Save me from well meaning neighbors. Jack is doing well in his obedience training, but he still barks are people not in this family. Sometimes it is warning, sometimes it is demanding (they gave me a couple treats, I want a million) and sometimes it is aggressive. We are working with his trainer on different techniques to help him and he is making progress.

Today I took him in the backyard and one neighbor was in her yard cleaning up. He yipped at her and then when she popped her head over the fence he went nuts. I didn't have him on a leash, so we came back in to get one. She came out to the open space with us and kept getting too close to him, saying she understood, he was still a puppy and still learning and I kept saying we needed to work on a training technique that involved distance. He couldn't calm down, so we ended up coming back inside. The neighbor wasn't upset, but we want his training sessions to be more success than failure and this felt like a big failure.

I mostly brag about Emmett and Matilda because it feels a bit disloyal to air their failings. But I promise they both have generated a goodly number of hair pulling moments. Which has inspired less than ideal parenting from me involving yelling, cutting snark or deep blasts of impatience.

However, all the pictures of them goofing around and cuddling and loving each other are a true and accurate document of their relationship. So they *do* excel at sib love.

But Emmett blew off his classes so hard his second semester of senior year in HS that he almost failed to graduate and had his college acceptance rescinded. And when Matilda is not the most delightful stylista and maker of clever objects, she is the whiniest, most super sensitive, indolent, infuriatingly dawdling child that ever slow walked her way to school.

The non-parenting equivalent of this is people who think I'm "always doing something fun." No. 90% of the time, I'm sitting on my sofa. You just only hear about the other 10%.

Yes. Even in high school, I never minded getting detention because it meant I could get a lot, if not all, of my homework done and leave the books at school.

I tried to do most of mine in homeroom, lunch, or other classes so I did not have to carry the books home. That sounds bad now.

But so much of BFF's life is just trying to get her kids to do and/or turn in homework, and it seems hard.

But so much of BFF's life is just trying to get her kids to do and/or turn in homework, and it seems hard.

Seriously the greatest thing since Pay At The Pump was Emmett's aftercare program where they made everybody do their homework for 45 minutes, so it was already done by the time I picked him up. Which also trained him to just get it done and out of the way and he kept the habit up. Before that we had so many tearful nights of math homework.

Matilda's aftercare also does homework, though it's not quite as dedicated. But she's pretty good about finishing it off when she gets home before dinner.

My BFF is struggling again this year with getting her 17-year-old daughter to do her homework, and then turn the homework in once done. Also to go to bed before 11pm so she isn't groggy in the morning. Also to do any chores or even clean up after herself. The kid is bright enough, she just doesn't want to do anything but play.

As a single childless person, I am partying all the time. If we define "party" as "anything you can do on a sofa (except sex)".

My BFF is struggling again this year with getting her 17-year-old daughter to do her homework, and then turn the homework in once done.

Just had this conversation recently with my friend Alison whose daughter is Emmett's age and struggled badly in her Freshman year of college, but failed to avail herself of writing tutors and counseling and all the things universities do now to buoy incoming students.

And we both said once they're eighteen they just own their own failures. They're making their own choices, creating their own life.

Mac has virtually no homework. I think the schools suck.

He does the bare minimum in all school and activities.

It has been freeing to let go of hovering over all the grade stuff. If he fails he loses all electronics immediately, no discussion.

If he is not in the car on time in the mornings now I have told him I will leave without him and he will have an unexcused absence. His phone locks at 10. If he takes it into his room at night and I catch it, he loses it the next day. If he does not do what I ask when I ask he loses the computer. I have just become a hardass, but I will not get into fights about it anymore. These are the rules you follow or you lose stuff. He is actually one phone infraction away from being switched to a bare bones phone with no data.

And we both said once they're eighteen they just own their own failures. They're making their own choices, creating their own life.

That's what I've said too, but this girl will be turning 18 in the middle of her junior year, in December; she got held back once already. I worry that finishing her junior year as a legal adult, she won't go back to school. She hates it and doesn't see any value in it since she doesn't want to go to college. Also, it's totally her mom's fault she's never had a job because her mom won't fill out any applications for her.

I read about friends who have these really smart kids who are self-motivated and take care of all their homework by themselves, and it's all generally correct, and parents just sit back and beam at their wonderful children's wonderful As, A+s, commendation letters, etc. Said kids are also incredibly well rounded and in addition to always getting A+s, they excell at sports, musical instruments, and volunteering with the homeless.

This is a lie. And even if it's not, they'll fall down eventually. I mean, if Instagram had been around I probably would've seemed like one of those kids, but...really wasn't very happy much of high school. Self-motivated also meant really high self expectations and feeling like I'd failed if I didn't meet them.

and I played an instrument for years (even through and after college!) but never was good at practicing--in middle school I forged my moms signature on our practice log so many times I had to keep doing it because I figured if I gave it to her after two or three forged signatures shed remember she hadn't been signing it!