Let It Never Be Me

Some parents are their kids' worst enemies. And they don't even know it.

The fall semester is over today. (FINALLY. Ahem.) One girl in the SAT class I teach is receiving a 17% on her report card. No, I did not reverse those numbers. This particular girl (let's call her, oh, Matilda) has some issues such as ADHD. Matilda's biggest issue, though, is the fact that her mother has apparently taught Matilda that she (the mother) will fight every battle, make excuses, give her extensions, write excuse notes whenever she has a small tummy ache and generally let her get away with anything she wants.

The salient points:
- Matilda has missed 22 complete days of school and 7 partial days. Every single time, she had a note from mommy saying that she didn't feel well.
- We had three projects in class. The first two, she turned in late. Once because her cell phone had been stolen and she was "upset", and once because, well, I never was clear on the reason for that. Her mother emailed me both times, demanding that Matilda be allowed to turn in her project late AND be given full credit.
- After the second week of school, Matilda stopped turning in her weekly assignment. This was NOT a major undertaking. Most students turned theirs in every week. Some students missed a couple of weeks here or there, but I was very flexible with my due dates since this was an elective class. By November 14, when Matilda's parents had a meeting with her teachers, she was 12 weeks behind. I was promised that the missing assignments would be in that week. They weren't. Nor were they in the next week or the next or... The only thing I've gotten from this child was two out of an eventual 15 missed assignments - both of which contained essays that had blatantly been plagiarized from a web site and for which, of course, she received no credit.
- Yesterday (the last day that I had Matilda in class) I received a note from her mother asking that Matilda be allowed to turn in all her weekly assignments the NEXT DAY. I sent an email saying HELL NO. Oh, well, maybe I didn't use those words, but that was the gist of it.
- The last project (due, also, yesterday) was one in which students had to find 10 scholarships for which they could apply. They didn't have to apply for all 10, mind you - they simply had to briefly (one paragraph) summarize the scholarship and what they could do to qualify for it. I gave suggestions for where to look. EVERY student in the class turned this in, and most turned it in early. Matilda sent me an email last night telling me that it was "too hard" and asking that she be allowed to turn this in on JANUARY 5 - the day the teachers return and start planning for NEXT SEMESTER. My response upon reading the email was "Are you fucking kidding me?" I didn't email this response, you understand. I just ignored her.

Today, I saw Matilda in the hall. She asked if she could turn in her work "later". (As this was the last day of school, and she was on her way out of the building, I'm not sure what "later" means in her world.) I said no. She said, "So I fail???", with tears welling up in her eyes, and I said "it's over, Matilda," and kept walking. I know, I'm an unfeeling bitch.

Sure enough, within an hour or two, her mother was calling the school demanding that she be given another chance. To their credit, the school administration is (so far) backing me on this one.

Sigh.

May I NEVER have such a blind spot when it comes to my children that I end up hurting them when I mean to help them.