Follow through is the hardest thing to do

I'm not good at follow through. That being said, I'm pretty organized as far as appointments, work tasks and social activities. But when it comes to following through on the "I mean it this time" stuff, I stink.

How many times have you said to your children, "If you don't finish all your dinner, you won't get desert!", only to hand over something sweet less than 30 minutes later?

Or how about, "If you don't get upstairs right now and put your PJ's on, you'll go to bed 1/2 hour earlier tomorrow night!", only to completely forget that claim the next night until the kids are having a meltdown because it's 10 minutes past their normal bed time. Me? Constantly.

And now I"m faced with a child who is not enjoying school, AT ALL, and leveraging no extra curricular activities against improving grades is becoming the norm.

I'm struggling because on one hand it's *only* first grade. But, these are the things she needs to know for the rest of her life. Like a silent "e" makes the vowel long in a word. And "ch" can say ka or cha.  Basics to me, but torture for her.

So, yesterday when she came home with a 12 (yes, that's a twelve. they do grade with numbers in her first grade) on an EASY test I had to hold firm. I had to follow through.  Earlier in the month she came home with a 13 and I attributed it to a long week after christmas break, and oral surgery throwing her for a loop. But I told her that if she brought home a grade like that again, we'd have to see about taking her out of her Daisy troop until her grades improve.  It's a weekday event that makes Monday nights horrible in our house.

Now that that day has come, I feel bad and frustrated but need to stand by my word. I'll be calling her troop leader to let her know that she'll be missing the next meeting. Hopefully that gives her enough pause to put a little more effort into her work and realize that school comes first. Or it will just give her another reason to tell me "You're mean!", in which case we continue on...