Tag Archives: homework struggles

Intense Emotions and Solid Engagement – With the Magic Number Fifteen

Fifteen minutes of staylistening followed by fifteen minutes of hanging out (aka Special Time) turned out to be the magic formula for my then fifteen-year old daughter on this particular Sunday evening.

My daughter was in a crabby mood. She had just started a class in political science at the local community college, having signed up for it because she cares deeply about social and environmental justice. But the thought of having to do homework must have been nagging her and weighing her down. In the afternoon she had sung with her choir group in a wonderful performance and the music was still reverberating in her mind (and mine). There was no space in her mind to focus on homework. Yet, it had to be done. She had to read her textbook and then do an online quiz.

Finally, she started reading the required material. And then it happened. The tears started pouring down. The material in the textbook had moved her and allowed her to release her pent-up emotions. All of the crabbiness was a layer that eventually gave way to real feelings that had been waiting to come out. She was convinced that nothing anyone could do on this planet could ever set right all the wrongs done by humanity, both to humanity in general and to the planet at large. “Human beings have destroyed this planet. The rich get richer. How can they be so greedy? How can they do this knowing that so many people are suffering? Why are they destroying everything around them and the human race itself?”

There were intense emotions. It all came pouring out. It was now late in the night and I was tired. She needed to wake up very early the next day for another class. I was feeling the pressure of her needing to get some sleep. But I knew from past experience that if I focused on her sleep rather than on her feelings, then neither would get addressed! So, despite my own tiredness, I fortunately managed to listen to her feelings. I didn’t tell her that things would get better, which I sometimes do. Instead of reassuring her, I simply gave her my full attention with love, just listened to her, and shared the sorrow about the amount of injustice in the world. I found myself crying too, though I didn’t want her to be distracted by my tears. Thank goodness my tears didn’t seem to interfere with her emotional process. Perhaps she even found it supportive to know that I felt the injustice too.

After about fifteen minutes of this, when I asked if she wanted to go out and get some fresh air, she came out willingly. Although I had suggested the idea, the rest of the time definitely felt like Special Time, because I let her direct the walk around the neighborhood. The air was cool and invigorating. She noticed a tree that neither of us had noticed before that had fruit that neither of us recognized. She skipped with a lighthearted gait. I just enjoyed watching her and being with her. She noticed a little toddler going for a walk with her mother. We were both captivated by the daughter’s cute and determined footsteps, so we crossed the street to say Hi. And I delighted in how my daughter interacted with the toddler. Apparently the mother had tried all sorts of ways to get her daughter to eat her dinner, but had finally resorted to taking her for a walk while trying to feed her at the same time! We soon continued on our walk. There was more light-hearted skipping and talking. For a short while, my daughter’s mood shifted again and became a bit heavy, but she shook it off. The outside air sure did help with that. And after fifteen minutes of walking, we were back home again.

Shortly after that she took a quick shower and came back down to finish reading the assigned chapters in the book. She asked me about Ponzi schemes, hedge funds, and other economic and financial matters mentioned in her textbook. I was pleased that her mind was re-engaging in the material and gladly discussed it all with her. Now that she had managed to release those yucky feelings, she was finally able to think straight! Soon she disappeared into her room again to finish reading the text. She came down shortly after that again and told me confidently that she was ready to take the assigned online quiz. It took her fifteen minutes to do the quiz and she aced it!  She felt so pleased with herself and I was so glad for that.

Fifteen minutes of staylistening followed by fifteen minutes of Special Time. That was the magic formula for that day!

Of course, she still needed to wake up very early the next morning and I worried that she was not getting enough sleep. But she went to bed with a clear mind and a light heart. And I couldn’t have been more pleased about that!

—Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor  Usha Sangam

Usha Sangam

Listen to a free podcast of Parenting: Going Deeper in which Usha presented. Sign-up here.

Read other stories from Usha on this blog.

