Sunday, February 7

Making Progress

Progress reports came home on Friday. For reasons that I don't understand her school has nine week grading periods so these progress reports hold more sway than they did when I was growing up. When you got a report card every six weeks. Like NORMAL people.

School is a touchy subject in our house. Its not Alex's thing. She isn't the kind of kid I was. The kind of kid who could just sit down and do the work. The kid whose homework was done before the teacher had time to write the assignment on the blackboard. No, the work for Alex is hard and challenging. She is soo much like my sister that she shares a birthday with, its almost scary. I often tell Anna that if she wasn't still alive, I would swear that Alex had her soul. Many long nights are spent getting homework done. Studying for tests. Our weekends are spent doing extra drills, visiting tutors. School in our house is a full time job and a four letter word.

I don't expect As. I'm mostly okay with just seeing progress. But when I saw "Needs to do homework" noted in the comments section I flipped.

NEEDS TO DO HOMEWORK???? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!!!! ALL WE DO IS HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes I just forget to turn it in.

Don't even ask me what that means. I still don't get it. All I know is that Alex is now grounded. No TV. No friends over. No McDonald's. I am just the evil fun sucker how has sucked the last bit of fun out of her life. She wasn't speaking to me.

Until this afternoon she got out a box of sun catchers she had gotten for Christmas. Those medal designs of flowers and bugs. The kind you drop little pieces of plastic into before you milt them in oven. Modern psychiatry would tell us all to talk through our anger. But sometimes talking about our issues only brings out more. Sometimes its enough to just sit and share the same space. Sometimes, to move on from our frustration all we need is some plastic sun catchers to milt in the oven.

2 comments:

Jo said...

Aw... my heart goes out to any child who has difficulty with school. Often it's a disconnect between the child and the teacher that at fault. Perhaps she has some special interests such as music or art that could be encouraged.

I was a single mother too, so I understand completely. My husband was killed in a plane crash when my daughter was only four. She is a speech language pathologist now, so she landed on her feet, but it was not easy.

susie said...

We had one that always did his homework, but the teachers never saw it. So we'd get a call from the teacher, go and clean out his locker, and turn the work in. We used a notebook with pockets, one for each class with the homework, and the teachers even made a point of asking for it. Maybe they can just have it all stapled together and get it the first thing in the morning? I know it's hard, some kids just aren't made to conform to the standards for everyone else.
Maybe you can get them to do a little extra for her.