We still have not been able to figure out why my son is not doing his work but until this year he has been an excellent student. One of the reasons we chose to send him to Catholic school is the low student to teacher ratio and this particulars schools record of producing some of the top students in the state. Compared to the local HS and the other parochial schools his current school has a 99% rate of the seniors going on to 4 year colleges compared to less then 50% for the public school and 75% for the others combined. He was part of the decision making process so this is not some big surprise and this is not his first year here so I think we are past the rebellious stage of the new school. He has made some great friends in this school and loves to go to all the school outings so we do not think he is having trouble other then the typical 6th grade BS.

It seems like his biggest problem is he "forgets" to bring home the stuff he needs to do his work or he does not write it down even though all students have an assignment book that they are required to have. We tried having the teachers sign the book at the end of the day to verify he was writing down his work and then my wife or I would countersign once we saw all the completed assignments. Of course that only works of he remembers to bring it to/from school/home or that he brings the material needed for the work. This time he had a book report due today which I did not even find out about until last night when speaking with his teacher. They were assigned this report a month ago and he had barely read 1/3 of the book. So he has a long boring weekend ahead as I told him he will finish the book and have a the rough draft of the report to me by Sunday afternoon.

The teachers have been great and we are all now on an email list to keep each other abreast of the assignments and when they are due. One of his teachers has come up with some great ideas for all of us to use so that he is not able to manipulate one anymore then the other. If all of us are on the same sheet we should be able to figure out what he is up to quickly and nip it in the bud.

I am also going to try to get my sister to spend some time with him and see what she comes up with. She has a PhD in early childhood development and human behavior so maybe she has something to add to the mix.

Don't get me wrong, he is a great kid but to have senioritis before Junior High is a bit much. I think what gets me the most is that he does not seem to understand all that we have sacrificed so he can go to this school. We don't ask him to bow down to us because we have done this but we would like at least some effort on his part to show that he understands. I guess no matter how I put that it will make me seem callous but with my back and the loss of more then 1/2 our income we still put him ahead of a lot of other things to make sure he gets the best that is out there. We want our children to have the best they can much like our parents did for us.

I know that he may not see it now but I hope in his future years he will understand. I say this because I did not catch on to a lot of things from my childhood until I had my own children and then one morning, BAM! it all made sense. As scary as it might be, my parents were right.

They should attach warning stickers to kids with a list of all these things!