So, we're about 3 weeks into the new school year and ALREADY DH has been getting e-mails from SS12's school saying he's behind in not just one, but two classes. One of the e-mails from his English teacher made sure to specify that it was because he hasn't been doing his homework, not because of absences. DH was like, "Absences?" Turns out there was a day or two BM couldn't find anyone to pick him up from school, so she just let him stay home. There are these things called busses, but I digress... Anyway, the big point is that he hasn't been doing his homework, and he's been using the ol' "I don't get it" excuse. Whatevs, that's fine...except that BM said he was going to after-school tutoring just to catch up so he won't go from kind of behind to REALLY behind. I wondered if he would actually go (my bet was that he wouldn't). A few weeks ago before the school year started, I decided to be uncharacteristically semi-kind and let him sign into my Netflix account on his tablet, under the condition he sign back out until next time he was at the house. I have the only Netflix account in the house and I can see all the Instant Watch activity. Well, even though he hasn't been watching anything in the last few weeks...apparently this week he's watched a solid 4 hours' worth of Netflix. Now, 4 hours doesn't sound like that much, until you see that it's 4 hours of Netflix all on the same day. Which is today. Which was SUPPOSED to be the day he went to after-school tutoring. This is why up until a few weeks ago, I wouldn't let either of them have access to my Netflix account. They don't do anything BUT watch when they have access to it, and SS12 is the worst of the offenders (I believe his record is 14 hours straight, and I didn't intervene that day because I wanted to see exactly how far he would go). So now I had to just go in and change my password AGAIN, and inevitably when they come over this weekend, I'm going to have to lay down the law and refuse to put the new password into any personal device until the end of the semester. This is the only thing I can control in a situation where neither of the parents are all that invested in their kids' educations. When DH heard that obviously SS12 wasn't doing his homework tonight either, his response was a shrug, and BM basically just treats school like daycare to keep her kids out of trouble when she's at work. Most times I'm pretty much disengaged because they're not my kids and I don't care how they turn out really all that much, but I'm also a teacher, so this sticks in my craw, plus they're using my Netflix as a way NOT to get homework done. So yes, I'm doing the only thing I can do in this situation, and that is to ground the Netflix until I'm satisfied at semester's end that they've BOTH been doing their homework. Even DH doesn't have my password, so he can't go behind my back and turn it on when they get too whiney.