You can learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

A Little Listening Cleared Up the Vision

A sweet 9-year-old student whom I tutor came in the other day in a somewhat low-key mood.  He got ready to do the math that I had planned for him.  We were working on calculating the area of various shapes that had combinations of triangles, rectangles, and circles.  When I started showing him the first of these, he couldn’t immediately see how the combinations worked and got frustrated immediately.  “It’s too hard!  Give me another problem.”  I thought for a second and then decided to try another problem that was slightly simpler.  I knew that he was capable of doing both problems.  It was well within his reach.  But once again, he said, “It’s too hard.  I don’t want to do this problem.  Give me a different problem.”

He was now more visibly frustrated.  I knew at this point that it was not the problems that were the problem.  There was something else going on.  So I decided to stay with the second problem and gently said, “I think you can do this one.”  At this point, he was ready to tear up the papers and I didn’t let him.  He got off the chair and threw himself onto the carpet.  Tears flowed.

I asked, “What’s going on, sweetie?”  That morning his mom had sent me an email saying that his dad had been traveling for nearly 2 weeks and was due back the next day, and that her son was missing him a lot.  So I paused and then asked, “Are you missing your dad?”

It was apparently the right question.  The floodgates opened.  He talked about how he had been talking over the phone and over FaceTime, but how it was still not the same as having him be there in person.  I agreed, “It’s not the same.  I’m so sorry you’re missing him.  I bet he misses you too.”  And he said, “Yes.  And I kiss him over the computer, but it’s not the same as kissing him directly.  I have to kiss the little camera on the computer.  It’s just not the same.”

It was just such a tender moment.  A boy missing his dad.  I sat there and simply listened to his feelings.

And within a few minutes he was ready to move on and was able to easily grasp how a certain shape might be viewed as a rectangle minus two other smaller rectangles and how a certain other shape might be viewed as a circle minus a square.  And he could then see how the areas could be calculated.

And all it took was a little listening to clear up his vision and ability to recognize the combinations of shapes!

—Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor  Usha Sangam

Usha Sangam

Listen to a free podcast of Parenting: Going Deeper in which Usha presented. Sign-up here.

Read other stories from Usha on this blog.

You can learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

A Little Listening Can Move Mountains

A friend of mine, a wonderful woman with a very positive attitude and with whom I had been doing a listening partnership, wanted to talk about a situation with her son’s class teacher.  Her son had been coming home unhappy almost every day.  She is a parent who volunteers in the classroom.  She felt that the teacher had identified some children as her favorites, with her son not being among them.

My friend’s son was in a combination class with a single teacher for two grade levels.  At the end of the first year of her being in this class, she asked for a change of class because her son had been so unhappy.  At first she met with a lot of criticism from the teacher and resistance from the principal.

My friend was naturally very distressed about the whole situation.  During a listening partnership session with me, she was able to release a lot of her anger and upset feelings about this issue and was able to cry about this.  I stayed and listened to her feelings.  And it seemed to have had the right effect!

Within a few days, she had figured out exactly how she was going to approach the situation with the class teacher and the principal.  She rehearsed what she was going to say and discussed it with the teacher and principal with self-assurance and confidence.  She finally did get what she wanted; her son was moved to a different class.

Sometimes we don’t realize the effect we can have on people, simply through our listening (or not listening).  I was moved by how a little listening can move mountains.

—Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor  Usha Sangam

Usha Sangam

Listen to a free podcast of Parenting: Going Deeper in which Usha presented. Sign-up here.

Read other stories from Usha on this blog.

You can learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

Mommy Is A Silly Creature

The other day my oldest daughter (10) came home from school very tense. She was hot, tired and hungry, but there was also something else that was bothering her, and she wouldn’t say what. After I fed her and let her cool down a little, it was time for her to start doing her homework.

She is usually pretty good about getting her work done in an efficient manner. This time it was almost out of the question. She was growling at me and her younger sister, and looking for reasons to shout, quarrel and fight with the both of us. I could see that there was no easy way out of this one.

Somehow, and I can’t even recall why, I started to make very weird sounds and faces, and even weirder laughing noises. Those made her laugh really, really hard, which kept me going like this for another 15 minutes (which is highly unusual amount of silliness on my behalf!). I didn’t say a single word other than those weird sounds and faces. I could tell that this laugh of hers was not only out of amusement, but also her need to take some of the heavy load off, and at some stage I felt like she wanted her mommy back, and had enough of that strange looking and sounding ‘creature’.

