As you know, I work in a school and I get 27 days a year holiday. I like half-term as the teachers who have been moaning about how stressed they are at having to work for six weeks straight, go away, and the school is quite pleasant with no students in it. You will also know that after a day or two I can't wait for them all to come back.
My eldest son's GCSE's start in earnest on Monday - he has two a day for the next fortnight. I have been revising with him. He finds it really helps him to focus, and if there is something he doesn't quite grasp, I can read the books and then explain it too him. So because we have an impending stress fortnight, I decided to take the week off and help him. I don't want him going into the exam and sitting looking at the paper with a complete blank like I did when I sat my 'O'Levels. He has already sat four of them before half-term - Art, Applied ICT, Philosophy and English Literature. We had a mad session on 'Of Mice and Men' and he was pleased because the next day he wrote an 8½ page essay on the book in the exam.
Stress is not something he handles well. Outwardly he looks calm and collected, but his face flairs up with spots and he sleep walks and has night terrors - not something that's easy to handle when he's 6'4" and he's trying to get away from something. He doesn't have them often, but when he does it's because something is bothering him, so the next two weeks should be fun! That and his hormones make for one delightful 16 year old - and there is not enough room in this house for his hormones and mine.
I just want to know that I did everything I could to help him - although he'll probably fail the lot now and he'll blame me!
13 comments:
I came to you by way of Marianne's comments page, secretary - and your remarks reminded me of a dreadful holiday I spent in Cornwall with mine, when he was also 16. (Quite a long story, this - so take a deep breath!)
We had an idyllic pink cottage high above a cove at Zennor, on the Lands End road. I told him we could swim in the cove, so off we went on the first morning, staggering through miles of rocks and brambles down a steep cliff path. And having got there, all we found was a rocky cove so cold and bleak that only seals (and one slightly mad intrepid woman) would actually think of swimming there.
So that was out.
Next, I hired a beach hut at St Ives for him. I didn't drive, so took what was called the 'footpath' - which meant ploughing through miles of rough land, and across large fields, in one of which a bull was tethered on a long rope. Nothing would ordinarily induce me to enter a field with a bull in it, rope or no - but these were desperate times. We got there at last - but he was too self-conscious to venture into the sea, or even across the sand, and spent the whole day sitting miserably in the beach hut...
After that I found a bus that actually passed the cottage on its way to St Ives - but he was so stupefied with boredom with it all by then, that he told me I might go where I would, he would just stay in the cottage and play his guitar...
At which point I think I more or less gave up and left him to it. It was one B AWFUL holiday though!
That was more than twenty years ago. He's a successful lawyer now, and very kind and lovely to his Mum.
All of which is a (very) roundabout way of telling you how well I remember what 16 was like!
But also to assure you that it DOES PASS. And that what you finish up with is a human being who is good to you, and whom you can actually rather like....
I like that story, thank you. In between hormones and revising I actually rather like him now. He calls me ma and at 6'4" I have to look up to him, which I quite like. Only three weeks to go and it'll all be over!!
You are a good mum.
I remember the rounds of exams as if it were yesterday - I can even remember some of the questions.
I could never manage to do exams in so many subjects now though.
You sound such a wonderful mother. Whatever happens, you've obviously given him fantastic support. He's a lucky boy.
Yes I agree with the comments. What a great thing to do on your part.
And the flaring up would be happening anyway. I had that particular pleasure too... and the sudden height. It was all a bit tough to take at once...
I can so relate to what you are saying. We too are deep in the throes of GCSEs and you do go through it with them, as though the exams were your own.
Unfortunately my son will not allow me anywhere near his work. I am not even to mention revision or exams and if the words burst from my lips in my frustration as I watch him spend yet another precious hour playing computer games to death as though his life depended on the outcome of the games and not the outcome of the wretched exams, he turns on me, spitting hormones and blame.
Yesterday he said that it was my fault he wasn't doing more revision. If I would never ever mention the subject, he would almost certainly, do more work. So if he fails for lack of revision, it will be my fault for reminding him, very occasionally and tentatively to do so. Does that make me a bad mum?
Do these exams matter so much? I have no answer to this, merely throwing something into the ether.
On balance I suppose they do but the pressure on all involved is enormous - noone has asked me my A level results since Jesus was a carpenter - apart from my daughter...
I remember it well secretary, those warm summer sunday nights, window open, anne nightingale on the radio, book opened for the first time in front of me, can't actually remember attending any exams though, must have been struck from my memory as some kind of psychological immune reaction and now I only remember the balmy evenings with the radio on and the time off school
M&M - I did 6 O Levels, my poor baby is doing 12 GCSEs - just seems too much to fit in. Never mind, that'll learn him for wanting to be educated!
Omega - Thank's for that, I didn't think I was particularly special, if truth be told I just don't want to get blamed later - which is what happens as I am the only woman in the house.
Stay at Home Dad - I agree, he might be hormonal and stressed, but I think it makes me love him more because the hormonal and stressed side is still nice and still smiles and still laughs.
Marianne - you are not a bad mum, you never could be. At the end of the day (as my husband keeps reminding me) they are Mike's exams to sit and pass not mine and therefore it's his responsabilty. You love your son as much (if not more) as I love mine and I think that makes you a particularly fab mum!
Debio - I agree with you. I have two C's two D's and two E's in my O Levels and I lie on my CV and say I got 6 B's (don't tell anyone!), but he needs 5 A-C grades to get into 6th Form to do his A Levels, and as he wants to do Maths,Physics, Geography and Economics, he needs to get B's in Maths and Physics, at least, to survive A Level.
Rilly - I remember revising. I have to say that my revision was looking over what I had written in my exercise books. With Mike, we purchased the Collins Revision Guides that came with CD's. You revised three or four pages and then did the test on the CV - great revision, I have to recommend these books (bit late now - but anyone with revision coming up they are invaluable).
As I am so bone idle, I was always an exam 'crammmer.' I had to get to a point where the stress built up so much that I finally got off my backside and did some revision only days before an exam. I just know that with my own kids, who may well turn out to be the same, I will find it teeth-clenchingly difficult to stand by and watch them make the same mistakes as I did. Good luck to you both!
12?!?!? Bloody hell! That's just cruel! I'm only doing 9 (plus the farce that is short-course RS). 24 exams is damn cruel. In fact, I've just counted, I've done/are doing less GCSE exams this "session" than he's sitting GCSEs! But I'm lucky; here, top set english sit English Language in november (with the resits), and I (cos I'm a geek!) sat one of them a year early.
One of the IT techs was telling me last week, "back in his day", people sat 5/6 O levels and 3 A Levels. I'm rather jealous :)
So, yeah, tell him best of luck! (And if, like me, he's got Biology tomorrow, and is (and by the looks of his A-level choices, he is!), more of a theoretical scientist, I feel his pain!)
:)
It is the hardest thing, standing by and watching him not doing it, but I can't do it for him. I would if I could. In the end they are his exams, not mine. He doesn't even do it days before, more like hours.
I'm sure your son will do well, Secretary. He sounds like a good lad. Mine is a good lad, too. Just difficult.
DM - I am sure your kids will be fine. We always try and stop them making the same mistakes we made, and we turned out alright, didn't we!
Freddie - yes biology today! Hope it went well for you.
Marianne - your exactly right - it's theirs to pass not ours. Your son may be difficult, but you love him none the less, and he will be ok because he has a good mum backing him up every step of the way.
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