Like, Why......Just Why?

Yesterday's social media post was about believing in the power of effort. I truly believe the more effort you give to something, the better you understand it and get more out of it. "It" can be anything. My son's flute playing. The oldest ability to pass her classes. The youngest ability to push her boundaries before it gets her put in a mental hospital. My ability to have a blog, podcast, and monetize them, and be a freelance copywriter. My sister's ability to be a professional photographer. My brother-in-law's ability to be a chef. Dustin's ability to cook and clean properly. My cousin's ability to literally do anything she puts her mind to. "It" is endless for everyone. I have to give effort everyday to be a mom. These broke little "best friends" of mine did not come with instruction manuals, nor would each of their manuals be the same. All these parenting books are great and all, but they are really just a basic outline of what is the general norm. Not the child raising "Bible." For the most part, my kiddos did not fit into the stereotypes most of those books, websites, internet videos, or TED Talks discuss.

Because I do believe in the power of effort, I did raise my kids to understand that they will have to give effort to achieve what they want. Their lack of effort infuriates me. Let's start with my son, he is the easiest. He has been playing the flute in his junior high and now high school band coming up on 4 years now. His junior high directors told me multiple times that he could be one of the great professionals of our time. He is that talented, but he needs to be practicing outside of the classroom as well. This I already knew, and have been asking him to practice at him. He tells me he skips his lunch, advisory, and any class they are not doing anything in to go to the band room during the day to practice extra. In his mind that means he did not need to practice at home as well. That may have worked in junior high, but now that we are about to enter our second year of high school band it is just not enough. He went from being 1st band 1st chair to being between 1st and 3rd chair of 3rd band. His high school director said he will be stuck where he is without a professional flute and practice outside of school. He now has the professional flute, but still does not do the work. When he auditioned for this upcoming years band placement, he was so determined to make 1st band. Even if he was one of the last chairs because as a 10th grader, that is a great feat. He knew about the audition due date for 2 months. The week before was spring break. So he had unlimited amount of time to get them completed and turned in early. He was at his dad's. I called and text him and his dad everyday asking if he had done and turned them in. I even stopped by there a couple of times that week to discuss it in person. He assured me by that Sunday when I picked him up, that all the music pieces were recorded and submitted. I even asked him that 3 times during that next week since the due date was that Friday. A week later, I get an email from his Google Classroom letting me know that he had missing assignments. One of which were his band auditions. (this was approximately my 20th face palm) He was at his dad's again that weekend. I called his dad to let him know what had happened. He was also so disappointed, he just told Ri, here talk to your mom. You done messed up. I have worked my butt off this past year for him with all the band things. All of that is too much for this post. That is whole other story. Needless to say, I was fuming, and had he been home, his 15 year old butt, who is now bigger than me mind you, would have had the butt beating of his life, and he has had many. He is highly ADHD and we have come a long way with that too. Also, for another post. When it comes down to it, he did do the assignment and just did not submit them to his Google Classroom. When they got back to his dad's, he submitted them, but the directors could not open 2 of the 4. He had to submit them again. At that point, they told him they would "grade" them just whenever they get to it. Meaning here we are, about to start summer band practice, and he still does not know what band or chair he is in for this next school year. He has this submitting problem in every class he has for the last several years. I will randomly get and email or text message from a teacher telling me he has an "F" in their class. I ask him about it and he can literally pull all the completed assignments out of his backpack all crumpled up or show me that they are completed in his Google Classroom, he just didn't take the time and effort to turn them in. If I wanted a placement so badly, and was told I need to practice more, and that all he had to do was turn in his completed work to have good grades, I would put in the effort to practice more and turn in my work. I don't know about any of you, but if I actually did the work or even 75% of it, I want the credit for what I did instead of a big fat 0! Where is the effort I taught him? Where is the effort I have seen him give to building lego sets and video game worlds (I literally understand nothing about that, but I listen when he talks, another face palm). I have seen him work on something that is broken for over 24 hours because he cannot stop until it is fixed, and most of the time he has rigged it up to be fixed in the most ingenious way. Where is that effort at on the important things?

