kids

My eldest daughter refused to do her homework a couple days ago. When my wife got too frustrated to rationally deal with it she put her on the phone with me to see what could do. After asking her what the problem was, she burst into tears. Apparantly she was still refusing to do her homework even with threats of not being able to go to friends houses, no Harry Potter reading and no learning English reading. 10 minutes later, after she calmed down, she called me back. I again asked her what the problem was. She told me that the homework was too hard and it really made her angry. We discussed the problem for a little bit and we agreed that she would sit down with her mom who would help her go through them one page at a time. When I got home that evening , she only had 15 pages left. Apparantly, she had not been doing her homework for a very long time. She's almost finished and we all learned our lessons. My daughter learned that it is easier to do 2 pages of homework a day, then 10 pages a night because you didn't do it when you were supposed to. She may have learned that it is ok to ask for help, but I doubt that sunk in yet. That usually doesn't sink in until well after the teenage years are finished (my daughter is 7). We learned that instead of getting frustrated and making threats, it works a lot better to try and find out what the originating problem is and solving that. Of course threats are often still neccessary. I did find it hard to believe that she was willing to accept all the consequences I mentioned before, though it hurt her to think about it, rather then give in and do her homework that had made her angry.

Last night #2 wasn't feeling good and after she threw up at 3:30, I took her into the living room to read her a book. She went and chose "Don't cry big bird," and explained that it was appropriate because she was crying and big bird was crying.