Before I begin, I want to reiterate that just because I write difficult things about my kids, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love them or that they don’t love me. We are still a family and we love each other very much.
Yaya and I are in a cross roads right now. She is 17, working and earning 22.60$/hour. She in strong willed and independent like me and I respect those traits in her, for she sure has inherited those genes from me.
Early Jan Yaya had to submit Scholarship application and it required that her school send her official transcripts to the Uni. She mailed the school counsellor to let him know. I told her to go to the school and check and make sure they have sent it and she came after me like a ton of bricks.
“Madre, (she calls me Madre when she is really pissed) I know what I am doing, My school has been around for the past 6 decades and I am not the first student going overseas to study. They know what to do. You make everything seem so difficult, you need to learn to trust people to do their job and you need to stop nagging me”
All of Feb, she drove her siblings to the school to get her on the road hours and twice I asked her, if she would go to the admin and check, it takes 1 minute of her time. She rolled her eyes and said No.
Yesterday she found out that the guidance counsellor only sent her grade 12 school results, not the IB diploma, not the past 4 years of records that the Uni wanted.
This morning she had to take leave from work, go to the school and meet the principal and sort it out, 8 weeks after the submission deadline. She looks like a nervous wreck.
As far as I am concerned, I did my job. I told her to check and reminded her twice. If she didn’t get the scholarship, she will just have to live with the consequences of not being able to study in the Uni she dreamt of going.
I didn’t rub it in.. I wanted to.. but there is no point in making her more miserable..
But I do know that from now on, she will not trust other people to do their job well..She will make sure that they did what they were meant to do.
Painful lesson to learn and a heavy price to pay.
Sarah- I do not think anyone is judging you or your kids or your love for each other when you write difficult things. We all have kids and good experience in dealing with issues.. each of them are unique and come with their own set of challenges.
Having said that, hopefully the university will be a bit flexible. Hard lesson to learn though.
For her age, she is making a lot of money 🙂 that will cover her Europe trip and she will be resourceful and get good jobs when she goes to Uni. She will be fine ( I think, you too know that).
MS: She is earning twice more than her friends..So far she has made enough money to pay for her living expenses in US the first year. She even works in a coffee shop to get Barista experience, so she can make more money(apparently baristas make lots of tips) when she moves to US.
Amazing!! You should not worry about her. She will be fine.
MS: 🙂
Oh Man! Hope it sorts out for her! From what age do you let the children go like this? Did you do it from they were in elementary?
I try to do this with my son(8) at times like reminding him to do the homework once and then not remind him again and again till he does it, but I feel I lucked out with a responsible kid (from his dad, i’m sure. I am very careless and disorganized.). He rarely forgets unless he’s too tired after his other evening activities. Once or twice he missed doing it and had to complete it right before his class started on that day.
I always wonder if it works on kids who are not as responsible. One of my friends’ older kid is very responsible while the other is careless. Do you deal with your kids based on their personalities or give the same treatment to all three?
Thumbi: Yaya has been systematic and responsible, my son is disorganized and often clueless and baby is the least responsible and follower of last minute work. I have never told them to study, do their homework etc from the time they were little. I want them to be responsible for their own actions. If they don’t do their homework, they get in to trouble at school and they have to deal with it.
It only works if they care about getting in trouble. What if they don’t and the next step for the teacher is to call the parents? Would you have cared about following up on their studies then? We have examples of this in our family where the mom and dad felt their kids were doing excellent in college and then at the end they turned up failing for a couple of subjects, which in turn affected their job prospects and such. I understand that may not happen among your kids becoz they are all genius grade (from what you have written before), but just wondering what you would have done if they were not.
My parents were never involved much in our studies starting since when we turned 10 or something. I was never in the first 10 in my class, but usually my percentages never went under 75. If it did, my mom took notice and asked me to explain and told me to take charge of what ever is lacking. My brother though, he was always in top three (without even trying) and my mom used to get more mad at him becoz she felt he wasn’t trying as much as he could.(Lol) My son is just like my brother, he is very bright and I feel he gets through school stuff with minimal effort. I’m at a loss of what to do sometimes and my husband always feels I am not doing enough for him in his studies citing examples from the families I talked about above. I already talked to his teacher about giving him more challenging work and she said they don’t have advanced classes until they reach grade 3 (next year).
*sigh* I have lot more things to write, not enough time. I haven’t even reached the explanation of the line before I sighed. I’ll stop here for now. 😀
Thumbi: Both my son and baby got in to trouble for not doing their homework. My son was in grade 5 if I am not mistaken and baby is grade 3 when it happened. Their teacher wrote to me and said their homework is incomplete and I met her and asked what is the next step? She said they will be sent to the Principal and I requested her to do it. My children need to be held accountable and also need to learn to respect authorities. My son was warned that he will be sent to the principal, he ignored the warning and had a talk with the principal, which scared the living day light out of him. Baby didn’t have to be sent, her brother told her how unpleasant the whole thing is. They have never submitted incomplete homework after that. Not once.
My son was in Maths acceleration program from Kindergarten and the only reason he was in that program was to keep him out of trouble. It was not to make him more smarter or create the next genius. Unless a child is acting out in class because he is bored, there is no need for extra work for them. You don’t want to create a robot.. you want a happy healthy child.
There is so much you can do with your children. Read to them, take them to the park, go for swimming and skating, go for movies, go and pig out on pizzas..
Like Ronald Reagan said, and my husband quotes- rather a lot and very often
“Trust, but verify”
Mona: This morning, she went to the school to check if the Principal has sent the documents.. She finally learned..
“She in strong willed and independent like me and I respect those traits in her, for she sure has inherited those genes from me.” Is it really inherited Sarah, I would like to believe that she learnt this traits from you. 🙂 . Sorry I am not a great fan of ?????? concept.
I meant paithrikam if you don’t find those malayalam word properly there 🙂
Jas: Sometimes when I look at my kids, I can see various family members. My son often sits exactly like his Paternal great grandfather whom he has never seen when he eats his meals. Yaya snips and chops all her t-shirts exactly like my youngest sister and dresses up like my oldest sister. Being a doctor, I do believe in genetics..and some traits are imprinted in the DNA..