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Yesterday, my oldest kid, a high school junior, went to school without his completed calculus homework. I saw it on the kitchen table as I was organizing myself and his youngest brother to get out of the house to work and school. A series of thoughts familiar to all of us with school-age kids at home ensued. Yikes, what’s this? Is it important? Should I bring it to him? Nope, no way. I need to get to work. And he needs to experience the consequences of not keeping track of his business.
Yet, reader, I brought it to him. Yeah, I know. I know about the value of consequences both from my own experience and also from some wonderful parenting and education experts, Jessica Lahey among them. Wise in The Gift of Failure and elsewhere, Lahey would say to leave that calculus assignment at home and make the kid deal with it.