Week 6 - Wednesday - meltdown morning

J is half way through his breakfast when he remembers that he has forgotten about a handarbeit test on how to thread a sewing machine. He is very distressed, and I feel sorry for him, since he had hardly any time to relax last night after school and his homework. So we quickly practise threading my sewing machine, and I run through the (English) names of the parts.

He then loses his temper with me and starts shouting because it’s the wrong type of sewing machine, and I gave him the words in the wrong language. I then lose my temper with him, on the basis of:

Whose problem is it if he has forgotten about a test ? His, not mine ! I was half way through the ironing when he remembered about this, and I’ve not had my breakfast yet, but I’ve just taken 10 minutes to help him anyway. He’s got to get his act together.

And

Of course I don’t know the German names for the parts of a sewing machine, I can just about manage the supermarket run and that’s it. It’s a Norwegian sewing machine bought in England in 1989, with an English instruction manual. I can’t do better than that, he should be thankful that I have a sewing machine at all.

I just about calm down enough to tell him repeatedly to not panic about the test otherwise he’ll forget everything and get it wrong.

They leave for school, J crying but he has to leave otherwise he’ll be late and on the naughty board again.

I feel dreadful, as this has been brewing ever since his homework regularly started to take up to 2 hours a night, and 4 at the weekend. Dreadful for losing my temper with him, and dreadful for telling him to get his act together - he’s not to blame for his own lack of organisational skills. Then I have a lightbulb moment:

1 How the hell can I expect him to get his act together and get organised if I haven’t taught him how nor given him the tools to do it ?

2 Perhaps the time has come for him to have his own desk in his bedroom, so he can work in peace and quiet and without me telling him to sit down and concentrate every 5 minutes.

In my despair I turn to http://www.flylady.net/ for help on how to teach children organisational skills, and as usual her website has bucketloads of helpful hints. I print off the Student Control Journal for him. Reading through it is like manna from heaven - I know this will speak volumes to him in a way I never will.

Looking at the clock, I realise I can get a desk sorted out for him (we have a spare table on the balcony that’s not being used) and set up by the time they get home for lunch, so I work flat out to get the table cleaned up and moved into their room, nip down to bau & hobby to get a small table lamp and a corkboard, and some stationery bits and bobs from the Migros. I realise he needs a calendar, but it’s too late for the remaining months of 2008, so I print off September – December from Google calendars and stick them on the corkboard, so he can put the dates of his tests on the calendars and then he can be prepared for them in advance. He is a very creative little soul, but needs some help learning how to most efficiently organise and use his time (don’t we all), and the Swiss system encourages them to be independent in their learning and organisational habits from an early age - not very exciting to a 9 year old who wants to play James Bond all the time.

I’m happy with my morning’s work, and when they get home for lunch I send J up to have a look. He is thrilled, and continuously thanks me and tells me that he really wanted his own desk all along. Obviously I had been very slow on the uptake – I had realised that he would need one by Grade 7 but hadn’t appreciated that it would be such a huge jump to Grade 4.

Anyway, he’s chuffed to bits, and he’s also chuffed with the Student Control Journal, repeating “Mum, this is brilliant, this is really going to help me SO much”.

Re the test: it was OK. In fact, it went very well: he sweet talked the handarbeit teacher into letting him name the parts of the machine in English rather than Deutsch. So that’s a huge relief, but he’d better not make a habit of it as I don’t want his peers thinking he’s getting preferential treatment over them.

An afternoon at the WAC as usual, and J has one piece of homework to finish when we get home. He accomplishes this, in his room (with his very scary Winnie the Pooh DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from the handle) in record time.

Hallelujah. I think we’ve made a breakthrough.