Not Dead...Just Bitchy

I've started getting personal emails, wondering if everything was all right.

I admittedly have been avoiding posting because I am not in the nicest of moods. I'm irritated and resentful and all those things that aren't really fun to read about when surfing Blogland. But, as a dear friend suggested, it might be nice for some folks to know that even seasoned homeschooler's have struggles.

Long story short...Buzz has gotten himself into an academic mess. In our state, we need to compile portfolios and see educational evaluators each year. Our appointment is May 14th, as we leave for FL on the 15th, and Buzz is to start working full-time the week we return. This is the week we have had evaluations for the last four years, so the timing is not rushed or new.

The only new thing this year was I took everyone's advice and dropped back on my level of involvement with Buzz's homeschooling. I still planned his syllabi and projects, and had many discussions along the way. We decided that he needed a trial in academic responsibility and organization that he had not yet truly had, as I was always riding and reminding him to meet deadlines. Which lead toward a great deal of frustration and tension in the house, and an unhealthy mother-son relationship.

On one hand, this worked very well for me emotionally. I was no longer walking around stressed and confounded by his absolute refusal to meet deadlines and study appropriately for high school level courses. I would love to say that Buzz and I regained our past close relationship, but the year was more of an awkward dance between former opponents now put on the same team. There were good moments, but in general, he held me at arms length.

I am a much happier person though, having realized that while I couldn't control his choices, I certainly could control my reactions to them. I decided to not allow myself to get angry over those things any longer, and I have enjoyed the year a lot more. Honey has mentioned how much happier she is not having to listen to the residual arguing.

In March, however, the amount of backlog was nearing the point of ridiculous. His GPA was miserably low, and he was no longer eligible to take part in the Early Scholars program at our community college next year. He was totally disconnected from his work for me at home...thinking only about girls and snowboarding. Perfectly normal teenage behavior, but not conducive for me to consider teaching him challenging classes like College Algebra and Physics at home his senior year.

Long family pow-wows were needed to reach an alternative: he would graduate early, and enroll full-time in the community college. I will officially resign my role of teacher for him. I've been excited for both of us.

Until two weeks ago, when I finally felt the need to start putting together the kids portfolios for evaluation. I knew things were behind, but I had no idea how far. In layman's terms...he is two months or more behind in American history, German and college and career planning class.
He had not done the editing and final drafts for any of the 9 essays and 3 research papers he had. He ignored 8 history quizzes, and forgot to finish his final book selection for history and write an essay response. And, he is behind 6 chapters in German. Egad!!!

Now, before you think I had totally ignored him all year, I must clarify. I did give gentle reminders, but I didn't nag . I did ask proding questions each week, only to be told that "I'm right on track, Mom." I am now realizing that track was headed in a direction different than the one where the work actually get done.

So, what do you do with that as a homeschooling parent? One suggestion was to just fail him for those classes. But, he needs American history in order to graduate. The reality is that would be punishing everyone else in the family, mainly me. Our parent- teacher relationship is so unhealthy that I must get out from it. Still, I am not willing to lie on his transcript and reward this behavior. He has stayed on track and completed all his work for his classes at co-op: Algebra II, Literary Analysis, Psychology, Govt. and Biology. IT is just these classes at home for me that are, per usual, ignored.

As such, I weighed the options. He did a large amount of writing for history and all of his reading. He was given the choice to either take the first draft grade on all writing, or log in some massive time in revision. His GPA will automatically be down on full letter grade, as everything is late.
He must review the history chapters and take all the quizzes. He has been spending a great deal of time completing this daunting task this week, logging in 16 hour school days to catch up. He's almost there.

The German and College / Career planning were both electives, and not needed for graduation. He logged enough hours to earn half credits in each, instead of the full credit we had planned. He is really upset about this, because he always took pride in the fact that he earned 10-11 credits a year. This year, he will earn 7, with a huge drop in GPA.

We had a great moment. He admitted that for all the complaining about how I rode him unfairly in the past about better study habits and discipline, he was absolutely wrong in thinking he could get by on his wits only. He asked me to show him again how to use a planner properly to plot out his work next year (instead of as a journal to write down things after they were done) . Hopefully, this has been a real lesson learned.

So why am I so bitchy, with him hammering away so long and hard? Because his procrastination has a trickle down effect on me. I still have to GRADE all of this work, and will be putting together the portfolio at the last minute. Right now, I had planned to be giving the house a good cleaning for our friends who are house sitting,and packing for Florida so that we are all ready when we leave on Friday.

I do not thrive in the final hour. I hate pressure at deadlines, and always try to have things done a week or more in advance. that is my comfort zone, so that I can make sure everything is correct. I am an anal, type-A uber-planner. So frankly, I am angry that I am now in a place of stress and last-minute pressure. The littlest thing will set me off right now. I'm struggling a lot to not remained morphed in fire-breathing dragon mode. I have no idea how I will get all of it done in the time remaining.

Then, a solution so beautiful came to me. Since Buzz is the one who put me in this time crunch, Buzz will be the one to help me . Tomorrow afternoon he should be done with the last of his school work. But he will not get to relax while I am pulling all nighters to get it all done.

He can clean the house.... :)