His Homework, My Homework

As you may know this year we have one son in high school, one in middle and one in elementary. That equates to a lot of teachers, tests, projects, report cards, and homework. We have always tried to be the kind of parents who, when learning of a bad grade or poor assignment, or a conduct consequence, do not blame the teacher, but instead ask our child how he can be more prepared, etc.

But with my elementary school Son in 4^th grade, I think Mama is getting a little tired.

Back in Kindergarten he had a teacher who sent home a packet of homework pages on Friday, to be returned on Monday. That was completely off-kilter because for years he saw his brothers have homework on weeknights and he longed for his own. We saw this as perhaps easiest for the teacher, but it sure didn’t work for us when Sunday nights rolled around and that untouched packet was remembered at 8:00 p.m.

Then I wrote previously about how last year a teacher pointed him to a section in the media center of certain books he should pick out because they were “Accelerated Reader”. He has heard plenty in our house about how the boys just need to read and I don’t care if Oldest is just reading Sports Illustrated magazine and the newspaper (ok, ok, I care a little about his lack of books but I’m picking my battles here).

Well. This year he is to keep a reading log, which is checked on Mondays. There is a chart that is kept in his binder on which he writes the date in the first column, the name of the book in the next column, the number of minutes read, and…..the last column is for a parent’s initials. He is to read at least 100 minutes a week.

Elementary School Son has to go into his Dad’s classroom (he teaches another grade down the hall) every day after school and wait till 5:00 or so, and uses that time to read, do homework, or work on computer. Plus, we read together just about every night.

This past Sunday night he pulled out his reading log, as is the usual routine, and he fills in the dates of the prior week and the name of the book(s) he has been reading, and the minutes on a few lines, and he asked me as usual (the kid is a hound for me signing things he needs signed) to put my initials in the last column. I told him I’d initial it, and then we were off on the bedtime routine. But I realized the next day that I never did enter my initials.

On Monday after dinner I asked him what happened since I realized earlier that day that I didn’t initial those entries. He told me he had to stay in for recess.

“Son, give me your Reading Log Sheet”, I asked him.

He did, and I proceeded to fill in my initials on EVERY SINGLE BLANK LINE LEFT ON THAT PAGE.

Sometimes tired Mamas who know their kids read have to consolidate their paperwork.