I've been listening to the alphabet song for over an hour while SO tries to teach his 5 year old who is starting kindergarten in 4 days. The alphabet he should already know as it's on the list of things they should know along with many other things he can't do. No one works with these kids! SO has just realized how lacking they are being around my kids and the stories I talk about when they were young. I tell him not to compare kids mine always excelled and were ahead in most areas, but here's a list of what they should already know. His dd starts 1st grade and only knows maybe half of the kindergarten expectations and BM says she excels really are you nuts? Since we've been getting the kids for week long visits SO now sees what I've been telling him they are way behind, and need worked with. He's also not freaking out about the fact I said I think his son is having petit mal seizures (absence seizures) first time it clicked in my head his son's behavior what it could be I showed him a video of what they are and SO told me I was crazy (hi I work with people who have all kinds of seizures and every video I just showed you was identical to what your son does and you say he's just ignoring us.) Now he thinks maybe I could be right because it's better that than his kids just "has something wrong with him"
In the longer spans of time we've been having them they've both learned to bathe themselves (they do a really good job for their age at properly using soap, shampoo and such) working on tying shoes (BM has never shown them because "that's what velcro is for" their ABC's (his dd know them at least) counting, recognizing numbers shapes colors, and with his dd learning 3 letter words. I'm big on education and teaching kids to think, so this frustrates me that BM doesn't care, and really thinks her kids are so smart when they can't even do the basics for kindergarten