My position with easy child 2 - is it wrong?

[Shari]

I posted last week about easy child 2 lying about her science homework again. In the course of the conversation, she claimed to have turned it in but the teacher didn't grade it, among other excuses which weren't her fault. We asked her if she'd told the teacher she was turning in make-up work, to which she said no, she didn't. I reminded her that it was her job to get the assignments from the teacher, and get the assigments to the teacher, and point them out, if she needs to. Then, husband took her to school early to make up the work and she didn't go to the classroom and then lied about that, too, at one point even claiming her dad didn't tell her why she went to school early (he did. In fact, we both did). She spent all day Saturday doing homework.
***
On Monday night, back at her mom's, she called and asked me to bring her science book and notebook to her at school on Tuesday. She'd forgotten it at our house. I did.
***
She was with us again last night. husband asked her if she'd turned in her homework. She said she had on Tuesday. He asked her if it was graded. She got snappy and said she didn't know. He asked if she told the teacher it was make-up work. No, she hadn't. He asked her how the teacher was supposed to know to look back FOUR MONTHS and grade old assignments. She didn't know, nor did she care. I asked her why she didn't tell the teacher. After shrugging her shoulders five or six times, she finally said she didn't want to.
***
So, I'm done. Once these assignments are graded and the one she is missing in her other class is made up, I will not look at her grades any more. If she fails, so be it. She's already gauranteed herself a spot in summer school again this year, which she hates, but too bad. I know she has learning problems, and I'm sorry, but if she won't help herself, there's nothing I can do to help her, and I'm done trying.
***
I will continue to address the lying. If I ask her if she did something and she blames it on another person (the teacher didn't grade it, the teacher wont' tell me my assignments, dad didn't tell me why I went to school early), I will march her to the presence of that person and ask the question again. If she's caught lying, she will muck more stalls. She already has an old chicken house to clean out over Christmas break for this latest round.
***
But as far as school work, I'm done.
***
She got to our house last night and called in panic cause she'd left an assignment at school, so I rushed home to drive her to school to get the missing assignment before the building closed. She left this morning and left 5 papers in 3 different locations at our house (2 different places on the couch and by the computer). She also left a folder under the monitor, her poetry book in her box with her Bratz dolls, her flash drive in the computer, and her reading book on the counter. I will not go out of my way to deliver them. If her mom wants to drive her to our house to get them, fine, but I am done trying. I have helped her organize the shelves in her room with a place for everything, including her homework, and even when husband or I remind her to go put her things there, she doesn't...(as you can see by the location of the above items)...what more do we do?
***
The other thing I'm done with is her jeans. I bought her 5 pairs of jeans in September. She wears her gym shorts to our house from school, but doesn't bring the jeans she wore TO school that day, then wears jeans to school the next day. So we gain a pair of gym shorts and lose a pair of jeans. She has 1 pair of jeans at our house now. I have told her for the past 4 weeks to bring jeans from her mom's, even called her to remind her, but she doesn't. She is going to enjoy washing her clothes every day at Christmas break, 'cause, again, I'm not going to do it.
***
Am I totally mean?

 

[AnnieO]

No, you're NOT being mean. I quit asking Onyxx about her homework when she said the teachers were losing it. Now it's Jett. "I didn't know"... "So-and-so was talking"..."The teacher didn't tell us"..."I turned it in"... Uh huh. Whatever.

He also wears his good clothes to BM's, comes back in ratty old stuff. He has no decent jeans and one long-sleeved shirt left.

So guess what? He freezes. She complains that we do not dress him properly. She has four of his coats. The only reason we have ONE left is she sent him back in a Michigan jacket (lightweight windbreaker) and he wore it to her house the next time and argued with her about a real coat coming back.

So - make her wash her own stuff. Now, Jett isn't "old" enough to remember to bring this stuff back. At least not emotionally. But if easy child 2 is, she should - or her mom should. Unless her mom wants her wearing inappropriate clothing all the time.

 

[Shari]

easy child 2 honestly probably can't remember on her own, but I have called and reminded.
***
And just like last night, when I "reminded" her to put on appropriate clothes for the weather (she wore the shorts to our house yesterday - the high was 33), when we actually headed out to eat supper, she was still in the shorts.
***
And when reminded to put her homework and school things in their spot on the shelf or her backpack...well...you see what happened there, too.
***
I don't mind reminding. But when nothing happens when I do, well, why waste my breath.

 

[DaisyFace]

Shari--

Our daughters must be in the same classes...

