I will never forget today; at least I don't want to. Leaving for school this morning, Will was torn up emotionally over math. He had tried to finish his homework both the night before and that morning and was so frustrated. He wouldn't let any of us help him. On the way to school he was anxious about not having his homework done, ...it turned out that he hadn't done 4 assignments because he didn't understand the problems...he was feeling increased anxiety over not being prepared and told me "my teacher is counting on me."
When we got to the school, I decided to go in with him to try to help allay his concerns, and got permission from his teacher to sit with him in the hallway and look at his math again with him.
It took patience on both of our parts, but after some time, we figured out where his conceptual misunderstanding was...once he corrected that, he was on fire! Although I kept giving him the option to stop, he cruised through 60+ problems (2 hours!) and would have done more if he wasn't all caught up at that point! I was so proud of him! He told me that when he needs help with his math, he is going to ask me now. He even voluntarily thanked me for helping him...We were a great team and he hasn't balked at his math homework since! Way to go, Will:)