The Homework Conundrum

I've been very me-centric here for a while, so let me just very quickly explain what has been happening with school homework here. The boys, year 1 and 4 (ages 7 and 10) have been complaining more and more about homework. They don't have very much to do but it has become a very big issue in our house, with far more time spent arguing and cajoling than actually working. I've done a little bit of reading (Louise Porter is my go-to on all things child development related. I find her approach makes a kind of visceral sense to me and works for family).

It came to a point where I re-read Louise Porter on homework and decided we had to change something for everyone's sanity. I talked to other parents and realised that I have too much going on in my life to take this up with the department of education or the school, but I could address it individually for my kids with the teachers. I don't like singling my kids out - part of the reason they go to school is to learn to be herd animals - but this was causing significant disharmony, so first I spoke to the kids about what parts of homework they thought were valuable (spelling words and writing - reading doesn't count because it's one of our leisure activities) and talked to them about the idea of 'opting them out' of homework. We agreed it would be a good plan. At this stage they have the option to do any homework they want to do and need to do the big annual projects. They don't get out of spelling tests or any other regular classwork. The other big change is they need to help more around the house. More home work less homework and it is now their responsibility to cook dinner on Monday night. It has started well, and although they require lots of help they are getting the hang of the idea, and that cooking dinner includes planning, shopping and cleaning up, which makes my heart sing.

I spoke to their teachers, who were surprised but supportive and I followed it up with an email. I'm going to include the email here (names etc redacted) in case I can inspire others to have a full and frank discussion about homework in lower primary school and potentially provide a template for them to opt out too, if homework is causing trouble. Significant thanks to my dear friend Tanya for her copy editing genius!

Dear Jxxx and Txxx
Thanks for meeting with me - this is just a follow up to that conversation. Firstly, let me thank you both for working with our kids this year. Axxx and Kxxx have been extremely happy with their classes and they both have great respect for you, their teachers. I feel like you’ve really heard our concerns that at present, homework is detrimental to their learning and causing distress for both boys at home. Both Sxxx and I feel strongly about this, and he’s asked me to make it clear that this email comes from us both.
Accordingly, we’ve discussed homework with the children and the two things they feel are valuable are reading and spelling words. They will also be expected to continue with any tests and work done by the other kids. They will also participate in big projects ('all about me', dioramas etc). As a family, we’ve decided to make any other homework optional and focus on more holistic learning opportunities at home instead. For example, they will need to cook dinner one night per week. My hope is that this can help them with maths (shopping, measuring ingredients), literacy (reading recipes, interpreting recipe information), science (heat/oxidation reactions, physics of liquids etc, biology, ecology), PHPE (nutrition, self-efficacy and fine motor skills improvement).
We want to decrease our family conflict around homework, leave space in all our lives for other pursuits, including letting kids be kids and leaving them outside to play freely as well as relieve you both of one set of homework-marking.
Thanks so much for reading this. I'd very much like this to be the start of a conversation about homework, and I'm more than happy to work with you to ensure there is minimal disruption to your classroom.
Warm regards,

Parenting Angst

Sleeping Asher
Originally uploaded by karmakeda

Ever since Asher was tiny I've always worried about whether we are parenting him 'right' although I have a little difficulty understanding what I mean by right. I just want him to grow up into a kind person who is reasonably sane. It's hard at the moment though. Asher is 3.5 and having tantrums and in other respects being age-appropriate and pressing all my buttons. Luckily I get to see him sleep sometimes and gaze at his face when it's at rest and wonder that we created this whole person who is growing into himself. I wonder if I'm going to get as frustrated with Kiran when he gets a bit older? Probably, and I'll appreciate a reminder me to gaze at his sleeping face and soak up the peacefulness.

Asher milestones

Emailed from Anil's Blackberry
Originally uploaded by karmakeda

Isn't this a cute pictutre? Sanjay's parents usually pick Asher up from Kindy one day a week and they are away at the moment so various other people (well, Anil and my dad) have been helping out with picking Asher up from Kindy. Asher actually seems to be getting on a bit better at Kindy these last two weeks, not many tears in the morning before we leave the house and just a bit of distress when we (usually just Sanjay) drops him off. Anil took Asher to the park today when he picked him up and they spent a bit of time playing with Anil's Blackberry camera - I think he sent me this photo to reassure me that they had fun!

I've been meaning to blog quite a lot recently - I've got a lot to say about Asher and what's going on for him - but I haven't been able to find time when I'm not exhausted. I've also been recovering from the cold that has lasted all winter, and I'm finally feeling a bit more on top of things with my health.

The other reason I'm exhasted is that Asher is really finding his two-year-old self. He's really into asserting himself and testing boundaries and, being Asher, that means he's experimenting quite carefully. At the moment he's trying to work out what the story is with physical aggression generally, and biting in particular so he sets up his experiments. He wants to work out what kinds of biting get a neutral or positive reaction from me (food), what kinds get a mildly negative reaction (toys and other objects) and what makes me really angry (other people). He has been biting objects (toys, doorframes, this morning it was the doona on our bed) and notes that he gets told 'no biting' but nobody moves to stop him. He tries biting me and I say 'NO BITING' very sternly and physically move his head away. The very first time he sank his sharp little puppy-teeth into my leg I brushed him away so quickly it was *almost* a smack, which of course shook me more than it shook him. He even tried biting Audrey on Tuesday afternoon which upset me tremendously. I really hope he works it out quickly (I know I have to stay *really* consistant) and can find some other subject to experiment on. I guess I should be happy that it's such a carefully controlled experiment, even if the fact that he's being calculating upsets me, because my suspicion is that biting-in-anger would be harder to manage.

