[M.D. Holloway]

We let our Son know that at beginning in this fall any grade below an 80 was not going to be acceptable. He is a freshman in high school and now is the time to begin to buckle down.

Well, he bombed his mid-term exam in biology which brought his mid-term grade down to a 79. A 79 is less than an 80 so there had to be consequences. Momma decided to take away his iPhone until the grade came up.

All well and good I guess yet I wasn’t convinced that it had any effect.
I had figured that when he entered high school that he was going to be responsible to do his homework and study and what have you, on his own. And while he would do the assignments and turn in work I wasn’t witnessing him actually study content. I figured I would lay low until the mid-semester and see if his process was working. He did well enough, mostly B’s, an A and the high C in bio. It was time to step in.

After a week sans phone I asked him if the punishment was making him want to bring up the grade. He said it really had no influence. I then asked him if taking away other things or not letting him hang with his buddies would be harsher. He told me that it wouldn’t matter much if we did that either. Then I took a different tack.

“OK big shooter, I don’t want to be a jerk. I want you to succeed. It is really in both our interests. So, what can I do to help? “

He looked at me and smiled and said “I guess just work with me every night on my homework.” Hmmmm, ok but there has to be more.

“OK, that fine but that’s just assignments. You also have to study which means reviewing content and understanding concepts and remembering stuff.
That being said, beyond doing assignments lets also take 20-30 minutes per course and you go over with me what you went over during the day. Savvy? “

He thought about it for a few seconds and said “what if you travelling?”

“Then do it with Mom. She can’t see your stuff so you will have to really talk it all through with her. She’ll be up for it.”

So instead of the World Series or the History Channel time was spent last night discussing what was covered in school earlier.
Momma was a bit unsure. She would rather rule with an iron fist as long as I was banging the table with it. The way I pitched it to her was ‘we can destruct or we can construct. It takes a bit more energy on our part to construct but the results shall be better…I hope.”

I don’t mind punishment when it makes sense but in this case I’m not sure there was a malicious intent involved with his bombing the mid-term, just a lack of skill and discipline.

What do you guys think?