ds is 9 and the jury is still out wrt as/asd/odd/adhd just a bit quirky/ einstein so we'll ignore him
so dh and i spent about 45 minutes last night trying to explain to ds1 that because his teacher gave out two maths worksheets for homework, and said that they had to do worksheet 'a', and they didn't have to do worksheet 'b', that she meant they could do worksheet 'b'. (particularly if they did worksheet 'a' in about 4 seconds). he spent 45 minutes arguing that they weren't 'supposed' to do worksheet 'b' because she said they didn't have to. and seemed to be terrified he was going to get into trouble for doing worksheet b)
not 'supposed' to, but they 'could'. we said.
'no,no, we aren't 'supposed' to. we don't have to'
it went on and on. with him getting more and more distraught, and dh and i trying to work out how to rephrase it so that it made sense to him. but as it wasn't what mrs x said, it didn't help at all.
short of getting the teacher to rephrase how she hands out homework and optional additional homework (that you can do) is there any way i can explain this to him?
it doesn't help that he never writes his h/w down in his agenda, so we have to rely on him remembering in any case (and he'd left his agenda at school . but he was distraught and crying that he'd get into trouble if he did both.
and on worksheet 'a', there were a list of questions followed by the instruction 'show two equations for each'. so ds1 insisted that he just had to show the equations, but didn't have to answer the question itself (which was obviously the 'solving the equation' bit - so in effect three parts to each question. but because it said 'show 2 equations' he was adamant he wasn't allowed to write the actual answer down.
we haven't really run into this before - it's a new school, so i'm guessing he's a bit stressed about following the instructions precisely etc, but i'm wondering whether to discuss with the teacher. usually they get him get away with not doing stuff because they theoretically know he can do it, but i'm getting concerned that this approach isn't helping him in the long run... and sort of think we need to work at this before the secondary phase. and starting in a new school seems like the right time?
how to explain nuances in speech? and help him decipher real meaning?
y5. just started middle school, so back to being the youngest in the school.
or do you think we should just back off?