Excuses, Excuses

One day this past week, I gave one of my children (who shall remain nameless, but whose identity will inevitably become apparent in the course of this story, I'm sure) a math fact sheet to do. We had a busy afternoon ahead, and I knew we wouldn't get an entire math lesson done, but I figured we would sneak something in, so that we could say we had done math that day. Not surprisingly, the child balked (a mild term for the scene of moaning and groaning that ensued, but anyway...). I encouraged the child simply to do his best at it, and to start with the easy ones. I emphasized that I wasn't after perfection - I just wanted him to give it a go.

That was in his room. About fifteen minutes later, he meandered downstairs. I asked him if the fact sheet was done. "Um...fact sheet?"

Of course. So I asked him to bring it down to me...which he did. He slapped it on the table, and then left. I called to him and asked him to come see me. When eventually he found his way over, and I reminded him that I had asked him to bring me the fact sheet, he replied that he had done just that. I hadn't specified that I wanted him to stay. So I most lovingly and patiently asked him to sit down, and I placed the fact sheet in front of him, gently repeating my instructions on how I wished him to work on it. Ahem. Actually, I may have been getting a little testy by then...which didn't put me in the best of moods to handle the additional moaning, groaning, wailing, complaining, etc, etc, etc. that followed. He insisted it was too loud downstairs, that he didn't know all the facts on the sheet, that there were too many facts, that I was being unfair to expect him to do all that, that math was unfair, that life was unfair! Succeed, fail, or come somewhere in between, but I dislike excuses, and encourage my children to avoid making them. Ever so...um, sweetly...I reminded him of that again, but by that point, he had ceased to hear anything I was saying, so I set the timer and threatened...er, told him that he needed to make some kind of acceptable progress on that sheet in the allotted time, or he would miss the activities at church that night.


The time was up, and he had still done nary a fact, so we...discussed...the situation a little further. He repeated his objections that there was too much noise in the room, that there were too many facts, that I was unfair. And then he came up with the best excuse I think I've ever heard - and I've already mentioned how much I love excuses.

"But I was doing them in my head. You don't believe me? You don't trust me?"

Oh, well, in that case... I wish you had said something sooner! We could have avoided this whole thing if I had known I just needed get out my magic mind-reader machine so I could see the progress going on in your head!

You can imagine the tension in the room was pretty high by that point. It had been at least a half an hour, and nothing had been accomplished except that we were both exasperated, he was in tears and was grounded, and there was no feeling of victory on my part in having meted out the punishment. I believe in being firm...but I also believe in fairness, and when tempers had cooled a few minutes later, I repented of my haste. He's a child, after all. What was my excuse for losing my temper over a piece of paper? I explained to him that we had both been wrong, and that I would withdraw the punishment, if he would work on the facts while we were out and about. And then I forgot to bring the fact sheet along, so we did the thing we should have done in the first place. We spent a few minutes in the car having him recite the multiplication table out loud, which he did with ease and with no tears.

So what's the moral here? Initially I was writing this simply to share a funny and exasperating story. I felt I had to give him some credit for the "I was doing it in my head" excuse. But what I also thought was ironic was that the excuse actually hit close to a truth., because in the end, doing it in his head is pretty much what we ended up doing. If I'm being totally honest, I had thrust the piece of paper on him because I had one of those moments in which I reasoned that eventually he's going to have to be able to do an assignment with pencil and paper, without me prodding him every step of the way. And I suppose that's my excuse for having asked him to do something out his comfort zone on a day we were in a hurry, which would make it doubly hard for him.

Way to go, me! But no one is perfect...and that's ok. It was just a good reminder for him and me that we need to do our best with our best, and not try to force things OR to make excuses when we fail. Live and learn.