Who is unreasonable, Mil or Ds?

[Maria1979]

So Mil is having DS 11 over. I left some revision for him to do for school. Not something that will be handed in to school, just answering questions to show me so I can see if he's got it or needs more revision. Well, he called me crying telling me to please come and get him because grandma is telling him his writing is awful. Talked to grandma and told her that btw us I didn't care about his writing, just about the facts since it's not a paper to turn in, it's just for me. Also, to no dripfeed, he has always struggled with handwriting but has learnt to write correctly, if not beautifully, so it's something he's quite sensitive about apart from him being a sensitive child.

Mil is angry and says that we indulge him too much and he needs to hear that his handwriting is bad. And in any case he has not to lock himself in the barhroom and call me, it's really rude.
I agree to a certain extent with her but I do think her comment was unnecessary and hurtful. She's not involved with his homework (doesn't know the subject) so if someone should say something it's me. Then again he's overreacting. That's how I feel, would like to hear fellow mums' perspectives..

Haha, I wanted to write indelicate but it came out as plump. Luckily my Mil isn't plump at all or she could have been offended (rightly so).

Never told him he's too sensitive. Compared to what/who? He knows he's sensitive and doesn't see that as a negative since it also comes with empathy and kindness. It does sometimes make life hard for him since we still hear comments like "tough up" etc which is not helpful. Sometimes he says he wishes he didn't feel things so strongly because it makes life difficult but I tell him I love him just the way he is. He just needs to find strategies to keep his emotions at bay.

He just started secondary school and the principal told all parents that he expect us to help them out in organising and supervising their work the first yeat because there is so much novelties. Next year he should be able to do it on his own with just some checking that he's on top of it. I tend to follow school's advice on this rather than a MN commenter.😉

Oh grandma, no one cares about handwriting anymore….

we have dictation, keyboards etc. The content is impt, not the font!!!!

😂Phones have a mind of their own, I think.
How does a phone 📱 confuse “ indelicate” for “Plump?!”

But I had “ Ration “ changed to “ Iolanthe “
today - so phones 📱 definitely have their moments!

She's just not the right person to supervise his revision. Transfer prep is a charged subject. You need nerves of steel and the patience of a saint.

Haha qi think I repeated this atleast 7 times on this thread: Mil is not supervising or having anything to do with DS's school work. Nothing, nada. She took it upon herself to have a look but I think she regrets that and will never do it again 🤣

My son has also just started secondary school and I ‘help’ by making sure there is space at the table and then I make sure I’m either sat at the table with a hot drink cracking on with stuff myself so he has some company or cooking near by to help if asked, I don’t interfere otherwise, the school have asked us not to so they can see who is needing extra help to get to grips with things.
I wouldn’t set him extra work to revise, I just ask him if he has completed what has been set.
Our half term only started properly today and I can guarantee that if I had even mentioned school work I would have been told that none would be getting done today or at all for the next few days. My son is tired after transitioning to high school and needs time to chill out and do some stuff he enjoys.
Perhaps your son reacted the way he did because he’s already exhausted and needs a proper break?
My son also struggles with handwriting, he’s left handed and has always struggled. He can write well if he slows down and doesn’t try to join letters, he knows that it’s something he has to work on and I have no qualms about telling him if he’s writing is pretty messy on a piece of work and to slow down/try harder, he doesn’t cry, I usually get a grin/eye roll and then he tries to make it neater, but I can imagine if I chose to say it when he was already tired/struggling then storming off and a few tears would be natural.
My Mum would definitely say to mine if she thought something was scruffy, I wouldn’t set anything that might require her to give an opinion if she was looking after them, she’s not always tactful and it would be a recipe for disaster 😂

From the mother of a Year 9, the head didn’t mean to set him timed homework yourself.
Teaching him to organise is NOT giving him work to do.
You are doing him no favours by being so involved in his work. No wonder he’s anxious. Probably feels completely powerless and useless without mum’s input.
Be a parent. Empower him.

Thank you for explaining to me what the head meant 🙄. My sister is a teacher and I have got a couple of friends who are teachers in secondary who ALL say that too many parents abandon their children in secondary with the pretext that they need to be independant which is just lazy parenting. My son is happy I'm involved and I will continue to help him organise his work until gradually he doesn't need me anymore. I say help to organise because we look at his workload together. I ask him how he will go about it and give him my advice which he can follow if he wants to. He wants to avoid stress at all costs so is happy to do a little bit every day. So far he's got excellent grades which he's very happy about.

Clearly in the minority here and I think

• you are absolutely fine to set some work for your son
• Granny doesn’t need to be involved other than to glance at his work and see he’s done it
• she was mean!

Yes in life we need to learn how to deal with mean spirited comments and build resilience. But really, from Granny? There’s enough to prepare you for the real world without snippy comments from a grandparent. Sensitive or not (and presumably Granny knows this which makes it worse), she’s made the child feel like he wants to go home. I’m not saying that means he gets to go home and OP was right to encourage him to stick it out, but I’d be gutted if my Mum/MIL made my kid feel like this over something like handwriting. She wasn’t disciplining, she was picking at him.

Not the point of the post but I just wanted to jump on to validate this view. As a secondary teacher, I only wish every parent was as involved and supportive as you. Firstly because Y7s need all the support they can get in such a tricky transition year, but also because of course parents should be actively involved in their child’s education. It’s almost like some parents delegate the entire responsibility for their children’s education to school they attend and don’t feel the need to get involved at all. Utterly bizarre way of thinking to me.

Not true. I'm an examiner. All my handwritten papers are scanned and sent to examiners (me) to mark on screen . We dont recieve the actual papers

The solution is don’t send him with work to grandmas house. Does she not do things with him?
He’s still young, by year 7, it at a decent school he will have amble homework. I doubt it necessary at this stage for you to be giving him more. Or maybe he’s quite far behind so you are trying to catch him up?
He may need to do the odd extra 20 mins revising for a test but you wouldn’t need to ‘set’ him that. He could look through his own notes, be independent.
By around year 9 or 10 he will need to do extra revision.
Let him enjoy being a child while he still can.
ps I’m a high school teacher 😂.