Oh, September how I miss thee. Kids running off to school in clean clothes all ready for a new year of learning. Bright smiles on the faces and great hopes for an amazing school year. Homework being done when it is sent home. Parents all happy thinking things are going great at school. Then comes the first report card.
My 8-year-old is not doing so great at school. Borderline failing. Mommy and Daddy are not happy and we schedule a meeting with the teacher. We find out that not only is our smart and bright boy not completing assignments in class but he isn’t bringing home his homework either. So begins the great homework fight.
We come home from our teacher meeting with a plan in place. Soon as he gets home from school his homework must be completed. Once it is completed he can have his evenings to do as he pleases. We don’t ask much of our children but education is a priority. Over the weeks, we see him completing his homework without any reminders. Bringing it home every day and we start to relax on our hovering over him.
After Christmas break, he started telling us he didn’t have homework except reading and a math program he enjoys. We believed him. His agenda said the same thing. His agenda also had french written in it. Well fail on the parents part, we don’t understand french. He would tell us he doesn’t know what it means so we would say ok well guess you can do it in french tomorrow since no one know what it means. After all, he is the one he loses recess, not us.
Well, last week we get a phone call from his french teacher. Ends up every week he is sent home with a duo tang with a french reading assignment and writing assignment that he has the entire week to complete at home. Oh and that duo tang comes with English instructions for us parents who don’t understand a single thing in french. Duotang? Funny I haven’t seen it since SEPTEMBER!
On top of all that we find out he has not brought home any tests for us to sign in months AND he has failed his last 3 tests cause he isn’t studying. We also find out though we are making him do his English homework he is not trying there either and failing those tests. Now we have to go in and meet all of his teachers for a battle plan.
This all started the second semester last year in Grade 2. If he doesn’t like or understand something he won’t do it and have a melt down and refuse to do the work. I don’t know what to do. We have tried groundings. We have tried extra homework created by us. We have tried studying with him. Everything we have tried just causes a melt down for everyone involved.
So HELP! If you are reading this and have experienced this please leave us some tips, advice, anything you got. This fighting over homework and meltdowns all around are not going to help my child succeed in school. I publicly admit defeat and ask for advice.
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