Thursday, May 01, 2008

AARRGH!!!

Sometimes I swear that I'm going to pull my hair out by the ROOTS!!!!

I think that oftentimes, Reilly sets out to simply be as stubborn as she possibly can. To look at things in the most obtuse manner available. We had a very simple exericise the other day: look at the picture and put an X next to the sentence that best describes the picture. The picture was of a child in a bed with a mom standing over with her hand on the child's forehead. The sentence choices were
1.) Jenny had a cough so she went to bed
2.) Dan is a tough little boy.
3.) Dad sanded the wood because it was rough.
4.) She had enough candy for one day.

Reilly chose "Dan is a tough little boy." When I asked her why she chose that sentence, her reasoning was because, despite the fact that it was obviously a picture of a child in BED (which would lead some to the sentence with the word "bed" in it) the child in the picture didn't look like a girl and why would someone go to bed just because they had a cough? I mean, she doesn't go to bed when she has a cough. What?
I have such trouble teaching in moments like that because it's all I can do to not just look at her and say, "Are you KIDDING ME?!? LOOK AT THE STINKIN' BED, for crying out loud!" It is so unbelievably frustrating! I know that being detail oriented is a good thing, but how on earth can I teach when someone is so detail oriented that it gets in the way of LOGIC?!

And I deal with things like this on a daily basis, where I just want to scream because I'm faced with a child who is SO literal that she has a hard time getting things done because they don't make sense to her.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!