Homework woes start early.

Well, it happened. I had my first homework argument with Parker. For some reason I thought that these kinds of things wouldn't happen with the child that loves school and loves homework. But today, after we got home from school and I reminded him he had to do his story (he has to write a story a week and do a picture to go with it...most kids just do the picture and then tell their parents who write it down, the story), he said he was too tired. He did look tired, but he kept telling me all the other things he was gonna do instead of doing his homework and how he was just too tired to do it, but not too tired to do other things like clean his room (he suggested this as an alternative to doing his homework.) We had discussed homework yesterday and I asked him if he wanted to do it then or today (the day before it is due.)

Parker is rarely ever contrary so I tend to let him off the hook on most things and tend to believe him that he really doesn't feel well, but for some reason this time, I felt that I had to stand my ground. So I told him he wasn't going to do anything else until he did his homework. He just sat there and cried and cried for about 30 minutes. He said he didn't want to cry on his homework, but kept doing it. He kept repeating how tired he was and I kept repeating he wasn't going to get up until he did it. I wasn't yelling and in fact, stayed very calm despite everything. It never occurred to him that he could just get up, I suppose.

I finally got up to make dinner. He kept crying, but then...actually did his homework. He wrote a story about going to Hawaii and what he did there. He even spelled Aquarium correctly. There was a nice picture of a stick boy with some colorful fish (he got up to get crayons and kept crying the whole time.)

It wasn't his best story ever, but I said "great job" and told him he could lie down now. Which he did and kept on crying.

I do not look forward to the many years of this situation.