Adolescence and Attitude.....

Why is it that we can have a great week (except for last Monday) and then have such a crappy day today? I don't understand where his attitude is coming from. I know that he's growing up and is probably starting to go through things in regards to puberty etc. but I can't handle his attitude. I just feel like smacking him upside the head! Grrr!!! So we started today with Math, he has an assessment that he has to pass before we move on to fractions. I was totally psyched about math this week. I wanted to try and do some cooking with him. But we have to get past this stupid assessment first, right? So, I hand it to him after a late start this morning at 9:30 and he starts whining and pouting about having to do more division etc... I expected that, but was totally trying to be an optimist, telling him that it it was his last day of it and that we were going to get to move on to fractions! It didn't work very well, as he proceeded to pout and piddled through his first few problems... so, 2 hours later, several helps from Mom, several reminders to keep working, and what seemed to be him getting a better attitude as he approached the end, he said "I'm Finished." Great! So We pulled out the book to check his answers and the first page was looking pretty decent.... he got two wrong, and had one that he forgot to put the answer at the top of the division bracket, so I helped him work through what he had written down for his work and we found what the answer was supposed to be.... technically, I am not supposed to do, this, prolly, he should have gotten it wrong. And if Jason had been correcting it, he would have. But Mom's a pushover and I was trying to keep things light and optimistic.... So we moved on the the next page (page 1-8 problems, Page 2- 8 problems, page 3- 4 problems for a total of 20) he was doing okay, he missed the first one... got the next 3 and then had only done half the work for the last 4 on the page.... He was told to estimate then divide, he only did the estimate part. So, being the total pushover that I am, I let him take the time to "fix" his work, and finish the problems.... He did and got them all right.... so far he missed one more and the rest looked fine.... so that's 3 wrong so far, right? Now for the last page, word problems, 4 of them and he says that he likes these the best.... he got 1 out of 4 right.... mostly because he just wasn't accurate in doing his work (but since he didn't write down any of his work on the paper for me to see, I couldn't help him to find where he'd made his mistakes (he did all the work on his white board and then erased it) So.... now he's missed 6! And I let him "Fix" 5 of the ones that he should have gotten WRONG! So, what am I supposed to do, after 2 hours of him dinking around with the assessment the first time I really just want him to stay away from me, in his room..... I just really don't want to be around him right now. He just doesn't seem to understand that his assessments are where he is supposed to give me his best work, show me that he learned what we've been working on so hard the last few weeks.... I Baby Fed him this stuff, using way more of my time that I think I should have to use, he seemed to really be getting it, but then I ask him to do this one assessment for me and I feel like he doesn't care, like he's letting me down.... And the assessment really isn't the entire problem... I was talking to him about something not math related and he decided it was a good time to talk back to me, so I sent him to his room! Ahhhh!!! I just really don't know what to do with him sometimes. The attitude chart was working pretty well, but the last two weeks, he hasn't earned his trip to the prize box.... Now I just feel like telling him tough luck, go back to fricking regular school and see how wonderful that is for you! I am totally not feeling Motherly Love right now. I hate this, because I know how much fun it can be! Why does he have to go and ruin it with a Frickin' bad attitude!! I know I have said it before, but it's days like these that I want to just call it quits, why waste my time if he's not going to appreciate all that I have to sacrifice to do this for him!!!!!!