As I sit here, the ten year old is upstairs entertaining Tara. He is “allegedly” sick. He claimed a sore throat and feeling barfy. I don’t believe him, but yet here he is and not at school. I wasn’t ready for a big fight this morning, but that is not a good enough excuse for missing school, is it?
Unless a child is bleeding, or spiking a fever, I tend to feel that there are other issues at play when a child wants to miss school. With Adam and Caity I find giving them the space to process without anxiety is the key to getting to the bottom of things. However, this does not mean loads of days off anytime they are upset. There have been many mornings of dragging them kicking and screaming to the school doors.
I do think Adam is having a bit of a hard time with Grade Five. I have a feeling they are being given more responsibility than he has been used to before and that is getting him flustered when things go wrong. There were a lot of tears about not doing math homework due to not having a pencil. (DON’T judge me for not having pencils in the house – we did and they are gone!) There also seems to have been some confusion about a work book and when assignments were due too and not completing things and then not telling me. I have yet to get a story that makes sense. In any case, he seems flustered and we need to sort it out.
I am sad that things are not going swimmingly for him. The teachers he has this year seen firm but fair and he has good friends in his class. I think there is more structure to the class than he had last year and that seems to be throwing him off. Focus and patience with others and himself, are not strong traits though and with his math assignments this seems to be the most telling.
At this stage in school, how quickly do you think a parent should step in to ensure improvement and the happiness of your child? If a child is unwilling to speak to you about the problems they are facing, or do not yet see them as problems, what do you think is the best way to broach these problems without the child getting defensive?
We are going to try to talk to him tonight as a family about what is going on and hopefully come up with a plan that works. I hate to see a smart kid fall behind for no real reason. The teachers have said that they feel he understand the work, but is having problems completing it. Any anxieties about school that my children have seem far worse as they recall any of the issues I had as a child and I certainly don’t want to project my issues on my children. We want our kids to have less baggage than us right?
Leave a Reply