SuZir
Well-Known Member
And this has been one of those 
One would think that after parenting a difficult child parenting struggles with a joyful superpc wouldn't feel bad at all. After all one should be comparing to much worse situations and feeling relieved. But HAH! I have spent all night feeling like miserable mom and hating what I'm doing. And this certainly is not life or death situation and I'm following carefully thought out plan. But blaah!
With difficult child we had to give up trying to control his schooling much too early. Surprisingly he ended up doing well in the end, but with easy child we have kept reins shorter. He hates that and has complained a lot how we are much tougher for him than for difficult child. He of course has to learn to take care of his school by himself, but his schedule being challenging with high level sport that takes a lot of his time and makes him be absent from the school a lot and to have to work independently quite a lot I wanted to show him, that he is totally able to do well also in his current school (he went from middle school to high school this year, change is big academically.) So his two first periods I kept the rains short and made sure he was up to date with school work.
But this is a perfect time for him to fall to his face while trying to learn how to manage his time, if he needs to do that. So after making sure he knows he is capable of doing well and how to do it, I let go in the beginning of this third period. I still made him make a timetable for himself like with first two, but it has been up to him to follow it. He hasn't. He had more absences because of the sport camp and then falling sick than ever and he hasn't mad changes to his schedule to make those up. And he was behind before that. If he would start working right now and would use all his free time for that, he would still be able to make it. He has two weeks left before the exam week. He could still make it. But he has sat watching tv and playing with computer all night after coming home from school and practise. And I have had hardest time not to say anything.
I'm setting him up to failure on purpose and I so hate it. Even when it is planned and I know it will be a good learning experience for him. He has to understand that even though his brother could pull out things like just opening the book first time at the evening before the exam and do well, he can't. If the course has 30 classroom hours and 10 hours homework, he will not be able to do it in few hours. Or even in ten. Doesn't matter that difficult child did that many times, they are different persons.
It doesn't help that my motives are not totally good. Maybe if it would be just teaching easy child to manage his time, I wouldn't feel this low, but it isn't. We want easy child to fail also for another reason. Around here kids can get their driver's license at 18 but there are certain vehicles they can drive before. They are very, very popular especially with jocks and because of high price (it really is ridiculous considering that they are basically not much more than golf carts), kids not really having a real need (we have excellent public transporting and possibility to walk or drive a bike anywhere safely) and just general lavishness those vehicles are considered an epitome of spoiled child. And to be frank, because of difficult child our reputation, or easy child's reputation, can't really stand him getting one. But like everyone else he would want one. We have some other reasons not to want him to have one (safety, that he really doesn't need it, and as I said, it is ridiculously expensive), but the problem is, that one time we were ready to try everything and promised difficult child that he would get this vehicle, if he x, y and z. Of course we were quite sure he wouldn't do those things and he didn't. But now easy child thinks he should get it, if he x, y and z. And we really don't want to tell him real reason he isn't getting it. So him blowing up his grades for one or two period would work us just fine. He would maybe get his GPA back up enough again to fulfil that z some time next year and then being 18 and having a real drivers license will be so close that I'm sure he would be happy to change a goal to license and my old car.
So here I'm sitting, keeping my mouth shut, setting my child up to fall on to his face and hurt himself and feeling absolutely vile doing that. Blaah!
One would think that after parenting a difficult child parenting struggles with a joyful superpc wouldn't feel bad at all. After all one should be comparing to much worse situations and feeling relieved. But HAH! I have spent all night feeling like miserable mom and hating what I'm doing. And this certainly is not life or death situation and I'm following carefully thought out plan. But blaah!
With difficult child we had to give up trying to control his schooling much too early. Surprisingly he ended up doing well in the end, but with easy child we have kept reins shorter. He hates that and has complained a lot how we are much tougher for him than for difficult child. He of course has to learn to take care of his school by himself, but his schedule being challenging with high level sport that takes a lot of his time and makes him be absent from the school a lot and to have to work independently quite a lot I wanted to show him, that he is totally able to do well also in his current school (he went from middle school to high school this year, change is big academically.) So his two first periods I kept the rains short and made sure he was up to date with school work.
But this is a perfect time for him to fall to his face while trying to learn how to manage his time, if he needs to do that. So after making sure he knows he is capable of doing well and how to do it, I let go in the beginning of this third period. I still made him make a timetable for himself like with first two, but it has been up to him to follow it. He hasn't. He had more absences because of the sport camp and then falling sick than ever and he hasn't mad changes to his schedule to make those up. And he was behind before that. If he would start working right now and would use all his free time for that, he would still be able to make it. He has two weeks left before the exam week. He could still make it. But he has sat watching tv and playing with computer all night after coming home from school and practise. And I have had hardest time not to say anything.
I'm setting him up to failure on purpose and I so hate it. Even when it is planned and I know it will be a good learning experience for him. He has to understand that even though his brother could pull out things like just opening the book first time at the evening before the exam and do well, he can't. If the course has 30 classroom hours and 10 hours homework, he will not be able to do it in few hours. Or even in ten. Doesn't matter that difficult child did that many times, they are different persons.
It doesn't help that my motives are not totally good. Maybe if it would be just teaching easy child to manage his time, I wouldn't feel this low, but it isn't. We want easy child to fail also for another reason. Around here kids can get their driver's license at 18 but there are certain vehicles they can drive before. They are very, very popular especially with jocks and because of high price (it really is ridiculous considering that they are basically not much more than golf carts), kids not really having a real need (we have excellent public transporting and possibility to walk or drive a bike anywhere safely) and just general lavishness those vehicles are considered an epitome of spoiled child. And to be frank, because of difficult child our reputation, or easy child's reputation, can't really stand him getting one. But like everyone else he would want one. We have some other reasons not to want him to have one (safety, that he really doesn't need it, and as I said, it is ridiculously expensive), but the problem is, that one time we were ready to try everything and promised difficult child that he would get this vehicle, if he x, y and z. Of course we were quite sure he wouldn't do those things and he didn't. But now easy child thinks he should get it, if he x, y and z. And we really don't want to tell him real reason he isn't getting it. So him blowing up his grades for one or two period would work us just fine. He would maybe get his GPA back up enough again to fulfil that z some time next year and then being 18 and having a real drivers license will be so close that I'm sure he would be happy to change a goal to license and my old car.
So here I'm sitting, keeping my mouth shut, setting my child up to fall on to his face and hurt himself and feeling absolutely vile doing that. Blaah!
