Stormy
We’re having quite a thunder storm tonight, complete with blinking lights and crying children. Whoo-hoo! Who knows if I’ll have internet by the time I finish writing this. Maybe I’ll have to post in the morning. We shall see.
What a horrible, rotten, no good day. Basically describes my life right now. Of course there are good things. Very good things. I have a husband who loves me, beautiful children, a house with a non-leaking roof, food in the cupboards.
But good lord, when will Erik get adjusted to kindy? I walk on egg shells every morning, hoping to keep things calm and happy. He doesn’t want to go, no matter what. He doesn’t want to get dressed. He doesn’t want to eat. He just wants to sit and cry or scream. I don’t know which is worse. The crying, because it hurts my heart or the screaming because it enrages me.
Then he’s a mess when he gets home. He’s already wet his pants at school twice. He says he has no friends. What happened to Mr. Social? Mr. Friendly? What the hell is going on?
Of course, the first thing I do is try to get some food in his belly. That always improves his mood if he’ll eat. Half the time he just starts wailing inconsolably. I alternate between compassion and anger and guilt. If I was a better mother I might be able to calm him down before I want to pinch his head off.
Heaven forbid we have to go out and do any errands after school. I try to do the errands before he gets home, but that’s not always possible when his sister decides to take a four hour nap.
I would say I’m about ready to homeschool, but I know there’s no way I could handle being his teacher all day long. He doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t answer my questions. When I try to get him to talk I can count on one of three responses: 1) He just repeats everything I say. 2) He says “on your head.” Or 3) He says “taco banana taco.”
Imagine trying to have a conversation when those are the only three things your conversation partner will say to you.
I’m about ready to stick a banana up his nose.
I knew the first week would be tough, but I thought it would get better. Are all new kindergartners having this much trouble, or is it just him? It breaks my heart to see him so unhappy, but it also drives me into a rage when he comes home and won’t cooperate and I just want him to listen and do what I ask for once in his life and he won’t. I eventually come completely unhinged. Having a toddler in the picture doesn’t help. She’s a good baby, but sometimes she can be clingy, as toddlers are. Sometimes she bites, hits, throws things, pulls hair. Sometimes she just wants her brother’s attention (you should see her joy spasms when the bus pulls up) and he refuses to give it to her. How do people with three or four or five or ten children function? We have a lady at karate with 9 kids and she always seems so calm and in control.
I feel like I am going completely insane. I’m ready to walk out of here and straight into a mental institution.
It has to get better, right? RIGHT????
Next topic:
I’ve clarified my thinking on the homework issue.
1) I am going to write a letter to the teacher to let her know my thoughts/plan. I will tell her to let me know if Erik is having trouble with a concept or needs to practice a certain skill. I will let her know that busy work will not rule our home life.
2) If Erik needs help with a concept or needs additional practice with a certain skill, I will make sure we complete the homework.
3) I am not going to let busy work create even more drama in our lives. The school has him 6 hours a day. They don’t need to send any more busy work home.
4) I will give him help if he wants/needs it and encourage him to do his homework.
5) If he is resistant and it is busy work, I will set the timer for ten minutes. He will only be allowed to sit and do homework during that time, unless he finishes it (correctly) before the timer goes off. When the timer goes off, we’re both done.
6) If there are consequences at school for not doing homework Erik will have to face those consequences. I am not going to be the busy work enforcer and I will let his teacher know that.
Tonight’s homework was to write his name in “kindergarten style” five times. He was happy to do it and it was a skill he needed to work on. I’m glad we didn’t have to have a battle tonight and I didn’t need to test my resolve. Not getting stressed out over homework sounds really good in theory. I don’t know if I am going to be able to be so nonchalant about it when it comes down to the real deal and he won’t do whatever it is he is supposed to do. I was a straight A student who never questioned authority. I am sorting out my thoughts about homework now to try to avoid a complete meltdown (on my part) later.
I feel really bad about all the homework I gave out when I was a teacher. I should have thought more clearly about my objectives and only gave out homework that really mattered. I had no clue how stressful kids’ lives could be. Homework was never a problem for me, so it didn’t occur to me that people actually had a good reason to hate it. Even when I was working, I was always able to get my homework done. It helped that one of my co-workers was a math major at the local university. Math was my demon.
New topic:
How about I leave you with a lovely little tidbit that will have you laughing all night. My sister wants to go on a mission trip to Fiji. She’s apparently found God and God is telling her that he needs her in Fiji. He’s also telling her that I’m supposed to fund this trip. Does God not know I’m an atheist?
And no, she doesn’t know why God needs her in Fiji or what she would be doing there. She’ll just let God tell her that when she gets there.
Also, I’m supposed to buy her a complete set of cloth diapers for her new baby.
Go ahead and looked confused. Our expressions will match.
She’s not pregnant, but she is preparing for her next baby. If there really is a God, there is no way she’ll become pregnant again. I’m an atheist, though, so I know biology is the important thing here.
If there really was a God she wouldn’t have any children at all since she can’t take care of them.
But can you imagine telling someone they are going to buy you a complete cloth diaper stash? Even if you were pregnant?
Honestly, if she does get pregnant and has a girl and Elsa is potty trained I’d be willing to give her my stash. I hate selling my diapers and would be happy to see someone use them. I’d really prefer to give them to an LJ friend, though. One that I know would treat them correctly* and really use them. Not sure if the friend will find out the sex of her baby or if Elsa will be potty trained in time to pass them on, though. I do have several gender neutral diapers that would be useful. Let’s all cross our fingers that potty training will happen sooner rather than later.
