I give up

Over the years I have struggled to get my kids reading.  I don’t expect them to love reading.  I simply want them to be able to read, understand the meaning and communicate effectively with words.  The fact is this: if they have a good grasp of literacy, they are better able to negotiate school and then have more choices when it comes to a career.

     Naturally they were read to as babies and toddlers and they had a fabulous library.  However when they entered school, they seemed to lose interest in the written word and it escalated over time.  I did everything, anything to inspire them to read. I bought books of all genres, engaged tutors, bought educational computer programs, signed up for Reading Eggs (used once like Study Ladder and Mathletics) and God knows how many other online learning gigs, read to them, have them read to me, paid them to read to me (in year 7 TK and I read a chapter each of The Third Son and he had one chapter left to earn $10 taped to the back cover - he refused), I’ve bought and played every conceivable word puzzle; Boggle, Scrabble, Upwords (first in the kids’ and later adult versions) and so on.  All I have achieved is a parting with dollars and fractured relationships.  I knew to back off, but then school reports reminded me I needed to support them.  It was a destructive cycle.  

     Just before Christmas 2014 I came up with a cunning and fail-proof plan to get them reading and also writing.  Sick of them refusing to read and fed up with their derogatory comments about my desire to get them reading, I took a vow of silence.  I typed up a page and a half letter to My dear family and handed it to the Rooster to read.

     He read that I would not speak for thirty days although I would communicate in writing and only accept written responses providing the grammar, punctuation and spelling was correct.  The Rooster read ‘fertile’ for ‘futile’ and ‘expectation’ for ‘exception’ so I knew I was doing the right thing.  He also read out how I loved my family dearly, I was desperate to do what a good mother would do and this strategy was a last resort.

     ‘Yours, Cate and Mum,’ said the Rooster as he handed me the letter and walked off.  ‘Goodnight.’

     ‘Goodnight,’ said Kibby and he went to bed.

     ‘Goodnight,’ said Seffy and she went to her room.

     A stony silence thickened around Tony.  

     I assumed they’d come to see my wisdom over the next thirty days.

     Of course, I needed something for us all to write in and what better to use than the New Scientist diary my father gave me for my birthday in 2011.  How portentous!  A clean slate for a new start, one that would finally be successful.  I fanned the blank pages, savouring the faint scent of mildew.  However I noticed handwriting on the first page.  I fetched my glasses.  It was my handwriting.

     Family meeting.  20 December, 2011.

     I read the notes and remembered the mutinous meeting where much was promised in terms of children’s behaviour and nothing delivered.

     The Family Meeting book had just become the Vow of Silence book.  I turned to the next blank page and wrote, Vow of Silence 19 December, 2014.

     To cut a long story short, I lasted three blissful days for at the end of the third day there was a small crisis involving a stool sample, a young woman, a country highway, a deadline in another town.  Spoken language was imperative for the situation.  I spoke to the Rooster and the crisis was averted.

     My family mocked me for reneging on my vow.  I gave up on the learning and literacy front and shelved my Family Meeting-cum-Vow of Silence book.  It was too stressful for me.  Tony and the kids could go to hell … until, three weeks later Tony insisted on allowing the kids an hour or more of TV a day, crap TV, that was.  

     I risked humiliation and called a family meeting.  I found the Family Meeting-cum-Vow of Silence book and turned to the next blank page and wrote, Family Meeting 11 January, 2015.

     After a shaky start, there were raised voices (not just mine), cynical comments (not mine), terse reprimands (not mine), clarification (not mine), submissions about scientific research (only mine) and finally we all agreed that if each weekday the kids read for 30 minutes and wrote for 30 minutes and worked with numbers for 30 minutes (the Rooster didn’t need to do maths) they earned 30 minutes of TV/DVD time providing they stood to watch the screen (no couch slouch).  If they read for an hour, they got to stand and watch TV for an hour.  Read for two hours, stand and watch the screen for two hours.

     We all signed the Family Meeting book.

     By the third night, no one had done the required reading, writing or maths, but then no one had watched TV.  A pyrrhic victory!

     Later that night the Rooster announced he was going to watch TV.

     ‘How can that be?’ I asked him in my calmest voice.  ‘You haven’t read today or written.’

     ‘Well, I thought I could read the subtitles in one of those French movies on SBS for half an hour and then read for another half an hour and another half an hour.  You'd be happy if I read for that long.’

     I really have given up now.