Malone tries to find a way with words

The school is giving my child extra help with her reading. I’m not surprised as she refuses to be encouraged to read or even play any reading games with me. I thought perhaps she had an instinctive reaction to dismiss any games that are educational. But then I downloaded a maths game with monkeys in it, and now I can never get on my computer!

“It might be easier to teach a cat to read than my five year old”

I asked her why she liked maths, commenting how good she was at the game, expecting her to say “Monkeys” but instead she replied, “because I enjoy it” Of course… Of course you have to enjoy something to want to do it and get better. I knew that! My daughter hates to be wrong. I don’t know where she gets that from… well, who does like being wrong?

Some of us are just better at being graceful about it. Children generally aren’t graceful about anything. She detests being told to re-read the word, resents me for correcting her when all I am doing is encouraging her to attempt reading! “That’s it, darling! Just say ch ch like chop chop and then eeeee – cheeeese”
My daughter will scowl at me for telling her what to do: “I know that!” She will say in such a way I wish I was the kind of woman who liked cats. I could have been a woman with a cat living alone… instead I live with a cute monster. Sure, a cat would sulk when I returned from weekends away and c*** in the garden but I rarely go away and I haven’t got a garden. And I would never have to teach it to read! It might be easier to teach a cat to read than my five year old. I have been beating myself up about her reading, hearing my own mother’s recent words: “We used to read to you all the time! You must read everything – road signs, you name it.”

I do try but my daughter seems uninterested. I wonder if she subtlely feels pressure from me, so rejects it. Perhaps someone else to read with her would be a good idea as I’m wondering if it’s our polarised mother-daughter relationship that is hindering things. I am Mother. The person who tells her what to do all the time. I tell her to tidy her room, eat her greens, pick up her toys, brush her teeth, pick up her shoes, put on her coat, wash her hands, “Walk! Don’t run eating that apple!” The list is endless. It must be nice to sometimes say “No! I don’t want to read.” I’ll get my friends to read with her, and see if that makes a difference. If not, she can then just grow up to be a math genius never reading the newspapers’ gloom, who lives in a safe happy bubble but whose math genius is very exploited by wordy job contracts…