A Parent's Struggle....

It is amazing how a child can come to a point that nothing you do or say will have any impact. You can threaten them with a spanking... Take away everything from their room to include their books and only allow school materials... Take away the TV or the games such as Wii or PlayStation and it has no effect on them. You can ground them to their room for a week and even have them do chores till there is no end in sight and still they won't budge in the direction you wish for them to go.

So here and now I am going to make it official... I quit!!! I am done trying to parent a child that shows no interest in doing what is expected and required of him... I will no longer go out of my way to help him with tasks that are his alone or instruct him in the proper ways of doing things until somebody realizes that the education system they use to teach our children is broken. This "No Child Left Behind Act" has totally destroyed any chance America has of producing children with any scope of needed intelligence... Granted we have a few brilliant ones that are in College before they can even drive but haven't we always had that. Granted we have the most students graduating now instead of dropping out than we did in decades past but have we improved education or made it just too easy.

I guess this works on the same principle as it doesn't matter if we win or loose in sports because everybody gets a trophy.. We don't keep score because we don't want the children to feel pressured to win... It would be bad to hurt the other teams feelings with a loss so everybody is a winner... Somebody please shoot that individual that came up with that load of crap... Oh I know he was the one that was always last to be picked... Or sat on the bench for the season because he couldn't stop falling down... Granted I will admit there are a lot of jerks out there that don't understand the meaning of good sportsmanship or just enjoying the game and the idea of congratulating the opposing team on their win or consoling the loosing team by telling them how great they really did play is alien to them but it teaches others when they see these jerks on how not to act...

Ok back on track now... The reason I say these things is because I have had it with the educations system grading children on a curve and promoting them to the next level instead of saying, "You know what, maybe they should stay back this year to build on their knowledge before we promote them." Children are not stupid!!!! They are just like any species on the face of the earth and just like the welfare families they understand that there is no reason to work if you are going to give it to me anyway. Why should they be required to put forth that extra effort if we are not going to take the steps to hold them back. A mind is a terrible thing to waist so why are we working so hard to push children out of school at a rate that produces minimum standards and accepts poor achedemics... For every rule there is an exception to that rule... Would we hold a child into a class when they are capeable of perfoming at college level in the six, seventh or so on grade... So why would we want to promote a child that isn't capeable of performing at the next level without assistance... As I said there is an exception to every rule... Some children need the extra tutoring because they don't grasp as quickly as other but should this extra effort be given to a child that just blatently refuses to do the work or show the effort of accomplishing the tasks unless somebody is standing over him... It is sad to say this but we are the reason this has came to this point but I am but one small voice and until I can find those willing to follow me and support the idea that our educators need to be held responsible for their own actions and that to promote a child who is not ready for the next level is in truth failing that child in more ways and showing that child that nobody really cares what grades they make... They will still get promoted and passed to the next level... I have wrote about this so often and in so many different forms even I am tired of reading this... I will return another day soon...

Michael