Child development experts will tell you children go in and out of periods of stability and instability as they develop. I know from personal experience that’s true. Growing up isn’t the neat linear experience we’d like for it to be, with each milestone stacking neatly on top of the other as a child matures.  No, every so often the whole tower of blocks comes tumbling down with a dramatic crash, and we’re forced to rebuild, while our children do their best to kick the pieces out of reach.

These one step forward, two steps back intervals in parenting are exhausting, frustrating, and mind-numbing. Walking the floor with a colicky baby is its own form of torture but at least you know it’s not the baby’s fault. It’s hard to feel the same way with an older child who just doesn't like school. Then again, I didn't like school myself. Then again, I succeeded in spite of that.

Assignments and books "forgotten." Homework not done or done but not turned in. Directions not read or not followed. Papers lost or jammed into a desk cubby. Folders meant to organize the papers in a state of complete disarray. Nothing filed in its proper place, old papers  mixed with new ones, subjects mixed together, nothing dated--a nightmare.

Every day, we struggle over school and homework.  Three weeks into the school year and our blocks are tumblimg down. We try incentives, we try encouragement, we tutor when necessary, we deliver long lectures, we revoke privileges, we ground. We end up fighting with the child in question, fighting with each other, and if we’re honest, fighting the urge to bang our heads against the wall.  So smart, so much potential, so much waste.

All we can do is keep plugging along, stay on message, be consistent, and remind ourselves that this unpleasant interlude will pass, that peace will come again to Chez V, sooner, we hope, not later.

September 12, 2006