Rewarding Failure, the way to "buy" your kids' allegiance and put the Dad in a bad light...

Let's talk privileges. Let's talk school.

Remember how for most of us, how your performance in school directly reflected on your privileges or rewards? My kid's are seldom held to any standards. My ex actually told me that kid's should always get what they want, because if you provide them with what they desire, in turn, they will perform to expectation.

Well she gives them what they want,and my ex gets her expectations fulfilled, and it had not a damn thing to do with kids' school performance.

My daughter wanted to participate on the school swim team, this meant some financial liability as well as transportation and adapting schedules to accommodate her participation.
My Daughter, her mother, and I discussed and agreed to certain terms, right here on my front porch one afternoon. I was willing to participate to the level expected provided she mind her chores, and maintained no less than a "C" grade in each class in school.

My daughter wasted no time in blowing off chores, and quickly moved into  less that the expected grade in several classes. She got to participate anyway, her mom made sure of it.

The ex, allowing for the participation regardless of the agreement cemented the idea to my daughter that dad is just  a bad, bad guy.

My youngest son has failed every class the least two years, and is currently failing each enrolled class so far this year, but was rewarded with a new motorcycle dirt bike by his mother this past summer. That's several thousand dollars of reward for continuous failure.

The real reason I believe she bought this prize for him in my opinion was to "buy" his allegiance, because when I raised questions about this, and I told my boy just how I saw this, as an outright bribe, a reward for failure that I could not compete with,  my son stormed off and has not been back to my home for my scheduled parenting time since, all by his choice. That was June 2013. I should note, that my current court order for parenting time is just days shy of a 50/50 split of time between my home and the ex's.

Translation? Less money to her pocket. The end game is to convince the court at a later time that since my son isn't visiting at my home, that she should be entitled to a reassessment where support is concerned.