A couple of weeks ago Link’s teacher spoke to me for a moment and told me that Link hadn’t been finishing his work at school. During reading time he’d sit and distract himself. He never disrupted other students, but he didn’t work either. She and I had a talk with him and then I heard no more about it. No notes came home, no unfinished papers came home, so I assumed that the situation had improved. Silly me. Link had been deliberately “forgetting” to put his homework folder in his backpack. It came home today with nearly two weeks worth of unfinished papers in it. Link and I had a “little” talk.
Now every school day he has to bring his homework folder home, even if it is empty. If he “forgets” it, I’ll send him back for it. If he finishes his school work during class time, then he gets a stamp on his hand. If he doesn’t finish the unfinished work has to come home and be completed BEFORE he is allowed to play. Homework can be completed in the evening, unfinished schoolwork comes before play time. So every day I will expect either a stamp or unfinished papers. I’m fairly confident that this solution will work for Link.
Now I’m just tired and worn out. I love having smart kids, but I have to work hard at staying cleverer than they are. Link suckered me good for the last couple of weeks and now I have to make sure that he can’t get away with it anymore because in the long run that would be bad. In theory the kids will eventually thank me for all this blatant manipulation.
And, of course, the “advantage” of having a close, loving family is that, as the kids get older, they work together to sucker you. Like with the oranges, but fueled by teenage emotions, rather than hunger.
Though I suppose that teenage emotions are a type of hunger.
yep
The most recent problem I had with LightningBoy is that for a week or two he had a run in with his teacher (and other helper lunch time teachers) about wearing his coat. He didn’t want to wear it, his teacher insisted he wear it. He used every trick in the book to get his way:
He “forgot” his coat.
He would not wear his coat and try to slip by unnoticed.
He would wear it outside and then take it off.
He EVEN back talked to his teacher and argued with her about wearing the coat. (and his teacher is the strict scary 1st grader type – I thought that was mighty brave of him!)
In the end the lunch helper teacher sent him to the office to sit there during recess because he didn’t have his coat.
Sitting in the office seems to be the last straw, because that’s when I first heard about it. And we had a talk about that. Especially about trying to trick your teacher, and about talking back to her disrespectfully.
Otherwise in homework land…
As soon as he comes home he does it. If he didn’t complain so much it would take half as much time. I just say to him, If you want to be a scientist or inventor, you need to figure out how to LOVE math!
I am NOT looking forward to teenagehood…
oh, and…
It’s concerning that you would find out about Link not doing his schoolwork after TWO WEEKS of him not doing it.
If LightningBoy weren’t doing his schoolwork I would want to know after only a day or two.
We have been talking in our School Community Council about how teachers need to have more contact with the parents. Helping parents to know how their kids are doing on a monthly basis.
(at the least)
If all parents were involved with their kids, their kid’s homework, their kid’s schools… the school systems would be so much better. Can you imagine a school’s worth of parents times the number of schools in town concerned about their schools and helping and volunteering and letting the government know that we want better schools, better paid teachers, etc.?
Re: oh, and…
The teacher did talk to me. And she was making Link put his unfinished work into his homework folder. Then Link would sneakily leave the homework folder in his desk. I didn’t keep close enough tabs on the situation. It would have come up last week when I volunteered in the class, but I had sick kids and didn’t go.
oh
It’s tiring to think about how vigilant we as moms have to be.
On alert 24/7.
How come our kids are so tricksy and smart? 🙂