In better news, his language development has really come on, so have both gross and fine motor skills - he is starting to learn to use scissors, he can roll out pizza dough, he can climb things at the indoor playcentre this week that were impossible last week, he can get the soybeans out of their pods when we have edamame, he puts texta/pen lids on with ease, he opens the door to our apartment, he puts bottle tops on and takes them off, the list goes on and on. He's also starting to be more confident (he shoos away pidgeons rather than bursting into tears) and more assertive with his peers (he has been pushing Audrey out of the way when she tries to get in front of him) which I feel are developments that have been helped by going to Kindy.

There'll be more updates over the next week or so, promise!

Inspiration afternoon

I don't really do anything traditionally crafty at home with Asher yet, but he's been pretty interested in paining and glue-ing and such at playgroup recently, so we decided to have an painting afternoon (or 'art jam' as a particularly hip friend calls such events) over here tomorrow. After buying some Tempera powder paint on Friday I have been busily looking for finger-paint recipes today and came across some really good kids crafty resources that I thought I might share. There are lot's of finger-paint and playdough recipes about (I've used the playdough recipe and it works a treat. Dissolve the salt first so you don't get a grainy texture) and there are lots of different lists of ideas out there, but good ones are not always that easy to find. One of my old favourites is the very lovely Kids Craft Weekly which sends ideas direct to my inbox and is geared toward little kids. the photos on the site are great and the ideas are often really simple and good - I recommend anyone who has little kids around subscribes for ideas. There is another site that I came across whose approach I really like. . It's called 'A Magical Childhood' and so far I've only been looking at the craft ideas (there is a link in the navbar that says 'poetry' which terrifies me so much I can't click on it yet) and as the author says, there are heaps of guides for projects that achieve cute results, but little kids would prefer to focus on the process rather than the result and they get bored easily. Her ideas seem to be geared toward what she calls 'laziness' and what I prefer to think of as letting your kid give his or her creativity free reign. She talks about lying in the bath and letting your kid use watercolour paint on pieces of paper you have taped up around the bathtub. It sounds awkward to me personally, but it sounds like fun for fans of the bathtub. You will see what I mean if you look at any of her craft ideas with the word 'lazy' in the title.

The other web resource I rediscovered was the Raising Children website which reminded me that despite my recent frustration with Asher's tantrums and general toddlerness I'm doing ok at managing it. It also reminded me of the reasons these little people have hissy fits and some of the more positive ways of dealing with the difficult behaviour.

I couldn't have found/rediscovered any of this stuff without Sanjay spending a LOT of time with Asher today (and all weekend actually!). I think it's really good for the whole family for them to spend big chunks of time one-on-one - it improves their relationship, Sanj has more of an idea of how I spend my days and I get a bit of mental space. Thanks Sanjay!

I'll try and blog about tomorrow's Art Jam, perhaps I'll even include pictures!

Playgroup punchup

Well, not really, but a kid at playgroup yesterday really pressed my buttons and I didn't handle it at all well. Asher was playing on a gym mat outside with a little tunnel thing for kids to crawl through. There was a little girl of maybe three sitting in the tunnel and when Asher crawled over she pushed his hand away. I don't really know playgroup etiquette for dealing with these situations so I was really friendly, saying something like 'hey, he's just a baby and he doesn't want to come in there with you, so it's not nice to push him' but she reached further out of the tunnel and pushed his face away. He wasn't at all hurt or even made uncomfortable by this but I was starting to get pissed off with this kids so I said, in a more serious, less friendly tone 'hey, if there is a problem talk to me, don't push him' while very gently taking her hand away from my kid. She of course stared at me and pushed Asher again so I very gently took her hand, moved a little closer to her, looked into her eyes and said in a really slow quiet threatening tone 'don't push him' and at that moment her mother appeared and hassled her about playing with the baby toys and took her away. I felt bad about it because I feel like I handled the situation really badly - I (kinda) disciplined another person's kid, I told her 'don't' rather than give her an alternative and the worst part was that I basically got into a power struggle with a toddler, and I know from bitter experience that those power struggles are pretty much unwinnable. I guess I should have just picked Asher up and taken him to play with something else, but I hadn't had my coffee and I got all mother-bear protective of my kid.

Unfortunately (heh, it gets worse) this all happened just minutes after I had been (mentally) criticising another mother for the way she was disciplining her child (who was also pushing Asher - does my kid wear a 'push me!' sign that I can't see?). She had been telling her just barely two year old to 'stop' (not being specific) and vaguely threatening him with going home. We had been half chatting and she had been bitching to me about the fact her son has started pushing other kids (yep, loud enough for him to hear) while I, sitting atop my very high horse, had been thinking of Moxie's advice and that she should try diversion or gently getting between her kid and my kid if she was upset about it rather than vague whiny threats about going home. Everybody has bad days and when they are tired and harrased and the best way of dealing with toddler stroppiness isn't always obvious so I would like to unreservedly retract my judgemental and narky thoughts.