My daughter Ines is in the 8th grade. I am a single parent who is barely getting by. We can’t afford the activities for the graduating class like trips to New York, dances, etc.
I told Ines this and she seems to understand that we just can’t afford it.
I got called in to talk to her English teacher over a paper she wrote last month. The prompt was “what I did on spring break.”
Ines spent it at home or tagging along with me to my job. But instead she wrote this ten page story about how she found this door in the office I clean that took her to the past.
She wrote a short fiction story instead of the paper her teacher wanted. She got a D.
Ines wanted me to convince the teacher to change her grade.
I told her that she can’t submit short stories instead of homework, so she deserves that poor grade. But Ines said that she doesn’t have anything to work with otherwise she hates English.
We are going back and forth. She has a C in English and I told her she is grounded until she gets her grades up.
Ines is upset and won’t speak to me. I had another meeting with a school counselor who suggests that I’m being too harsh on her, and to encourage her to write more. That’s not the problem.
My problem is that Ines doesn’t listen to me or her teachers and acts like she’s living in that dimension in her stories. That’s not how the real world works.
AITA?