What is it about?

The rollercoaster adventures of parenting three kids, dealing with disability and mental health - and discussing disability discrimination and how to tackle it.

Monday 12 May 2008

Project of Love

Beaver had a school project to do. The kids had to collect information about an animal of their choice and present it on a big piece of cardboard paper. The idea is then that they talk to their class about it.

Of course, Beaver chose an echidna. He’s been sleeping with a fluffy echidna for years, and is very attached to it. Over the last few days, we’ve been collecting information on echidnas, and Beaver moved slowly slowly from fear and reluctance over having to do this project to some interest.

On the weekend, we collated it all together. This was a Father – Son thing, Hubby and Beaver were busy talking about echidnas, what they eat, how to pick them up, where they live, that sort of thing. On Sunday morning, Beaver was up for putting his project together with his Dad. So they got started.

And then Possum walked past, had a look, and made some snide comment on how Beaver did not write the word echidna well enough.

And that was that.

End of project for Beaver. Hubby coaxed and cajoled him into putting something together after I took Boo Boo and Possum into another room, but it was no-where near what we knew Beaver was capable off – and originally interested in doing. We were disappointed, and we know Beaver is too, in his own way.

Really, what it came down to was that Possum felt left out, and really wanted to do a project too. He took it out on his older brother. And with Possum clearly better at writing than Beaver, there was an easy put-down.

In hindsight, we didn’t handle this too well. We should have given Possum his own project to do. Ach well, you live and learn.

This morning, the project went to school. Hubby took the boys, and he had a little chat to Beavers’s teacher, and explained the situation. She was very understanding. The kids will be presenting their projects over the next few weeks, and we’ll see if we can add to it or do something special. Hubby had the idea of making a spoof wildlife video. The boys are very much into Bindi the Jungle Girl (she’s the 9 year old daughter of late Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter) along the lines of Beaver the Bush Boy. We’ll sit together tonight, after the rabble has gone to bed, and discuss strategies and planning….

When he came home from the school drop-off, Hubby told me of the chat with the teacher. Told me how sad he was for his son. “I watched him go off to assembly, and I had tears in my eyes for our boy” he said. ”It’s just not fair”.

No. It’s not fair. It’s so not fair.

But gee, I love Hubby. What a man!

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