Ok, so not really a felony. She's only 11, but today was a very trying day. I am posting here mainly because I feel like venting, and it's the middle of the night. Maybe someone has had a similar situation, or will have one in the future and this thread will help. Maybe it will get ignored. I just need to vent.

In the past few weeks, my oldest has been trying our patience with her school work and poor decisions. She is in an accelerated class, so they all have their own laptops in class. last week she and a couple others got in trouble for chatting in class using e-mail, and had to go the week without a computer in class. she tried to lie to us and told us she had to do the computer work at home because her logon in class would not work. Her teacher sent us an e-mail about the incident so she was caught in that one. My wife was actually reading the e-mail as my daughter was telling me the login story. Then her report card came in and she had like 7 missing assignments that she swore to us that she had turned in. Then she confessed that she never did them.

Final straw was today. they get a folder every Friday with papers from the week that are graded and we have to initial them to show we saw the work and send it back on monday. We came home late after taking the kids to dinner after school, and my wife grabbed folders for both kids from the backpacks as they came in the door. She starts going through the papers and there is one with a grade of 35%. my wife then asks me why I did not tell her our daughter got an F on an assignment this week. I say, "what are you talking about?" She says, "Umm, you initialed it. Why the hell wouldn't you tell me about this?" I look at the paper and it's close, but not my sig. My daughter decided it was easier to forge my initials then to confess to the bad grade. Best part? It was an essay on being a better person, and what you have done to better yourself this week.

I didn't yell. I wanted to. Badly. I have yelled enough lately with all the problems at school, I don't know what to do at this point. I sent her upstairs, and then collected myself and went up to talk to her. After lecturing for a bit on how bad this was, it comes out she has done this several times before when comment cards were sent home about behavior in class. I still didn't yell. I expressed how truly disappointed i had become in her and told her I no longer trusted her with anything. I told her I will love her no matter what, but there was no way I could trust her now. She can earn that back, but right now it was gone. She was crying when I walked out of the room to get ready for work, and she was still lying in bed crying 20 minutes later when I left for work.

I feel bad for leaving her that way, but I absolutely hit my wits end tonight. She has always been the good one, but something has happened in the past month. Nothing at home has changed, so I just don't know if this is her rebellious phase starting up or what? Any suggestions from the other parents out there? Anybody deal with anything even remotely similar to this? Did you find anything to snap them out of this behavior?

Thanks,
Jonno

Mine aren't that old yet, so I do not speak from experience... with such a sudden change in behaviour I'd be worried about a very specific situation such as a bad relationship with a close friend, drug pressure, violence, or god forbid sexual activity already. Whatever the cause, I think you and your wife need to find someone more professional to get to the bottom of this. Kids do not change that quickly unless something is truly stressing them.

Good luck and vent anytime.

At 11, my daughter seemed to grow up overnight (she's almost 13 now) one minute she was my little girl and the next she was a completely different child with a big attitude. Grade 6 was a nightmare, she didn't have problems with her grades but the drama that went on amongst the girls was unbelievable! Literally 11 year old girls calling other girls whores and writing nasty stuff on the bathroom walls. She had a lot of problems with one particular girl and I had to complain to the school several times. I was lucky because she tells me everything but many of her friends don't talk to their parents. They say their parents won't understand or they will get mad etc.

It sounds like your daughter may be dealing with something at school. I would request a meeting with the teacher to see if there is anything going on.

My son is only 2 so I haven't been there yet, but I was an 11-12yr old girl not THAt long ago. I went through something similar in Jr. High. Stopped doing my assignments, gave my parents a run for their money, and YES, even forged a signature or two. I had to lol at the suggestion that it might be drugs or sex related. No, she's probably just going through puberty. I handled it weird. I didn't have problems with anything or anyone at school, I just cared more about listening to Eminem CDs and talking with my friends on the phone than doing my homework.

Once I got to High School I snapped out of it and became an A-B student again and my parents could breathe a sigh of relief.

Ughhh. So I have at least 2 more years of this?

The thing that makes it so bad is that she is a REALLY good kid. And yeah, I know for a fact that it isn't drugs or sex. She is with either me or my wife always when not at school. She is still well behaved as far as her manners go, and when we all hang out in the evenings, she is just her normal happy self. She is just screwing up so badly at school that I don't know what the hell to do. We are looking into a home schooling option (with a classroom available up to 5 hours a day or just work at home) for the remainder of the year now. She is in 6th grade, and was going to switch schools next year for junior high anyway, so maybe taking her away from that whole environment will shock her into making the right choices in the future. Kind of let her know that there actually are consequences for screwing around?

