Developing the cheerleader

I should be making lunches for the school kids, but I'm running on those year-end fumes, aka slacker-ville. Instead I'm messing around on the iPad. In my defense, I began this session by helping Grace research Dorothy Hanock for a school project. Keeping kids motivated these last couple of months before summer is hard work. Truth be told, I think we are almost always having to prod certain of them along in different ways. Today I had my 76th "ultimatum" conversation with Noble about his slacker-ness this year....after listening to his long list of sobby (I know that's not a real word, but you get what I mean) excuses. Blah blah blah blah. Our conversation usually ends in a variation of this exchange: Me: "Noble, I know you have some high expectations for yourself. You need to overcome these bad habits if you want to achieve them." Noble (emotional): "Will M.I.T. still let me in if I get a bad grade now in the 5th grade?" Me: "Well... (pause...I see I have the advantage, and I don't want to waste it) Noble, the habits you form now will follow you. In every aspect of your life. If you won't learn to work hard, that doesn't just change. It's up to you." Noble: (still emotional, now resolute) "OK. This is what I'm going to do...." and he procedes to lay out his plan for change... And then we find ourselves a week and a half later having another ultimatum talk. And he's discouraged. I have learned that a BIG part of being a parent is trying again and again and again with your kids - resisting the urge to escalate with time. If you get more frustrated each time, and louder, that's a recipe for failure. I mean at some point what are you going to do? Disinherit them? Of course not. Maybe in the process the child will learn the more general lesson that it's never too late to change, even if they fall down a bunch of times in the process. And also that I will love them forever. No matter what.