It wasn't until Xan came to me with some difficulties with his own math, that I realized I couldn't take for granted the guys were making their way through math without problem. There were problems all right.
Except it wasn't Xan--he consistently gets enough questions right the first time around (80% or better), it was Charlie. The online checkpoints, and me being willing to relinquish my mom-smarts, enable Charlie to engage in some bad behavior.
Basically, Charlie would go through his checkpoint (basically an end-of-lesson test) and fail it. Then he'd click the "review" button where he could see where he went wrong. Normally, the parent should go through the review with their child to help work through problem spots. Well, I was a bad mom and didn't know he was failing and reviewing and then basically just entering in the right answers as he remembered them from the review. *sigh*
When I finally realized my mistake, it was on Charlie's Unit 2 review. Once Xan alerted me to the problem (sometimes it's a good thing to tattle!) I sat down with Charlie to review where he'd gone wrong on his unit review test. Um, he didn't seem to know any of it. He claimed complete ignorance on even relatively simple math problems.
Add to that some complaints about how stupid he is and how he'll never be able to do math ... and I realized it was time for me to do something.
Thankfully, I have a good friend who is a former math teacher. For the last few years she's been working as a math specialist at our local elementary school, helping kids just like Charlie. And, even better for me (but bad for her), she was laid off this summer as our school district made drastic cuts in their budget. Meg loves to teach kids math and she, thankfully, responded with enthusiasm to my request that she tutor Charlie.
I am so pleased and can't wait for her to come in and help my guy out. I'm hoping she'll start tomorrow, Monday. I only wish I'd paid better attention to what Charlie was doing sooner. BUT, at least it's only been a month. There's still time to really turn things around for him.
He's also been invited to join in the Reading Horizons program which promises to improve his reading skills exponentially.
I am thrilled and excited for Charlie. I think this is going to be his year to really leap ahead in his academic abilities and especially in his perception of himself. That's a tremendous and lasting gift that could change his life for the better.
So, I may have been a bad mom, but at least I can recognize my shortcomings and work to overcome them--and sometimes that means admitting that I can't do a thing, but finding someone that can.
