Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / March 2007

Hello evryone

I could do with your thoughts and advice please

I have a son, Callum, who has lived with his mum and new family for
about 5 years now, He has a new brother and he is happy

We all get on, well except for the plastic dad, who is of a paraniod
nature. But Callum seems to like him, and that is fine.

Over the past 12 months or so, More probably, I have noticed that Cal
isnt doing as well as he should be in his maths and english, he is not
a daft kid, and if there were exams in Yugiho or playstation, He would
be a scientist by now.

I have spoken to his mum tonight about this and the problems we have
are

A - I live to far away to be on hand to help Callum out after school,
And paraniod dad would see that as an all out attempt by me to move
back in to his home

B - Cal's mum is running a home after a days work and has both Cal and
his little brother to tend to plus lots more

C - We really arnt equiped enough to bring Cal up to the standard he
needs to be

So I have suggested that we get in a tutor, I belive that if the time
is set aside each week regulary with a person outside the family,
coupled with the 1 to 1 approach, Callum will start to improve

I guess you check out any tutor before you give the go ahead, and I
assume the tutor, will be able to assess Callum and tell both myself
and his mum, what needs to be done to improve him - This should be in
some sort of a staged plan so improvements could be measured

After saying all this, I could be wrong, Has anyone here got the same
problem, did you use a tutor? What were the results?

Look forward to your replies

Julian