Is "blog" the onomatopoeic term for the sound one makes while spewing emotionally in one's journal?

[merimask]

So, yeah.  Charlotte's little needy friends are no longer going to call my house "home" for a while.  The Great Social Experiment of '06 comes to a screeching halt as of today for a number of reasons, not the least of which is I got her report card today and she went from all "A"s to "C" and "C-"s in just one quarter.   Her friends aren't bad kids, but they have NO structure, no one cares whether they get home on time or do their homework, and so Charlotte has gone right along for the ride and I'm freaking sick of having to yell at her about it.   Her little girlfriend with the fucked-up family is a total goof-off and they never do their homework (even though when they get home that's what I tell them to do)...Char got so many incomplete homeworks this quarter that (in spite of getting 100% of her tests right) she's lucky she passed a few of her classes.   All I can say is Wow.  My mom was right.  Your friends really CAN drag you down.  *sigh*

So now I have to go back to being the heavy, and micro-manage her life, and I freaking HATE that but *shrug* what else can I do?  

Frankly, I DO worry about "Nature vs Nurture" all the time, because I DO believe we're genetically hotwired for certain tendencies.   Her biological father (my ex) was notorious for being utterly unable to stay on task.  In the eight years we were married he went through over 22 jobs..  22!  Seriously, I kept track!  So I worry about Char being flighty and y'know, she really is.  I'm not sure how much of that is just being a kid and how much is inherited from her dad...but I do my best to keep her focused.  It was a lot easier to do when she was really little.  The older she gets, the more she...wanders, and the more I worry.

I was a bad student myself, partly because I never learned to study (I have an eidetic memory) and partly because I was thrown to the wolves in public school in the 70's, when advanced courses or GT programs were unheard of and being smart was tantamount to asking for an ass whupping (so I played dumb an awful lot).  Char can't use that as an excuse...she's been in GT classes and advanced study groups since she was in kindergarten, and today's public schools (at least here) are ultra-sensitive to bullying and stuff like that. 

No, she just has a penchant for drama and I think she's trying to "fit in" with these poor kids (my Mom has been calling them "The Orphans" which is uncharitable but accurate, as not one of them has a responsible adult in their lives).  I just wonder what the heck is going on...last year all her friends came from families with involved, present parents, and most of them were in GT classes with Char.   This year, she's been drawn to all the kids with the MOST screwed up homes.  Every one of them has major problems...not one of her friends has what you'd think of as a "normal" home, in fact I'd say that they're all neglected or abused.   Why does she seek these kids out?    I have to wonder if this is fallout from that stupid-ass custody battle I went through with my ex last year.  

Crap.  Maybe more counseling is in order.   

Comments

[moko-moko.livejournal.com]

Ugh, what a crappy start to the weekend. But on the flipside, it's quite interesting to hear the inner thoughts of a parent from the other side since I did bad-to-average throughout highschool. Friends are definitely a huge factor, though with the right guidance she can just rise above it and still be friends with them even if they aren't the best influences. One of my best friends in HS turned into a notorious nymphomaniac, drinker and drug-user and I'm glad to say I never went along with it and now she's clean. But I hope you manage to have a nice talk with her about her new pals and everthing can move on up! *huggles* Chin up and good luck!

[pzb.livejournal.com]

Hrmmm...maybe counselling wouldn't be a bad idea. I, too, believe people t be genetically hardwired toward certain tendancies... They've proven it with things like alcoholism (which is something we have to watch out for with Jim..luckily, he's not much of a drinker...he obsesses over things other than alcohol..latey, it's been the bicycle. XD Which is just fine by me.)

Those kids do need structure, but that's not something you can provide for them, so I don't blame you for kicking them out. Hopefully Char can get back on track for next quarter without too many problems. *crosses fingers*

[ramblinsuze.livejournal.com]

Definitely sounds like it's time for Mom to step in. I believe that you should be able to be friends with whoever you want, but if it's affecting your grades, that's not good. Counseling isn't a bad idea at all. Someone who has a better understanding of adolescent behavior may be able to help bring out the reasons why Char is not only gravitating toward kids with major issues, but also why she's let her grades slip along the way. I hope you can help her work through this soon!

[shvetufae.livejournal.com]

I agree with all these comments. As big a heart as you have, Charlotte is your main concern. Maybe she's experimenting, maybe it's fallout, as you put it, but either way, as a good mother, you've been watching, and you see it's time to take charge.

Therapy helped me get through some dark times, and I might turn back to it in the future, once I have a job that allows me more time to myself in the evenings. If you find a good therapist, he or she can only help Char come to terms with the ugliness of last year and whatever she is experiencing now.

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Hmm, that's just never happened to me. I don't even walk to the beat of my own drummer...I hired a flautist and a harpist to play me down the path and told the drummer to take a hike :) And my sisters never fell into bad influences either, but more because my parents were so serious about things and new they couldn't get away with it than because they simply couldn't have been tempted to do as their friends did.

Naturally, it won't hurt Char to get bad grades for one quarter, but until you know where it would stop, it probably *is* best to limit her association with anyone who might be causing/influencing this shift in things. I don't wonder at her need to fit in but I do wonder why she wants to fit in with these girls (or just 'girl'?) in particular, rather than the popular kids or the smart kids or whatever cliques her school has. (My junior high had them ALL.)

