My Daughter

I don't know what I'm going to do with this child.

I got a call from her teacher last week. Seems A hadn't been doing her homework. Hmmmm...she's been telling me she doesn't have homework. Come to find out, the teacher sends home a class newsletter each Monday that has all the homework assignments for the week on it. It also has the behavior report, and I'm supposed to initial it daily. Well, she wasn't bringing that to me.

Not only had she been lying to me and telling me she had no homework, she also lied to her teacher. She told her teacher that she had been doing her homework but her brother was hiding it from her. Poor J. So her teacher questioned J about it, and he told her that A had been lying to me. That's when she called me. When A realized her teacher was going to be calling me, she started crying. Mrs. R told me she didn't see any tears, but she sure could hear her.

So we got that straightened out, and that evening I made A catch up with all her homework she had not done that week. I also made her write sentences for me on top of that. She had to write 25 sentences about lying to her Mommy and her teacher. I told her that 25 sentences should fill up one side of a sheet of notebook paper. Well, she decided to write big so that each sentence took up two lines. She brought the sheet to me and said that she only had enough room for 13 sentences. Smart isn't she? So I informed her that the deal was she had to write me 25 sentences, and she could go back and fill the other side of the paper. She was in tears by the time she was finished and we went to dinner. So I honestly thought she had learned her lesson. She was grounded for the remainder of the week, through the weekend. No TV, no playing outside...she was allowed to read, and that's about it. I also told her that if I caught her in another lie she'd be writing 50 sentences and be grounded again.

Monday came along, and she was so excited to be off restriction. But apparently she hadn't learned her lesson after all, because she lied to me again that afternoon! Something stupid to lie about, but a lie nonetheless. So she stayed on restriction for Monday, and had to write me 50 sentences. Fortunately for her, I let her go to dance as scheduled, but only because I pay for it and she has a recital coming up in just over a month. So she REALLY needed to go to dance.

You know, when I was a kid, I lied about my homework. But I was in 5th grade before I did that. I hated Social Studies, so didn't do the homework, lied about it, and got in trouble. She's starting early though. Her thing is she doesn't think she needs to do it. She's above her grade level in nearly every area, but she needs to do her homework to stay that way. She also needs to learn that homework is part of her job as a kid, and we all have to do our job even though sometimes we might not like it.

Aaaahhhhhh...the joys of parenting!