The straw the broke the camel's back

hipperq

New Member
Went to the psychiatrist today with daughter 1 and daughter 2 (and for me as well). Both girls brought their homework. We were the only people in the waiting room. daughter 2 was mad and glaring at me when we walked in. She crumpled up her handwriting worksheet and threw it on the ground. She stomped into the second waiting room, then came right back. Told me she was leaving. Went out the door and sat in the main hall.

We got called in. daughter 1 was mature and confident and doing great. daughter 2 hid behind the couch, but stuck her feet up in the air so you could see them over the back of it. Psychiatrist kept threatening to give her a shot in the butt if she couldn't get it together. She did eventually pop over the back of the couch and say a few sentences, then I had to drag her from the room.

Got home, gave everyone a 20 minute break before dealing with homework. daughter 3 is in kindergarten. She had three pages of homework, including drawing a picture of me and her. She started to write her name in yellow crayon, then realized she has to use pencil for that. Hysterics. Crumpled up her homework and threw it on the floor (and she'd not even been present when her big sister did that earlier).

Meanwhile daughter 2 is falling asleep over her homework. She's on Intuniv and we have yet to find an appropriate time to give it to her. So I send her off to take a nap. She comes back, gets the handwriting sheet, takes it to bed with her and finishes it. Does not nap.

daughter 1 and Son did their homework on their own.

husband (who works nights) decides to head to bed. I make dinner. daughter 1 is the only one willing to eat with me. Eventually daughter 2 decides she'll eat a little as well.

daughter 1 gets herself some ice water from the fridge, wanders off.

daughter 3 is still crying about her homework. She draws a pair of legs and daughter 2 tells her they are too long.

daughter 1 comes back saying "somehow" a chocolate bar ended up in her ice water, just like yesterday. She decides some supernatural force has put it there. She's making a big, huge, dramatic, rather manic production about the whole thing. daughter 2 is trying to convince her it must have fallen into the ice maker from the door shelf.

At this point I just lost it. Grabbed the ice maker tray, dumped the entire thing on the floor (checking for stray chocolate bars). Took the chocolate from her. Told the whole lot of them to get the heck out of the kitchen. calmed down, cleaned up ice, cleaned out freezer (did not find any more chocolate).

Now daughter 1 and son are done with homework and watching TV/YouTube in two different rooms. daughter 2 still has two half pages (about 40 problems) of math (this is third grade) to do. daughter 3 still has to draw us and then we have to sit down together so I can write down what she tells me about how we are the same and different (guaranteed one of those differences will be about how I am fat and she is not, joy). We are also supposed to practice her alphabet "the kindergarten way". Husband is still sleeping.

And i still have 4 kids (and myself) to medicate, 2 to shampoo, 2 to oversee tooth brushing, 2 set of clothes to lay out for tomorrow (it's silly sock day, daughter 2 Hates unusual socks), 3 to put to bed (daughter 3 napped and so will be going to bed late, sleeping beside my bed, because she's afraid of her room). daughter 2 will likely be sleeping on the living room couch, falling asleep to a DVD of Mythbusters, as nothing else seems to work. daughter 1 fell asleep on the floor there last night, as she didn't feel like going up to her room (we made her move, evil parents that we are). Oh, and daughter 2 needs air-dry clay or model magic and something to color it gold, ideally by tomorrow (I heard about this two hours ago).

Thank God we're going away Friday, to the easy, low-key horse farm my aunt owns in MD. We even have Grandpa coming to help with the kids then.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
You have WAY too much on your plate. Time to get an IEP meeting and declare no homework period. If the kids cannot do it in the 6-7 hrs they are in school, it doesn't need to be done. Let school know that you will NOT fight homework battles because time at home is for doctor appts, therapy appts, the everyday business like baths and dinners, and family time. School is taking enough of their days and the kids have enough other pressure.

Yes, you CAN do this and be a responsible parent. You are already doing appointments, accommodations and everything else and essentially doing it as a single parent if your husband works nights. He has to sleep and cannot be tehre for this. If you continue to push this, YOU are going to be the one with the breakdown and the trip to he psychiatric hospital. been there done that. The tshirt was UGLY and NOT worth the cost. School is NOT the only thing kids have to do. It sounds like your kids have a LOT of homework and chances are it is NOT worth the hassle. Read to them, find other ways to incorporate learning in their lives, but let the teacher do the schoolwork. YES, they CAN put 'no homework' into the IEP for your kids. Even if they say they cannot.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
by the way: I think that other than 15-20 min of reading every night, homework in kindergarten is RIDICULOUS AND STUPID. Kids at that age learn more from playing than from paperwork. They just do.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
One school division we were around had a rule of thumb on homework that I thought was reasonable: 10 minutes per week per grade. So, a 1st grader can get 10 minutes of homework this week... a HS senior would get a couple of hours. PER WEEK. Not per day.

The reason I bring this up is... if you can't get Susie's "no homework", then offer this as an alternative approach... It's still "homework" - but not enough to choke a horse.
 

hipperq

New Member
Susie - love the ugly shirt comment.

Unfortunately we are currently at the stage of no IEP for the 3rd grader, waiting to reevaluate next month. And the kindergartener has no official diagnosis, so not much of a leg to stand on there. Plus the kindergarten teacher is one we've had before, who's all about structure and rules and not flexible in the least. I can certainly say, "if you don't get it done, no big deal", which is what we did with my 8th grader, but now we're having an awful time getting her to take her homework assignments seriously! argh.

Kindergarten homework is on Tuesday and Thursday. We already do homework on Fridays, as the older two have weekend homework. Maybe I'll just split it in half and have her turn half in a day late. It's not like her kindergarten grades matter.

3rd grade homework should settle down once we get the Intuniv timing worked out. She's ok when it's on board. At this point we're hoping to move it to 2 PM, which would be great as it will be strong at homework time, making her tired at bedtime, and best of all, administered by the nurse 5 days a week. yay!
 

buddy

New Member
Oh my word .....that is exhausting to read! Daddy may need to plan his sleep a little better so he can be more in sync with the family schedule. I realize thats hard but many of us have to split up our sleep for years to be there for our kids. Is that possible?
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I'm thinking that Dad needs to stay awake just one more hour at dinnertime. Would that work?

I would work on an IEP or 504 to say that the kids stay after school to do their homework. Last yr, we put difficult child on detention pretty much all year, not that he was in trouble, but that he had to stay after and he actually finished 80% of his homework that way.

I'm sorry, but I had to chuckle when I read about your throwing the ice maker. It is so much like what I would do!

Funny that chocolate ends up in the ice water ... hmm. I would have grabbed it and eaten it by myself, locked in the bathroom.

Anyway, I hear you. I hope you got some sleep last night! Many hugs.
 
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