I’m spending a lot of time with my nephews while they do schoolwork for their online charter school. It’s a blessing. They are 7 and 10 years old. They were not succeeding in a traditional brick and mortar school. I’m disabled due to vertigo and unable to work. I don’t have to run around chasing them, so it’s working out well.
I keep remembering my brother Adam at the age of 10. He would sit at our huge picnic-style dining room table working on his math homework. He would have tears streaming down his face. No matter how much time he spent working on it, it wasn’t good enough.
I don’t know why he was unsuccessful at picking up math concepts. I couldn’t see inside his mind. Did he have dyslexia? Were the numbers jumbled up? Did he miss a simpler concept prior to this, and therefore didn’t have the basics to support more complicated concepts? I don’t know.
My step-father Dick’s approach was to ridicule my brother. Ridicule is not quite right. He tormented my brother Adam. He told my brother he was stupid and wouldn’t amount to anything. He would pressure him to stop looking at the paper and just answer the question already. Dick told Adam he was lazy and that’s why he couldn’t do it, if he just put in the effort… It would go on and on.
All this from a man who dropped out of elementary school. He was uneducated and sounded like it. He was constantly using words he didn’t understand inappropriately.
I have no memories of trying to help Adam with his homework and I don’t know why. I could have tried to help him when Dick wasn’t around.
To try to help in the midst of Dick grinding Adam down verbally? No way! That would be putting a target on yourself and saying to Dick, “Me next! Be mean and hateful to me next!” We’d each had enough of that to last a lifetime.
I really wish I’d been able to do more to protect my siblings from Dick.
My 10-year-old nephew Nathan is struggling with math right now. He’s so frustrated and hopeless when it comes to schoolwork. I’ve had to explain to him that I love him, and I’m not trying to trick him or make him look stupid. He expects to be mistreated by me because I’m in the role of teacher. I continue to tell him I’m confident his grades can improve because they don’t currently reflect what he’s capable of doing. I DO NOT want to add to his frustrations. I don’t want to add to his negative self-talk.
He’s a great kid with an awesome sense of humor and a desire to please people. He loves his little brother fiercely.
I would like to help build his confidence in his ability to succeed. I’d like to step back and figure out why he isn’t getting it, so we can fill the gaps in his current education and continue to learn. I would like to encourage him to pursue learning new information about stuff that interests him.
Pray for me as I interact with this precious young man. Pray that I’ll do no harm to him in my imperfection. Pray that I’ll have eyes to see what he needs most each day.
I do NOT want to see the same defeat in Nathan’s eyes, which I witnessed in his father’s eyes.
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