Homework…

Before I had kids, I could picture in my head exactly what it would be like:  enriching them every waking moment, being the “right” kind of parent, wanting to be with them every second, cooking a healthy dinner while my clever children diligently work on their homework.  I’ll wait for you parents out there to stop laughing and catch your breath…

Let’s talk about homework; sometimes it goes well.  And, sometimes, there is weeping involved.  Could be them, could be me.  You never know.  There are so many reasons for tears.  Here’s one scenario: They don’t understand something so I try to explain and they cut me off halfway, “I don’t understand.” Sigh. Me: “I didn’t finish explaining, let me finish.”  Them: “But I don’t understand.”  Me: “Right, because you didn’t let me explain. Listen.”  Them: “I am listening!  Why do you always accuse me of not listening?  I’m listening, I don’t understand!  You’re not telling me right!”  A few more minutes in this pattern and it’s not pretty.  Could be yelling, maybe a little door slamming, maybe some sobbing.  When we finally get back to business, I am trying some Lamaze breathing and the child is post-crying-gasping.  Very conducive to learning.  Finally, it is all explained and listened to and then they tell me indignantly, “That’s not how my teacher told us to do it.” (Picture me shaking my fists at the sky.)

Math often causes the problem.  Yes, math is still math.  It’s the only known constant in the universe.  Right?  WRONG!  Yup, it’s still numbers BUT they are teaching them differently.  Now they use chunking, grouping, some other fancy phrases to do what we used to just do with the numbers.  And, yes, I can see that it teaches concepts better than how we learned it.  (I think it’s made my math better!) BUT, is that worth the damage to the parent-child relationship?  What about to the parental image?  They already think we’re idiots- they don’t need confirmation. Their greatest joy is to point out how stupid we are!  You think I want to help with your homework when you just told me I’m a moron?  Is it wrong for me to say, “Duhh, I can’t help I’m too stupid.  Duh…”

The homework really throws me off because, as the kids get bigger, the homework is getting harder.  Harder for me to remember, harder for me to explain and, sometimes, harder for me to understand!  On the days when there is difficult math homework, I should just save time and throw the dinner right into the garbage.  Why waste the time in burning it first?  There is no way I can pull off a decent meal when I need all my mental energy to scramble through the textbook, pretend I am just flipping and actually reteach myself the math.  Ah, the relief when I realize I DO know how to do it!  But not the “right” way…  And they won’t buy the “Let me show you another way to do this.”  Arg!  They will not believe there a way other than what the have seen.  Double arg!!

These are the times that I give up and say, “Well, you’ll just have to ask your teacher tomorrow.”  Or send it in wrong.  I do feel a bit bad when they stress out about it.  But, I console myself that I’d rather the teacher know what they are struggling with rather than think all is hunky-dory.  And I’d rather not HAVE to beat them over homework.  Better to cut your loses when violence is on the horizon.  These parenting moments always remind me of this quote a friend sent me-

Sooo true.  I especially love the way the cartoon mother is looking dotingly at her child.  Is she imagining it while smiling or is she hissing it at him?  I guess if I can smile like the cartoon mom, while confining the obscenities to my brain, I can count that as a win?  Boy, do standards drop as the years go by...