XBox hatred and homework.

Having bathed in glory at my algebra bonding exercise with Son #2, this evening I can feel my eye muscles twitching involuntarily having been to Parent Teacher Consultations with Son #1.

Having tried to persuade me that talking to his teachers was a totally unnecessary exercise my son accompanied me, reluctantly, to the appointments as requested. The general consensus was that my son is a fine young man, but lacks focus, lacks organisation and needs to up his input to achieve his potential. Fair enough, I thought. Not too bad an evening's assessments.

One of the points they all raised was my son's dreaminess, almost his tiredness ... Tiredness? Would that have anything to do with him getting up at the crack of dawn to play the XBox? Xbox. I am reluctant to even sully my page with that word. I cannot tell you how much I hate the XBox.

It rules my son's life. He is obsessed with it ... football games, war games, ultimate football teams, levels ...

I remove the controllers so he is unable to play. I ban it for weeks on end, but still he wants to play. I feel utterly useless as a mother because I just don't know what to do. He and his brother saved up to buy the thing and their time on it is restricted, but he is always thinking about it and if he can't play he watches Youtube videos of other people playing.

Having spoken to his teachers tonight I have to do something. I know that other boys spend far longer on the stupid thing, but I just don't understand this obsession. And if it is going to affect his academic success then I have to act.

I don't want to ban it completely because I understand the enjoyment it gives him, but I do feel he has to earn his time on it. Why he cannot realise that by doing some school work as soon as he gets in he will be totally in my good books I just don't know. He talks a good game and it upsets me that every time I mention revision he gets angry, accusing me of nagging. He just sounds deluded, twisting my words and making me feel so angry. I just don't know how to make him realise how important his GCSEs are. He says he knows, says he knows exactly what he needs to do, says he will work .... but when he is ready to.

I just want to scream. It is exhausting. All I want is for him to achieve his potential and not throw away his future because he wants to spend his time watching rubbish Youtube videos and playing virtual football. I hate his aggression towards me, his disdain. I hate it. In this day and age all students are expected to do their homework on laptops so I cannot ban him from the internet. I don't think I should be expected to hover over my 15 year old as he does his homework, but I'm afraid it would appear that's the only way his work will get done.

Part of me just wants to say "Fine. You know what you're doing ... get on with it." and then leave him to sink or swim. But I am afraid that by the time he realises that he needs to start trying to swim it will be too late and he will drown in a deluge of work. And also, I am his mum ... I love him with all my heart and I so desperately want him to be happy, do well, achieve his potential, learn how to work and be organised. Its time like this when you just feel overwhelmed as a mum. I feel useless and frustrated. If I get to the stage where I post on here a set of wonderful results for my son's GCSEs .. well, I will just turn a somersault! I know he can do it ... I just want him to actually do it.

Tonight, Algebra, we beat you!!! I am a Good Mummy!!!

I think that I can safely say that this evening I have been a good Mummy. You may think that I am blowing my own trumpet here, and you would be right, but it is a rare occasion when I can genuinely say "Tonight I have been a brilliant Mum!"

I will take you back to about 40 minutes ago when I was safely snug on my sofa, tapping away at my laptop, confident that my daily chores were over and all I had was a quiet evening ahead of me before toddling off to bed.

Along came Son #2 at that moment with the worried look that I recognise as the accompaniment to an extreme lack of completed homework. The problem, it seemed, was Algebra. He had no idea how to do his maths prep and wanted me to help. Me ... Algebra .... My first reaction was to send for Son #1 who is far brainier than me when it comes to the demon Maths. Unfortunately, due to what turned out to be either a complete lack of understanding of said homework or, more likely, a pressing engagement with YouTube, he decided it was beyond him too.

photo courtesy of Amplify.com

It is at this point that a mother shows her mettle. A girl either writes a note in her son's planner expressing total ignorance of all things mathematic or she heads upstairs to the Mac in an attempt to at least show willing ... In a fit of positivity I took the latter option and with beating heart trudged towards almost certain humiliation.

Having discovered that the homework was due in tomorrow (obviously) and that the time was now 9.20 pm I gave the requisite speech on doing homework immediately its given so any problems can be ironed out and then looked at the screen before me. My heart sank as I saw what appeared to be hieroglyphics ... How on earth was I going to sort this out?

With a sigh I suggested we both do the online tutorial in an attempt to understand anything at all. Gradually, before our very eyes, the mystery of Algebra unfolded. We followed the lesson and then tentatively attempted the homework sums. It was like walking along a balance beam ... neither of us were quite sure how we were doing it, but we seemed to be understanding what to do. The screen started to glow with green tick symbols ... Each time we hovered over the "Mark your Work" button we held our breath and bit our lips ...

And blow me down with a feather if we didn't get it right!! When I say "we" I mean my son because it was he who decided on the answers, but I was checking them in my head and knew he was doing the right thing.

In the space of 20 minutes we went from being complete Algebra duffers to a couple of excited nerds giving High Fives to each other as yet another green tick appeared. There can't be many people who bond over maths ( not in my Arts dominated world anyway) but tonight we bonded like bilio!