I cannot believe how irresponsible those teachers are with the homework! These kids work so hard, and yet the teachers are continually losing their work, not getting the grades turned in on time, forgetting to tell the students about many of the assignments in the first place. Those teachers are obviously dis-organized morons.

At least, that's what I hear over hear....

Why else would these highly intelligent and obviously hard-working difficult child's be failing? It MUST be the teachers. I guess us parents are just dumb for not realizing it sooner....we might have placed them in a better school.

(And yes, I'm being very sarcastic--I am so sick about hearing that all the bad grades are the fault of the teachers.)

Sorry to hear that you are struggling with this, too...

--DaisyFace

 

[Shari]

Apparently they go to the same school with all the same lousy teachers, daisy. lol That's funny.

I feel a bit bad about this position, but the girl has absolutely nothing invested in herself in this process. Nothing. She doesn't even have a grandiose plan for stardom and fame when she's grown. I truly don't think the child has any recognition AT ALL that she will ever have to take care of herself. None. And I can't see where any mental deficits are at play here. Yeah, she's ADD, but its mild. She's got some learning problems that I have attempted to address, have had some knock-down drag-outs with her mom over them, etc. Got her into tutoring and counseling, etc. The tutor is her special reading teacher at school. She's great with her and easy child likes her. She's willing to work on any subject, but easy child will lie to her, too. I know its hard for easy child, but i've done all i can, and she continues to do her damnedest to do NOTHING, and try as I might to see some deficit or some reason or some "excuse" for her behavior, I can't. She's been raised this way. No one but me questions her stories. No one holds her accountable for her actions. No one makes her step up and be responsible - she throws her clothes all over the place and grandma goes to her house and picks them up and washes them. If she runs out of clothes (she loses them or crams them in her closet, etc), grandma goes and buys more. Heck, her grandma still reads the lunch menu every day and will magically show up at school with a lunch from home if its something on the menu easy child doesn't like...easy child not only doesn't have to pack her lunch, she doesn't even have to look at the menu and decide if its something she likes or not. So why should she do school work that's hard and she doesn't like.

Sure, I can keep going and can probably keep her grades passable for the next couple of years. Maybe thru high school. But then what? I don't mind helping, but at this point, if I have to wade thru 4 different stories every time I ask a question, and I put things in place to help that she avoids using, what am I doing beyond just being another enabler?

I mean, she stood there last night and readily abmitted that she used her own dad (also there) as a scapegoat, and when I suggested she needed to apologize for blaming him for something he didn't do....nothing. Five hours later, husband demanded she apologize. She did, but it was pretty half-donkey. He accepted it, but I wouldn't have.

 

[mstang67chic]

I don't think you are being mean at all. As for your comments about high school.....omg....I'm there now. I'm currently on the edge of my seat waiting to find out if difficult child will manage to squeak out a diploma on his THIRD attempt. I still support him in his efforts, encourage him, we help with homework but we've stopped doing the check in's with teachers, checking of assignment book (which disappeared years ago anyway), etc.

For her age though and especially with the processing issues however, I might consider trying to come up with at least a monitoring plan. Here we can get a login/password and check our kids grades online. We can look at a list of grades generally and even specifically for each class. It will show each assignment and the grade which tells me if he even turned it in....0/50 is a pretty good clue. At least then, you would know if something had been turned in or graded. On our program there was also a spot for teacher comments but those are pretty general.

This may not help with the lying but it may help your sanity in keeping things straight. Hugs....I've definately been there done that and still am.

 

[Shari]

Yeah, we have access to an online grade book, and that's what I check. I knew she had some missing assignments, but she had told me she'd done them, I checked with her mom, who verified she had done the work, etc, and the teacher just hadn't graded them.

So when they didn't show up repeatedly, I checked with the teacher. The blank sheets are in her binder, not done. After a few back and forths with the teacher, becomes pretty obvious. I check with mom, "she showed you science work, but did you verify that it was the makeup work?" No, she didn't. Given that there are blank worksheets in her binder and none of the work can be accounted for, go back to easy child and ask and after 3 more stories, you get the truth. She never did it.

I'll still help her. If she forgets a paper at school, I'll take her back to get it. If she needs help with homework, I'll help her. If she wants me to look up her work for the day, I'll do it. I'll ask her if her work is done. I'll spot-check it for her. I might even still do a random check to make sure it is done.

