Monday, May 12, 2008

The Lessons’ Lesson

Today, being Monday, Ricki should have gone to her after-school dance and exercise classes. It is the one thing she does on a regular basis with other girls who have Down syndrome, and it is the highlight of her week.
However, today she didn’t go. Her homework hadn’t been done. At least not early enough.
Now often Ricki dilly-dallies with her homework, and Mondays are no exception. Often I have had to prod her to get the minimum amount of homework done. Warnings that we are running late, will need to take a cab, etc., seem to fall on deaf ears until I make it quite clear that we are almost at the “Cinderella momemt”: too late to postpone any further.
Today I was much more low-keyed. And I insisted that ALL her homework be done. In the end, even she saw that it was too late to go. I gave her something fun to do (she HAD done her homework), and hope that she learned today that there will be no more prodding nor forgiveness for studies not taken care of.

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