20th Day at Daddy’s Academy of Gratitude: I think I’m officially being HUSTLED! 🤦🏾‍♂️😤

Are y’all running into this these issues as well? Students not turning in their online assignments? Like, YOUR kids are telling YOU, Mom/Dad/Caretaker, that they finished their stuff and later on… EMAIL. GENERIC PARENT TEXT MESSAGE. Now, here you go, trying to figure if folks lying or is it really the new technology. I am STILL jigging between the two after Monday and Tuesday. It’s not just my 8th grader, my 5th grader is always missing something or thinking she “already did it”. My senior claims to be “on top of it” but then the phone rings and its a call reminding parents to check their child’s progress.

*WHOOSAH* Deep breathe. Getting overwhelmed. Symptoms starting. Tea. Meditate. Tea. Indica. Chiiiiiill TF out. You got this. We got this.

Noooo. That *insert negative adjective* WEBSITE! It keeps messing up, kicking me out, freezing, won’t save, no sound, yada, yada, yada.

12th grader in monotone.

Kid #1 is getting so quick with these explanations that she has begun stepping in to defend her younger siblings. Soon as I start questioning somebody about “why this, why that”, my eldest daughter rides in like ’98 Jordan to save the Finals. Leave it to her, every sibling in the USA would get off with late work, missed work and poor work during the quarantine.

OH! I didn’t know. *shrugs sorry*

My 5th grader joined in on the excuses today. #sigh

I was determined to avoid any schoolwork issues this Happy Hump Day of Daddy’s Academy of Gratitude. MUTHAFUGGA. I was ready for the playoff type of atmosphere, me vs. kids, their excuses vs. teacher’s emails, it was going down. Except, not before a healthy breakfast, provided by the school and remixed by Principal Mommy. She insisted that I relax and not throw away all the good will I’m building up with the students (dem kids).

The Issue

You would think that the problem is on the students. They should pay more attention, try harder, work through it, email somebody to make sure that stuff is working properly or at least to cover their own ass with their teacher. What if… What if, my kids don’t understand that process because they’ve NEVER had a job, online course, nothing like it. What if it’s only been 2-3 weeks with this new system and teachers are fucking up just as much as students BUT playing it off by laying the responsibility at the feet of the families? (By families, I’m talking dem kids, me, YOU, YOURS.) That is the mentality I decided to push on my kids, everybody is confused, just keep going. I set my blog, book, short story, poetry, online store, brand, everything, to the side today. Maybe, the problem is my sudden busyness with business and building instead of focusing on them and their stuff.

The solution

It was first time in a few days that nobody was caught off-task, lost laptop privileges and we still finished later than schedule. I was back to active monitoring, floating among everybody, joking and keeping everyone awake. I got NO work done for myself until after everyone was complete.

The results?

My 8th grader missed his scheduled teacher-student meetings but got ahead by 2 days. I don’t know what it happened either but Thursday, we’re emailing teachers to make sho he is straight. He has become such a Roblox freaking FIEND that he is rushing through stuff to get on ROBLOX. He wants to buy more piece or whatever for it too. His message for the foreseeable future? Do it right, not fast. Do stuff fast, I’m taking you off to redo IT right and making you wait to play again.

My 12th grader has so much going on that it’s daunting to even log in and see. She is caught up and working on scheduling her Fall semester classes. She worked until later in the evening and ended her day by cooking dinner and arranging for her siblings to clean the kitchen.

My 5th grader was late to lunch keeping up with all of her appointments AND was able to get out of some project that had been hanging over our head like an open threat! To increase her productivity, I’m allowing her to vlog her homeschool days. She isn’t into Roblox, videogames and electronics like the others. She is waaaay more about hanging solo, creating things and spending somebody else money.

My 1st grader finished all work for the entire week. Nope, don’t celebrate because that implies that I must go back to finding on-level work for her. No problem since I was NOT busy with my stuff. We started on fractions and drawing time on clocks. She was thrilled with so much one-on-one; unaware it kept us all at the dinner table so I could manage and watch everyone without being obvious. WIN.

You would think these subs came from Subway! We debated back and forth about what movie to start for lunch & an ol’ skool movie. The final answer was Men In Black. The kids have seen the original 1997 version but didn’t realize there was a 2 and 3 before the 2019 remake. I didn’t want to commit to three consecutive movies worrying about overkill but whatever.

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