Between my husband and I, we have three teenage boys, all 17 years old. Oy. My stepson is three months older than my twins, Boy A is five minutes older than Boy B. We were blessed that all three have different personalities but had enough similar interests that they were able to get along without any issues when we combined households.

When it comes to school, we are faced with three different scenarios: My stepson is athletic, very focused on school, and has been accepted to several universities. Woohoo! Boy A is our creative diva, very talented in drama and music, but stinks when it comes to schoolwork and grades. Chances of him going to college, well, we’re just hoping he’ll graduate. Boy B is getting great grades but can be scatterbrained, and has no idea what to do next. And he’ll still wear only one sock from time to time. Why? I haven’t a clue and it drives the OCD in me nutso.

With the first term of this weird-ass pandemic school year complete, I am hopeful we will have three graduates in May. Two will for sure. Unfortunately, Boy A is a big fat maybe. The problem is, He. Just. Doesn’t. Care. And it’s so fricken frustrating because he is so very intelligent and he admits he’s just being lazy. I’d love to blame it all on this pandemic but we struggled with getting him to do schoolwork last year as well. And to be perfectly honest, he only passed the 11th grade because the year ended with a free pass due to the pandemonium the stay-at-home orders in the spring caused the schools. Otherwise, he would’ve had to go to summer school. Lucky duck.

Thinking of this prompts me to reflect back to when I was in high school. Unlike my extremely intelligent siblings, I wasn’t the greatest student, but at least I wasn’t the worst. I got a few A’s but mostly B’s and C’s. I remember after dinnertime was when we’d present our report cards to my dad. He’d look at mine and say “Jennifer, these are average grades. You aren’t average. I expect more from you.” And then I’d say, “Well, actually I think I am pretty average so maybe I’m being true to myself.” Then he’d lower is glasses on his nose and give me that look, that dad look that meant, cue exit now. So, I’d quickly add, “Okay, I’ll try to do better” and go up to my room.

I failed two classes in high school. One was Typing because I looked at my hands. I’d read what I had to type and memorize a sentence or two, then type. And I could type fast. But that didn’t matter. If you looked at your hands, you failed. My parents were fairly understanding with that one. The second class I failed was Geography. For whatever reason, it was really hard to memorize where everything was. For tests we’d get a ditto sheet that had all of the countries outlined and we had to label them. I’d rather color in each country and call it a day. It wasn’t until spring break my junior year that I found out Chicago was in Illinois and not in Wisconsin. It wasn’t my finest moment and unfortunately, I was with my dad at the time. Up until then, I always believed Chicago was in Wisconsin. Why? Because on the show Happy Days, Richie and his pals went to the Windy City. Since they knew Laverne and Shirley and they were in Milwaukee, I assumed Chicago was the big city they’d go to, like Milwaukee was just a suburb with a beer factory. (Hey, at least I knew where Milwaukee was but maybe that’s because beer was there.) So, when my dad took me to the airport for spring break, we looked at the flight schedules to find my gate. I saw there were a lot of Chicago, IL’s listed. I said to my dad, “I didn’t know there was a Chicago in Illinois.” He looked at me like, What the-? That gave me a sinking feeling of uh oh, so I squeaked out, “Chicago, isn’t there one in Wisconsin too?” He answered me by giving me that dad look and shook his head. And we never spoke of that again. But at least from that moment on, I knew Chicago was in Illinois.

Rounding back to the present, I am faced with the issue of figuring out how to motivate Boy A to do better in school. I’ve tried playing good cop/bad cop which didn’t work. But maybe that was because it was coming from the same person so instead, I came across cuckoo, I don’t know. I’ve tried using statistics and logic. I’ve tried scare-tactics. I’ve tried bribing and extreme supportiveness and encouragement. All didn’t work so I’m at a loss at the moment. I doubt he’ll get another free pass this time. Or maybe he will, who knows? But I’m not giving up. At least we still have time to figure this out. Wish me luck! Crossing fingers!!!