Horrible, terrible, no good school day that wasn’t horrible after all

Here in North America, there’s a book many parents have read to their preschoolers about a horrible day. It’s called “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” by Judith Viorst.

Some people don’t like this book. (I do.)

Along the lines of a similar theme, there’s the Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.

Both of these books deal with bad moods in a unique way.

These titles are what I thought of the other day when my son jumped off the bus and announced, again, that his day was horrible.

Except, it wasn’t. Immediately after his announcement, he continued with a flood of excited remarks about the fun things he did in media class, or gym, or science…

“Do you know…” he’ll start a sentence with great emphasis on the YOU.

“Did you know…” he’ll continue by exclaiming some interesting tidbit of whatever he learned in some subject.

Seems his days aren’t quite so horrible after all.

I try to be understanding. He’s an 11 year old boy, and the sunny weather beckons. He’d rather be outside playing than inside conjugating French verbs. I get that.

But lately, it’s become such a habit for him to say that his day was horrible, I thought we could mix it up a little. You know, teach him to come up with a more descriptive, creative way to describe his day on the long walk back home.

“Use some compelling adjectives, or play around with some synonyms”, I suggested. (He is the son of a Writer of Words, after all.)

“Could you come up with a more interesting word than horrible?” I asked.

“Terribly boring”, he said one day.

“Torturous”, he mentioned the following day.

Then I had an idea.

“You’re in French Immersion, so you may as well use the language a bit more”, I told him. “How about you describe your day in French?”

The look of horror on his cute face was just horrible.

🙂