Getting the kids to get their homework done has never been an issue before; Alex studies for fun, Rachel does her work as soon as she gets home just to get it out of the way, and Kevin never really had much to do before now. When he did have homework, he mimicked Alex and sat down at the table with his older brother and just did it.
Then his hormones began to kick in, his attitude skewed a bit, and homework has become a battleground. When asked if he has any, he grunts no, and is then scrambling to get it done at the last minute. On Wednesday afternoon, knowing that he’d be better off getting it out of the way before a weekend that was already scheduled with family outings, Char asked him how much—not if he had any—homework he needed to get done.
I have to read about 10 pages in this book we’re reading for English class.
All right; he’s not the reader Alex is, but he does read for half an hour or so every night, so she didn’t push. She did, however, ask him every night if he’d read what he was supposed to.
A few pages, his pat answer.
Get it done tonight was her reply.
He’s rushing head-first into puberty, we get that. We survived it with Alex, complete with attitude and door-slamming; we survived it with Rachel and her penchant for new-teen-drama-queen antics. Kevin has always been fairly laid back, easy going, so we naïvely assumed he might be just a little easier to deal with.
I don’t think either of us expected he would take the worst of his siblings’ traits and create a whole new pre-teen model. He has all of Alex’s attitude and then some, the snarky sarcasm that just misses the mark, he stomps through the house, and he can out-drama the queen without much effort. He’s still the same sweet kid, but when he’s on a roll…if it was someone else’s kid, I would be amused. Since it’s ours, I’m ticking away the months until the worst of it is over, and hoping that he eases out of it at about the same ages Alex and Rachel did (don’t get me wrong, they’re still rolling in teen crap, but they’ve got a handle on it and know when they’ve stepped over the line.)
Thanksgiving weekend was All Kevin Attitude, All The Time. He snarked at all the wrong times, backtalked, rolled his eyes a few times too many, stomped a few times too loudly, and by yesterday afternoon we’d had enough.
And then after dinner Alex brought up homework, knowing Kevin hadn’t done it; he was being a shit, too, but at least it was with a purpose, to make sure his little brother got the work done before it was too late.
Char was furious. She pointed Kevin towards the sofa, turned off the TV, and made him read the chapter he should have had done on Wednesday night. When he closed the book and then said he needed his notebook to finish—I might have forgotten that I need to write a report—she gritted her teeth and managed to avoid yelling at him. But when he pulled out the notebook, along with math homework he “forgot” about, history worksheets that “will only take a minute,” and a take-home quiz for his science class, her restraint lapsed and she let him have it (verbally.)
He simply sat there and let her get it out, and then made his biggest mistake. He rolled his eyes, sighed hard, and told her to stop being so dramatic. It was “meaningless” homework and didn’t matter.
She was mad enough that she turned around and left the room; he shrugged it off until his cell phone chirped with a text message, and I grabbed the phone from his hand.
You just lost this for a week.
Instant indignation. That wasn’t fair, he was getting the work done and it would be done before bedtime, so what’s the big deal?
You never, not ever, speak to your mother that way.
She started it. He seriously went to that. She started it.
One more word and you’re also grounded for the week.
His mouth opened—he had more than one more word to say—but he doesn’t dare risk it this week. If he misses dance classes this week and next week, he doesn’t get to participate in the holiday recital, and he’s worked his ass off for that.
Very quietly, he grabbed his books and headed for my office, where he could work without a parent breathing down his neck. And somewhere in that pre-teen clouded brain is a working brain cell, because I heard him pause in the hallway at our bedroom door.
I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to be mean.
Yes, we’ve gotten through it twice already and peripherally with a third (though Erin was over the attitude part by the time she moved in; she was still all teen), and his bright spots are far more frequent than his dark wannabe-teen moments, but I am not looking forward to the next couple of years, and I am bracing myself against everything that’s coming at us.
First world problem, I know.
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