Hi, my name is Erin and I am a bully. Why the heck can I teach other peoples kids all day long and with the patience of Job, but when it comes to my own children's learning, I reduce myself to tactics that were used against me when I was a child? Those tactics made me angry, mad, sad, defeated, not smart enough. In the act of bullying that is not what I remember. When I am working through the math problems or reading activities and am met with questioning eyes and frustrated glances...all I can see is that some days she reads with ease and some days she is stubborn as hell and for got the sound the B makes. Some days her mental math capabilities are beyond the 1st grade expectations and other days I ask what comes after 46 and tears fill her eyes. My 4th grader can do this to me too...typically I bring both of them to tears once a month though on different days. All the while I am standing over them shouting that she remembered this yesterday.
I did this today. I typically keep my cool, but today was one of those days I had a short fuse and was not willing to compromise. Not until my husband called me out. He is really good at making me see the larger picture. He was pretty sure she was being stubborn too but knew my approach was not going to fix or solve anything. Ouch. I took a breath and went back to the table with a changed approach and we made it through the lesson.
So my question is, does anyone else get this way? How do you combat that double standard? My kids are my students as well, so I know they have never seen me freak out on other students. Why I am I so hard on them? Are you harder on your own kids than your students?
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