I guess my "anger" is based on my current situtation with my children (boys). As a parent I am frustrated with an adolescent who feels he has that autonomy to make those decisions (not do homework if it's stupid, turn in stuff late, not at all because it's difficult, but the opposite). I tell him the grade IS important. It is completely within his ability to Ace everything he's enrolled in, so I'm very frustrated and feel it's almost deliberate torture of mom (and dad) to scratch out the As at the very last moment. The boy in the story didn't get As always (C's in chemistry) because he couldn't be bothered with assignments. His parents were distressed that he couldn't get into Virginia Tech because his GPA wasn't stellar and I took her writing as a warning to other parents to not ignore the "rules" just to keep your kid challenged. On one hand I think it was a great thing for the kid, but on the other hand, it's exactly the point I'm trying to prove to my son. Sad fact that really good grades are easier to sell to colleges and scholarship opportunities. Just because a kid thinks he's too smart for the busy-work, doesn't mean he is excused from it. Hopefully in honors or AP classes, the assignments are valuable (we all know that doesn't always happen), but even if they're not, we as parents have to make our expectations known that they have to be done. I don't like to scrub toilets, think it's a waste of my abilities, but I still do it.
