I Told the Teacher to let Her Fail

I told the teacher to let my daughter fail. Seriously, what kind of mom does that?  My daughter has been complaining about her homework, and it is only the second week of school.  She has been groaning and moaning when homework time rolls around each evening, so I decided not to nag her.  I decided to let her mess up. Why?  Is that not the worst mom decision in the world?  I was asking myself the same question.  But here is my conclusion.

She is in 3^rd grade today, but shortly she will be out in the big world without a Momma to remind her to do her work.  I want her to be motivated on her own.  I want her to remember how it feels to come up empty when the teacher asks for an assignment, so that she will never want to feel that feeling again.  A missing assignment in 3^rd grade means she may have to stay in during recess.  A missing assignment in college means she may fail the class.  I want her to fail today so that maybe she will want to succeed tomorrow.

This morning we had tears.  Her tear stained, puffy red face hopped in the carpool and headed off to school.  I honestly thought about saving my sweet girl.  She is really smart, and she could easily catch up tonight.  I thought about letting her finish her work this morning and taking her to school late.  I thought about sending the teacher an email and asking for an extension.  I thought about saving my first born, but instead, I let her fail.

I did, however, send an email to explain my daughter’s tears.  I told the teacher that it was fine to give my little Ava Grace consequences for no homework.  I have a feeling that things will be different tonight.  I have a feeling that I will not remind my little girl, who is getting bigger so fast, to do her work tonight.  I think we may have just grown up a little…both of us!

There is this snippet of a scripture that comes to mind “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial” 1 Corinthians 10:23

I am just like Ava in my thinking and actions.  I hit snooze instead of getting up to have a Bible study, I pass on yoga because it hurts, I have one more bite because I make the best brownies in the world – I really do – my kids told me. 

So many days it’s much easier to be lazy than to be intentional with our daily lives.  Human nature is to take the easy way out.  Have you ever noticed that doing the easy thing is not as satisfying?  The permissible things in life just do not satisfy like the beneficial things.  Maybe that is God’s way of pulling us back into His Best plan for our life and keeping us on task.  It seems like his best for me involves failure, practice, trial-and-error, fixing mistakes, and re-doing things until I get it right. Hmmm....Sounds like God gives homework too!