The boy spent an hour yesterday doing homework that would have taken about 20 minutes had he night spent much of that time trying to get out of doing said homework (there’s a homework post coming eventually, trust me).
His sister played in another room by herself so she didn’t distract him while I assisted him with his homework. (He’s in Grade 2 French Immersion, so me helping means that I used Google Translate a lot).
After the hour, in which he spent a lot of time declaring how utterly bored and lost his sister much be without him playing with her and that he NEEDS TO BE DONE TO PLAY WITH HER, he was finally free to go do his own thing.
It was clear that in that moment he wasn’t loving this whole school thing and homework stinks. Fine. Go play.
20 minutes after he was done his homework they started to play a game together.
What were they playing?
School.
Although, this time, he was the teacher.
File under: Things my children do that confuse me!
Parents, can you relate?
Yes, I can relate. Children are weird. 😉 And when mine lack focus I send them out to play. It *usually* gets better after a break.
Sometimes they really just need to run it off!
I can so relate…it’s maddening! Although it seems to fit in with what I’ve learned about kids and play over the past several months: when something is new to kids (and new grade with higher expectations for example) or if a child is struggling with something that’s going on in his/her life, they often try to work through similar ‘scenarios’ in their play. It’s so great that your little guy has the time and opportunity to role play at home…he’s working on coming to terms and accepting the new expectations being placed on him.
I love the play and imitation situations. But the irony in this case was not lost on me 😉