Spelling Words
Our Friday morning commute always involves a final review of spelling words. It’s a very longstanding tradition.
This morning GG informed me she knew them and we didn’t have to go over them. After some argument (which just doesn’t happen all that often with us) and finally a discussion of consequences, she finally spelled the words as I called them out to her. And she was right, she knew them all perfectly. Not even a hesitation. When she can do them all without any issues then we only go through them once. When there are problems then we go over them until there are no problems. There usually aren’t any problems by the time we get to Friday morning, but the final review is a good way to find them and work on them if there are.
As we did the last word and I told her that she was right, she did know them… she burst into tears. Apparently I was supposed to believe her, and by making her spell them, I showed that I don’t trust her.
Wow. Talk about being blindsided.
I told her it isn’t about trust. That I trust that if she thinks she has them that she really does think she does. But sometimes we think we know something and our brain has forgotten it since the last time we worked on it. I said this is just like a final review, and a final check, to make sure she’s ready for the test. I want her to do good on her test, and this final check on Friday mornings helps make sure she’s ready.
That wasn’t getting us anywhere, so I asked her if she thought she could just tell her teacher that she knows them, and her teacher will go “oh, okay then”, and just give her a 100 because she says that she knows them? GG gave me an angry “duh” look and said, “No.” (Aren’t mirrors fun?)
So I answered, “Are you mad at your teacher for making you take the test?”
Which got an eye roll and an exasperated “No!”. But that line of thinking finally worked, and by the time we got to school she was better, sort of. She still seems to think that I should just take her word for it that she knows her words and not test her on them.
I’m going to talk to RK this evening and I may consider doing that, with the caveat that the first time she makes less than a 100 that we go back to the Friday morning reviews. She’s made a 100 (or better, when there are bonus words) on every test this year, so if she makes less than a 100 we can say it’s because she isn’t getting the review.
Actually, I think I’m going to tell her that because she was so rude when we talked about it, that we’ll do the Friday morning review one more morning, and if she can be nice and polite then we’ll stop doing them, as long as she continues to get a 100 on all of her tests. The first time a grade is less than 100 though, we go back to doing them.
I want to teach her that she can talk to me about this kind of thing, but that being angry and rude isn’t the way to have the conversation.
And I want to teach her that she is trustworthy.
Sometimes this parenting thing is really hard.