If Charlotte *needs* micro-managing then I hope you'll manage not to feel too bad about it, because it's more important that she not get all messed up in ways that will last than it is for her to 'like' you; most teens hate their parents for a good portion of the time anyway. :/ (I got seriously annoyed with my dad and never my mom, but that's how it STILL is, and I was a weird, weird teen. But my baby sis was HORRIBLE to my parents for at least a full year, maybe two. Really horrible. And it was just her age, nothing else...nothing bad was happening to her and there were no particularly bad influences of any kind in her life.) Hopefully Charlotte sees past any new rules and discipline to the reasons behind it and accepts it as gracefully as one could expect from a thirteen-year-old. :) (Fourteen year old?)

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Yeah I know...I kind of wonder at the sadists among the school board who thought it'd be a good idea to send home report cards at the BEGINNING of christmas vacation. Because if it's a SUCKY report card there's A: nothing you can do about it, and B: you're stuck with the little miscreant for a whole week. I don't want to punish her during vacation, and yet I don't want her to think everything's just business as usual (because it's not). *sigh*

We're already talking about it. The plan is: no going out during the week, no friends during the week, and weekends of skating & socializing ONLY if she keeps up with all her homework during the week. I think that's fair.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Well, I want to be a decent person and I hate to exclude her friends, but she has to be my number one priority so...not much fun around the house I suppose. *shrug* I hope she can salvage this year too, because I had signed her up for consideration for the Rotary exchange student program and they require an average of 3.6 for the entire year. She had a 3.8 last quarter but I think this one worked out to a 2.4...even 2 more perfect "A" quarters may not be enough to keep the dream of going to Japan for 10th grade alive.

Umm...it's freaking me out thast I have to sound so "parental"...I hate being the disciplinarian but that's my job these days.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

I don't know HOW she managed to screw up so badly. I'm always here, I'm always asking her about her homework, I even regularly ask to see it. She must have had to actually TRY to screw up, to do this badly.

We've done the counseling before...I'm thinking it's a good idea. I can say stuff until I'm blue in the face, but when a counselor says the same thing, suddenly it's gospel truth.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Our school district has an excellent, free program. The counseling sessions are state-of-the art and for some reason she really likes to listen to her therapist..even if she's saying the same things to her that I do.

We actually had counseling last year too, and I thought we'd already been through all the tough stuff but you just never know with kids, I guess. She's having a terrible time dealing with her father lately and I think that's a big part of the problem. I think that's why she's identifying with these unhappy unloved kids. I can't guess what else it could be, because our relationship is just fine and she gets along great with Greg...our home is very predictable and peaceful.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

I hear you...I was very independant as a kid, too. I'd rather be alone than be grouped with kids I didn't like. My sister, though, HAD to belong to a group, any group, to feel loved and I think Char's father was the same way. Char has always had friends, many of them, but this year the kind of children she's gravitated towards has changed drastically. It has me really worried, because those kids really distract her and it's obvious that they are influencing her. When all her friends were GT kids, having them over here was a slice of sunshine because you didn't even have to ask them to go do the homework...they'd just do it. These poor kids though...they're bored and rudderless and all they want to do is hang out and goof off, it seems.

Like I was telling Shveta, I think her relationship with her father is a major part of the problem. Since he lost that custody thing he's been taking out his frustration on her, and been really mean at times, and that upsets her. There's only so much I can do or say to him (if he was the kind of person who could listen to reason, we might actually still be together), so I'm pretty helpless in that respect. So counseling is looking like my best bet. I have to get to the bottom of this before high school happens...it'll be too late by then.

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

What's happened to all her old friends? (I don't know what GT means, but I assume those are the equivalent of the 'smart kids' from the way it was mentioned.) Did she suddenly stop being friends with all of them? I mean, I know friends change, but if her whole group of friends has switched...that's just a bit odd, to me, because then there would either have had to have been a problem between them and they pushed her out or she would have had to choose to get into a new kind of group and leave the old one behind, and I doubt anyone would do that without a reason. So I'm just curious about her old friends and what's happened to them...are they *all* hanging out with these new kids?

I don't envy you a teenage daughter. If I was the type to want children, I think remembering the word 'teenager' would put me straight off. I thought teenagers were impossible when I WAS one, lol. They (we, at the time) are just so darned insane! Up, down, up, down... EEEEK!

[rumdiculous.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did the average-definitaly-leading-to-bad thing in school.

.....

*cough*

[rumdiculous.livejournal.com]

:( I hope things are going better since this post.

The problem with friends is that they can harm as well as they can help. It's hard to find the right mix of people.

I think you're def. doing the right thing. *hugs*

[merimask.livejournal.com]

*hugs back* Thank you. :-( This is my LEAST favorite parenting job. I'm on my own, too, because as a stepfather I don't think it's Greg's job to discipline Char (though he does back me up, and for that I'm grateful). Nope, I'm on my own in this and it stinks.

[moko-moko.livejournal.com]

Oh god, for serious. You never take schooling seriously until you have to pay for it. Pay a LOT for it. The you work your booty off.