What i discovered..

There we were... hatice, baddin n i...it was friday yesterday. They day my dear princess will bring back her weekend homework. We were sitting in her room. As usual, i made a copy of the homework for baddin. I assigned him the same homework as his sister but with a modified instruction... on skills he needed to sharpen up... he is after all 15 months younger than his sister...There we were working peacefully, hatice suddenly asked me whether she could color one of the homework page. Though the instruction did not ask her to, i consented.

I was suprised at her request. As i remember it, she used to dislike colouring and she used to do it quite badly too. Baddin is the same. But yesterday, she did it happily and in a relaxful manner. I softly enquired the matter. I was very curious of the change of heart.

She admitted that she used to hate doing her homework because i used to get angry so fast. She said that ever since she had her own room, her own table, I had changed into a more fun person to do homework with.

Yes. I think she was right. Before she had her own room, we used to do the homework on Saturdays on the dining table where there was the tv distraction. On top of that, her dad used to interfere since he is very against the concept of doing homework ... i do too..but someone had to do it... so...the job fell on me. I was stressed out due to all of those..esp with the dad negative aura homework presence...Nowadays, we do it in her room every friday without the dad n tv distraction. Even baddin has become better in his homework...He is in fact eager to do it every friday..though of course his concentration span is much much shorter than his sister's.

2 weeks ago, i accidently sent baddin's homework together with hatice's homework to school. The response that came back with the homework from her teacher (NilgünGülen) was...

Hatice's homework:
"Kardeşine yardıma olduğun ve ögrendiklerini onunla paylaştığın için güzel kızma teşekkür ederim"
(I thank you for helping and sharing what you have learned with your little brother)

Baddin's homework:
"Sabahattin'e teşekkür ederim. Ablasıyla birlikte ödev yaptığı ve ona destek olduğu için"
(I thank you Sabahattin for doing the homework together with ur sister and giving her your support)

How sweet ...

And so my lesson in the growing up of my children continues... they r teaching me as i am teaching them...