Sometimes kids are just dumb.
 

My brother had an agreement with his 15 year old son. If the kid got at least C's or better on his report card my brother would get him a cell phone. So report cards came out at the end of last week (this week they are on spring break). The school he goes to gives the parents a login to their website where they can track the kid's grades and attendance, but the grades are always 1-2 days behind. So the boy has C's in all his classes but one of them is very weak. He is literally about 2 points from getting a D. His teacher tells him if he gets an A,B or C on the final he will end up with a C. If he gets anything lower it will be a D. So to make sure he gets his C and his phone he decides to cheat on the test. And of course he gets caught. The teacher does him a favor by not sending him to the office and writing him up. He just gives him a zero on the test. The boy now is going to get a D in the class for sure which means no phone. This is on Thursday.

On Friday he has my brother log into the site and sees that he still has all C's (the zero from the cheating test hasn't posted yet) and he talks him into going down and getting the phone. My brother asks him what he got on the final test and the boy lies and tells him a C. So they go get his phone and all is good until my brother went to the PO Box yesterday (Sunday) and found the actual report card in the mail with the D and a note telling my brother and his wife about the cheating and why he failed that last test.

My brother is not happy. The boy is out with his buddies that afternoon and he is supposed to go to some game that night then spend the night at a friends house. My brother calls the boy's cell and gets no answer. He leaves a voicemail telling him to get his ass home ASAP. He calls the kids house he is staying at and tells them the deal and tells them to send him home when he gets back. So the boy arrives back at the friends house and his parents send him home. The boy decides he still wants to go to the game so he just hides out then goes to another friend's house who is also going to the game. He goes to the game with that friend and then spends the night at that kids house. All the while my brother and his wife have no idea where he is. Last anyone saw him was around 1pm when he got back to his first friend's house and was sent home by his parents. My brother doesn't know this other friend and the boy has not called home.

So my brother ends up calling the police and reporting him missing. For all he knows the kid got kidnapped walking back to the house. This is at 5pm. At 1 am the cops pick him and his buddy up at the local bowling alley. Curfew is midnight and they were hanging out in the parking lot skating after the bowling alley was closed. They call my brother who did, what I think, was the right thing and asked how long they could hold him. The tell him up to 12 more hours before the would have to transfer him to Juvenile Detention. So he makes him stay there until noon today before going to pick him up.

I don't think the boy is going to see the light of day for months. When asked why he did this he said, "I didn't want to get my phone taken away." My brother told him, "You are lucky you don't have it permanently shoved up your ass."

haha to be a rebellious teen again! I remember doing things just like that.. maybe not D's or cell phones cause teens didn't have them when I was a teen but the staying at friends cause i knew I would be in trouble if I was at home.. Kids will be kids just glad he is safe.. grounded but safe :1orglaugh

I guess when they got home my brother took the phone from him and he had the balls to ask, "If I get all C's at the midterm do I get I get it back?" My brother said, "No." So he said, "When do I get it back?" My brother said, "When you are old enough to bail yourself out of jail."

I laughed at that one.

wow Kane that's a pretty impressive story. That kid sounds like a real ragamuffin...did he really think his dad would never found out he got a D and cheated? He put some real forethought into that plan I tell you....

C or better.haha

try growing up with african parents.. if i didnt get a B+ or better i got my ass whooped.. I guess i can thank them for graduating college with a 3.8GPA and highest honors.

But a C is weak.. My kid needs to get B+ and A's, anything less than a B and he aint going nowhere that summer

rewarding your child for C's ... that might be the problem.

Don't have kids but this story made my stomach go a little crazy.
Good thing it ended reasonably and funny :)

it depends on the child...in college I tutored a female athlete who was ADD and dyslexic. She was very smart but had low self esteem, motivation problems, couldn't sit still in her chair and had trouble reading and writing. Nice girl, but lets just say she didn't get into college based on her killer intellect....

some kids are just not A students.....some kids can never be...some just aren't that bright or just have problems/disabilities/etc that keep them from being "A" level. I'm sorry but it's true.

I know a lot of people like that and the point is- you have to reward your children based on their personal abilities-not unreachable standards that aren't attainable by everyone.

Good for your brother for taking the hard line with the kid. Too many parents give their kids everything and anything they want. My kids are both A & B students all the time. I do reward them when they do well but if they try and make deals with me for them to get good grades I won't do it. I tell them school is their job and I am not going to bribe them into doing their best because utimately it is for their own benefit. Like I said I usually do suprise them with something for getting a good report card but it's never over the top and they always appreciate it.

He shoulda pulled out.

Well, for this kid it is a huge improvement. In 7th and 8th grade he failed almost every class but was never held back because with no child left behind they just move you on no matter what your grades are. My brother and his wife were going through a rough patch and the boy's mom refused to hold him back. His freshman year he failed 6 of the 15 classes he took and will now be retaking 5 of them (one was an elective). He complained that his 12 year old sister gets a cell phone and he doesn't so my brother made him the deal that if he got C's or better he would get the phone. It's not the best situation, but it is a huge improvement over what he had before.

His thought was that once he had the phone his mom would stick up for him and he would get to keep it since it was being paid for. His mom is one of those parents who can't imagine their child would ever do something wrong. He was failing every class and she doesn't think it is a big deal. If he gets in trouble she doesn't think it is a big deal. She refuses to discipline any of the kids (is is a major issue in her and my brother's marriage) so the boy assumed she would take his side and eventually he would get the phone back.

I think had he gone right home and faced the music in a few weeks she would have found a way to get him the phone back, but by running off and hiding he scared the shit out of her and for once she stood by my brother with the punishment.

If they did that with this kid I think he would just eventually drop out when he hit 16 and move in with a friend or something. He can get good grades if he applies himself, but the problem is his mom. She doesn't think good grades are that important so she doesn't ride him about it and if he gets punished for bad grades (or anything) as soon as my brother goes to work she doesn't stand behind the punishment. So he has little motivation to do anything. My brother is now changing that and just making the kid work to get things he wants instead of just giving them to him.

The kids mom is the same woman who, when the boy was in 5th grade, decided not to send him to school for a week and half. He told her he hated school and didn't want to go anymore so she didn't make him go. A week and half later my brother gets a call at work from the school. They are worried because he has been absent with no information from home and when they call home they just the voicemail and never get a call back. He goes home and asks why the kid hasn't been in school and she lied to his face and said he has. My brother said to her, "Well, the school doesn't think so, they just called me at work and wondered where he has been." So she came clean and told him she held him out because he didn't want to go. I have no idea what her plan was. Was she just never going to send him back? Home school? Needless to say he was back at school the next day.