Now that school is underway, I suddenly remember why I secretly dread the fact that my children are getting an education.
Homework.
First of all, I don’t recall EVER getting homework in second grade. Thank you Ms. Olander. That was very nice of you.
I don’t know who it was that decided young, active children should be at the table writing their spelling words three times each instead being outside playing, but whomever it was is a big giant dummy – and I used the word “whomever” to illustrate that I, without homework in second grade, still managed to capture proper grammar. I know, I know, we have to prepare our children for the standardized tests. We have to teach through repetition. We have to instill a sense of responsibility and commitment. We have to beat China in the homework race. Blah, blah, blah.
Homework complicates my life. And I don’t need any more complications, thank you very much.
Picture this:
I pick my kids up from school, get them home, get them a snack, and announce that it’s homework time. My daughter is thrilled – she plays school in her spare time and would actually prefer if there were no summer break.
My son? To him, doing homework is akin to eating maggots. Eh, I take that back. He’d probably rather eat maggots.
He yells, he procrastinates, he scribbles and refuses to make an effort. Now, this is a lil’ dude who could finish his entire week’s homework in about an hour – he’s smart. Instead, he spends about 17 hours complaining about the injustice of boring homework. To his credit, it really is boring.
I’m familiar with Parenting with Love and Logic, and I’ve read their advice about letting kids take responsibility. If they don’t do their homework, they don’t do it, and they face the consequences at school. Let them fail if that’s what they need to do, the book says. My son is 7. He has plenty of time to fail. Right now, I just want him to do his damn homework.
I’ve tried incentives.
“Honey, if you do your homework without complaining, I’ll buy you a car and a house.”
No dice.
I’ve tried using the proverbial stick.
“Honey, if you don’t do your homework, I won’t feed you for a month and I’ll make you clean the toilet with your tongue.”
Don’t care, he says.
I could probably let this battle go and let him suffer the consequences at school. Only my son would be fine with that. Missing recess at school on Friday pales in comparison to the unadulterated torture of practicing his “New Math” – which by the way is so foreign to me, I couldn’t possibly tell if he has the right answer.
I could withhold any speck of joy in his life until he meets his obligations. Only when I do that, I’ve found that with every ounce of joy he loses, I get two pounds of extra grief. I already know what you’re going to say – if I don’t put the hammer down now, I’ll be in big trouble later. You’re right, of course. But at the end of the day, after working and getting kids to appointments and activities and cooking dinner and returning phone calls, I’m tired. And I don’t feel like dealing with this. Sad, perhaps, but very true.
Homework. It’s not a four letter word.
It’s way worse than that.