Summer vacation is not a "vacation" for parents

Yesterday was a day off.

Ideally, I would like to do something I enjoy,
but it is currently summer vacation.
That is not how it works.

Things don't go that easily.

Although my son is out for his cram school's summer course,
my daughter is home all day.

Moreover, her progress on homework didn't seem
very good at the moment,
so we decided to catch up during this break.

For us parents, summer vacation is "summer work."

That said, the opportunity to do this work together as parents,
which we usually leave to the school,
is, in other words, only during the summer vacation,
so I decided to take a positive approach and get through it.

First, I decided to take stock of the homework that is currently finished
and what still needs to be done,
and then make a strategy.

It turned out that half of the tablet drills, the poster project,
and the independent research project were not yet finished.

She could do paper drills at the after-school care center,
but apparently she is not allowed to do tablet drills there,
so we have to get the tablet work done during this break.

Also, she cannot do the poster or the independent research at the after-school care center.

I decided to turn these tasks into a simple schedule
and try to get through them in one day.

Fortunately, we had already decided as a family what to do for the independent research,
so I started preparing for that in the morning
while my daughter started working on her poster.

My daughter finished the sketch for the poster and started painting with watercolors,
but because the sketch she drew was quite detailed,
she couldn't paint it well and was about to lose heart.

So, after we finished lunch,
I decided to help her with the painting.

As I taught her the tricks of painting
and we painted together, I started to feel sleepy.

So, I had my daughter do her tablet drills for a while,
and I decided to take a short nap during that time.

After about 30 minutes, I woke up
and started painting again,
and we finished the painting in about an hour.

Painting with watercolors is hard work,
but cleaning up is also quite a chore,
so I washed the palette and brushes with my daughter in the bathroom.

After we finished washing everything
and put the set in a place to dry,
we started writing the parts of the independent research that could be written.

I have my daughter draw a picture of the subject,
and then have her write down her observations and thoughts.
It is quite a laborious task to get her to talk about it, often through something like a leading interrogation because she cannot easily come up with her own thoughts, and then to transcribe that into writing.

Since she cannot easily come up with her own thoughts,
it is quite a laborious task to get her to talk about it
through something like a leading interrogation,
and then to transcribe that into writing.

Having managed to finish the day's mission in that way,
we decided to go buy ice cream together.

This is because I had promised her in the morning that
if she worked hard for the day, we would have ice cream.

My daughter, who had somehow managed to complete today's mission,
looked strangely proud of herself.

Seeing that, I thought of something.

They always do things like this at school
from the morning until after 3:00 PM.

I am sure that after the school day ends,
they feel relieved that it is finally over
and feel a sense of satisfaction in having accomplished it.

However, despite having worked that hard,
we parents often end up telling them to do their homework or assignments for their extracurricular activities
when they get home.

I wonder if this is actually
very painful for them.

To use a company as an analogy, it is like
being forced to take home work after having worked diligently until the end of the day,
and being told by a boss at home to "get it done quickly."

If this were a company, it would be a clear case of power harassment.

Since children also work hard at school all day,
they must want to enjoy a sense of accomplishment,
and they must also want to do the things they enjoy.

Of course, that does not mean they do not have to do their homework,
but I decided that when I encourage my daughter to do her homework after the long weekend,
I will try to be more thoughtful in how I say it.

Summer vacation may be work for parents,
but it might also be a good opportunity to notice various things about their children.

I think I will work hard on homework with my daughter again today.