*I can’t imagine my sister would have the patience to wash them correctly or buy the right kind of detergent. Often time she doesn’t even wash her own clothes. They constantly buy new socks and underwear because she doesn’t want to do laundry, so she’s going to wash cloth diapers?
jeanette1ca said,
September 15, 2011 @ 12:15 am
Oh, I really think you should tell her that part about “if there was a god, she wouldn’t have any children”…I love it!
I’m sure the people of Fiji will be forever grateful that you don’t feel obliged to cough up the money to send her there!
MommyProf said,
September 15, 2011 @ 6:42 am
I think it’s normal for kinder to be an adjustment, and a week is a pretty short time. But if you are concerned that he’s having more trouble than most, you could go talk to the teacher about it. If she/he’s experienced, she/he will have some perspective and ideas for you.
I, too, hated when the school sent me homework, which is what some of those artsy “family projects” felt like sometimes, but I think in some cases the goals were things like helping the child to appreciate that what goes on at school is of interest/importance to the whole family.
Feel free to ignore unsolicited advice, but I’d be cautious about making an enemy of the teacher. In our experience, the teachers we had, especially in elementary, were pretty defensive (I think because they get a lot of criticism?). In first grade, it was obvious that there was a problem with Offspring’s needs not being met as a GT identified child. We requested a conference with the teacher, who escalated it all the way to the assistant superintendent, and it really made Offpsring’s year more difficult than it already was because her teacher, from that point forward, treated her with what I can best describe as contempt (I had a chance to hear this a couple of times when I took her in late because of medical appointments). An approach of “this is an issue for our family. How can you and I work together to solve this problem” might work.
A little more ignorable advice: When Offspring had difficulties at that age, taking care of physical needs was huge. Six hours a day of toeing the line and learning new stuff is really tiring for a little person, so maybe an earlier bedtime might help? And being really confident about things even when you aren’t can help, too. If our kids think we’re not confident about what we’re doing or whom we are leaving them with, it makes their acceptance of that tougher.
Tracy said,
September 15, 2011 @ 3:19 pm
I absolutely second EVERYTHING MommyProf said and I’m going to add this: when is Erik’s birthday? If he is an “early five”, meaning that he turned five within 6 months of beginning kindergarten, it could be that his is not yet at the right maturity level to be in kindergarten just yet. As MommyProf said, have the conversation with the teacher about the challenges you are having at home, see what she says, try to implement her suggestions at home and really give it a good month to see what happens. If, after that month, he is still a stressed out little kid, you might want to consider pulling him out of kindergarten and letting him try again next year. Also, at the risk of this turning into the world’s longest blog comment, is it possible that he is over-scheduled at all? Most moms I know consider only the structured stuff, like sports to be scheduled time, but I’d consider my entire life: does he go from school to the grocery store, to T-ball, to visiting friends, to homework, to outside, to bath, to bed? That kind of thing? It might be a bit too much for him and you might want to see if you can cut anything out of his daily life and see if THAT works. I’ll shut up now and let you have your blog back!! Can you tell I miss blogging???
bethany actually said,
September 15, 2011 @ 3:28 pm
* “Doesn’t God know I’m an atheist?” made me laugh out loud. I’d say that yes, He probably does! 😉
* I think your homework approach sounds perfectly reasonable.
* I remember when my cousin’s second daughter (she has SIX kids and she’s always fairly calm too–I have NO idea how she does it except that her first five were really “good” babies, i.e., awesome sleepers and not wanting to be held constantly) started kindergarten. She did okay in school, but every day she sort of melted down and took off every stitch of her clothing in the car as they drove home. That lasted about the first three months of school. And then when they got home, Elly would take a 2-3 hour nap (she was only in half-day). Basically what I’m saying is, MommyProf is right. Kindergarten is a BIG adjustment for most kids and it might take considerably longer than a week. Taking care of Erik’s physical needs (sleep, food) will help, but mostly it will probably just take time. I’m sorry, I know that’s not the magic fix you were hoping for. 🙂 Talking to his teacher about it might help, too. You might find out that he’s doing better AT school than you realize, and it’s only at home that he’s letting his inner demons run free.
* If you are looking to get rid of some diapers, pick me, pick meeeee! I’m going to need some bigger diapers soon because Elliora is about to outgrow a lot of her small BG’s. Can I shop your stash on the 29th and maybe buy a few from you?
Margie said,
September 16, 2011 @ 6:49 pm
Even now, Fae comes home telling me she wants to stay home with me all day. She doesn’t want to go to school, she doesn’t like all the work, etc. Then I talk to the teacher and find out that she’s like a star pupil… outgoing, happy, willing to please and excited to learn. I agree with the commenter (I forgot who said it) that maybe Erik is totally different at school, and puts on the show for you when he comes home? That’s what I am starting to believe Fae does…
kimberly said,
September 19, 2011 @ 2:53 pm
I’m behind and haven’t read the newer posts, so maybe this is all taken care of, but once again I swear Erik is half like me when I was a kid (according to my mom’s stories anyway). Apparently it took me awhile of being stubborn and then one day I was just like oh okay, school is pretty easy, whatever. I think you are on the right track but it may take a little longer. I totally feel for you.
Your sister and the Fiji story? Priceless. I don’t do god, but I will tell you that I’d love for you to pay for me to go to Fiji, I really really think that you should!