Let's move on to the graduated 18 year old. Which should tell you right there that she knows everything and she is never wrong (face palm). 10th-12th grades she mysteriously lost her mind, started skipping classes, leaving the school campus, vaping, and failing all her classes. I worked with the school, her teachers, my family, her dad, her friends, their parents, anybody I could think of to try all different kinds of consequences and any other way to make it better or fix it. I even had the school give her in school suspension, yelled at the resource officer to not let her hang out in his office instead of being in class, and contacted the school every time the app on her phone let me know he had left the school property. She did not care about anything said or done to her. She had to get rid of her snapchat because that had her involved in too much drama and fights at the school. Then she just got her phone taken away. At that point the school lost her during the day multiple times everyday. Then I started getting letters from the school saying they were going to press charges against me because she had missed so many classes. I let them know that I had an email and text trail of every time I told them she was not where she was supposed to be and the possible hiding places she was, typically a bathroom (gross). That I had no issue showing up to court and giving the judge the info to show that I knew where my kids was and they did not. It is my job to get her to school and take care of her afterwards. It is their job to keep up with her once she got there. With all that being said, clearly she was giving no effort to help herself or her future. This is where I get so frustrated with her because all that other stuff wasn't enough. She would go to her classes for semester tests with and "F", I am talking like a 18% kind of "F", would pass the semester test with a 100% and pass the class with a "C". That right there to me proves that she is one of the most intelligent people I know, who gives the least amount of effort in her life. If she ace a test after only going to 15 classes a semester (18 weeks), she sure as shit could have maintained a "B" average with she smallest about of effort the entire semester in every class every semester of her high school career. She finally switched to the alternative school at 2nd 9 weeks of her first semester of senior year. All she had to do was go to class half days for 4 days a week, do all her work on a computer, and be done. Her advisor told her if she just came to school did what he had for her, she could be done with school by the end of October. The day she turned 18, she went to her boyfriends house across the backyard and did not come home unless she needed something from her room or me. Her advisor called me in the middle of the work day in November to let he know he had not seen her in 12 days and the school was starting the dropping process. I called her, she was still at her boyfriends house asleep. I made her get up and go to school to see her advisor. She tested out of every class that was required of her to graduate in 3 days. She had passed all the classes she needed to graduate before Thanksgiving. If it took her so little effort to pass the test for her classes, why couldn't she just give a little bit of effort to go to the classes and do the work to begin with? Clearly she is already that intelligent, just think how much more intelligent she would be if she had given the effort and actually gone to class and do the work for those classes. My child could have been the valedictorian of her graduating class if she would have given even the slightest bit of effort.

The youngest one, honestly I am not sure if she is not giving any effort or all her effort to the wrong place. She is such a wild card. She has given the effort to convince her school she is way below grade level and needs "extra" help in most all of her subjects so she can go to 1 on 1 or small group classes to do easy work in a fun setting. (face palm) At this point I have face palmed so much, I am surprised I do not have a permanent mark on my forehead or a flat nose. She does not give effort to get along with her siblings, to stop stealing, or stop lying. She does not give effort to follow the rules or clean up after herself. She doesn't even give effort to take care of her hygiene, but she will sure give effort into attempting to run away. She will give effort to go to strangers houses, tell them I left her and took all our stuff, and ask to come in. Then gave the effort to have that strangers kid jumped by a gang of neighborhood kids on the way home that next week twice because the stranger said no she could not come in. She gave effort to kidnap a neighborhood child. She gives effort, but not in the right place. No one taught her to give effort to places like that. I like to pride ourselves on not being criminals or thugs. She is like her big sister and also does not care about any consequences or anything anyone says to her. Clearly, after long talks with her therapist, she is medicated for being kind of crazy. She cannot say she is not crazy my mom had me tested. FACE PALM

When it comes down to it, the power of effort is real. It all just depends upon what you are putting your effort towards that matters.

As always, play well with others, no running with scissors, make good choices, and have a great day! I love you! (face palm)