 |
| He wears socks on his hands because gloves would be "weird." |
And we are big believers in personal responsibility and suck-it-uppisms and "because I said so!" around here.
But guys, I have to make my kid do a lot of things he doesn't like. Like wear pants. Make eye contact. Talk about stuff other than vacuums, V-Tech phones and the Pacific Ocean. Drink out of the red cup. This isn't just stuff that he doesn't like, this is stuff that is genuinely difficult for him. Sometimes genuinely painful.
However, we make them do all this stuff for a reason. Clean your room so you don't live in filth. Clean your bodies so you aren't the stinky kid at school. Clean your teeth so you don't cause me a fortune in dental bills.
And for us - wear pants because you have to learn that pants are okay and that you will live even with material touching your skin because pants are the socially accepted norm, kiddo.
You get something for doing the thing that you don't like.
Except for homework.
I have ranted about the homework all year. I have ranted to my husband, ranted on Facebook, on the phone to my mom, to my son's teacher, to the assistant principal, to any mom I see at Walmart.
At Junior's last parent/teacher conference, I once again confronted the homework issue. I was annoyed because, just that day, we had received Junior's homework packet back as being marked "incomplete" and my head nearly exploded. Of course it was incomplete. They had sent home eight worksheets. We did three. Three was plenty. Three was, in my opinion, definitely complete.
(And, as a brief note, let me add that we have been told it was acceptable to not complete them all. I had even asked the teacher to mark which ones she felt were most important for Justin to focus on. I also asked if, instead of turning them in on Friday, could we turn them in on Monday, giving Justin two, school-free days to do them...I got told that it was "too much work" for her to prioritize the worksheets and that she liked the packets back on Friday so she could grade them over the weekend.)
So yeah, the "incomplete" pissed me off.
"Well, we decide, all the kindergarten teachers, what worksheets to send home," I was told.
"What makes you and the other teachers think this amount of worksheets is developmentally appropriate?" I asked, reminding her of the week that nearly 20 pages were sent home.
She dropped it quickly, and told me that the homework was voluntary. I told her that point gets a little lost when the packet is returned marked "incomplete."
But...I still made Justin do one every night that we didn't have another activity going on. And I did it for lots of reasons.
One, he is behind. Just...very, very behind. The kind of behind that has his daddy and I, as well as his therapist, worrying about whether or not the school will pass Justin. And whether or not that would be the best thing for him -- there are major implications in repeating a grade, and many of them are negative. He is behind, and it is the kind of behind that keeps us up late at night, Googling shit at 3 a.m. (I know every special needs parent reading this is smirking a little and nodding. Hi, guys! I see you, you fellow 3-a.m.-Googlers!)
I worried that if I didn't have him sit down and do a worksheet every night, he would fall even further behind.
Secondly, a part of me felt like not doing worksheets would undermine his teacher and her authority. I may not like her, but she is in charge of my son seven hours a day, five days a week. He needs to listen to her and respect her, regardless of how Mama feels.
Third, it's simply hard for me not to do what is expected. Stupid, but there you have it.
And so we tried so many things. Doing the worksheet as soon as he comes home, to catch him while he's still "in school mode." Nope. Tears.
Maybe a snack, first.
Well, maybe he should play outside first.
Maybe he should have a snack, play outside, and have a bubble bath first.
Let's try it over breakfast.
Tears, almost always.
"Mama, I already did this at school!"
"This is boring. I hate school. I hate words."
"This is hard. I hate the way my brain is!"
"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ!"
And I cajoled. I demanded. I explained. I comforted. I encouraged. I made him do those worksheets almost every day, even though it was destroying his confidence, taking ages to do, upsetting us both, ruining our evenings.
And I did it even after reading so many articles and so much literature saying that homework has no impact on a student's academic success at this age. And then I saw more articles and evidence saying that not only does it not make any impact on academic success in young children, that it can actually damage their love of learning. That kids, all kids, have a natural love of learning....but worksheets have a way of extinguishing that.
And so, one day, a few weeks ago, as my son came barreling in the front door after school, I took from him his backpack and he asked, "Do I have worksheets?"
"Yes," I said, and his face immediately began to crumple and I just couldn't. Not one more time.
"Oh, wait!" I said, glancing at his homework packet like I had misread it. "No, no worksheets."
And he made a straight line to the back door, opened it up, and played in the sunshine while I cooked dinner. And we had a pleasant evening, and we read a mess of books and they were all non-fiction because my son loves non-fiction, and he didn't grow immediately angry and defensive when I asked him to identify letters and sounds in the books.
And it was so nice that we skipped worksheet the next night. And then the rest of the week. And on Friday, we returned his empty homework folder and went to Barnes and Noble and bought a new book on the world's oceans and spent the next week learning about tectonic plates and the creation of ocean floor, the difference between seas and oceans, various depths and units of measurement, zooplankton and coast formations and directions...which led us to maps. So we bought some maps. We got interested in Egypt. We read about Egypt. We talked about dead kings and cats as gods.
Instead of reading twenty minutes a day, we're reading thirty or forty or more. He wants me to read to him while he's in the bathtub. He hurries to get ready in the morning because if he gets done early, we'll go outside and read.
And so we skipped worksheets the next week, too. He started what he calls the Thousand Project. He is counting to 1,000. On day 4, and he's at 760.
My son's pre-k teacher was just magic. He was challenged but felt safe enough with her to try. And he grew leaps and bounds.
This year, he's been treading water. And losing ground.
But this past month, he has, once again, amazed his mama. This past month has reminded me that my kid is not truly "behind," but that he does need a different measuring stick. He can't read. He still struggles to identify all of his lower-case letters and struggles even more connecting the sounds to the letters. But he can tell you that the Pacific Ocean is shrinking at the rate of one square mile per year -- and then reassure you not to worry, because there's still 64 billion square miles left. So yeah...different measuring stick. Not less than or more than, but different than.
Until teachers are allowed to use different measuring sticks, I have to run interference. I'm his mother. And I'm saying no to worksheets right now.
But I am saying yes to one more book, and ten more minutes outside, and sidewalk chalk and building forts and watching documentaries on rainy days and yes to letting six be six and simply handing him a snack on the fly as he drops his schoolbag and heads straight out the back door to play after seven long hours of school.
I make him brush his teeth, twice a day. He bathes daily -- almost. And wears pants 100% of the time he is out of this house. I do hope his teacher understands the decision we have made, and if she asks, I will explain to her that, for us, it isn't "too much work" to prioritize things in our son's life.
Worksheets simply did not make the cut,
