Nick woke me up today with the news that we had received a letter from H's school. H and not been doing her homework. Despair made me want to hide under the duvet. Most of the time I feel like I'm an OK parent, but then something like this will happen and I feel totally at a loss of how to handle it. Nick had already shown it to H, who having said she 'hates that school', had thrown it down and flounced off. This, in the language of H means the school has it right.
I made it out of bed after a while, went into H's Hiroshima room and had a rant. That is, I'm afraid my default Mum setting. I don't do it very often, in fact this has been the first one since I started this blog, and I don't remember the one before that. I don't know what punishments other people use on their 15 year olds but I told H she was grounded and that if her work wasn't done and her room tidy by the end of the day, I would lock her out of all of the computers in the house. I had another rant about five minutes later when I smelled smoke. "Has someone lit a joss stick or a candle?", I asked. Chorus of 'no'. I traced it to H's room, and went on about how we don't light candles because they might set light to things and then someone would die.
I'll be able to check on the candles and tidiness situation, but not the homework one (which is the important thing to be honest). The letter from school tells us that our daughter is 'not getting her homework completed or handed in to her subject teachers on time'. It explains that the homework is important and that the Learning Manager will be monitoring progress and will inform us 'if there is or isn't improvement ' after half term. What the letter doesn't detail is the homework that needs to be done. Therefore, there's no way of us 'supporting' the school. It is a useless letter that is going to give us a miserable weekend, and with it being half term next week, there's no way of contacting the school to discuss it.
Stupid letter or not, it's H's responsibility. I've never managed to inspire her to work systematically through the things that need to be done. She has, since a very little child, chosen her own path, concentrating on the things that interest her to the exclusion of everything else. This led her to becoming quite adept at avoiding the things she doesn't want to do by means of lies, deception and distraction. At the moment, the interests are: composing music for guitar, watching short art films on youtube, seeing her girlfriend, and taking photographs. So, in spite of my talking to her every afternoon about her day, reminding her to do her schoolwork, providing books and internet access, and offering help, the letter has come home. Two days ago, there was a postcard congratulating her on her progress in maths. Perhaps the one cancels the other out.
I haven't told the truth. It's not H or the school's fault, it's mine. There is something I'm doing wrong. I just don't know what it is, and therefore can't change it. I have a horrid sense of guilty frustration with myself, feeling as I do that I set a very bad example. After all, I do very little work that the children see, and I'm nothing to look up to. Just for today, I'm wishing with all my might that I will wake up tomorrow five years older, and that they will both have left home and be living happy independent lives. They can visit once a week and I'll cook them dinner, we'll have a nice chat and then they can go away. I'm not expecting that wish to come true though, so I've planned a trip to Drayton Manor theme park for tomorrow. Just in case.
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