Working full time and parenting too!
Oct. 9th, 2006 01:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrsbrownThere's nothing like worrying about your children to put a kybosh on your ability to work effectively.
Z is not at school again today. He wasn't there last Mon, Tues or Wed either. I got him to the student welfare coordinator on Wednesday and we arranged for him to attend some of his classes on Thursday and Friday, which he did.
He was supposed to meet the SWC again today to sort out this week, but he decided it was more important to stay in bed. After a couple of phone calls I got on to him and persuaded him to ring the SWC himself. Then we spoke again, unfortunately she just told him to get out of bed and get to school. It's useless trying to parent over the phone, particularly when he's at his Dad's house. I was trying to persuade him to go to some of his classes today, like last week, but he's a recalcitrant bastard and doesn't see that he's got us all jumping through hoops trying to get him to school.
I'm also stuck because he's mostly at his Dad's during the week and I can't make sure that I get into his room to make sure he gets up, jolly him to get into uniform and then have a tanty until I finally drive him to school, arriving about 2 hours late at work, but able to work because I'm not worried about him. I can't see MTB doing that, or the preparation the night before to make sure that Z's homework is attempted and he goes to bed at a reasonable hour.
When T went through a phase of avoiding school, I fought for a while and then just banned her from watching tv for four weeks. MTB failed to back me up on that one, and she spent more time at his place, but at least it had an effect after the third set of 4 weeks without tv, and really took the emotion out of arguing with her about getting up for school. Z's a much more determined and less tv addicted person than T, he's also sneaky and likely to just continue refusing to go to school with the punishment/consequences mounting up until it becomes ridiculous to enforce.
I could remove his access to his computer and computer games, ideally with MTB's cooperation. Or maybe give him access in direct ratio to his school attendance and homework attempt.
At heart MTB and I are both really bad parents. We don't do routine at all well, and mostly we'd rather have a nice time chatting, or going out, or watching cool movies with our kids than getting them to do their homework or anything else that requires persistance and boredom to get a great outcome.
Z is not at school again today. He wasn't there last Mon, Tues or Wed either. I got him to the student welfare coordinator on Wednesday and we arranged for him to attend some of his classes on Thursday and Friday, which he did.
He was supposed to meet the SWC again today to sort out this week, but he decided it was more important to stay in bed. After a couple of phone calls I got on to him and persuaded him to ring the SWC himself. Then we spoke again, unfortunately she just told him to get out of bed and get to school. It's useless trying to parent over the phone, particularly when he's at his Dad's house. I was trying to persuade him to go to some of his classes today, like last week, but he's a recalcitrant bastard and doesn't see that he's got us all jumping through hoops trying to get him to school.
I'm also stuck because he's mostly at his Dad's during the week and I can't make sure that I get into his room to make sure he gets up, jolly him to get into uniform and then have a tanty until I finally drive him to school, arriving about 2 hours late at work, but able to work because I'm not worried about him. I can't see MTB doing that, or the preparation the night before to make sure that Z's homework is attempted and he goes to bed at a reasonable hour.
When T went through a phase of avoiding school, I fought for a while and then just banned her from watching tv for four weeks. MTB failed to back me up on that one, and she spent more time at his place, but at least it had an effect after the third set of 4 weeks without tv, and really took the emotion out of arguing with her about getting up for school. Z's a much more determined and less tv addicted person than T, he's also sneaky and likely to just continue refusing to go to school with the punishment/consequences mounting up until it becomes ridiculous to enforce.
I could remove his access to his computer and computer games, ideally with MTB's cooperation. Or maybe give him access in direct ratio to his school attendance and homework attempt.
At heart MTB and I are both really bad parents. We don't do routine at all well, and mostly we'd rather have a nice time chatting, or going out, or watching cool movies with our kids than getting them to do their homework or anything else that requires persistance and boredom to get a great outcome.
