Lying About Homework...

[DaisyFace]

Hello All--

difficult child does not care to do homework...and because she is very bright, she can still do well on tests and things without studying...so she does not place any importance at all on completing assignments.

Last week, she had an eleven page science report due. husband and I had been reminding and reminding and nagging and nagging--but naturally, difficult child leaves the whole thing for the night before. She turned it in and reports that she received a score of 100%.

That's great! (if it's true...)

Today, I receive a call from her English teacher that so far this quarter, difficult child has turned in NONE of her homework and has earned a series of zeroes that will be seriously impacting her grade. Tomorrow is the last day to make one of these up...so I got the assignment and planned on talking to difficult child when she arrived home.

I asked her if she was all caught up on all of her work. difficult child beamed at me and said Yes! She's doing really well in all of her classes. I told her that I was very glad to hear that, but her teacher called to let her know that she has only one day left to make up the last missing assignment.

difficult child looked confused and said she was all caught up (nobody told her she had missing work, she doesn't remember getting homework, seemed totally unfamiliar with the assignment I read to her from my telephone note, etc etc), and declared that there must be some mistake because she currently has a B in that class.

I'm pretty confident that difficult child is lying--but at this point it is the teacher's word vs hers...because I have no proof of anything either way.

How would you handle this? I am thinking not to make a big deal out of it and let the natural consequence of possibly failing English be the lesson.

Or, am I being irresponsible for not setting up more immediate consequences here at home for not having homework done? (And without daily proof of all the assignments, how would I check up on that each day?).

What do you think?

--DaisyF

 

[Josie]

My difficult child got a C on her report card for this very same thing. The work she completed was all A+'s but missing work brought her grade down. I also thought natural consequences would work but my difficult child is content with her C.

I did not want to get into keeping track of her assignments and making sure she did the work so we came up with an incentive plan. She gets a "bonus" for all A's on her report card and more for any A+'s. She has to get all A's to get any money. I hate to give her money for something she should be doing but, at a job, the highest performers do get rewarded with raises, promotions, etc. She seems to be motivated by $ so far. Her teacher also agreed to e-mail me daily for missing assignments.

My difficult child hasn't lied to my knowledge about school work but she does lie about other things. If the teacher told me she had missing work and she said she didn't, I think I would either call the teacher in difficult child's presence or assume the teacher was right and difficult child was lying. If I know about a long term assignment due the next day or missing work, I don't let her watch TV or be on the computer or have her phone. To me, it is one thing to not monitor her school work closely and another to knowingly let her not do it.

 

[ML]

I'm not sure but I can tell you that is happening with homework here as well. The planner will say "do x,y and z" and manster will say "I did z already in class". Well then why does it say that etc. Of course the planner is in his writing and often messy to begin with so I'm at a loss with what he's supposed to be doing. He's also getting "C's". However I don't think he's lying, just sometimes confused by directions. I might give her the benefit of the doubt but I'd want to have a meeting with everyone in the same room for a discussion to hopefully avoid this happening again.

 

[slsh]

At 13? Natural consequences. But I should mention, in our house the natural consequences of anything less than a B (I'm a witch, I know) means I don't believe a word out of his mouth (my youngest son) until the next report card. I check with- teachers, I check online grades/assignments, and I'm *not* a happy camper to boot.

Youngest son is also (unfortunately) very bright - and nothing sends me over the edge than to get a report card where every doggone test is a high A if not 100%, and the vast majority of homework is a big fat zero, so his final grade is a C or less. Truly, makes me *insane*!

The other thing we've done is make him communicate with teachers. He's in that annoying monosyllabic teen state, so we make him email, with cc: to me, LOL. I think that has actually been the most productive thing we've done because then he knows that we know, and there's a hard copy that he's not turning stuff in. No more of this happy story throughout the quarter of "Oh yes, I'm doing all my work, yada yada yada butterflies hearts and flowers" only to be greeted by an awful report card.

I feel for you - truly. These middle-school years have just been awful in trying to transfer the responsibility and accountability to him!

 

[Wiped Out]

I can so relate but with my easy child not my difficult child (however, many times I think she is a difficult child). She always tells us her work is done-it's not! We have nagged til we are blue in the face, tried leaving her alone, etc... If you find something that works let me know! Hugs to you-I know how frustrating this is.

 

[DaisyFace]

No more of this happy story throughout the quarter of "Oh yes, I'm doing all my work, yada yada yada butterflies hearts and flowers" only to be greeted by an awful report card.

LOL!! O that's definitely the situation!

At the elementary school level...the teachers all post the class homework assignments online--so its very easy to check up on missing work. Unfortunately, by middle school...the students are expected to take responsibility for their own assignments.

After receiving C's and D's last report card--difficult child was automatically enrolled in a weekly "study group" that meets at lunchtime. She was very excited because she thought it would be a great opportunity to make new friends. But after just a couple meetings where the group really did work on studying--she is less than enthused.

The shame of it is--she is very smart and very capable of being a straight A student--but like everything else in her life that might require effort, she is totally uninterested.

Right now, homework is supposed to take priority over any kind of activity (including watching TV, using the phone, etc)--but clearly, these assignments are not even coming home because it always looks like she has no homework to do. So I have to decide whether I am going to put in a lot of effort and try to set up extra communications with each of her teachers to find out whether there was an assignment, when it is due, and what is coming up next--OR whether I am going to let her learn the hard way that when you choose not to do the work now...you are choosing to do the work later (like in summer school...).

 

[gcvmom]

AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!

I hate middle school!

We've had nothing but problems the past two years with difficult child 1's homework, too. Doesn't get homework done (either forgets to do it or doesn't finish it on time) and sometimes doesn't get classwork done, depending on how overwhelmed he is in the class.

I put him on a planner contract where he HAS to get signatures from each core teacher acknowledging that he has the right assignments down for the day. Then he has to show me the completed work each evening.

But ya know what? Some days, I am too busy to babysit him, so some days I can't follow through. Some days he is responsible and conscientious, and some days he's not.

I've paid him for grades, but the lack of effort isn't earning him much. He doesn't get anything for C's, and he loses money if there's a D or (heaven forbid, though it almost happened a few times) worse.

I wish I knew what motivated him. We've revoked privileges. We've grounded him. My latest trick is lavishing the praise for every little success -- and I'm getting the feeling this is going to work better (even though some days it kills me to have to treat him like this -- I just want to scream GROW UP!!)

No simple answers, just a lot of company in the misery here!