even in kiddo cartoons.

 

[Shari]

OMG, HaoZi! That's hysterical! I've not seen that.

That is my husband and his ex...right there!!! lol And his mother, for that matter. I know how he lived with his ex...he learned it from his mom.

That's pretty much how it looked the last time she screamed at me in person. Except we were on her front porch and her then fiance took cgfg into the house, crying, cause she was doing it in front of her. And I was leaning on her porch rail, just waiting. I actually said, when she appeared to be done "Are you finished now?" lol.; She yelled at me for about 20 minutes before I said anything. (and FWIW before I left, she hugged me and was crying because the conversation morphed into how bad her fiance treats cgfg unfairly compared to his kids, he expects her to pick up her stuff, and do some chores, and its just not fair, cause his kids don't have to do anything like that (his kids are there for 3 hours 2 nights a week, and every other weekend...no idea what they do or don't do around there, but it would be pretty hard to expect much in 3 hours that they have to also eat and do homework...) and he suffocates her, she can't go anywhere without him, blah blah blah - but you see, she still married him.)

Mostly now she yells on the phone or via text message.