“Calmness, only calmness!”
“Calmness, only calmness!”
An English language tutor was surprised to learn that the mother of one of her students was also an English teacher.
When asked why she does not teach her son herself, the tutor received the answer, “I do not have the patience to work with him, I lose my temper and start yelling when he does not understand something and makes mistakes. It is much easier for me to pay a tutor so that my son can improve his studies.”
How is this familiar? If even a teacher who works quite calmly with other people’s children cannot cope with teaching her own child without emotional breakdowns, what can we say about ordinary average mothers? Without claiming to be pioneers, we propose to discuss ways in which we can save our nerves: both ours and those of our schoolchildren, when doing the notorious homework.
Let him do it himself
By the way, some parents practice quite successfully this approach: they assign homework to the child, letting him do it himself. Yes, already from the first grade. And only if something is unclear to him, will his mother come and help. This is to help, to explain and not to do everything yourself for your student, because this can become a bad example for him. Moreover, it is advisable to wait for the request, and not exit at the same moment that the child freezes over the exercise book a little longer than usual. Perhaps this method should be adopted as one of the most adequate.
However, there is a nuance here: the child may think that he is doing everything correctly and make mistakes. The solution could be this: we carry out final control, that is, when the child has finished the exercises or examples, we come up and check. If there is an error, we explain where the inaccuracy is and give him the opportunity to redo the task. It is important for a child to feel the moral support and trust of his mother; besides, school, from the very first grade, is a training in independence. The student must understand that lessons are his individual responsibility. This increases his self-esteem, because it makes him feel: he is already growing up and is not at all an inept kid.
What if he does not understand?
In this case, the mother should find out exactly what her child cannot understand. Perhaps the child is just tired and needs a break? By the way, a break can be replaced by switching to another subject or a physical education session. If he did not understand the topic at school, we explain it using fantasy and real images. Example: a second-grader was sick when her maths class was doing division, and she could not understand the topic. Mother, seeing her difficulties, asked her daughter to divide twelve colored pencils equally between the girl and her parents. “How many pencils did each of us get?” Mother asked. “Four pencils!” – the daughter quickly counted. “Right. You just divided twelve (pencils) by three (between you, me and Father) and you got four (pencils each).” This experiment was repeated again and the girl understood what division was! She did her homework without any difficulty. How did this mother stay calm while explaining the topic to her child? Firstly, she understood that her daughter’s intelligence was quite consistent with her age and it was pointless to expect adult performance from her. Secondly, the mother remembered herself at this age and determined how it would be easiest for such a child to assimilate information. Thirdly, between her and her daughter there is a warm, trusting relationship based on love and mutual understanding.
What if he does not want to?
Now this is a more serious question. The child may simply not want to do his homework: he wastes time, pretends to be a klutz and is distracted in every possible way. The reason for this behavior should be found out, which are not just distractions like computer games or walks with friends. Does he dislike homework in general or has a dislike for a particular subject? In the second case, there may also be more than one reason. However, the key to a successful way out of this situation is to determine and formulate in advance, together with the student, the meaning of doing homework. It should be conveyed to him that homework needs to be done not just because his mother or teacher ordered it, but because it has direct benefits for the student. If such understanding comes, the child will voluntarily and consciously agree to do homework. After this, you can deal with auxiliary conditions: determine the schedule, the order of subjects and tasks, etc.
What about us?
It seems like we are doing everything right, but we still cannot help but get annoyed at our seemingly slow-witted or stubborn child. This is quite understandable: fatigue at work and life’s problems simply makes themselves felt. In this case, it makes sense to resort to traditional means of pacifying oneself: a decoction of motherwort and valerian, calming affirmations, a shower or a bath with aromatic foam, and shopping, the strongest way to raise tone and mood for women, is not canceled out. There is no need to buy something expensive, just a chocolate bar or something similar. However, the main means to acieve calm, joy and peace is love and mutual understanding in the family between all generations.
