My Father refuses to accept any form of reasoning when I explain a school problem.

Hi all, this is my first post here, please feel free to ask for more detail if this does not suffice.

My Father has claimed that I am failing a class because I am not trying. I have told him that my teacher gives us unrealistic deadlines/Grades too harshly. He has derailed the conversation away from the point I have made by saying "You are probably tired because you are on the computer so much." I refute this by saying that I am not tired and I know when I am tired and when I am not. He then states that "You do not know if you are tired or not because you're under it's electronic influence" or something along those lines. I would like to know what fallacy or fallacies were used in this argument. It should be noted that he almost never allows me to get in anything edge-wise when any argument progresses this far, so I am unable to speak after a certain point in the argument. To elaborate on the argument, I can also cite my father as saying "The world is hard, so why should she give you a more lenient deadline?" and also refers to any attempt I make in further explaining my problems as excuses. Although this is not the pages main intent, I would also like to get some pointers on how to approach my father when confronting him about using the "I am the parent; therefore I am correct and you are not" argument.

I appreciate everyone who read this and look forward to reading your answers. Have a good evening everyone.

Look up Dr. Bo’s description of Ad hoc rescue.

"I have told him that my teacher gives us unrealistic deadlines/Grades too harshly."...by this logic, all of the teacher's students would be failing not just you....
"I am the parent; therefore I am correct and you are not" argument....logic is irrelevant when it comes to school or activities you indulge in that are funded by your parents. You live under their roof you have to accept their rules and their reasoning. If you want to live by your "logic" or reasoning I'd suggest you start working towards independence..i.e. Study for however long it takes to pass ALL your classes which leads to college or a trade or military. Basically financing your own existence. Until then the only argument you need to win is with yourself in regards to what you want your life to be and are you willing to work to get there.

Parent/Child arguments are rarely examples of good argumentative dialog. Parents often are guilty of the Just Because" fallacy, and children... well, they are many years away from full frontal lobe development. Yes, your father seems to be playing this card here and you can give him a hard time about that, but you need to take some responsibility as well. Consider your argument:

I have told him that my teacher gives us unrealistic deadlines/Grades too harshly.

This may or may not be the case, and if I were you, I would make sure that I weren't just making excuses for my own poor performance. If it were too that your teacher gives us unrealistic deadlines/Grades too harshly then the following is likely to be true:

1) If you have other teachers, you are doing well in those other classes
2) Your peers who have other teachers have statistically significant better grades than all those with this teacher
3) Multiple complaints have been filed against this teacher over the years (assuming there for multiple years)

If none of these are true, it might be the case that something else is going on that neither you nor your father have identified. Here is where critical thinking helps in life; it helps us to identify the actual problem rather than a problem that doesn't really exist. When we identify the actual problem, we are well on our way to solving it.

Good luck!