Tuesday, December 30, 2008

SATs

So my S took the SATs for the first time in December. I didn't tell anyone, including him, when the scores would be posted. Yea, I know that was wrong; they're his SAT scores not mine, blah, blah, blah... Trust me, heard it loud and clear in the car last night. Nothing more indignant than a wronged 17 year old. In my defense I thought if the scores were good I wanted to be able to have the joy of telling him and if they were bad I didn't want him to find out while he was in Florida visiting my folks. Obviously that defense didn't hold much weight with him.

So I went on line and the scores were not good. We weren't expecting to have the world set on fire as it was only his first time but even our modest expectations weren't met. So what did I do? I did nothing. I told no one; not my son, not my husband, not my best friend, not my mom. You know the reasoning, if I don't tell anyone maybe it's not real, maybe it will just go away. Its not the end of the world but I know how disappointed my S would be and I just didn't want to see him go through all the anger/disappointment. Of course after a day or so I did tell my H and last evening when my S got back from Florida I told him also. He was, as predicted, angry, upset and dissapointed.
But the real question, will this motivate him to work any harder and do any better the next time around? And is there anything I can do about it?