Helping With Homework

Lately, homework time at my house (which has ALWAYS been RIGHT after school)  has been filled with a lot of new behaviors:  frustration, tears, staring off into space, laying on the chair, playing with the cat.  Just about anything BUT doing homework.  Or more specifically,  math homework.  I don't know what has caused this change, but it has been significant.  

Nora has pretty much always been easily frustrated.  If she can't figure something out right away, it's either "dumb" or "the thing's fault."  So much like her sister.  Sigh!  This sometimes proves even more frustrating  to me, as a parent, because she likes to work fast.  She doesn't want to mess around, usually because she'd much rather be doing something else.  Several times last year, her first grade teacher reported that Nora always does a great job at school, but she needs to "slow down and make her work more neat."  Ya, that never happened.  She seems to be operating under the same "get it done as fast as I can" system again in second grade.  

The difference, though, is that she just REALLY doesn't seem to want to do the math.  Or the math in addition to the spelling and reading.  Honestly, I don't know.  She seems to understand all of her work, however she does ask for help sometimes with her math paper.  And, really, I think she does "get" that too, but lacks the confidence to believe in herself and her answers.  

Nora's Homework Folder.
Look Closely, you will see where she wrote Fun Folder
only to later  erase it.  

When I ask her about it, she says, "it's too hard.  I don't get it.  I don't like math!"  And I panic!  Because these are the same comments and sentiments I heard from her sister ALL THROUGH SCHOOL!  And, yet,  Nora seems to grasp mathematics a little better at this age than her sister did.  (Please don't be upset if you are reading this Anna...kids are just different :)

So last week I mentioned Nora's frustrations to her teacher, just to get her feedback.  I was curious:  Is Nora the only one in the class feeling this way?  Well, yesterday a letter came home from the teacher.  In it, she stated that she had "been thinking about homework the last few days."  (Gulp!)  And that she has decided to  "cut back a little on the math assignments."  (Gulp again!)  And this is when my overly worrisome, obsessive self felt "the blame" if you will.  What if the other students were all doing fine?  What if their parents are now wondering, "what's going on?"  

So, I emailed the teacher and thanked her so much for listening and respecting my concerns about Nora's homework experiences of late.  I told her I certainly didn't expect her to change what has always worked for her, especially if Nora was the only one feeling frustrated.  I told her I would have been happy to help her "work through it," if that's what we needed to.  I told her the most important thing to me right now,  is that Nora is in a safe, happy environment where she can learn comfortably and confidently.  

Well, last night, homework was SMOOTH SAILING at our house.  And all because Nora has a teacher who really listens to her students' parents.   So, Thank You Teacher for listening and making your student (and her mother) believe that my kid is right where she belongs.

Who knows, maybe there will come a day when Nora decides to add the "fun" back onto her homework label.

And to those families who were cruising along just fine in math:  I'm sorry.  But I had to speak up for my own child.  It's what we do, right?