update on school choice

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

To those of you who were kind enough to offer your opinion on the thread I had in IMHO on my son’s school decision, I thought I should let you know I decided to keep him in 5th grade another year.
I feel it is the best choice for my son.

Thanks to all you guys with good opinions!

2

vanilla, you strike me as a nice person. I really hope you’ll take the advice in that last thread to heart. To be very blunt, what grade your son goes into is a minimal issue. Your parenting needs some serious work. To be even more blunt, based on your postings in these two threads, I assume nothing’s changed.

And that’s very sad. Your son deserves better. You should really look inside and fix this, vanilla.

3

:rolleyes:

Hey! I was thanking the nice people.

Too bad if you feel I am a lousy parent.
If you would like, you may go start a thread in debates about it.
Doubt if you have any proof though.

my son deserves better?
:rolleyes: :smack:
Fortunately, no one in real life thinks so, so I’m keeping him.

4

Hate me if you like, but I really hope you read that last thread again and at least consider the constructive advice given by a lot of people on your choices for your son.

You’ve already put him in a situation where he has to skip 5th grade. Do you really believe nothing needs fixing? Just think about it, vanilla.

5

Bill, he has to repeat 5th grade.

Vanilla, I don’t know why you asked for advice if you don’t want to follow it. I think it’s a good thing that your son is going to repeat 5th grade - this time, get him there and don’t do his bloody homework.

6

Ginger,
it was only the math homework I did, not the writing, etc.

7

I HAVE followed advice, if you recall, a lot of posters were For keeping him back.

8

vanilla, you seem to honestly not get it. Whether he goes into 5th or 6th grade should be the smallest of your parenting concerns. I’ll specifically call it out for you.

In your future as a parent and as a responsible human being, I recommend that you:

  • Make your child go to school. 40 days off because he has a cold is too many. by far.
  • When he is out of school, make sure he still keeps up. Go to the school and get his assignments. Help him with them.
  • Make sure he does his homework. When he has problems, help him with it. Doing his homework for him was really bad. Doing it because you didn’t want to hear him complain was even worse.
  • When making important decisions like whether he should repeat a grade, don’t even consider the location of the school. This was unbelievable to me, that you even thought once “hmmm, if I have my son repeat 5th grade, we won’t have to drive so far”. That’s literally on par with feeding him twinkies for dinner because the 7-11 is closer than the grocery store.
  • When making important decisions like whether he should repeat a grade, don’t even consider his desire to leave school. Again, it’s unbelievable to me that you thought to yourself, “hmmm, if he goes on to 6th grade, he’ll be done with that annoying school system that much quicker.” You’re the parent! Make choices that are best for him.
  • In your father’s golden years, take care of him; don’t sponge off him. It’s unbelievable that while your father is 90 and sick, that you aren’t taking care of him, but rather that he’s completely supporting you, driving you everywhere, and paying cab fare when he’s so sick that he can’t drive.
  • Get a job. You say you’ve been looking for a job for 5 years. I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. How long did you look today? If it was less than 8 hours, it was too few. How long did you look yesterday? If it was less than 8 hours, it was too few. How long did you look the day before that? Get the idea?

vanilla, do you get it now? Honestly, I don’t think you do. And again, that makes me very sad for your son’s sake. Fix things. This is your problem, and it’s hurting others. Fix it.

9

Some of this might better be suited to email or the Pit, IMNSHO.

vanilla, if you fancy your son getting an early start on math help, I’ll have tons of time this summer. Feel free to email:)

10

punha: Will do!

Bill H.:

Yes, I always picked up his homework when he was off sick. Yes, he did it.
I have gone everywhere in my city looking for work.
Even took a couple of buses last year to go to a far away suburb(there was a good free child care place there).
My job history is not that good(I don’t put my dancing on it, hardly qualifies me for other work) my former felony conviction may show up if they check (I dont mention it).
I do take care of my father, I clean the house, laundry etc.
He does not drive us everywhere; he only drove us to and from school and grocery(2 blocks away) He wants to drive. he is able to drive.
He was in the hospital in Feb and left us money to get to and from school(local buses home). We took some of that money and bought him a futon since he had a hide a bed that would’t close and we still sleep on a twin mattress on the floor.
Please get a clue before mentioning what I’m supposedly doing wrong, thanks.

11

wow

vanilla: I’m glad you thought about your decision with all of the factors in mind. Good luck to you and of coruse to your son.

12

It took a lot of praying!
I weighed all the factors.
He will do much better this year, he’s claiming he’ll probably get all A’s. :slight_smile:
I plan to work with him all summer(11 weeks) on math and his cursive so he’ll be up to task.
And iampuha will help, too.

I’m also checking into getting employment IN the school(free babysitting- we’d both have holidays off) and no transport needed.

13

good idea … and I’ll help if you need as well with the math

14

The online factor notwithstanding, I won’t be able to help a lick with cursive. My handwriting’s so bad I could teach doctors;)

BTW, the offer I made to vanilla and son stands for anyone who wants to try online tutoring (not just in math; email’s in profile. Just put [SDMB] or something equally identifying in the header). I can’t promise that I’ll check my email every 30 seconds (DSL isn’t always fast enough for that), or that I’ll have time to write detailed explanations for synthetic division of a sixth degree polynomial by a third degree, but some help’s better’n none.

[sub]Since I charge nothing to any potential or actual student, I hope the PTB do not see this as me using their webspace to advertise, so to speak. I’m not trying to make money here, just help people.[/sub]

15

vanilla, good luck on the choices you have to make on your son. But if you are going to keep lashing out at people who offer you the advise you didn’t want to hear, I’m going to keep closing threads wherein you ask for advise.

I honestly don’t know if you’re a good parent or not. What I DO know, is your well-documented history here on the SDMB, which is fairly dramatic to say the least. And quite frankly, you can’t blame people for being worried when they read your thought processes with regards to your son’s schooling in light of said history. At any rate, I don’t blame them, and I won’t admonish them for being critical.

I would advise you to stop asking the SDMB for advise when in reality all you want to see is people backing up your own opinion. Doesn’t work that way.

This thread is closed.