Summer Homework Blues

How are you doing with your summer homework?

What's that? You don't have summer homework? It's your child who has summer homework?

Join me in a hearty laugh, won't you?

In my house, anyway, homework's a full-family experience. Especially those summer projects that arrive without benefit of classroom enforcement. They generally involve things that no teacher would assign during the school year, when he or she would have to actually explain the material to my children.

I have to think that the teachers who assigned Treasure Island and O Pioneers! to my comprehension-challenged kiddos were having a laugh, too, but at our expense.

No matter. I'm a homework believer, and the summer is big enough and broad enough to encompass work and leisure, too. If only, oh, if only I didn't have to be so involved.

My daughter is so conscientious about getting her work done, and I love her for that. She's very anxious about getting things done well before the first day of school, even though more likely than not no one will ever collect these assignments. It's terribly responsible of her, and one of the reasons she's a good student despite her learning problems.

But it's also the reason she's constantly ambushing me with requests to read with her, usually when my head's pretty fully in something else, like writing this here blog post, for example. Maybe this is her quiet retribution for all the times in the past I've nagged her to read. With her history of reading reluctance, I hate to respond to her request with a "Not right now," even though that's where I'm at. Usually I tell her to practice her trombone first, and that buys me a couple of hours of annoyed teenage sighing and stomping around.

My husband's been doing the reading duties with our son, Treasure Island being a good "guys read together" book. I know, though, that when it comes to writing the summaries and character portraits and other worksheets that will illustrate his alleged understanding of the text, it will be Mom's Job. And he'll have the slightest of clues.

We'll probably be working on that the same time Dad finally gets around to working on our daughter's math packet. When she asks for help with that, daily also, he's always too tired from work, or needing to walk the dog, or brain-deep in a TV show or movie, and unavailable. It sounds awful, but I've worked with her on math packets, and I don't blame him for hiding. Still, if he doesn't get that math packet going soon, I'm going to bring it with us on vacation.

Along with, no doubt, O Pioneers! I'd never read it before that I can remember, and as an old English major I find it interesting enough, but my daughter's comprehension of it is pretty much limited to recognizing a goodly percentage of the words. Still, sometimes, putting in the effort is its own reward. I'll have to remember that one more myself.

Read more: Special Needs News | Homework Help for Kids With Special Needs | Before You Help With Homework

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}