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Posts Tagged ‘homework’
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Tutoring Tooters to Toot: Dad’s Awesome Homework Help
By Daddy Clay Friday, May 7th, 2010
Homework, to my mind, is a time for children to spend in their rooms with the doors closed, a perfect opportunity for a little parental “me time” and maybe a long-awaited turn on the Wii. But lately the amount of homework assigned to our kids has picked up, and our little Poindexters are requesting a billable amount adult help.
This is a problem for many reasons. First, there is the matter of integrity. I was opposed to homework as a student, how can I change my tune now? Just because I’m a parent? What kind of example does that set? And speaking of integrity, what happens when I do my daughter’s math homework for her and she gets a “D?” What damage does that do for her image of her father? A 3rd grader should not be expected to carry that kind of burden. Read the rest of this entry »
Dad’s Valentine to Junkanoo
By Daddy Clay Thursday, February 11th, 2010
I’m a huge advocate for experiential education, creative curriculum, and having kids learn in a variety of styles, but between Valentine’s Day and my son’s “Night of Nations” project I’m ready to chase a box of conversation hearts with a quart of rum and call it a parenting career.
The Valentine’s thing, I sort of get. I did it when I was a kid — decorate the bag, address the cards, shove the red plastic-y looking lollipop in there. And I’m also grateful for the initiative my daughter took in creating her own craft-paper Valentine’s. Once we had finally hoovered up the drifts of clippings from that project, it was on to the winter poem memorization mobile project. Think snowmen with hearts. Okay. Done. Read the rest of this entry »
The Homework Ate My Dog: or The Frog Prince
By Daddy Clay Monday, October 5th, 2009
Exhausted, caked in mud, eyes straining in the moonlight, I lurched through the Austin night. A rough day at ACL? Nope. Just helping with homework.
Since Bubba started at his new school, our evenings have turned into an episode of CSI. My wife and I are forensic investigators trying to piece together fragmentary evidence and interview reluctant witnesses in an attempt to get an answer to one simple question: Have you done your homework?
Most afternoons at about four thirty, one of us asks the dread homework question which sends our Person of Interest into a coma of eye rolling and flopping onto his bed. I then don those special goggles, get out the ultraviolet light and begin digging around in Bubba’s backpack. Little of use turns up — his assignment book has been crushed, wrinkled, spindled and partially burned.
Direct interrogation is also of little use. Bubba responds to the Bad Cop (my wife) with answers that would do an AIG exec proud. To the Good Cop he alternates “I did that in study hall” with “We didn’t have any” until I relent. On the night in question I ask: “Do you have any Science, at least?” “Nope,” he answers on his way out the door to soccer practice.
My wife and I are doing our best to find the right balance of homework help with our 6th grader. Obviously, the objective is for him to be able to manage his homework on his own. Unfortunately for Bubba, my wife and I have lots of experience (25+ years actually) in what his new school expects of students. We insist that he walk through all his nightly assignments with us. My wife is generally called in to help him through his math on a problem by problem basis.
The tension this involvement generates, combined with the hard work involved in getting the homework completed nightly, leaves us all crabby and exhausted by eight. After putting the younger kids to bed, I seek out Bubba for a little reading or TV watching. Just a few minutes without an agenda to reconnect after our evening of CSI.
Last Monday night, aha a Cowboy game! Totally beat, the two of us flop in the sofa for some restorative bonding and couch potato time before bed.
Before we’ve even settled in, Bubba points to the window above the TV and shouts, “I need that!” I follow his gesture to the window. “It’s my Science homework! I have to have it by tomorrow!” He is pointing at a gecko skittering across the window in pursuit of a moth.
So I find myself out in a drizzling rain carrying a bucket and a dishtowel, prowling around the house swearing under my breath. I’m a deranged, suburban Steve Irwin. My plan is to creep under the window and sweep unsuspecting amphibian into the bucket with the towel. What actually happens is: I lunge at the window, step in gooey mud, pull my groin, howl in pain, fling the bucket and say bad words.
I burst through the door wild-eyed and covered in mud. Bubba turns on his heel and runs, in tears, to his bed. I turn back around, collect my bucket, and limp into the night.
As I muck around, pointing a pen-light at every drainage ditch and muddy hole, I’m lacerating myself for my outburst, feeling guilt for putting my son in such a high-pressure school environment, wondering if my wife and I are really on the same page about education, and begging, begging the universe to put some damn creature in the bucket before I catch pneumonia.
As I turn over rocks in a full-blown rainstorm, I realize that I am hoping that a snake will bite me, as it will be easier to catch that way. After about an hour, it becomes clear that every living creature got the message but me — time to go inside. I’m trudging back through our yard when I almost step on the toad.
I’ve pulled Bubba out of bed, and he’s as excited as I am. The toad, less so. He jumps out onto the kitchen table (don’t tell my wife), and there is a scary moment before we get him back into his temporary home. By the time, I get Bubba tucked back in, I’m too tired to know if anything I have ever done is right, but I know this: If, as a teenager, he ever questions my love for him, I’m just going to say “Tell it to the Toad.”
Daddy Clays Report Card Unmet Potential
By Daddy Clay Monday, January 14th, 2008
Last week I read Bubba’s report card, and it said to me, “You’re working too much.” The grades were down, not sharply, but noticeably. In her comments, his teacher tried to allay our fears, but no use, my wife and I spiraled immediately down into the dank, vermin-infested dungeon of working-parent guilt.
For years, the pattern was, I work 8-3ish, come home, do homework with kid or kids, dinner, bath, bedtime, second shift from 9pm – ?. But I have found that since turning 40, it just gets harder and harder to belly up to the keyboard and punch the clock for the late-night session. So in compensation, my clockout time at DadLabs has been creeping back. Net loss of tutoring time with kiddo. Hence grades.
Add to that, the pressure of friends and the call of outdoors, and the need to provide an actual childhood. Ideologically, I believe that kids are over-scheduled, that they need time to just play and be kids. When a friend comes to the door, my immediate impulse is to send the kid out. But looking at the report card, one of my first thoughts; “Wow, the admissions committee (at the private school where my wife works) is going to look at these grades next year.”
I’m thinking about ADMISSIONS! I’m becoming one of THOSE?! Time to pull the kid out of class so we can go sniff glue together all day.
I know that most of you couples have two careers (78% according the latest study I’ve seen). I know that my neighborhood with its guilt-magnifying, study-defying, over-abundance of stay-at-homes is not representative. But I am at a loss and submerged in guilt.
When do your kids have their homework time? Do you feel they need adult supervision (Bubba is 4th grade, maybe I need to let him shoulder more of the responsibility here)? Does two-working parents necessitate some kind of after-school, after-care study time? How to you deal with the guilt of having the kid in school from 8-5?
Maybe I’m just late to the juggle – my apologies if you are having a “duh” moment at my expense, but do please share your experience.
I’ll check comments tonight after the kids go to bed, ’cause I’m outta here.
