Mopey Little Man

[wlotus]

"What I want," sulked The Teen after his mother cut his hair short, "is to get out of that school and get my [mohawk] back." His mother made it clear that his abysmal grades, due entirely to choosing not to do much of his assigned homework, have preempted his going to a barber for regular mohawk maintenance. She will spend the money on herself, instead.

I don't yet know if he will graduate with his eighth grade class next month. He turned in a (very, very late) science report rather than the required project, and his science teacher did not appreciate the lack of content/effort that went into it. I hope they do not pass him, if only to drive home the lesson that one cannot get far in life by not doing what is required. I'd rather see him repeat eighth grade there with this year's seventh graders--a humiliation he hopes to avoid--than get away with defiant laziness. He has the potential to grow into a belligerent man with no respect for authority, if this behavior is allowed to continue. As it is, he sulks home after school every day with A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E. oozing out of every pore of his body just because the world has failed to bow down and allow his continued laziness. My palms itch to go a-slappin' whenever I get near him, so I mostly keep my distance, wait, and see.

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Now playing: Fletcher Henderson And His Orchestra - Stealin' Apples
http://foxytunes.com/artist/fletcher+henderson+and+his+orchestra/track/stealin+apples.

Comments

[lilrongal.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, hard lessons have to be learned.

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

Well, he definitely needs to learn some discipline, but I'm just wondering if there might be some issue, a learning disability or something similar, that no one has spotted. Sometimes smart kids fight schoolwork because something is interfering and making it too hard for them to cope.

What was the Teen like in elementary school? I know by about seventh grade he was having trouble, but what was he like in first, second, third?

And has he had his eyes and hearing checked recently? It might be worth trotting him to see the eye doctor and his family doctor.