Still, He Doesn’t Change His Behavior.
“Do your work and have everything turned in at the end of the week,” I said. “Or you will not do anything with friends on the weekend.”
“That just makes me more anxious,” Dylan said. “It’s better if I have something to look forward to, like a reward for getting everything done.”
“Okay,” I said. “Get everything done every week for the rest of the quarter, and we will buy you a new shirt.” I handed him a really cool catalog from a company that makes a thousand different rock band t-shirts.
The rest of the quarter is only three weeks long. And it started with a holiday, then a snow day.
So, after a mere two-and-a-half days of school last week, and with Dylan failing two classes, he stayed after school on Friday. He worked and worked and worked, finishing all the stuff he hadn’t done yet. He stayed until 5:00 p.m.
Then he called me.
“Mom, nobody’s here,” he said. “I can’t turn in all this stuff I just did because my teacher’s door is shut. And the office is closed and I can’t put it in her mailbox. But I can prove to you that it’s done!”
“Maybe nobody’s there because it’s 5:00 on a Friday,” I told him. “Maybe you would have had everything actually turned in if you’d done your work yesterday during the snow day.”
“But Mom, I can totally prove that I did everything! I have evidence!”
Sigh. I went to pick him up at school.
“Here’s a thought, Dylan,” I said. “And I really don’t care what you do. But maybe – just maybe – instead of catching up on everything after school on Friday, you could try catching up on your work every day. Then you would not only have everything done, but you could actually turn it in on time.”
“I know,” he said.
He knows. He’s heard it all before. Still, he doesn’t change his behavior. He still misses deadlines. He still doesn’t turn in homework. He still doesn’t finish classwork. And he still panics at the end of the week – or the month, or the quarter – and tries to get everything done that could have easily been done on time, had he just chosen to do it.
It turns out that the two friends he wanted to see weren’t able to see him this weekend, anyway. So much for punishment. And he’s on track to get a t-shirt, too.
“But I really did this just for my own soul,” he said. “I didn’t do it for you.”
Well, I thought. Maybe he’s getting the point after all.
But who knows?