I'm Letting My Son Fail

Today, Carissa and I are letting Jackson fail, and it's one of the hardest things we've ever had to do.

See, this past year or so we've been working on teaching him responsiblity. But so far, not much has worked. Yes, I know he's a 9 year old boy and responsibility may be a foreign concept, right behind trigonometry and the combustible engine. But I believe God is calling us to at least start teaching those tough lessons now (as we have been for a few years). Because if I wait too long, nothing will work.

I've only been a parent for 9 years, but I've seen plenty of parents of older kids who waited way too long to actually be a parent, to teach those lessons. And I don't want to end up where they are. So today is one of those tough lessons. And it's all about schoolwork.

Now, if you know Jackson, that may sound a little shocking. Let me explain.

He's gotten phenomenal grades all year. He's aced spelling and reading tests, blown math quizzes out of the water and told the TAKS test right where to stick it. No. It's not the big things he has a problem with. It's the daily tasks.

So today, he's turning in not one, but two failing grades - on six-week long homework projects he should have aced. It's not that he hasn't done the work. It's that he hasn't recorded the work. There's a big difference. And the hardest part is letting it happen.

I want to rush in and save him. I want to sit down with him, do the work side-by-side, and show him what it means to be responsible in the daily tasks. But that's not going to do any good.

So we're going to let Jackson turn in those failing grades. We're going to stick with the consequences that we've set out (and trust me, they're pretty extreme). We're going to pray that he begins to finally see what we've been trying to teach him.

But most importantly, we're going to continue to trust God to lead us down the hardest path we've had to walk so far. And we're going to thank Him every day that we get to walk it.