<p>She’s doing really well in her classes, and is in level 5 (of 6), but she is continually breaking the language pledge. I received a warning email yesterday, and spoke with the French director today. He is clearly almost at the end of his rope with her. I haven’t yet spoken with my daughter, though I’ve requested that she call me. Anybody else ever been in this situation? Advice? Thanks.
Signed,
Frustrated Mom</p>
<p>From what I understand this is their second (?) year running this program so you probably won’t find too many that know about this.</p>
<p>From your other posts, it sounds like you are really stretching your budget to provide educational opportunities for your kids. At the very least if it were my child I would be telling them that if they get kicked out they would be working for me two full days for each day missed. I have plenty of tough “grunt work” around. But you’re the expert when it comes to your child. It sounds like she is a 9th grader. Is it worth giving her a warning and then pulling her out of the program yourself if she continues to break the rules? I don’t know whether the problem is immaturity on her part or a feeling she is above the rules.</p>
<p>Good advice, 2blue. I spoke to her yesterday and told her that if she were to be kicked out, she would have to pay us back for the program. That would be a whole lot of babysitting jobs! As to why she’s violating the language pledge, she claims “everyone does it.” (Now, where have I heard that before?) We had a very serious conversation in which she seemed to get the importance of behaving herself from now on. The program director told me that she is ‘a gifted French student’ and she’d very much like to go to an Ivy (her idea, not mine). One of the reasons she wanted to do this program was for her college resume, and I pointed out that it would have a negative effect on her applications were she to be asked to leave. Fingers crossed that things improve.</p>
<p>It sounds like you had a good conversation. This could turn out to be a good “growing up” experience for her, in addition to learning French. I hope all turns out well–parenting is always such an adventure!</p>
<p>Chances are there probably are a lot of kids doing it, but she’s just exceptionally good at getting caught. Good call either way though.</p>
<p>I attended the Spanish last summer, and people did break the language pledge pretty regularly, however, the difference at mine was that staff didn’t really seem to care… so maybe they have cracked down on this stuff this year.</p>
<p>It’s fine if she doesn’t want to go to a language camp with a language pledge, but now that she’s committed herself to this program, she should follow the language pledge. The pledge isn’t there to be a burden, it’s supposed to help you really become immersed in the language. sorry, but this is completely her fault for breaking the pledge.</p>