Finding a New Man for Mom

Yesterday’s homework assignment was particularly difficult for my son. He had to read a short story, tell four things that happened in the story, and then predict two things that have yet to occur. Predicting outcomes is often difficult for kids with autism, and that is no different with Kai.

When you ask him what might happen next in a story, he will usually say he does not know. And he does not like to guess. If you encourage him to try guessing, he sometimes will tell you something that already happened. But, mostly he just hates to be asked.

He wasn’t supposed to have this assignment for homework. He was supposed to have completed it in school. But, as near as we can tell, he protested and refused to do it. When they ran out of time at school, they sent it home as homework.

And so it fell to me to get him to do this dreaded assignment.

Kai whined and complained. I tried to be patient and encouraging, knowing that this type of assignment is hard for him. But, I wanted him to at least try. If he tried, I would help him. But, as time went on and he continued to complain and made no effort to begin working on it, I lost my patience.

I raised my voice with him and threatened that he would not get dessert that night if he did not get started on the homework.

He got mad.

He told me that I was being mean. He said, “Sometimes you’re nice but sometimes you’re not.” Yep, kid, that is the lot of a parent. Sometimes we’re not nice.

Then, he followed that up with, “I want a new dad.”

He said, “I’m going to find Mom a new wife.” He meant a new husband, of course, but he got the words mixed up. He corrected himself. “I am going to find Mom a new man.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I tried to picture my son going out and finding a man for my wife. My son, the matchmaker. I wondered what kind of man he would pick for her.

But, alas, that will not happen right now. When I refused to budge, Kai calmed down and finally started the homework. He struggled, but I helped him and we got it done. Afterward, we played and he was happy with me again.

And so, there will be no new man for my wife. She is stuck with me.

At least until the next time we have a tough homework assignment, anyway.

Homework Problem

My son is starting to get homework from school. He doesn’t like it.

As with many kids, he wants to put it off as long as he can. We want him to finish his homework before he does anything else. Therein lies the rub.

Yesterday, Kai’s homework was a page of various math problems. He and Mom got to his speech therapist’s office early, so he nicely completed half of the homework while they were waiting. Sounds good, right?

Except that he cherry picked the easiest problems to work on with Mom. When they came home, Mom prepared dinner while I had the duty of getting Kai to complete the rest of his homework.

Of course, he really rather wanted to play with the new toys/games that he got for Hanukkah. I thought for sure that would serve as motivation for getting his homework done quickly. But, no. It was incredible how much time he spent complaining about not wanting to do the homework. Pointing out that he could have finished his homework in all the time he spent whining about it did not seem to motivate him or to improve his mood.

Once he actually started to work on it, I hoped that he would get through it quickly. Hey, I wanted to play the new video game, too. Unfortunately, those hopes were soon dashed.

“T is 28 less than 35. What is T?” Kai knew to subtract 28 from 35. “Less than means subtraction,” he said. Well, not necessarily, I told him. He did not seem to hear me.

“56 is 106 less than T. What is T?” He subtracted 56 from 106. I tried to get him to pause and think about it. He insisted on writing the wrong answer. I quietly said to think about what the question is asking. “Let’s read the question again. Is T more than 56 or less than 56?” He realized he had the answer wrong to begin with. He does not like to be wrong. He got more agitated.

For another problem, I handed him some paper. “It will be easier to do if you write the equation on the scratch paper.” He insisted on doing it in his head. He made an error. I again suggested that he write out the equation and check his work. He angrily wrote out the equation and got even more upset when he had to correct his mistake.

The more homework he did, the more frustrated he became.

I guess I could have just let him do it the wrong way, not bother correcting him, and let the teacher explain to him what he did wrong. But, I really wanted to teach him and give him tips to help him figure out the problem himself in the future. I’m stubborn that way. But, I will have to think about how I can teach him while keeping him from getting so frustrated.

In the end, he took so long to do his homework that we did not have time for the video game before dinner. However, he did eat dinner quickly so we had some time to play before bedtime.

When I was a child, I did not like homework either. I had thought that my days of not having to deal with homework were long past. But, as the father of a first grader, I think my latest homework problems are just beginning.