The decision has been made regarding Salinda and online high school. She wants to do i and we are doing the enrollment paperwork this morning. She seems a bit excited and I am thrilled with dread. I need that break from all the kids to focus on my work and now she will be in the house, so either I am going to have to get myself and my feelings under control or I'm going to be miserable.
The key is that I cannot let myself expect anything but disrespect and a lack of cooperation. But I will be stupid enough to expect her to try to please me. I will be stupid enough to expect some respect and cooperation because of the choices and sacrifices I'm making. I will be optimistic enough to think that she will keep the guidelines that we are setting up together.
And that just shows you that I'm a complete idiot. What I need to do is prepare myself for disrespect, lack of cooperation, "forgetting" guidelines, and a daily battle. And the key is that I need to align my thinking so that none of this gets to me. Otherwise, I'm going to have one of the worst semesters of my life.
The sad thing is, she really couldn't care less about me, or my jobs, or my schedule or what I need to get done. And she'll do what she's going to do and it's basically out of my control.
So I guess once again I'm the one who will choose how miserable I'm going to be based on my expectations and my responses to what occurs.
I wish I was dense enough to not understand this and be able to blame the world, but I gotta own it and deal with it.
I'm off to wake up the children and begin a day of withdrawing and enrolling someone who will not appreciate my sacrifices today and will most likely spent a portion of it being rude to me.
Is it healthy or unhealthy to expect that?
7 comments:
chin up claudia, you try so hard. i would be frustrated also.
A friend of mine pulled her son out of school last year - he had lots of issues - and she enrolled him online and she says it was the best thing she ever did.
As far as the healthy or unhealthy expectations ... I don't know I usually play things down the middle for me it is less of a let down if I see the challenges are ahead then good days are good and bad days are expected.Hope it goes smoothly for everyone
Is there a middle school component also? Or just high school? Are we still on for next week?
Just 10th-12th grade for the school I checked into and I'm glad. I don't want anyone to start asking for the privilege....
There is an Alanon saying: expections = premeditated resentments.
Claudia, I am home with Marissa all day. We aren't enrolled in a charter school. Marissa is not able to do high school level work and was failing in all subjects by the time she was in Junior High. She has high school level curriculum in English/History. She has to work very hard at this curriculum but she can do it when she applies herself. Then we do consumer math and general science. Bringing her home was the best thing I ever did.
It really is about choosing how to react to her every day. I can give her books, resources, time, and invest my life in her. I cannot make her learn. She told me the just the other day that she was going to quit school at 17 (in just one month) and get a job. She needs money. Rather than argue, I just told her that would be fine but that as long as she lived at home I felt obligated to know that she was learning something. If she wasn't going to school, I would allow her to learn about living on minimum wage. She could start by paying room and board to me.
Claudia, I have a Salinda, too, but his name is Steven. They are so much alike that if I hadn't given birth to him, I would think that he and Salinda were biologically related!
Every day I work on lowering my expectations for him so I won't be disappointed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Some days end up better than I expected and some end up worse than I imagined they could be.
I guess what I am trying to say is, just hang in there and try not to get too frustrated. That may be all you can do.
I love your Dominyk stories. He reminds me of a foster child I once had, with the running commentaries and all those questions! As my grandmother would say,"It's enough to drive the Saints crazy"!
Michelle
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