Please help, I am destroying my boy

[TheWorstMumofAll]

I am a bad mum. I have been thinking long and hard, and I am in tears at the discovery that I am slowly destroying my own son.

I am a coldhearted destructive mum. I am full of love for him, I want all the best for him, but at any sign of trouble I turn into an utter bitch. My behaviour towards him is obscene.

We start out doing homework, and he does not understand, and I get frustrated, and off I go. I tell him I am disappointed, that surely he must understand this? His eyes are full of sorrow, but I dont stop at that, oh, now, through share frustration at not being able to explain it to him so he understands, and with him for not being able to grasp it, I call him stupid. Luckily I manage to catch myself and stop any further homework attempts when we get to that point.

Why can I not be nice and understanding, and nurturing? I am a good mum in all other instances. I am good when we do reading, and literacy, but not maths.

Why can I not coach him through it without losing it with him?
Maybe I should let my husband do maths homework?

My entire child hood I was told I was worthless, and ugly, and stupid, a Devils child. My mum would rant and rave at me, she would pounce through the house, I used to be so scared and hide in my room.
There were different kinds of punishments in my house depending on how mad she was. Bedpunishment, I had to stay in bed and not come out for an hour or so. Outdoor punishment, I had to stay outside of the house, in the garden (whatever the weather) for an hour or so. Or indoor punishment, I was refused to go out for a whole day, and friends would be turned away. I really dont think I used to be that bad....
She also kept a one meter long twig from a beerch three in the cupboard and chase me around the house with it, and beat me across my bare bottom.

It is not an excuse I know. I dont have coping skills. I feel frustrated and confused and dont know how to handle it when my son cant understand his homework.

I have never exercised any of those punishments on him. I am a loving and caring mum, BUT I cannot handle seeing him unable to understand maths concepts.

Now that I have written it all down, I hope I can manage to start afresh. STOP my behaviour while he still have some confidence left in his young body.

Now, please feel free to shout abuse at me. I deserve it more than anybody.

do you think your mum knows shes done wrong?

No I dont think so. I for sure would not bring it up with her now, as she is quite old and frail, and her memory is not like it used to be.

have you ever brought it up with her since youve been an adult ?

First of all, I agree with edam..........change your name!!!! You are continuously giving yourself negative input as to the type of mum you are and therefore will follow it through, and you are not a bad mum.

I hope not to come across argumentative here but I read the posts re: counselling and obviously your background. I too have a very bad background and tried a number of different counsellors to no avail! Just gave myself the attitude of "that was in the past".

However, I too scream at my son when he does not understand his work and I home educate!!!!
I should say that in past tense though because like you I got to the end of my tether on listening to the things I would scream purely out of frustration. I stopped when I decided that I, like you, knew that I was not doing my lovely boy any favours by screaming. So, I one day was totally honest with him and said "I have no idea, I do not understand it either" or "I have no idea how to explain this to you to help you understand it" The funny thing was once I did that I relaxed I stopped thinking that I had to know everything and be able to teach him everything and we would ask Dad when he got home from work to explain it to both of us!

As a home educator and I don't wish to sound controversial or anti school, but your little boy is only 5 why on earth does he have homework? If he does not understand his homework/maths and you are not able to explain it to him then I would say you do not need counselling..............his homework is too difficult for him and he should not be given that type of work yet! The hardest thing about explaining something to somebody who does not understand, is that it is soooo obvious to us we cannot see what their problem is and that is why we get frustrated.

My DS is 9 years old and DD 4 yr old, my son at the moment is driving me mad with algrithms, because he can do them and I can't! My DD does sums occasionally but at 4 and 5 yrs old my opinion would be "sweetheart this seems a bit too difficult at the moment, show me the sums you can do". Tell his teacher that what he is being given is out of his depth right now and show her what he did do.

I would recommend, albeit I don't know if you allow these things, but computer games involving maths. Specifically for maths we use.... I (hate)(hate is actually crossed out) Love Maths. My son plays it and DD watches, so she is learning that way and when I have time I play it too!

Thank you all for your encouraging and sympathetic replies. You make me feel less worthless.

HomeEdder, you do bring up some valid points. I will let dad take over maths homework for now. I shall be more open about not understanding how to explain things to him. As for this weeks homework, I shall leave a post it note on the problematic part and explain that this became tricky. He finds it hard to count in tens, 0 -10 - 20 - 30 - etc. I think he gets a lot of home work for being just year 1: 3 reading books, 4 new words in his spelling book, a sheet with literaracy for writing sentences and making connections (often involving a drawing too, to write about). Do you think this is a lot? It is only the maths that is tricky, but the teacher says it is his best subject.

I think the problems of my childhood are best left in the past, no good will come out of raking all that up. Let sleeping dogs lay on all that. I shall just be aware of my shortcomings and my own reactions, and count to ten and breathe if I feel overwhelmed.

Thanks again to all of you.

Hi BESTmumofall,

Well, my mouth dropped open and tears welled up in my eyes reading your reply. Do I personally think it is a lot? A big massive yes is my answer.

I have been home edding for the past 3 or 4 years, purely because we moved house tried two new schools which were not up to my standard, I now chuckle nervously. I also think educational standards have dropped dramatically. How wrong I must be if they are teaching 5 yr olds to count in 10s!!!! My DD will be 5 in April and has never been to school if she can count in 10s when she is 5 I will be so proud of myself. I would never expect a 5 yr old to be able to count in 10s. I would show her if it is in her workbooks or it came up in conversation but if she did not understand it I would ask myself "why at 5 yrs old does she need to be able to count in 10s?" She/he will have grasped it by the time they are 6/7. They just do when they are ready.

