So my daughter had a school assignment due on January 31. Of course it was put off until it was too late, and… well… long story short, we were making her do it on February 7.
Anyways, what you need to know about this particular child is that she is stubborn, and meticulous. She has to do things perfectly, or not at all. Not that she ever does things perfectly, but she makes things A-MAZ-ING in her head and then when she can’t bring it to fruition she ends up frustrated beyond frustration.
Anyways, as she began her work, she had decided on “sapphires” (it was a rock/mineral project). So she had to make a poster with basic facts (mining, environmental impact, etc.) – On a side note, it annoys me that schools always ask for environmental impact, but they never ask about ethical issues involving humans, like trafficking or child labor , but on with my story… She was looking up information and drawing her poster. Her father tried to help. It ended up one, big mess.
About an hour later, she came down and presented me with a poster that was… well… atrocious. The spelling was COMPLETELY all over the board – albeit they were hard words like ‘deforestation’, but still – it was absolutely unacceptable to hand in as an assignment. Which I told her, “Looks great honey, let’s go fix the spelling errors together.”
“NO, IT IS MY ASSIGNMENT I WILL DO IT”
“Well, you can’t hand in a poster like that. It looks terrible with those spelling mistakes. Let’s fix the spelling.”
“NO, I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP. I WANT IT MY WAY”
“Well, then let me write out the words on this sheet of paper the right way, and you can correct them.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Bedtime!”
She then came up a few minutes later, apologized for having attitude (yay!), but then when I suggested she fix it, she absolutely refused. Sigh.
Meanwhile, I was getting petty and angry at my husband for not helping enough. So I was sooooo annoyed on many levels.
Fast forward to the next day.
The next morning, she woke up, and refused to take her assignment to school because “it wasn’t done”, but it was more of a matter of her being embarrassed at the result.
Every morning as they leave for school, I say a prayer with my girls at the front door. Usually it is something simple like “Dear God, thank you for today, Please help us to be more like you and to share your love today in all ways.”
This morning I was in a pickle. I was mad at hubby, I was mad at kid, and the last thing I wanted was to be more like Him. That involved lots of forgiving (which I didn’t want to do because I was mad), and kindness (also hard to ask for since I was frustrated). So I worded an awkward “Dear God, thank you for today. Please bless all the kids who need help today.”
Now, the interesting thing, is now that I ponder it, I realize I am just like my kid and her assignment. Sometimes He only wants little corrections and we are so stubborn, and so insistent to do it “our way” (even though it is not right, and ends up being a mess that we are to embarrassed to show anyone). So, I swallowed my pride, asked forgiveness for my attitude, and fixed my ‘assignment’ with my hubby and kid.
And one of my dogs pee’d on the assignment that my kid did, so we are going to work on it together this weekend.
Hopefully this time we are both a little less stubborn and have a lot better of a result.
🙂
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I find the hardest part of my week very often is when I sit down to help my daughter with her math. She is so very stubborn, and loses patience with herself very quickly. It is so hard to talk to her, or maintain a sense of peace when each question ends with pencils being thrown or books being slammed shut.
Catholic Momma 