After this session was over, my little daughter who was partly witnessing this asked for us to do it again, but my older one said: “No, I can’t, I have homework to do.” She went straight from there to her desk without any prompt from me, and managed to get all her work done.

In the evening right before bedtime, she was telling me a little bit more about her day, she still didn’t want to tell what was that one other thing that was bothering her, but she seemed to be much more calm about it, and I would probably hear about it in a later stage, as often happens with her. I must admit that this Play Listening was not the easiest thing for me to do. I am not usually a silly type of person. But I was amazed to see the affect it had on my daughter, and like always this is what kept me going.

Ravid Aisenman AbramsohnJoin Certified Instructor Ravid Aisenman Abrahmsohn in one of her classes and start making silly faces! Building Emotional Understanding Online starts May 7. She has limited spaces available. Reserve yours now.

Listening Tools Help Kids with School!

My daughter started at a new school this year in fourth grade and overall the transition has gone very smoothly.  The first day she announced, “Mom, I made 8 new friends.”

Yesterday she was humming on her way into the house, toting along her backpack and lunch box without me reminding her, eager to start her homework.  “I want to do the math first because it’s fun!” she announced as she zipped through the packet that will be due at the end of the week.  For the writing assignment she was slightly less eager, asking me, “What should I say about our cat?  He’s so boring!”  We talked about it for a few minutes, and she realized she had plenty to say.  “There, how’s that!” she said after reading it to me with a pleased look on her face.

Bad Report CardI could see from her satisfied air that she felt good about what she had done.  Later I was reflecting on my daughter’s entry into kindergarten, around the time I started using the Parenting by Connection listening tools regularly, and how all the listening then has set the stage for things to be going well now.  There was a time at age 5, at the beginning of the kindergarten year, when she was in bed at night crying hard about not wanting me to leave the room and said, “But then I would be alone and I don’t want to be alone!  I might not see anyone to play with.”

Having learned about Staylistening, I gently listened as the storm continued.  She cried for a while longer, and then when it subsided she looked peacefully at me (I was astonished) as I said goodnight and left the room.  Earlier in the day she had mentioned that sometimes at kindergarten recess she would look around and not see anyone she knew that she could play with. I saw how I didn’t need to try to “fix it” in the moment, but that the power of my warm listening attention could allow her to heal the hurt places.

I also remembered a particular Special Time, when I play whatever she wants to play.  She was gleefully giving me homework problems to do.  Whether I followed her instruction exactly or fumbled with a mistake, I was always WRONG.  I happily played my part in this game, exclaiming with distress how I just couldn’t seem to figure it out or do it right.

Then as I was working on the next “assignment,” she all the sudden said, “DING! It’s time to move to the next station.  No, no, stop what you’re doing!  It’s time to move on.  No, you can’t finish it!”

Again I played along, saying, “But I really want to finish!”.  Wow, did I get a clear picture of some of the stresses coming up from being in kindergarten and having something new called homework. Special time allowed her the chance to take on the more powerful role and release some of the emotional tension.  As time went on, she was able to laugh and giggle at my mistakes during these scenarios, and then eventually to offer me generous help, coaching me along patiently.

Now, we still have our afternoons when things don’t flow as easily as they did yesterday.  Upsets have happened, whining creeps in, patience is tried, and we’re both at our wits end.  I am so grateful to have the listening tools I’ve learned at Hand in Hand to help her find her way back to her self-confidence and her sunny disposition and to help me regain my buoyant perspective and clear thinking.  Even in the thick of it when I don’t know what to do, I can usually remember that there’s a way through and that things will get better.

-Certified Instructor, Emily Cernusak

You can also read more about StayListening in the Listening to Children Series by Patty Wipfler.

Listening through a Homework Challenge

My daughter was given a month to learn all the states and their capitals. She’s in fifth grade. About two weeks before the due date, she had learned some states, but not many, and I made the suggestion that we work together. I offered to help her learn groups of about six states at a time, thinking that this would help her meet the deadline.

