Tag: reading

First Week Back

I see water.

The drought has ended.

We are going back to school.

I say we, I’m not. Robbie is. But I am going back to “no, you can’t play PC before school” and “you can do/have/sacrifice anything you want AFTER school”.

Don’t misunderstand me – I adore having him at home with me. However, there are only so many ‘fun’ activities that both he and I can stomach. The house begins to resemble a battleground, littered with the detrius of our patience and goodwill.

Robbie attends a fantastic SEN school, and there are small classes with a high staff ratio. I can’t speak highly enough of it. All kids should have this ratio of staff to teachers – special needs or not.

Monday – new teacher, mostly new class. A lot of his old classmates have come up with him, so he is pretty happy. He has the same playmates to wax lyrical about the Titanic with.

Tuesday – Robbie came out in a foul mood because his teachers had tried to make him eat the marginally healthier part of his packed lunch before the chocolate. I know, I know. He is very unreasonable at times. Sorry teachers. He’s your problem now. I’ve done my time until half term.

On Wednesday, he came home with a reading book in his bag. We haven’t had a reading book sent home before, this was another parental box almost ticked! I responsibly caged Faye in her cot and handed her the monstrous, light-up unicorn pillow.

I did used to give her books to read, but she kept eating the spine of them and now she has to be supervised.

So now she gets a padded, colour-changing light.

Robbie and I got in his bed, and I took a moment to savour this. Ahhh, the shared experience we were about to enjoy! The gold star of parenting – the nightly reading book.

Our eyes alight with anticipation… We started to read….

Silence.

The book in Robbie’s book bag was very simplistic for his reading level.

He stared at it, silently.

“Robbie? Shall we read the book?”

Silence.

“Robbie? What’s wrong?” (I could see what was wrong, I don’t know why I asked this).

He turned to me with a cold fury, and said, “I’m not reading that book. It’s too short and too easy. It’s just a bunch of pages. I hate that book. I want to sell it.”

I agonised about what to write in the reading journal. Whatever I prepared in my head sounded rude… So I did what any reasonable parent would do… I let the 6 year old take the blame.

I copied out what Robbie said.

The next evening, I fearfully opened his bag.

His teachers (thankfully!) had taken on board his (slightly threatening) message. The new reading book was much more “appropriate” for him (his words). God help us.

There you have it. The threat of book trafficking was enough. His demands had been met. The day had been saved.

It’s said not to give in to terrorism… But in this case, I’m glad.

We’ve now got into a pattern of reading his school reading book in the car

Threads

Robbie making some “crazy poses for you to take a picture of!”

After asking for “a few more weeks off”, Robbie eventually accepted his fate and got out of bed this morning. The key to tricky school mornings is to sweep him along in the routine, bit by bit, so that by the time he realises what’s happening, he has already come to terms with the fact that he’s going in.

I bought him this gorgeous book called “Threads” by Torill Kove. I highly recommend it! It’s about how we are all linked with threads of love as we move through life.

We read it for the first time yesterday, and Robbie ran to the window to look outside and “see the threads.”

This morning, Robbie sat and read the book to himself. I asked, “Robbie, what are the threads?” He said “they are how we are all connected through love. I’m connected to you and Daddy.”

“Erm, what about Faye?”

“Only when she’s good. When she’s bad, the thread bounds off through the cosmos.”