Fun with Homework

Day 2 of school and it seems the routine doesn’t work...for me.

My wife worked tonight so I was on my own to pick the kids up, get them home, feed them, and get them through their homework.

My daughter didn’t have any homework, so after dinner she went to her room to work on her song. Careful inspection of my son’s school bag revealed that he did have some work to do, so we sat at the kitchen table and got started.

Our task tonight was to complete two pages of exercises that focused on writing the letters “S” and “A” and using them to write some simple words. How hard could this be?

My son hadn’t been seated for two seconds before he complained that his pencil wasn’t sharp enough. Perhaps it wasn’t, but I’ve written with duller pencils and this seemed to have “excuse” written all over it. Rather than fight him on the issue, I tried to find a pencil sharpener, but none could be found.

I wasn’t ready to admit defeat just two minutes into “Operation Homework”, so I decided I could sharpen a pencil using a large kitchen knife. While this is certainly possible, no kid ever gets over the strange look of a pencil “whittled” by his father in this fashion and the confusion alone was paralysing to my son.

Somehow I found a sharp pencil and we were free to try our hand at writing small S x 15. There seemed to be no regard for spacing or keeping the letter between the top and bottom lines provided on the page and any attempts at coaching on my part were met with, “Daddy, this is hard!” Endless starting and stopping and complaining made for a tedious session and we weren’t nearly finished.

I remember going through this with my daughter when she was first learning to write, then again when she was learning to read, each time resembling the character on Sesame Street who smashes his face on the piano keyboard saying “I’ll never get it, never, never, never!”

After an exhausting 20 minutes, we were ready to copy “Sammy”, “Snake”, and “See.” Each letter beyond “S” required a negotiation to complete and I had lost my patience. I chose to ignore the gigantic “M’s” that used up most of the available space and hoped we had time to get to the second letter.

At that moment, my daughter came downstairs to tell us that my son should turn on the TV because there was a really cool show on about reptiles. I did my best to tell my son that reptiles had nothing on the letter “A” - that “Amanda”, “Ant” and “Apple” were what the cool kids were doing right now, but knew I didn’t stand a chance.

It was nearly time for bed anyway and we had used up all of our time.

Putting him to bed was no easier. Instead of putting on his PJs and brushing his teeth like I asked, he came down the stairs and asked, “Do you think there’s something wrong with this frog, Daddy?” (Answer: there’s a giant marble that you’ve stuffed into his mouth)

And just when I think he might finally be settling into bed? I can hear him in his room.

He’s singing “Moves Like Jagger.”