After she memorized the first six, she got completely overwhelmed. She felt she couldn’t possibly learn all the states, and she had a huge cry. Then she proceeded to learn the second set of six states and capitals, but again she felt that this was too much for her. She had another long cry. She kept saying, “I’ll never learn this. I just can’t do it!” She also got mad at me for having this particular idea of how to learn the states, and cried about my “interference.” I was somewhat confused by this, and wondered if I had gotten too involved in this assignment.

Somewhere between the third and fourth set of six states, she again felt hopeless about learning them all, and had a third big cry. Each cry she had went on for a half hour or more. She felt she could never do the assignment, and expressed frustration and anger at me, at the assignment, and at the world. I knew that the crying would help her eventually, so I kept listening and wondering how this was all going to turn out.

After the third cry, everything changed. All of a sudden, she learned the next sets of states quickly and easily. She took on a set of 18 states and capitals, and did them all at once. Three days before the test, she asked me to quiz her on them, and she knew them all! She was ecstatic, and I think there was a part of her that was amazed that she had done something she was sure she never could do. She was absolutely proud of herself.

The day before the test, she was completely confident that she would get 100%, and she was actually looking forward to the test! She usually showed a lot of anxiety around tests, so I’d never seen her like this before. After the test was over, she expressed dismay that it was over, and she told me that she wished she could do it again! She has referred to it again and again as one of the major learning feats of her life, and she has thanked me profusely for my help with the project, saying that she never could have done it without me. It was so helpful to me to see this whole process work!

Homework Meltdown

homeworkMy daughter (almost 11) started middle school three weeks ago. Everything was going smoothly and it seemed like she was handling the whole transition in a very calm and cheerful manner. Well, life can never be that good, can it?

Yesterday, she came home with quite a bit of homework. She has never been scared by homework, she usually sits down and does it. Yesterday, however, she kept saying, “I can’t concentrate,” “I can’t do it,” and was asking me to help her. I did not understand what was really going on right away and I suggested she move to a quieter room, instead of the kitchen table.

After an hour she was still not progressing, and by then she was very nervous. She was crying, shouting, trying to hurt me physically, and yelling at me what a terrible mother I am. I decided it was time for me to set the limit, get closer and see what came out. I had her sit right next to me and do her homework, while I was timing her and watching closely what she was doing. I should add the task she was working on was really easy and on a regular day it would have taken her 5 to 7 minutes max. That’s how I realized that the stress had nothing to do with the actual task.

The whole time, a lot of steam and anger were coming out. Sitting closely and watching her, I also noticed she was using a very slow and meticulous manner of writing, which was not her own. I asked her to write faster. As she was writing and sobbing, she said something about how she can’t write as nicely and neatly as one of the other girls in her class, and I finally realized what had been bothering her the entire time.

After she calmed down, I spent some time admiring her qualities as a person and as a student, and reminding her how comparing yourself to others is not a smart thing to do. I can easily see how the fact that I was not fully attuned to her from the very beginning made the situation worse, but I feel good things came out of it.

Getting closer to my daughter as she did her homework allowed her to offload some of the things that were sitting there waiting for the right time to come out. (Like her high expectations for herself and her fear of not fulfilling them.) For the rest of the evening we were very close and connected, and I could see the thankful look in her eyes, and that’s worth it all!

- a mom in Israel

A Nasty Math Surprise

colorcalA father in one of our groups tried Staylistening when his 3rd grade daughter ran into a tough patch with math homework. She had left her math homework for last, it was late in the evening, and she was in for a nasty surprise. Her math homework was a whole page of 30 math questions!

“I can’t do this! This is impossible! It’s too late already. It isn’t fair that I’ve been given all this Math homework on top of my other homework!” she said.

Our father said that before he took our class he would have just told her to tough it out. Instead, he moved close to her and said, “You’re right. It’s not really fair that you’ve been surprised with this homework.” He then gave her 5 minutes or so to vent.

Then he had a suggestion, “Why don’t you start with the first problem and I’ll look at the second problem and offer some suggestions if you get stuck on it?”

She breezed through all 30 questions in under 20 minutes and her father only had to offer one or two short suggestions about the problems along the way. He said it was a vast improvement even over how well she did her homework when she wasn’t tired and at the end of a hard day!

A little Staylistening can go a long way.