We are in full on meltdown mode...

Andy is having a major meltdown. It's been a while since I've seen one this bad.

He's been doing really well lately. Well, he had been. I even blogged a while back that we were in the "calm before the storm." Now the last few days have been a bit more difficult. He's been more mouthy at home, and has gotten in trouble at school a few days in a row.

And today, well, things have "hit the fan" so to speak.

You see, Andy has a problem with rushing through his homework to get it done, and in the process often makes silly mistakes. I mean, this kid can do math with his eyes closed, yet on his homework papers he almost always makes at least one mistake.

This has carried over to his work at school as well. He has recently "forgotten" to capitalize letters at the beginning of his sentences and "forgotten" to use punctuation.

Because of this, we have instituted a new homework policy. Andy is expected to review his homework before showing it to me to check for mistakes. Almost every day, I ask him if he double checked it, and he says always says yes, even though he didn't.

Today he said he had finished his homework...in less than 2 minutes no less. I asked him if he had reviewed it, and of course he said he had. Now, I knew before looking that he obviously didn't check it over. I told him, "You better make sure you checked it. If I find a careless mistake, you will lose your video game time for this evening."

Now, before you think I'm a crazed, perfectionist Mom, I'm not. I don't expect my son to never make mistakes, nor do I expect him to always have a perfect score. However, I do expect him to carefully complete his work and not make careless mistakes.

Andy looked at the paper and said, "Oh, well let me check it really fast" and spent about 5 seconds glancing at the paper before handing it back to me.

I said, "Are you sure you double checked it? Do you need to look again?"

He said yes he was sure and no he didn't need to look again.

I looked at the paper and he missed the very first question. Simple word problem, problems much like the ones he has been doing for the last two years.

So, no video games for him today. And, that's what pushed him over the edge. He cried, he whined, he begged.

I feel bad that he is so upset. Yet, I was clear with the expectations, I was clear about what the consequences would be, and I gave him TWO chances to double check his work.

However, I am confident that he will live through the night without his video games. And, I know that what I'm teaching him...that we must be careful in our work and double check for mistakes...is a valuable lesson that he will someday thank me for.

Even if he thinks I'm mean and terrible for the time being...