Snips Snails and Pigtails

Once again, I'm at a loss. Being gone for a month has really caused the rest of the family to suffer.

I come home to disarray, a pile of mail nearly the size of my 3 year old and a tween well on his way to failing the 7th grade. He's never been a straight "A" student, but he's always gotten decent grades.

Currently, Christopher is getting 2 D's and an F. Yeah, I don't even know if they'll let him continue to play football with those grades!

What the heck am I supposed to do?? It's getting to the point where he doesn't even care about the punishments that we deal out.

I've always thought of myself as a good parent. I read books, and parenting magazines and took the advice of others. I knew what I was doing. I knew the basics and followed them. Our children were well rounded, they had good manners and were respectful to others. Now, I'm treading unknown waters- and I'm failing miserably. In fact,
I'm DROWNING!!

Let me give you an example: The day I came home from Chicago we were going to go out to dinner. Christopher wanted to go to the Homecoming game with some of his friends instead. The hubby had every intention of making him come to dinner with the family. While I on the other hand knew this would cause him to be a little snot nosed monster and frankly after not seeing him for a month, I'd rather let him go to the game and avoid the attitude he would have dealt out while ruining our wonderful dinner. Isn't that awful!? I'm turning into a softie. Allowing him to get away with things I otherwise would not have just to avoid the crap.

I'd like to just bury my head in the sand and pretend that everything is fine with him. But then the sensible side of me says that it's just going to get worse if we don't get this under control now.

I need some new and fresh ideas. What do I do???