Alas, I am in the middle of another parenting failure moment.
Most of my personal parenting fails are born from some weird romantic notions I get in my head about how perfect and dreamy certain days or events are going to go, until the bonkers reality comes crashing down before me.
For example, I was recently had myself convinced that my almost 5-year-old starting school was going to be the making of all of us.
I thought his little mind would be BLOWN by all the amazing learning that he is about to get on board with and honestly thought that he would excitedly regurgitate everything he had learned that day, over dinner.
I dreamed that he and I would pour over his school books and figure out his maths problems together, high-five over history and run off to the Aran Islands on holiday every summer because we were so thrilled about all the Irish we had learned.
What I didn’t expect was that every scrap of this fantasy would fall flat on it’s face on Day 1.
I collected our young scholar from the school gates who brandished a sheet in front of my face,
“Homework”, says he and he wasn’t impressed.
After 20 minutes of being home and changed with a little snack under his belt, I broached the subject, clearing off the dinner table with pride in order for us to launch on our educational journey together.
“Ugh, this is taking ages” says he, 35 seconds in.
I erred on the side of positivity and kept cheering him on, telling him how exciting it is now that he’s in school and he has this really important ‘work’ to do.
“I didn’t realise how UN-easy it was going to be though”, he protested, resting his tiny 5-year-old chin onto his exhausted 5-year-old hand.
Calmly, I explained to him that responsibility is a big deal and when did he ever know Spiderman to give up when things were hard?
He shrugged at me – the Spiderman tactic wasn’t going to work today.
So instead I told him how much I used to love doing homework when I was in school – big mistake.
“I have a great idea mammy – why don’t you do my homework for me?!”
In between trying not to laugh at his ‘cute hoor’ approach, I was starting to get a bit irritated. We were about 30 minutes into the bloody thing at this point.
“Well, can I do it later when I’ve finished building my Lego?”
I can’t believe the little lunatic is bargaining already and a teeny part of me thought, ‘Would he be better doing this first thing tomorrow morning when he has had a good night’s sleep?’ But knowing that would be giving in and probably teaching him bad habits for life, I told him it was now or never.
“Homework is boring” came the next protest.
Well. I grabbed the homework sheet and stuffed it back into his bag, threatening to tell dad, teacher and grandad that Jacob was not taking his homework seriously and furthermore, that there would be no tv for the rest of the day.
Oh yes, I turned into my mother.
On Day 1.
Have you any tips for other mums on how to survive getting homework done? Let us know in the comments on Facebook.
The teamwork approach to homework: 7 ways it can work for you | HerFamily.ie
