Today words shot out of my mouth before I could stop them that brought me waaaay back. Way back when my parents and I would fight about homework, and even worse my parents were at my house to hear me say them. I said…. ” Don’t yell at me….I already went to school for YEARS and did my homework….now it’s your turn.” As I said it I turned to my mom and she laughed. See my little man started third grade this year. For some reason third grade was always a big milestone for me because that is where many of my memories begin. It’s when I started to form friendships that would last and it’s when I start to remember some struggles beginning with school. We are only in our 2nd week of the year, and homework hasn’t even been that bad, but transitioning from summer into the school year has been rough.

Honestly, I totally get where he is coming from. He gets off the bus at 4:15 and the last thing he wants to do is start his homework after being in school all day. We all want to decompress a bit. But, if we don’t start right away then we flow into after school activities and dinner and next thing you know it’s late and homework feels rushed. There isn’t enough time in the day and he’s only 8. The hard lesson here for both of us is that it’s just how it’s going to be and we have to figure out how to make it work.

See I don’t do homework with my son. Captain Awesome does. I can’t seem to understand math and it was like that starting in Kindergarten, so we just accept it’s up to dad to do it. The good news is that the kid is good at math so most of the time he can do it on his own. Only this year he is rushing, and this year he is getting it wrong. That’s where the fights begin. That’s when I start spewing words out of my mouth that my parents said to me like “you don’t get a prize for finishing first”. I do my best not to add to his anxiety but today told him that if what he did on his homework he did on a test he would get an F. Does my 8 year old really need to be worrying about failing grades? How does this all start so soon?

Homework is a part of life that won’t go away. I have anxiety about how much worse it will get. He has a notebook he comes home with daily telling him and me what homework he has. When I question something in it he yells at me saying he knows what he is doing. Does he? I know there comes a time where I am supposed to let him figure it out on his own. Is it now?

Let’s be honest, if his homework is bad it reflects on me and his father. So can we really just let it be? The answer is no. We still push and we still fight and will continue to do so as long as homework is a part of his and our life. I’m not happy about it which is why The Captain does most of it. But I watch, and I see the struggle and know it only gets worse from here…isn’t that just swell.