I am at a loss and need help

[Cowart69]

I am a 39 year old father of two a 16 year old son and a 12 year old daughter.

Over the course of this year my daughter has gotten so bad with her grades that I am now really really concerned.....she gets grades for the first half of the school year at the end of the month and I am fairly certain she is failing every class.

I simply dont know what to do.

At the beginning of the year me and my wife took a child and were responsibile for keeping track of their progress (I took my son....no problems with him as he is a student athlete and has to make his grades in order to play)

My wife however handled her end really badly (and I am very frustrated at her about it) as she took my daughters word to much and a lot of what she said wasn't true....I have NEVER seen my daughter lie about what is going on in school as I have this year.

Therefore I told my wife to to forget it and I will montor both kids. I have tried the following actions:

- I have emailed the teachers and asked them to let me know if anything is going on and I will take action immediately...this has been futile as the teachers are also not giving me information in a timely manner and only when I ask for it. This results in finding out things too late.

- The school sells a planner that the student can write down their assignments and the teacher can sign off every day....I get NO INFO from the teachers in this planner even though I have asked for it.

Now I get a progress report that is manditory from the school showing all these homework assignments, bad grades on tests, basically stuff i can do nothing about at this time....I NEEDED TO KNOW THEN.

Then of course there is the issue with my daughter, who is basically lieing to me and blowing off school. I ask her daily "tests to take this week" "homeowrk all done" "let me sign off your planner"

NONE OF IT IS WORKING

I have talked to....talked to some more....and last night when I saw the reports I just blew up and yelled at her. I have not yet spanked her (I stopped spanking as discipline years ago when I realized that I could not control my emotions and myself when I did it) and I dont want to go back to that.

I just dont know what to do....right now I am frustrated at everybody...my daughter, my wife for not doing enough, and the school system who isn't doing enough to help my daugher either.

[musicmom]

Talk to the principal if that doesn't work go to the Superintendant. All in all, no one can make your daughter do a thing. I don't think a parent should be held responsible for one child, that's silly. YOU should have been monitoring both of them regaurdless. I don't know why you're mad at your wife. Take responsiblility yourself. I really hope your daughter didn't know of this plan. She probably felt insignificant. You have NO RIGHT to yell at your daughter. YOU are the parent.

[1dayatatime]

tHIS MAY NOT BE THE BEST SUGGESTION BUT ITS THE FIRST TO COME TO MY MIND. What does she plan to do when she fails school? Maybe she should consider trying to get a job and work now. I realize shes 12 but as a suggestion. Thats the kind of stuff my folks did with me. If you choose to drop out then what is your plan? If you dont go to school you cant live here you'll have to support yourself. It could get her thinking about the immediate repercussions of her own actions. Also as a side note have you talked about drugs, boys, self image...what are her friends like?

[1dayatatime]

Originally Posted by musicmom

Talk to the principal if that doesn't work go to the Superintendant. All in all, no one can make your daughter do a thing. I don't think a parent should be held responsible for one child, that's silly. YOU should have been monitoring both of them regaurdless. I don't know why you're mad at your wife. Take responsiblility yourself. I really hope your daughter didn't know of this plan. She probably felt insignificant. You have NO RIGHT to yell at your daughter. YOU are the parent.

I do not agree. You and your wife should be a TEAM. If your wife doesn't hold up her end or communicate with you then yes she is responsible for what is happening now. The blame games gets us no where so regroup and be a TEAM.

[Cowart69]

Originally Posted by musicmom

Talk to the principal if that doesn't work go to the Superintendant. All in all, no one can make your daughter do a thing. I don't think a parent should be held responsible for one child, that's silly. YOU should have been monitoring both of them regaurdless. I don't know why you're mad at your wife. Take responsiblility yourself. I really hope your daughter didn't know of this plan. She probably felt insignificant. You have NO RIGHT to yell at your daughter. YOU are the parent.

I am not seeing where you are coming from here.....

