Mermaid said:
Cil, I beg to differ. Your son probably would have still rebelled, ditched class and finagled no matter what the rules about homework were. I say this because I have a son who sounds remarkably similar, except for the dean's list part. Tell me, when did your son turn himself around? Mine is a freshman and I'm still waiting for the transformation to occur. Any insight is apreciated!
Literally his first semester of college, the kid settled right in; he flourished.
He was never afraid of responsibility and hard work; he had a good job all through high school and college, and he graduated with a double major in 3 and a half years.
In high school, he had really liked his guidance counselor and a couple of the teachers that he truly respected. I did too, and the principal as well.
But.
That kid did lead us down quite the merry, beer bottle strewn path.
If you really do not believe in something, it is difficult to conform.
Much of it was immaturity, an unwillingness to play the game, testing boundaries.
But some of it was recognizing that many of these rules are for faculty's convenience rather than building students' character. He chafed against this.
At university, when so many of these rules disappeared, he could relax and embrace the learning. At university, success or failure was based much more on one's actual work rather than external stuff such as attendance or notebook quality. He took to it right away.
Yes, part of growing up is learning that there is no free lunch, that life is not always fair, and of course we can't constantly rescue our kids. There are kids out there learning life lessons much worse than Peapod's.
Still, as Peapod says, a parent's gotta vent sometimes.
