What a day! For Linda is was last day of term at her numeracy and literacy classes. She’s been attending these for a year now and certainly has improved. You can read her writing now, most of the time!
More importantly, she actually took a maths exam some weeks ago and was eagerly awaiting the results.
I sent her out with a packed lunch, a good-sized portion of rice and vegetable salad with chicken. As it was her last session I also packed a few treats – a banana, a chocolate biscuit, a packet of rye biscuits and some spring water to drink.
Then the wait until she came home…
As she came through the door it was all too obvious that Linda needed the toilet urgently.
We waited – yes, she had passed her exam!! What good news. We were so ready to celebrate. But…
As we talked and reviewed the day we unpacked Linda’s bag. There we found she hadn’t eaten her rye biscuits though she did have a nearly empty bag of potato chips in evidence… banned items under her healthy living regime given her very high blood pressure. Hmm…
And there was most of the water that she went out with – so what had she drunk during the day and why such a rush for the toilet on her return home?
When questioned Linda was absolutely certain she had consumed nothing that I hadn’t given her, no sweets, no chocolate, no coke, no crisps, no nothing! Honestly sister.
… and the half eaten bag of potato chips? Ah, well, yes, just those.
I could have let it rest there but the liquid consumption just didn’t tally so I asked how much money she had left.
Now Linda’s math ability is improving from a very low level but she hasn’t yet got the concept of forensic finances. Knowing how much money she had left the house with in the morning and the goods she had admitted to purchasing it was evident there was a significant gap. But no, she hadn’t bought anything, honest sister.
After working through the sums I was able to highlight the financial gap and together we wondered what might fill it…
Eventually I had an admission of a chocolate bar, a can of coke and, of course the potato chips.
Given I didn’t know the exact prices of these purchases, I couldn’t be certain but, I do suspect this is not a complete list of the illicit purchases.
So now what?
How do you celebrate a really worthy exam success in the same moment as dealing with deliberately buying and eating forbidden foods AND a host of blatant lies?
Honestly sister!