Please.
Look at the the textbooks when it is possible. Sometimes, the kids will want them, just for the structure and normalcy. But there is no question, from experts the world over; children cannot be expected to do academics at their own standard level now. I cannot even get Claudia to dance sometimes.
And yet she is writing more that I even “count” hours for. Today she described someone we knew: “It’s like he poured acid on his face and became Slenderman. He doesn’t exist.”
We knew who she meant. Claudia IS a writer.
And this is the learning Claudia, just twelve, can handle right now. If Neil Gaiman is her teacher, than more power to her. They sat rapt watching Roots today. Find the fault in those feelings, which I guarantee will never be forgotten. Béla spent hours calibrating a green screen.
And he used to be a kid who took drum lessons. Now he IS A DRUMMER.
I know what it is like now to see a mother go from worrying about whether her kids were “where they should be”, to dead. Give up the fucking ghost and let them do math puzzles. Or not. Stop adding hurdles for your own children who are watching the world dissolve. You would never have known what to do in a situation like this one if you’d been young in it; stop acting like you know now.
Love is the one thing that never fails. I had told Claudia today I did not know all the ways to show her I loved her but I was always going to look for more. She said “keep doing what you’re doing.”