Spring Trimester

It was another learning experience this spring with Reggie.  I thought he had the school thing figured out, but his grades kept falling and fast :(.  It was shortly after Ryan rewarded him for good grades by allowing him to buy the Nintendo Switch.  He was not real happy, but it did slip out that many of his friends were in the same boat with losing privileges because of poor grades (much stricter than we are!).  At one point he had a C, 3 B's and 3 A's.  All screen time and his game systems went away, along with "homework" sessions with his friends which clearly were not helping his grades.  He had different issues in his classes and it took some time sorting out what he needed to work on, but he figured out he can't walk in PE with his friends that can't run, he had to organize better (we kept quizzing him in Spanish from pictures of the words that his friends sent because he could never find his own study sheet.  In math, he didn't know the assignment and felt bad bugging his friends because he did all the time, so he guessed and did the wrong assignment, then didn't bother to turn a quiz over, so got a 33%).  In reviewing his assignments and scores on homework, it was clear that there were a few recurring problem areas that instead of bringing his grade up, were pulling it down.  So, we talked through the importance of looking at our grades and understanding the expectation of the teacher and if we don't, then its important to speak with the teacher to better understand what they are looking for.  These are a few examples of the things we were dealing with.  It was like his brain fell out and he was a disorganized mess yet again.  He also learned that when you go on vacation and miss school, you can't make assumptions about what happened when you were gone.  I asked him several times what he missed and he kept telling me that he missed nothing, but zero's kept popping up and I made him go talk to every teacher and it turns out he had quite a few things to do.  He also learned if a teacher offers extra credit, you do it whether you think you need to or not.  There was a lot of opportunity for this and he didn't take advantage.  He is very lucky his teachers are nice!  I hope he remembers these learning experiences and chooses to make better choices next time.  It is clear that when he tries, he is highly capable, but the effort and concern about school was not there.  I did ask him if you took us out of the equation, what he would be satisfied with, all B's?  C's?  He said he did care and wanted A's, but it was really hard to tell that he cared at all.  It is easy to want A's, but a little harder to put the effort in to get them.  We ended up helping him get back on track which wasn't fun for any of us, but in the end, he pulled it out!!!