What I won't do is wade thru this scenario any more. I won't watch the grade book and decipher, through mountains of emails back and forth to her teachers and her mom, playing the "she told me this story..." game, whether or not she's feeding me a line of bs anymore. I'll ask that person in her presence or ask her in their presence. If I remind her to pick up her stuff and she doesn't, I'm not going out of my way to drive it to school for her. If she misses a day of school, I'll ask her to put a note in her assignment book to ask teachers for her assignments, but I'm not going to write it in there for her, or email the teachers to see that she did. She's got to put forth some initiative of her own. I've been doing that stuff for 4 years now, and the situation hasn't changed one bit.

 

[AnnieO]

We quit with the whole checking the online gradebook. In fact I don't know if husband ever checked it. We got the password... I never saw it... Poof.

Organization? Ha.

Onyxx would "do" the homework - in fact I helped her with it - and then it would "disappear" before class. OR, the teacher lost it. Or whatever. I told her to work on her organization. She told me she wasn't good at it - so I told her that's why she needed to work on it. She refused. I dropped it.

Strangely at the LC she is a straight-A student. (Well, she got an 89.8% in science - I give her an A for that one. Too close.) I don't monitor. And I darn well know husband doesn't.

I tell Jett to "put it in your backpack" when he's done. Missing assignments, closed lunches, and so on. I gave up there. In fact I told them - including husband - you leave something out where it doesn't belong, I throw it away. Simple. I tried having baskets for everyone. husband never empties his and it has overflowed into mine. I emptied the whole mess into a box for him. It ended up in the computer room. Whatever.

So - I am behind you 100% on this. Let easy child freeze.

 

[trinityroyal]

Shari, another vote for "not mean".

It sounds like easy child 2 needs to experience the natural consequences of her actions (or inactions, in this case).

That inability to fend for herself...if you don't nip it in the bud now, it will just get more entrenched and be that much harder to break later on. The day I saw my then-16-year-old difficult child ask husband to tie his shoes for him, and husband DID IT FOR HIM, was the day I realized we needed to make some drastic changes.

Don't wait until you get to that stage. Now's the time.

Sending a coat of polish for your Warrior Mom armour. This battle's tough and unpleasant. Refusing to enable her anymore is the first step.

Trinity

 

[KTMom91]

Nope. Not mean. Realistic. She's got to start figuring stuff out on her own.

 

[graceupongrace]

Not mean.

I remind difficult child about homework now and then (OK, maybe more often than that), but it's a relief to let the school dish out the consequences when he doesn't do it (someone else gets to be the bad guy for a change).

Gotta say, though, it's frustrating when the teachers push hard about assignments being on time, but their online grade reporting is weeks behind. They should be required to keep current too.

 

[susiestar]

You are not wrong at all! Not in any way, shape, or form.

Where is husband during all of this? I know he and his ex do not get along, but he should still be taking a lead role in all of this stuff. No matter how young the child, the stepmom must let the bio parents set and enforce the rules. You can supplement this by dropping things off at school or picking up stuff at the store when you go on a grocery run.

You should NOT be arranging tutors, dragging her to do stuff, ferreting out her lies, etc...

Her FATHER needs to do this. Regardless of how he and his wife want to treat each other.

I am sorry they dragged you into the middle and let you take a lead role instead of the supporting role that is more logical.

Hopefully you can shed some of the responsibilites to husband and biomom. If not, then you will have to stand tough and follow your convictions. in my opinion, of course.

 

[Shari]

I don't mind the role so much as I mind the lack of backing. husband always had my back with my boys. He has a lot more trouble being the enforcer with his own daughter.

But I am sick to death of this girl's lies. And she does it because she gets away with it with every other adult in her world. Oh yeah, she loses her video game at mom's, but she just sneaks it in the middle of the night...then what does she lose? The video game. Yeah. That works.

She's getting her first taste of a consequence today. Wednesday night, also, she asked me to help her open a file on her flash drive. It was saved as that .wps file, which is an ancient file type. I asked her what program she wrote it on and she said "Words". I said "you mean word?" and she said "no, mommy has 'micro scoft words".

I said there is no such thing. A, its 'micro SOFT' and B, its word or works.

She got mad at me for correcting her and got all pissy. I jsut shrugged my shoulders and said it was important to know what it was written with so we know how to get it open.

It didn't open right on our easy child at home, either, but...

That's the paper she needed off the flash drive when she called last night. I emailed it to school, just as she left it - a .wps file. No one can open it.

I made a half-hearted effort to convert it by asking here and 2 colleagues if they had the converter. No one does.

Bite the hand that routinely saves your butt, and that hand just might let go.

 

[AnnieO]

Bite the hand that routinely saves your butt, and that hand just might let go.

LOL I'm gonna use this quite!