- I work out of town and am out of the house a good 16 hours a day. My wife works in town and about 15 minutes away. We are supposed to be a team which is why we divided up the work load of monitoring our kids.

- I am mad at my wife because she has been taking this "its no big deal" approach and now my daughter is in serious trouble. Even my wife realizes now that she screwed up and show and put more of a importance on this. By the time I stepped in my daughters grades were so far down, she was so far behind, and she was in such need of tutoring that the situation seems hopeless.

- Why did I yell at my child? Well because nice peaceful talks over a cup of hot chocolate were not working. Perhaps i should have jumped over the yelling phase and went straight to spanking? I already said I didn't want to do that.

[musicmom]

I think you should be a team, "a team" doesn't yell at each other....they communicate! My point was that you should have been a part of both of the kids education and not split them up.
Yea....spanking to make her learn in school.........hmmmm that'll make her learn. It will make her think (or know) you are out of control and want to degrade her even more. Good dad. (sarcasim)
It's not like your children came with a rule book...why is it your wifes fault? Do you just need to point a finger at someone? You are gone 16 hours a day........so what could YOU have done for your daughter? Pencil her in?
I think if she is suffering and neither parent has the time then you should get a tutor or some after school program. I would build up her self esteem. Nothing and no one is hopeless. She's just a kid.
I think you are over reacting. A calm approach will work ok. Sometimes children get confused, overwhelmed or are acting out because of a problem (maybe a problem at home) who knows. I'm just looking in from the outside and what it sounds like as I read it.

[musicmom]

Parenting mistakes (copy and pasted from another site)

Losing Your Temper
When you habitually yell at your children, they can end up yelling back at you. Children are actually more responsive to calm requests and commands.

Disagreeing on Rules
Never disagree on discipline in front of your children. Parents must present a united front to their kids when enforcing rules. Otherwise, they will quickly learn how to "divide and conquer."

Treating Children as Small Adults
Although you want your children to know that they are heard, you shouldn't make the mistake of letting them have an equal say in the rules of the household. This is a parent/child relationship, not a democracy. As children get older, parents can explain the reasoning behind their decisions.

Bribery
Bribery is not a healthy or effective form of motivation for children. You want your children to learn right from wrong regardless of whether or not there is a reward for behaving in an appropriate way.

Unhealthy Praise
Be careful of praising your children too much or too little. Appropriate praise can be healthy and build self-esteem, but if overused, it can leave a child feeling inadequate when he/she doesn't receive it. Give affirmation for positive behavior and hopefully, your child will repeat the good behaviors that bring appreciation.

Inconsistent Discipline
It's important that parents are consistent with discipline in order to avoid making their children confused about guidelines and consequences. For example, if action A leads to consequence B, it needs to do so all of the time.

Inappropriate Punishment
The punishment should be a natural and logical consequence of the punishable behavior. If the punishment isn't fair, you can lose the opportunity to "teach" your child through the act of disciplining because your child's focus will be on the unfair punishment.

[1dayatatime]

Nothing like being force feed someone elses opinion.

[Cowart69]

You know I could be way of base but is there some sort of "dont be bashin the female its your fault male" here?

- Never yelled at the wife.....but does she bare no blame in taking the attitude of "its ok hunny...school is no big deal just do the best you can" to the point where she is failing every grade and doesn't feel like even turning in her homework?

- Pencil in my daughter? Are you serious? I will get home late at night with my own college homeowrk to do and STILL make sure she has a chance to talk to me about her homework. This is where you should have put the sarcasm tag.

I am not looking for somebody to judge me....I am looking for help.

[Kaytee]

I'm not sure why musicmom is flipping out on you but here is my opinion.

I think you and your wife both need to deal with the school when it comes to her grades now. It's no ones fault anymore, live with the mistakes yo both made and make it right!

Have you talked to your daughter about this also? Is something goingon at school that you should be concerned about? From what you wrote it seems she was a good student until this year. What has changed in her life to make things this way?