Recognizing frustration while studying

We all have our ups and downs, our good days and bad. If we pretended everything was OK, we were all the more frustrated that everything was NOT OK.

When it comes to helping my son with his schoolwork, it is essential I know when he's having a bad day or struggling through the work. If I keep pushing or insist that we get something done, everything will come crashing down.

Case in point: I had my son take a spelling worksheet with him to the babysitter's house to complete. When he gets home I usually check his work, go over all the successes and misses. I make a point to state that he did a great job, because I know with reading and spelling especially, he tries his best.

On this particular occasion, he put the wrong word in a blank to complete a sentence. I was trying to remind him that he needed to look back over his work to make sure things made sense, but he burst into tears. He hasn't done that in a while, so it surprised me and I started to try to explain that mistakes happen and I went on and on. But the crying didn't cease.

I should have recognized right away that he was not having a good day. Maybe he was tired or hungry. No matter what the issue was, I should have backed off immediately and let him have his moment of frustration. By insisting on going over this mistake, I made things worse.

As it turns out, he had tried extra hard on the exercise and even one mistake was more than he could take. He had read the word before the blank wrong and the word he put in the blank made sense with the wrong word. The mistake was more of a reminder of his dyslexia and how much it plagues him.

I finally backed off and hugged him and rubbed his back and said nothing. There's no amount of talking or explaining that can make a moment like that better. He knows he is smart and he knows he is talented in many other areas. He knows he is dyslexic and knows what that means, so I don't need to tell him all that again. I just need to let him get his frustrations out and then we can move on.

I find it usually helps to leave the exercise alone and go on to a different subject altogether.

Do you have a trick you use to help ease frustrations with schoolwork?