The Unexpected

It seems #3 son is having just a little trouble in AP Calculus. Heh, heh. I'm afraid that's one area of study where he's on his own. I never took Calc -- and I can't help him.

The trouble stems from the fact that #3 son is suffering from what his counselor calls "Senioritis". Slacking off and coasting to the end of the year, and the end of High School. In slacking off, he isn't studying like he should, and he tends to blow off homework. Until today. When we saw his grades in the online module from school. Straight 'A's and an 'F'. AP Calc.

I think he thought he would have a fight on his hands. As he has matured, he has become more and more willing to go toe to toe with me and stand up for what he thinks he wants. Ah, but not so much with his mother. SWMBO is an intimidating force to be reckoned with, as far as he's concerned. (Me, too.) But he had his bristles out and was all kinds of ready to object to parental interference and attempts at control over his life, etc., etc.

That isn't what he got.

What he DID get was a cool, calm assessment of the situation and a recap of our best guess as to what he's been doing and why. You could just see each point strike home as we presented our case - calmly and rationally. We also pointed out what we thought might be a slightly better approach, overall, considering his stated goals for college and the things he has said he wants for himself. I LOVE to hear SWMBO do that to someone else besides me .. that recitation of date, time and place where you said this and you said that and this is what you want and this is when you laid that out for us. The poor kid never knew what hit him.

That was fun. And it wasn't aimed at me. Cool.

Ndinombethe.