As we said "Good Night!" and he padded off to bed after a huge hug and a giggle I knew that tonight I had been a good mum. Tonight I had entered an unknown land with my boy and we had emerged triumphant together. We may not actually ever be able to do it again, but this time we beat you Algebra ... we beat you!!

Homework Help - How much is too much and why help at all?

My son is upstairs doing homework - writing a newspaper report on China's One Child policy. He is 13.

He has had a week to prepare and write the piece and has lots of information on what is expected and what he needs to write and include to gain certain grades. I can't remember having to write things like that for my homework when I was 13, but then times have changed. He is in a very bad mood because he hates having to read anything and one of the main tasks for this is retrieving information from various sources.

I have to admit that I have helped him. I pointed him in the right direction as far as web sites are concerned, but he was decidedly bad tempered about the whole thing.

I am torn between feeling sorry for him and just being downright frustrated by his obstinacy. It seems like a pretty interesting task to me and, for goodness sake, he has the whole of the world wide web from which to draw information. When I was at school the most advanced equipment we had was a slide rule. Gathering information meant sitting in a library trawling through dusty, well thumbed reference books...

He doesn't know he's born, does he? Can you imagine his reaction if I told him he had to hand write his essay and then only after he had gleaned all his facts from books which may or may not contain the right info? I find it hard to instil a sense of work ethic, a pride in his work. He wants everything to be done instantly, easily. But life is not like that is it? Achievements to be proud of do not come easily. They take work and sweat and worry.

I ask myself whether I should help at all - whether I should let him sink or swim by himself? Every part of my motherly instincts tell me to help him, but by helping too much I will end up hindering his progress. We have all seen homework projects supposedly done by children when its obvious their parents have spent most of half term crouched over a glue gun and a cardboard box. I am not one of those parents, but equally I want to show him where to look, how to structure, what questions to ask.

Having said that he's lucky I didn't throw the laptop through the window at one point this evening ... So, we are at the stage where he is upstairs doing it by himself and I will read through it when he's finished. I have to be patient. He has to work hard.

The loneliness of the long distance mother ... or pass the wine I've had enough!!

Having done a full day's work and having been up since 6.30 am I walk into my house to discover my boys have dumped all their belongings in the hallway and melted onto the sofas each with a laptop open and glowing.

I now begin my second job of housekeeper/cook/psychologist/nanny - and I'm not even paid for this one. As I start to clear the kitchen of the debris left from breakfast, sort out the laundry and think about cooking dinner number 2 son calls me to help with his homework...

I wouldn't mind helping with homework if I wasn't met with constant grumpiness and rudeness and I'm afraid after a long day at work I do not have a lot of patience with bad tempered 12 year olds. I calmly direct him in the ways of research and revision and then suggest trumpet practise.

This suggestion is met with what borders on derision and if it had taken place on board a boat would have given me grounds for having him keel hauled. You will, I hope, admire me for keeping my cool and walking away.

I often think its a fortunate thing that we humans, and especially mothers, do not have message screens on our foreheads because mine would be constantly streaming a mixture of profanities and plans of somehow escaping to anywhere but here. Being a mum, in my house, is not all sweetness and joy.

My reaction to a friends saccharine Facebook post that "The most precious jewels you will ever wear around your neck are the arms of your children..." was to fake vomit into my fake bucket. Is it just me or are children sometimes a bloody pain in the backside??

As I write this they are oblivious to the effect they have on me most days as I sail regally on helping with homework, cooking teas which they turn their noses up at and clearing up the endless trail of crap that they trail behind them like exhaust fumes on a winter's day.

Thank God for this blog where I can release my bile and avoid being removed to the nearest high security mental institution by men in white coats. 

Year 8 maths Homework and the internal angles of a polygon.....done.

The night before last I helped my son with his maths homework. He is in year 8 and it consisted of working out the angles of some shapes, mostly triangles within polygons.I enjoyed it - its like a puzzle and when you get the first couple the others come like a waterfall of knowledge.

However, the next part was not quite as easy. You had to work out the internal angles of a nonagon - a nine sided shape. Well, I just did not know how to do it and it frustrated me. In the end we had to give up. The next day I was on a mission to work them out. Am I slightly obsessive....?

I asked people in my staff room, but nobody seemed to know. Then I googled nonagon and found the most interesting site. It gave me a formula which I could use to work out the internal angles of any polygon. Why I would want or need to do that is a mystery, but if I am ever called upon in the course of my everyday life to work out the internal angles of any multi sided shape, be it regular or irregular, I am now equipped with the knowledge to do so.

You need the equation:   180(n-2)      

This means that, taking n as the number of internal angles, you take 2 away from it then multiply by 180.

So.... a nonagon.... a nine sided shape is 9-2 then x180....  so 7 x 180 which = 1260.

My thirst for knowledge is satisfied. All I need now is somebody to desperately need to know the total of the internal angles of ...... something.

This was brought to you by Secret Housewife Homework Solutions.