wrote in message
oups.com...
We have a senior boy and freshman girl. Our girl must get to school
early (a whole 20 min) to drop off her instrument before her first
class. School starts at 7:40 am and we like to leave at 7:15 - 7:20
am. We have had to leave without him four times to get our daughter to
school on time. He refuses to go into his first hour class late and
misses first hour. Very frustrating that he cannot get up to leave on
time - he gets up at 7:45 and takes long shower. We excused a few of
these absences. The school does nothing accept lower his grade. He
has lost what few privileges he has at home. His response is that we
should buy him a car so that he can drive separately. We live in an
affluent are where most kids have cars.

Should we pick our battles and excuse these and drive him separately?

We are worried that he will never succeed of anything.

Are you in the college hunt stage? Will a bad grade in this one class make
a difference in whether he's home with you next year or off on his own?
I've had relatives and friends that were accepted to a college, in the
spring, and then rejected in July when the schools got the final transcripts
and found they didn't finish their classes in the manor their applications
implied they would.

In general, it you are going for life lessons, I'd say quit taking him to
school late and excusing him from the class and let him fail. But as
senior, that lesson could make a difference in whether he goes away to
college, where he will learn to be responsible for himself; or whether he'll
be stuck at home while friends go off to school, all the while blaming his
lack of success on you.

You can try getting his counselor to tranfer him out of first period for
next semester and maybe pick this class up later in the day.(Classes before
8am for high school students isn't the brightest idea the educational
community has come up with...) You could offer to get him a car IF he takes
his sister to school everyday. He wins a car to drive, you get both of them
to school early. He loses car privileges if she doesn't make it to school
by 7:25. Or you can just go with what you are doing now.

But this is a cautionary tale, that teaching consequences should start
younger, when the consequences aren't as dire. If kids would just chose to
rebel younger....