I don't know whether or not there is a correlation, but not soon after the horrible hair incident of 1987, my grades started slipping. Being the vain person I am, it could be because I was too embarassed about my hair to go to class...though I think it had a little more to do with the fact that my friends and I had taken to skipping class to either leave campus or go drink in the girl's bathroom.
One time, my friend, Jessie, and I forged a teacher's pass to go to the library and got busted. I still have the discipline referral I received from the school administrator...it's in a scrapbook. Another time, my art teacher (who was also a good friend of my dad) caught us sitting on the floor drinking liquor out of a Strawberry Shortcake thermos in the girl's bathroom. Amazingly, he didn't report us to administration OR tell my dad. I could go on and on.
My freshman year was full of these kinds of little incidents, which is why it came as no surprise when I ended up getting straight F's on my report card for a whole semester. When my dad would ask me about my report card, I'd tell him I couldn't find it and that I'd gotten straight C's. He bought it until the end of the school year, when the school mailed my report card to my house.
Believe it or not, he didn't punish me. He didn't scream. He didn't throw things. He didn't even tell me he was disappointed in me. I'll never know what gave him the inner restraint not to kill me when he opened my report card that day.
What he did was way smarter than that. He told me that if I made the honor roll during the first 9-weeks of my sophomore year (which was technically my freshman year over again since I'd failed almost all of my classes), he would buy me a phone with a built-in answering machine and give me my own phone line.
He had faith that I could bring up my grades and he was right. I kicked ass when school started back up and made the honor roll. From that point forward, I never failed another class and was able to catch up and graduate on time by going to summer school. Lord knows I still skipped school from time to time, but I never let it affect my grades again.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
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5 comments:
Wow. Your dad was practicing behavior modification long before anyone heard of the Supernanny.
You had the kind of childhood that they make movies about! I'm glad I can live vicariously through your "After School Specials of The Week"!!!
I still wanna know how you turned out so "normal"!
hugs...xoxo
Cory - it's just too damn bad he didn't think of it first! Though I don't know how much America would love getting parenting advice from a guy who has mounted deer heads all over his living room walls.
Michele - There's no telling how that happened. I attribute most of it to my husband, honestly. :)
Baby Jake is in big trouble if he thinks he will ever get away with anything. His mother has done it all! No pulling the wool over your eyes.
WHAT???? OMG...my parents would have killed me (and they were the type to never even ground me...but that would have sent them over the parenting edge).
You should be ashamed for what you did to your strawberry shortcake thermos!!! We can use it the next time we all go out (post-pregnancy)! : )
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