Weekly Challenge - Know the Difference

Part of the Serenity Prayer says:



God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I have a hard time with just letting things go. It's something that I need to work on. I need to be able to accept the things that I cannot change. I need to work on the things that I can and I really need to learn to let my children fall on their faces every once in a while. If we keep saving our children every time that they get themselves into a mess, then they will never learn how to rescue themselves.

Rachel informed us on Friday night that she might not have a grade point average high enough to qualify for free tuition through a program that they have in our state. We cannot afford to pay for our kids to go to college (and even if we could - we wouldn't). If college is important enough to them then they will figure out a way to pay for it. My first response to her news about the grade point average was to go into Mommy Mode and try to come up with ways to find her classes that she can make great grades in so that her gpa will improve. Then it hit me - why is this my problem? Haven't we been telling her for years that she has to have a good gpa to get the free tuition? Haven't we been talking to teachers, the principal, and the counselor trying our hardest to get them all to realize that we are trying our hardest to be good parents and help her? Doesn't she tell us on nearly a daily basis that she is nearly 18 (as if that magically gets you somewhere)?

So Derek and I have come to the conclusion that we are not going to go above and beyond to try to fix this for her. We told her last night that it is her responsibility to talk to the principal and the counselor about possibly changing her schedule so that she will have a high enough gpa to qualify. We also told her that the times of us babysitting her to make sure that she gets her assignments turned in or that she studies for her tests are over. If she wants to throw the "I am nearly an adult" malarky in our faces all the time then she needs to start acting like one.

It will be tough on the momma and I think even tougher on the daddy, but we have to let this one go. We have to know the difference and this is something that she is going to have to change on her own.