Once again, I have decided to take a break from FB and Twitter during the season of Lent. I’m surprised at how many of my friends are shocked that I would agree to such a sacrifice. Honestly, giving up FB and Twitter is quite the opposite of sacrifice.
Lent falls during a time in the year where baseball and training, time change and the return of dark mornings leaves me feeling worse for wear. And, let’s face it, I never seem to have enough time to do the things I need to do anyway. So giving up FB and Twitter is honestly more of a gift of time than a sacrifice.
During mass this week, I knelt down and prayed for different kind of prayer. I asked for wisdom, confidence, and curiosity…patience, persistence, and a clearer perspective…and all of the other things I need to fill the role of raising YaYa to be happy, healthy, confident, and successful.
Regretfully, I’m finding my ability to help him with his schooling to be deficient. Honestly, this is not just me being critical of my intellect; YaYa is now studying concepts which I either don’t remember or never learned. Instead of me educating him, he ends up explaining his homework to me. In the end, I can only assess how well he actually knows it by how well he is able to explain it. Not exactly helpful.
Still, I remain skilled at my ability to obsess over the online grade book – finding assignments noted as “not turned in” which I know should have scores beside them. And we hunt high and low until we are able to produce the often-crumpled piece of paper documenting the earned points. I question trends in test scores and use the gained knowledge to develop a new hypothesis. Medication doses increase, eye glasses are procured, and baseball practice is temporarily halted.
If he wasn’t actually trying, I’d have an easy solution. YaYa however has been putting forth far more time and energy than BoBo and DD ever did. Most assuredly, the difference lies primarily in the school systems (public vs. private). Be that as it may, I put YaYa here, therefore I must find a way to better support him.
Consciously, I take measure of the amount of time I am dwelling on schooling. It wasn’t long ago that I sat in the school gym watching Road to Nowhere, the documentary about the high pressures on kids today. Considering this, I have been guilty of falling back into the push-push-push mode. My grilling on the status of the homework begins soon after pick up — often as the key is turned in the car.
In spite of instincts telling me that I should make him finish the novel he’s reading, get ahead on homework for the week, or organize his backpack, we wind down the night by pulling out the Scrabble board and starting a new game. There’s no TV, no Twitter, no FB. Just YaYa and me and the dictionary.
Matthew is the same way. I can help him study, but only if he gives me the questions and the answers. We actually moved him from one private school to another, and as it turns out, the former school was just not up to par. Matthew has been pining to go back next year, and I, quite frankly, left the decision to him. Well, that school just went into foreclosure, and I have said more than few prayers in thanks :-)
1 1/2 more years until I start peaking at online grade books… sounds stressful, still, Noah and I play tons of scrabble.