Nice Try

I posted about this on Facebook yesterday, but it’s so funny that I thought I’d share it with everyone.

I take a fairly hands’ off approach to my kids’ homework. I make sure they sit and do it every day, but I don’t stand over them checking their work. My reasoning is that if they don’t understand something in their homework, their teacher needs to know about it. And if they are slacking off on it and being careless or sloppy, then they need to suffer the consequences of their poor work.

Most days, but definitely not all, I’ll give their homework a quick scan, just to make sure that they have actually finished. And I will certainly answer any questions they have about it – to the best of my ability. Once they get above fractions and long division, I’m in trouble.

Yesterday, Lily brought me her homework with a question on one of the problems. I looked at it and knew that she could figure it out if she’d sit and look at it for more than 2 seconds. So I told Lily I didn’t know what she should do and suggested that she read the directions again.

Less than a minute later, she was cramming her homework in her backpack and claiming she was finished. I suspected shenanigans, so I asked to see her worksheet.

I was mortified to see that for the problem she had asked me about, Lily had written, “My mom couldn’t figure this out.”

While stifling laughter, I managed to gasp out that her response wasn’t a good one and that she needed to go back and actually do the problem instead of blaming me.

I am so glad that I decided to look at her homework. As awesome as Lily’s teacher is, and as good a sense of humor as he has, I would have died of embarrassment if she had turned in her homework with that written on it. I would have been the talk of the teachers’ lounge, I’m sure.