I remember back in the day when Bill Cosby did his show called “Fatherhood” (or something like that), I heard about how kids can come down with brain damage. You know, the answer to everything (especially deep and probing questions) is “I don’t know.” It’s not really brain damage, just a means to evade answering questions when a kid assumes that he or she can outwit a parent and that parent turns out to have some grey matter in the attic after all.
Now that that’s been explained… My third grader had a mathematics assignment this weekend. All weekend long, I asked my son, “Son, did you finish your homework?” He put it off until Sunday, and at that point, he said “yes.” I guess that he thought that I would not bring it up after that. WRONG.
This morning as he was eating his breakfast, I said,” Son, let me take a quick look over your homework before you go to school. ” At which point, my son’s world started to fall apart. At first he said, okay. Then fifteen minutes passed. Then I asked for the work again. Then he fumbled and fiddled. Ten more minutes passed, before I read the riot act. “Bring me that homework, NOW!” Then my son SLOWLY came downstairs with a crumpled paper and the following exchange ensued….
“What is this?”
“Uh, it’s my homework??”
“Nah uh…. You have got to do better than this. You’re going to be late for school because you are redoing this work. Go get your ruler, your pencil, a sheet of CLEAN paper, your eraser and my stapler. You’re about to clean this up.”
“Okay…”
“Why did you even try to get this mess past me? Why didn’t you ask for help?”
“I don’t know…”
And there it was. He didn’t know. Brain damage. In my own home. A kid who has been reading since he was two years old suddenly was struck with the “I don’t knows.” I am sure I cured him though.
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