Thank you for your email. I understand your sense of urgency at the moment.
Your son is confused with regards to his handwriting as he does not know how to please you. In Grade 1 you emphasised neatness and now you have told him that neatness is not important and that he will be punished if he does not work quickly. I am not surprised that he is losing interest in his writing and would rather play than do his assignments. Writing has become an activity in which he feels he is not competent because of the pressure and emphasis that has been placed on it. He has reacted as we all would under pressure and that is to become disinterested and disillusioned.
It is absolutely imperative that you stop talking about his handwriting, practicing his handwriting with him, punishing him for trying to please you, doing homework with him, and putting so much pressure on him. In addition, you need to chat to your husband about the fact that he needs to stop pressurising you by threatening to send your child away to a religious school, as the stress you are feeling is only adding to the problem.
As parents you need to work together to turn this around by apologising to your son for putting pressure on him and giving him mixed messages. He needs to hear that you love and accept him for who he is and that you will no longer punish him for not completing his work. He will need to hear a lot of positive words of praise and encouragement with regards to his school assignments to undo all the negative thoughts he has about himself. You will need to be patient and consistent in giving him positive praise before he will begin believing that he is capable of doing well at school and can be successful.
Chat to his teacher about what has been going on at home and you may even want to consider showing the teacher this email. Ask the teacher to help you take the pressure off your child so that he begins to feel good about his school assignments. The teacher could help him by giving him more time to complete his activities, lessening the amount of homework he has to complete, working with him, and giving him lots of praise and encouragement.
In addition, ask the teacher to recommend a kind, loving, patient student teacher or tutor who can help him complete his homework on a daily basis while you and your husband go for a walk. Your son should not be spending more than 10 minutes a day during the week doing homework and this should be devoted to reading, counting, and learning words. He has a long day at school and needs free time to play and just be when he gets home or he may soon start showing signs of stress and anxiety.
As I've said in previous emails homework is not important and especially in grade 1 and if it is creating undue stress for the child then it needs to be re-evaluated. If you and your husband find it difficult to turn this situation around please do not hesitate to contact me on 083 457 3667 for a consultation and I can help walk you through the process as well as liaise with the teacher if necessary.
Good luck and let me know how you all are doing.
I thank you, and really really appreciate your analysis, I have spoken to the teacher on several occasions and she always stresses how important school work is, therefore I emphasize it. He doesn’t get homework during the week- just on Friday and he has to complete it over the weekend and doesn’t have time to have fun and run around because he takes forever to complete his homework. For example: 20 lines for him takes him 6 hours and if I’m there helping him calingl it out as he writes it takes him 11/2 hours, whereas other kids only take 30mins.
My husband and I have stopped demanding and praise him, but seriously need him to work faster. Their homework is very very important as the school has stressed.
I have taken your advice and scheduled an appointment with the principal and teacher and hopefully they will be able to help my son and me.
If you can give me any other advice I would really appreciate it. I don't think the teachers have time to give him extra help and they don't have student teachers. That’s the reason everythign comes back to us parents. It our job to make sure they write, read and learn and I'm there 200%.
Thank you for your email. I am glad to hear you are meeting with the school
It is unusual for a school to give such a young child homework on the weekend.
To help your son build both his confidence and speed with regards to homework you may want to request that he be given a reduced amount of homework to do so that he feels he is succeeding. Up to this point he has felt like a failure in trying to please you with regards to writing.
It is absolutely imperative he has time to play and run around so he can be a healthy well balanced child. Homework is not that important that it should dominate a child's life. You will have to hire a student teacher/ tutor independently to help him on Saturday mornings if the school is unable to provide you with the names of someone. You may also wish to consider asking an occupational therapist to help your son with homework. I would highly recommend though that neither you or your husband be involved in supervising your son's homework.
It is the teacher's duty as a professional to help your son and if the school is not willing or unable to help your son then you may need to consider an alternative school. It is your job as a parent to support and collaborate with your son in his school assignments, but it is not your job to do what the teacher has spent years studying to do. If your son continues living under this amount of pressure he will begin to display signs of anxiety and stress and may begin acting out in various ways.
Please let me know how your meeting with the school went.