This is purely my own personal opinion but I think for a 5 yr old he has far too much homework. I would say to you, look at it this way, he is 5 and has been out from 9 - 3(?) working(learning)/running around(playing) he is shattered and then his teacher wants him to come home and do some more.

My DH came home from work early (he has man-flu) and I was telling him about this and he said he does not remember having homework at 5, jeez we are in our 40's, there is not much we do remember these days, LOL! As he said, the reason children are having so much to do at home is because the teacher has too many children in the classroom to be able to cover everything and they are putting their job on the parents which may be a good point.

My biggest fear with home edding is that I get it wrong, but what I am learning through my children is that all the shouting in the world won't teach them, they will take it on board when they are ready. Which as the parents is scary for us because we get into that 'expect them to know' at whatever age they are because that is our mindset. I am terrible for having that attitude with my 9yr old and doing my utmost to stop it.

When he next has to count in 10s try 5 mins of playing hide and seek and you count in 10s he will soon pick it up. It sure is more fun than shouting at them and a damn sight less exhausting.

I must say I am shocked at how much he has to do, writing sentences at 5! I'm off to tell the kids they don't know how lucky they are, haha and to get on with their work, LOL!

One last thing, maybe, just maybe, the teacher is saying maths is his best subject to put the onus on you! So, give yourself a break and your little man, give hugs and kisses and tell him it don't matter until he is ready. You will so feel that weight off your shoulders and his.

good luck and don't forget to change your name.

Hi.

Seems to be two issues here:

One issue is your childhood abuse (and it was abuse).

The other matter is the homework (or rather, its effect on you).

I would say:

Change your name. You are not "theworstmumof all". You are aware of your behaviour and want to change it.

If you live in London, try and get referred to the Tavistock Clinic who do psychotherapy. If you are out of London, call the Tavistock and see what they recommend locally to you.

The homework may resolve itself when you are resolved within yourself.

You are still distressed by your childhood. Becoming a mother stirs up a lot of feelings about our own childhood and sometimes, these have to be addressed.

Please seek guidance - do not suffer in silence.

Please let us know how you are feeling.

You are human, just like the rest of us.

As someone who has posted on here recently thinking they should have their kids taken off them because I was so horrible to them, I can relate. It can be so frustrating and the guilt when you look back at your reactions to them is immense.

In terms of your particular situation, someone close to me recently admitted they lifted their precious only son up by the hair (!) recently they were so frustrated during doing homework together. It's the most mind bogglingly stressful thing.

I agree that he seems to be getting far too much homeowrk for such a little boy in such early days of school, but then what do I know, mind are 1 and 3....

you are not a bad mum, you really sound like you are trying so hard, we are allowed to get it wrong sometimes you know, we are not perfect, and your little boy needs to understand you are not perfect and that it is ok for Mummy to lose her temper sometimes, and that she has to apologise too when she is in the wrong. Which you have done.

Don't despair, we've all been there, and will be there again, but it will all be ok in the end because there is love there too.

Bloss

xxx

I am so touched by the amount of helpful, encouraging and heartfelt replies. I dont want to single out any one of you, as your responses have warmed on so many and different levels.

HomeEdder, that was homework for the whole week, I hope you didn't think he was getting so much every day?

I took out his maths homework sheet yesterday after school. He was sat at the kitchen table, and I was half busy with dinner, his younger brother outside playing with the AP. So we had relative peace and quiet. I know, I had said I shouldnt do maths with him, but I wanted to finnish off what I had started with him, and use it to explain that the reason I had been so irritated with him last time was that I was frustrated because I did not understand how to explain it to him in a way that he could understand it. It wasnt him, but me, I was the problem. As we had spoken about number sequences casually in the bathroom earlier, I just placed the sheet infront of him and asked if it made sense now. It did! He manged to write out all the missing gaps from 0 to 100, 10-20-30 etc. He reallly impressed me with his literacy sheet, he drew a picture of a friend in his class. And answered the questions "What is your friends name" with My friend is called Lilly, and "how old is your friend" with She is 5, and "What is your friends favourite food" with Lilly likes Pizza. I didnt even have to read out the questions for him.

I think another issue is that usually when I am doing homework with him, I am also looking after his younger brother, who gets extremely attention seeking because I am so focused on his older brother.

Plan of action:
a) Ensure we have peace and quiet, and do homework when little brother is busy
b) Let dh deal with Maths homework
c) space out homework so we dont do too much at the time.

All of you thank you so much. You have allowed me to see that I can work through this, with all your valuable input, and I can change it. I am feeling so much more positive already.

I am QuintessentialShadow btw, it feels more honest to receive such well thought through replies as myself rather than under a cloak... Off to change my name back...

That is a hell of a lot of homework for Yr1.
DS is in Yr 2 now, and we would really struggle with 3 reading books a week plus all that.
In Yr 1 we got bogged down, and I simply told his teacher we would not be dping reading practice except when DS was feeling coinfident about it because it was a terrible struggle and counter-productive. Luckily his teacher agreed.

Good luck - I do think one of the main principles of not being a toxic parent is to apologise and admit to your child when you have been in the wrong - and you have done that.