School and homework

The other day Bright Eyes came out of school very upset. "I hate school. I'm not going back. They always tease and laugh at me," he said.

Of course, I was devastated and spent a very miserable night trying to get out of him what, if anything, had happened. He felt so bad that he then resorted to insults and aggravation for the rest of the evening. We were treated to: he wanted to live in Geelong, he thought all our family were 'sucky-heads', and my choice of lasagne for dinner was 'poo'. Mmm, yummy.

I mentioned it to his teacher's aide, who I happened to see later on that afternoon, and she said she'd keep an eye on it for me.

The following morning he got up and went to school happily, and then came home with this in his bag (not written by him, but helped along by his aide.)

So, all's well that end's well. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The next trauma came about because of homework. For 'news', every child in the class has to prepare four set questions about a topic they are all studying through the term. They have done space, celebrations and safety over the year, and now it's 'musicals' - to tie in with the school musical being staged in December.

"I'm not doing that. It's rubbish," he told me, very very upset. "I hate musicals. It's poo." Again with the poo...

I decided to withdraw from the fight and make him responsible for himself. 

"Well, if you don't do it, you'll need to write a note to the teacher and tell her why not," I told him. "What do you think she'll say?" 

"I don't know," he said, but the fear of trouble was less than the hate of musicals, so he wrote his note and took it to school. I haven't heard what her response has been yet. If I was her, I'd be replacing the homework with another task, but I guess we'll find out.