We checked on the bullying thing too. We have friends that are teachers at the school, and they say no. She is friends with a lot of the different cliques, and does not get picked on at all. She just doesnt want to do anything, and regardless of what we say to her it seems she just doesn't care.

Maybe the accelerated classes are too tough right now? Maybe they aren't tough enough? I don't know how you parent, but maybe you are a bit controlling and she is rebelling and taking advantage of the one thing SHE is in control of, which is doing her school work or not doing it. For a while, my parents just took away my CD's and CD player, and that smartened me up fast. Pulling her out of school sounds pretty drastic and if she has a lot of friends there that she enjoys seeing, she may never forgive you.

This is just a guess but, 11=hormones, becoming a woman. I don't know if that helps you at all but it could at least put some logic behind her behavior. You did the right thing by not yelling--you show her how to live by example, good work.

The thing about computers in class is this (I teach writing, my students have laptops), if it isn't disrupting the entire class, I turn a blind eye. Or if it's blatant I call the kid out in a light way. Computers=computing, nothing we can do about that.

Nah, not crazy controlling parent. Hell, the 11 year old has bright pink hair right now. We let her be her own person. I am there to tell her the proper way to behave, and make sure she has good morals and manners etc. She really is a good kid, has been straight A student every year until now. We had a heart to heart about the accelerated classes and she says apart from some of the math, she doesnt feel that she is having problems. I am leaning heavily toward the hormonal argument here now.

This week's incident: she wasnt using her school agenda to write down her daily assignments and handed me a notebook to initial the other day. I asked her to get me her agenda, and she says "You dont need to see that cause it's blank. I wrote my assignments here." I said "Why wouldn't you use your agenda? Go get it for me, so I can make sure your teacher didnt write something in it." She was standing with one of her friends and got all huffy and walked away to get it. She came back and dropped it onto the table and said "Happy now?" I promptly took her by the arm and took her out of the room to the hall and told her that her smart mouth would get her into a lot more trouble, and reminded her that she is the one that caused the trust issue in the first place and that one good week did not earn back my complete trust after what she pulled. She gave me one of the most sincere apologies I can remember right then and there. I don't know if she finally is starting to get it or not, but that incident plus all the moodiness has me thinking my little girl is not so little anymore.

Hopefully the school work and attitude improve.

Posted by Jonno23 I promptly took her by the arm and took her out of the room to the hall and told her that her smart mouth would get her into a lot more trouble, and reminded her that she is the one that caused the trust issue in the first place and that one good week did not earn back my complete trust after what she pulled.

So, in other words, there was absolutely no consequence for her behavior.

If that was my daughter, the friend would immediately be sent home, and my daughter would not leave her room for a week, with no tv, computer, phone, etc.

We were at her school. And yeah, she is already grounded. No TV, no going out to play with friends, no video games, no computer except for school work, which she has to sit downstairs to use her laptop where we are monitoring her to ensure it is only school work, and she had to write letters of apology to her teacher, the school administration, and a letter to the class apologizing to them for disrupting them while they were trying to learn. The teacher had her read it to the class last week. For that last incident she had her punishment extended. And I did put in there that we might actually be pulling her out of the school entirely.

There were most definitely consequences for her actions.

Posted by Jonno23 There were most definitely consequences for her actions.

Excellent. I feed on the pain of children.

But, it sounds like you're on target. Just don't get tired of it, ans she'll probably come through alright.

Or at least, less fucked up than all of us, who get our kicks on adrenaline, trespassing, and isolation.

Posted by MutantMandias Or at least, less fucked up than all of us, who get our kicks on adrenaline, trespassing, and isolation.

Yeah, maybe. Problem is, I take her with me sometimes. I walk a fine line between "don't do bad and stupid things", and "Hey, want to go do stupid and bad things with dad?" I never take her anywhere that is dangerous, and only to places that I have been to before and checked out. But sometimes I wonder if I am lacking in the parenting department.

Oh well, a little adventure never killed anyone right? Oh.

Posted by MutantMandias Excellent. I feed on the pain of children.

Agreed. There are few things in life as satisfying as inflicting torment on young minds.

My 7 year old was busted in a lie. TO. MY. FACE.

The penalty was swift: no TV, no computer, no video games, no dessert, no friends visiting and that sleep-over you were planning? yep...it's over too. One week of extra chores, and you can spend your 'free' time in your room, alone, with zero stimulation but for that stack of books. See you on Sunday.