Bear had been telling us he wanted to drop football because he is stuck on JV second string (worst you can get and still be on the team - and they take everybody who tries out by the way). He hates not being a big deal. Plus it's HOT HARD WORK. Hubby told him he needs to finish something he started. All of Bear's friends and the principal at his school, one of his favorite teachers... all have told him he needs to stick with it. So I ignored his continuous whining about his many psychosomatic complaints.
Bear has also been continuously manipulating us to try to get to spend unsupervised time with his friends, in particular his girlfriend. I've tried to outmanuever him every time. Like when he told Grandma to just drop him off at 1pm so he could pick up his books and then go to football practice, when I knew it wouldn't take more than a few minutes to get his books and football practice didn't start until 4pm. I let him go to the school, but Grandma and all the kids stayed with him the whole time.
Thursday he told us he wanted to go to school early so he could help the ROTC with something. I figured his girlfriend would be meeting him there or something, so I told him no. The whole family was working on moving our office to the new location all day. Grandma dropped him off just in time for him to go to lift weights (which he probably wasn't scheduled to do, but we couldn't get any info about his schedule from the coaches). He had a game on Friday so we were supposed to pick him up at 6pm and had decided to go out to eat soon after instead of our usual Friday because of the game.
6:15pm, practice is out, but no Bear. Grandma has the kids ask the coach, nope, Bear didn't go to practice. They search the grounds - no Bear. Hubby and I were on our way back from visiting Kitty so we swung by to look too.
We called his girlfriend, but her phone was turned off. I left a message ayway stating we were getting ready to call the police if we didn't hear from him within the next few minutes. Almost immediately after, we get a call from Bear. He's waiting at the gym door and Grandma is not there. Yea right!
Bear denies that he skipped practice. We leave a message for the head coach and go on to dinner. Knowing he's lying, but no proof...yet.
He spends 1 1/2 hours after bedtime talking to Hubby. He wants to quit football and go to ROTC. Still lying about going to practice.
Friday morning. Coach calls. Bear was not at practice.
Bear says he wasn't lying because he was at practice. He just didn't participate. Keep pushing, well... he was there, but he wasn't actually inside the fence. He was just outside the fence, under a tree with a group of other boys most of the time. He'd also helped out with the ROTC thing he'd said he wanted to help with earlier.
It was our fault because he'd TOLD us he wanted out of football and we didn't listen. Hubby's biggest issue is with lying and Bear knows this. *sigh*
We made him tell the coach in person that he was dropping football (the coach apparently ripped into him some - *yea!* Told him all the same things Hubby and Bears friends said).
The school principal pulled some strings and got Bear into ROTC (he has to have something to replace athletics). We're not thrilled because we feel he "won" by skipping and lying. Don't know how else we could have handled it though.
He's grounded for 2 weeks. No phone calls. He's "fine with that." He is "thinking of breaking up with her anyway."
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