Dude, I agree-- and I came back to actually add that one thing I'd see as a completely legitimate beef here is the fact that this was apparently a surprise to both parent and child.
That is just unfair. Yes, I suppose there is probably a life-lesson there, as well, but I'm not sure that it's age-appropriate.
I still recall feeling utterly indignant at a psych professor in college when I got an "A" and not an "A+" because I had not been informed at any point in time that my course attendance would be part of my grade, and frankly I needed that hour sometimes to set up apparatus in a lab-- so I was probably absent about 10-15% of the course, but NEVER missed a quiz or exam. I was clearly paying very close attention to the syllabus and schedule; it wasn't a 'discussion' course, but a lecture section.
That grade still rankles over 20 years later, actually. It was the unfairness of it-- the arbitrary decision to include a non-academic measure of course success and apply it retroactively was just w.r.o.n.g. Hmph.
