Exam Result & the price of Forgetfulness

[AnneM]

Just before Xmas my 15 year old sat his "mock" major exams ... some of which go towards his "overall mark" at the end of this year ... these are the most major exams he has ever had to take and these will be the results he leaves school with...

He has begun to get his results back which have been much as expected BUT I am so upset about Art. Particularly as this is a subject he does pretty well in ... For his exam itself he got a "B" which was fine ... BUT he FORGOT to take his Prep book in which accounted for 30 marks of his overall mark ... he FORGOT twice ... and was hence automatically marked with an 'automatic' F for his prep work... meaning he has lost a potential (and very important) 30 points towards his overall mark.

I had NO IDEA that he was even meant to take his book in until today when he informed me he has been given an F due to failure of bringing in his prep-book !! OH I am SOOOOO disappointed because I know he just completely forgot!! (In fact he did actually take his art book in but he took in the WRONG book !!)

He says it is entirely HIS fault ... it was HIS responsibility and he "screwed up" .... He says it is not his teacher's fault or anyone else's fault - it is completely HIS fault .... Oh but I am SOOOO disappointed because he had some really good work in his Prep book and forgetfulness has cost him dearly! What is particularly disappointing is that this was a subject he could have done reasonably well in overall which would have helped so much with his general self-esteem....

Sorry!! I really need to vent ... I am sooooo disappointed!!

[Linda]

Vent away girl....look at it this way though...no one is more upset than Sam...at least he took full responsibility for it,which to me is a good measure of maturity. I hope that neither of you are beating yourselfs up over it.

If I were in the same boat,I would probably feel the same way,and I bet by now you have a better perspective of things.

Just tell Sam these things happen sometimes,but tomorrow is another day.

If he is anything like Paul,I bet he doesn't make the same mistake again! Our kids always learn things the hard way don't they?

[HooDunnit]

Yes, that is very disappointing. The same kind of thing happens with my son. As you say, the work was there and it was good work.

Barry

[AnneM]

Thankyou Linda and Barry! ... As you both point out our kids do tend to learn the "hard" way eh? Sometimes I wish we could make those lessons a little easier but maybe that wouldn't be right either! ...

A lighter side of his results though was in Maths ... not so much the actual "result" (which was by no means great on the larger scale - he struggles a lot with maths unfortunately) BUT by his teachers reaction because he did so much better than was expected. Sam says that his maths teacher told him today that "she could have cried with happiness" when she saw how well he had done ... ! I felt like I could have hugged his maths teacher for saying this .... teachers like this lady in my book deserve medals ... just wish there were more like her! ...

Sam appears to have "shrugged off" the art hiccup completely - Now I just have to try and do the same!!

[Linda]

Anne,Don't you wish we were as flexible as our kids?

[AnneM]

Linda said:

Anne,Don't you wish we were as flexible as our kids?

Wow Linda ... this brings up a whole new topic because I so much agree ... All his life Sam 'seems' to have been able to forget bad things SOOOO quickly whereas it takes me so much longer to 'shake them off' ... Do you think this is an ADHD thing? ... Hmmmmm

[Linda]

Not sure Anne....I know sometimes Paul is way to forgiving of people and that worries me because I am afraid someone is going to"dump" on him someday.

I guess that is part of life though,and hopefully if that happens he will learn from it.

[lauries]

Well, the forgetfulness works for our kids in good & bad ways. They get into trouble or lose points because they forget & then they forget about the trouble they got into or their loss quickly too. What do they call that....oh, yeah, a double edged sword!
Keep smiling