Friday, November 24, 2017

How to Ruin a Secret

Because I am easily susceptible to flattery I found myself saying yes to taking on a special art project for my middle daughter’s class, a split class of six and seven year olds. And the project was: a quilt.

Yes, I agreed to take on a sewing project with 23 beautiful six and seven year olds.

We were making the quilt because our school has a wonderful end of year event where each of the classes make a collaborative art piece which is then auctioned off to raise money for the school. In the past the bidding has gotten a little out of hand, one year reaching at least $900 for a single piece – putting it well out of reach of many families and all the teachers.

So because our teacher is dearly beloved (and because I clearly didn’t have a clue what it would mean to make two quilts simultaneously) I decided I would also sneakily make a second quilt at the same time, which the kids will present to her as a gift at the end of the year.

I’ll skip over the past two months when I was actually helping the kids make the quilt and then sewing fifty individual squares because it would sound like this:

Ow.

Bugger.

Ooops didn’t mean to do that.

Where are my scissors!

Damn, ran out of thread.

Bugger, back to Spotlight.

Oops.

Where are my damn scissors!

I don’t want to do this anymore.

F*** back to Spotlight AGAIN!

What in hell is wrong with my machine?

What in hell is wrong with me?

And then –
Mum – I really need your help to finish these damn quilts.

Skipping to this morning when my mum showed up at my house with the finished quilts, I had one of those moments when the angels sing and you realise that your mum is in fact a little piece of heaven bundled up and delivered back to earth in a pair of jeans and sensible shoes.

Leaving the second quilt at home, I carefully bundled up the art quilt to show to the teacher. We laid it out on the table and let everyone have a look. The bell hadn’t rung yet and I still had my youngest daughter with me before I dropped her at the pre-primary. The teacher was appreciating the beauty of the kids’ designs (and my mum’s impeccable binding) and clearly Child Number 3 felt she wasn’t getting enough attention.

‘She has another one, you know,’ piped up my daughter.

Lasers shot out of my eyes and my heart sank. ‘Shhhhh’ I hissed at her.

The teacher was looking at me, shock on her face.

‘There is another one at home. On the table!’

I quite literally tried to kill my daughter with just poisonous looks (didn’t work). I wanted to throw myself across the table at her and wrestle her to the ground.

She had just given away a secret half the school had been keeping for two months and I literally could have cried. However I wasn’t actually prepared for what the teacher did next.

She took a big gasping breath and patted me on the arm.
‘Oh my gosh Shannon, do you know what I immediately thought when she said you had another one?’

I shook my head, miserable that she knew the secret.

‘I thought she meant you were having another baby!’

Wait. What?

I couldn’t quite decide what was worse – having the surprise ruined or being mistaken as pregnant. I packed up the quilt and shuffled away with my youngest who clearly knew she had done something wrong but wasn’t entirely sure what. Poor mite. Something for her to talk to her shrink about when she’s older.

Now with a bit of time (and a muffin or two) under my belt, I can look at this morning’s event with a bit more clarity. I get mistaken for being pregnant all the time so I decided that having the secret blown was definitely the worst thing.

Never trust a five year old.




Sunday, November 12, 2017

What Happens When You Don't Listen to the Experts

I did one of those things today that parenting books and experts always tell you not to – I got over-involved in my daughter’s school project.

It’s a major project due for a major program she is involved in. It’s a big deal that she is on this program, but she treats it as part of her normal school, so she gives it her normal level of care and attention.

Our assessment of this ‘normal level’ varies wildly. While she would probably say she does enough and her grades are fine, I say she does a half-hearted effort at the last minute which is well below her ability.

In reality, we are both probably correct.

With her major assignment due tomorrow, I finally pinned her down and convinced her to read through her Powerpoint presentation for me.

Clearly she hadn’t proof read it, or if she had, she’d decided the small typos weren’t an issue. She didn’t capitalise her last name. Spaces inside the brackets instead of outside the bracket. Starting a sentence with a lower case letter.

I wanted her to fix them, which she did without complaint.

But then I realised there was a major point she had missed – maybe she had thought it too obvious to include, or maybe she hadn’t made the connection yet. Either way, my suggestion was met with an eye roll, and then she rolled off the chair to play with the puppy.  

On her last assignment she had received a comment about her bibliography being incomplete. I asked to see it. It was a few dot points that listed the URLs of two websites, then ‘google’ ‘google maps’ and ‘google translator’ making up the last three items.

Ummmmm

She’s ten, I get that. Apparently they haven’t actually taught the kids what a bibliography is (so she says) but if that’s the case, then I don’t think they should assess them. Either way, I’m pretty sure listing ‘Google’ as a reference is not considered the height of academic authenticity and I may have said that.

So she left. In a huff. With yelling.

More yelling (hers and mine).

She wanted comforting, so she grabbed the dog.

The dog didn’t want comforting so she bit my daughter.

Now my daughter was angry not only at me but at the dog, and kept chasing her and yelling at the dog, and I was chasing her and yelling at her. The other two kids were open-mouthed, watching us run around the couch like something out of a cartoon. It would be stupidly funny if not for the words we were shouting.

‘You’re trying to make it your assignment, Mum. It’s not mine anymore,’ she finally screamed.

I stopped. She was right. Totally 100% correct. I was trying to correct her ten year old mistakes and omissions and add the knowledge of a forty year old.

A forty year old who was making a rookie mistake: don’t do their work. Don’t even try ‘to help’.

Keep your fingers awaaaaaaaay from the keyboard, lady.

It pained me (it actually pained me!) to select ‘don’t save’ as I removed her USB from the laptop, but she needed to submit her own mistakes, not my corrections. [She refused to come back in the study at this point.]

There are two possible outcomes tomorrow. The first is that her teacher is happy. The second is that her teacher isn’t happy. If it is the first, then I will be happy for her, and know that next time I should definitely keep my fat trap shut. If it’s the second, then she may feel upset or embarrassed. She will learn that she might need to work harder next time. She will learn (hopefully) from the experience and she will be better for it.

The bigger lesson in all of this is that I need to trust her more.  I think as a parent I was right in offering advice and pointing out where she could improve. It’s her choice whether or not to take that on. 

I said at the beginning it’s a big deal she made it into this program - she’s bright and they saw something special in her. I need to sit back and let her make that something special shine. Even if it means sitting on my hands.




Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...