B is for Bad, D is for Disaster

We were supposed to go to a scouting event last Saturday, but we didn't because I had a cold and did not feel it prudent to go spend all day chasing crazed little boys around. Adam was willing (not "ready and willing", just "willing") to take the kids himself, but he wasn't happy about it, and the kids had a birthday party in town they could attend, so we attended the birthday party.

At the party, I was talking to the mother of another third grader. At our school, kids are not evaluated with the "A-B-C-D-F" scoring system until third grade, and the other mother made the observation, "We're a little apprehensive about the new grading system. I mean, Ned (her son) couldn't care less, and we can yell at him about school until the cows come home, but he doesn't care. We're the ones who worry about his grades."

I nodded with knowing sympathy, but ... I don't really have that problem with OUR third grader. The problem we have can be illustrated more like ... this:

The other night, when I was helping Gwen get ready for bed, she suggested that our new bedtime regimen (of letting them stay up until 8:30 but not allowing them to read in bed anymore) wasn't working for her. She said, "I think my grades are coming down because of it. I used to get As all the time, but NOW I've gotten a few --" (voice drops to horrified whisper) "B's!"

You know, this is going to shock some people, but I don't worry about my kids' grades so much. Their health? Sure -- that's why we started enforcing this new bedtime regimen. Research has shown that kids who go to bed at set bedtimes are healthier than their "read-in-bed" counterparts. More to the point, when we come to bed at 10:30, we are now finding Gwen asleep -- that wasn't true before. No, the reason Gwen is getting B's instead of A's is because she spends all her time reading and not enough time on her homework. "Gwen, not that I care, but the reason you are getting B's is because you've gotten slack on your homework so you can spend more time reading."

"No, I haven't! I do my homework!"

"Yes," I said patiently, "but you rush through it so you have more time to read. And, anyway, B's are still good. I'm not worried about B's. Now, if you start bringing home D's ..."

So, today Gwen brought home a D. It was just a quiz, not a test or a report card grade, so I looked at it and simply said, "Well, I guess we need to spend more time on our homework."

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" she cried, bursting into tears. Me, I just saw a letter, but she saw ... catastrophe. Fifteen minutes later, I managed to distract her with her homework. Then her Dad came home and we had to go through the whole thing again.

Some parents comment that they wish their kids were a little more like Gwen and more diligent about their grades. All I can say is, Be careful what you wish for.


Tonight Gwen told me that she had to teach her Social Studies class tomorrow.

"Oh?" I asked. "What are you going to teach them about?"

"I'm going to teach them about the execute-ive branch." (Yes, she pronounced "executive" as if it were something they do to death penalty convicts.)

"Well, maybe under the Bush administration," my husband replied.