7 Ps Rule needs to include "Patience"

You know the 7 Ps Rule, right? If you were in the military, I'm fairly certain that you've heard it multiple times. If you teach school, you most likely had to memorize it during your Master's degree classes (except they usually did the 6 Ps to omit the one "questionable" word). And if you ever need to remember how to prepare for something, it's one of the best rules to keep in mind.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

Yes, I know there are many different variants on this mnemonic device. But, this is the one I learned first both from sitting through graduate-level courses when my parents were getting their Master's/Specialist's in Education degrees and by having military members in my family. Over the years, it's served me well.

However, today Youngest Son needs to add the word "Patience." More grammatically correct, it should be "Patient" as in "Patient Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance" (deleted the objectionable word since he's still not allowed to swear). In a few weeks he'll be celebrating his birthday and we've agreed to allow him to invite over his closest friends for a pizza party and then for them to go to the movies that evening. The female guests will have to be picked up by their parents after the movie while the male guests can come to our house for a sleepover. He's been texting all of his friends today and bugging me for specific details, such as start time, menu, etc.

He's forgotten that his father and I have not finalized any plans. He's also forgotten that he's still grounded at the moment and if he doesn't earn his privileges back in time there won't be a birthday party. His friends are all trying to arrange their schedules and make suggestions for things to do and ingredients for the pizzas but we don't have anything confirmed at the moment. Big shock for him and his buddies if it's all for nothing!

I admire his desire to be sure to plan early enough in advance so that all of his friends have the opportunity to check with their parents/families to ensure if they'd be able to attend. I'm just not happy that he's getting their expectations up for something that may or may not happen. Plus, the parents also won't be very happy if they change their schedules around to accommodate something that isn't happening.

Oh well. Not much I can do about it at the moment. I told him to be sure to let everyone know that nothing has been confirmed yet and that he's just checking to see if they would be able to attend. That way, we can also plan for how much food and how many tickets we'll need to buy.

We'll see what happens.