Question
Follow up to homeschooling reluctant 13 year old....Per your suggestion, we presented to our son that we would no longer nag, remind or bother him about his school work. He would be expected to maintain a B average and be done by 5:00 pm each day. At the end of each week, we would tally up the grades and if he did not meet the standard, then he would lose his privileges for the following week. At the end of that week, we would reassess grades again and go from there.
The first week, we saw quite a bit of improvement in some subjects and not much in others. He lost his privileges per said agreement and at first, was pretty unhappy. We took it in stride and stuck to our guns.
During the week of no privileges, he has had a very nice attitude and is doing MUCH better with his level of work, although still struggling tremendously with time management. His Math grade in particular was rather odd to me because he went from F to A's within a very short time. I figured out he has been using a calculator to get the answers. He said he was tired of getting so many math problems wrong and resorted to using a calculator. We have a problem with this. For one, we feel he cheated. And two, calculators are a fine tool after one has mastered how to work the problem.
He has asked us what his punishment will be for using the calculator. He does his Math on the computer and was using the computer calculator. Do we take away that privilege of computer math and have him do it hard copy writing out all of the problems at the kitchen table in plain view??
In my previous question, I mentioned about him messing around on-line instead of doing school work. I didn't mean that he was playing games. Rather, he checks email, looks at the news, checks out a new drumming video (he takes drum lessons), checks on the 'joke of the day', etc.
Thank you for any suggestions you may have. I feel silly asking these questions. I feel as if I should know instinctively what to do. Maybe I just can't see the forest for the trees?
