Reading to my child

I LOVE LOVE reading with and to my child. Each night he is supposed to read me one book and then I read 2 and then Doug reads him to sleep. (No he will not self soothe - that is a whole other topic - suffice it that this works for now).  

Here is the stress that happens....  He gets in bed and then argues & fights with me about reading.  He wants me to read one page, he a page. Then 2 pages. Then he counts words. Then it is a battle over how many words or pages, etc. It frustrates the crap out of me. I know he can do it. The process stresses me out incredibly bad. 

I LOVE the time when we can read. We sit together.  He is snugly when generally he shy's away from much physical contact.  He is generally calm because he likes to hear books.  Making him read to me disrupts that peace and quality time.  We have been doing it since school started.... this battle.  The best solution is not to force him to read to me at night.  Sure, it seems like having this battle after school or before dinner or ANY other time is a good solution.  Yet, he just gets angry about it.  I have calmly and patiently just stuck firm to "You read one book to mom and I will then read to you".  To absolutely no avail.  It has just become a battle royal.  

Tonight so horrible that I walked out. No kisses. No book to him. Just anger & frustration. And it made us both cry.  I never went back in and Doug listened to his book and then read him to sleep.  

And I sit here looking at these 2 bags of books, "dolch list" and the signatures needed on all of it and I am overwhelmed at how I am failing him by not FORCING him to practice at home.  All of this is sent home so we can practice and work with him and right now it is just stressing and overwhelming us.  I am failing to help him advance in language comprehension and ability to read.  Conversely, I am failing to enjoy the moments with him as he just enjoys being read to and not straining his brain to look at the words. 

And honest to goodness at this moment I wonder if maybe, just maybe, he is NOT ready to accept the amount information at the speed it has to be digested and we should somehow slow down and individualize his learning.  I sit here in tears about how we fail to allow him to tackle things when he is ready.  We historically allowed him to get where he needed to be when he was ready for it... school makes that impossible... he has to get where he needs to be when "the system" deems him ready.  And I feel like there is no way I do him justice because we struggle with practicing at home.  

We recognize he works hard all day to hold it together and learn.  His amazing teacher provides a rich and active learning environment and helps all the students to be the best they can and for all of these littles, it is REALLY hard work!!  For Espen, school is hard work ~ just keeping it together!  We have down time and quiet space for him to play, be physically active and use the parts of his body he worked to control all day.  We know he accepts information differently.  But to survive we encourage and force him to still "work" when he is home. He does homework, flashcards and reads.  Often, it does not end well.   

But tonight SUCKED. And that moment I can not get back. That moment when he just wanted to lay next to me and hear the book. That moment is a bitter reminder of how I am failing my child - because we must practice in order to succeed and meet the grade.  We fail him by forcing him to read when reading causes him stress and anxiety.  We fail as parents by taking away that moment he loves and forcing him to read.  We are helping him to hate books.  This .... tonight ... it feels like failure because mommy walked out....