Discovery of the day

Leaving a caravan in storage over the Winter months with a solitary packet of Jamie Oliver's Lemon and Spring herb cous cous in a cupboard says this to mice:

Come and live here rent free over the long, cold Winter months.

Stay for many weeks and feast on our generosity. Satisfy yourselves with lemony herbyness. You are but tiny rodents and there is a bountiful supply. Tell your friends!

Procreate. Increase in number and raise your large families amongst our soft furnishings. Munch your way through that groundsheet in your spare time. We are not using it. How selfish of us to expect you not to nest there.

And please do not freeze your tiny furry backsides out in the bitter cold, honestly- there is FINE. And there. And there. Our entire caravan is your communal latrine. 

Technology

The place of technology in childhood is under much discussion in our town right now following a local primary school's decision to have every kid purchase and use their own iPad in lessons. I'm not sure how I feel about this really, and given that none of our kids go there, I'm not forced to consider it right now. It's a growing trend though so is something we won't escape for much longer. And like breastfeeding in public or military intervention in the Middle East, everyone seems to have passionate opinions one way or the other. 

You have the pro people over here who say In a few short years these kids will leave school and embark on careers that don't even exist yet and this is a fantastic tool that will help them adapt to a new workplace and a new world etc etc.

And then the people over here who say What about the parents who can't afford to participate in the scheme? Who's liable for damage? And look at this study here and this research here - we are spawning a generation of socially inept, obese youngsters who will constantly need entertaining and struggle to converse with anyone without using acronyms blah de blah.

This may well be true- the eldest child in our house is 13 and still speaks English (for now). But our house is full of gadgets. And people who love gadgets. And we spend more time using them than I'm comfortable with. But I also spend more time than I want to on my laptop so I would be a big fat hypocrite to ban them completely then ignore my kids while I deal with emails.

So as with every other aspect of life we aim for moderation. And once a week we have No Gadget Day when the kids are forced to play cards / Monopoly / chess / lego or help cook tea rather than participate in any screen based activity.

This has been met with some resistance, it has to be said. Which has only made me more determined to carry on. (I'm a bit stubborn that way).

Perhaps this is partly due to poor marketing? We should maybe try a re-brand...

• Lets Argue About Monopoly Day 
• Hide And Seek Until Someone Is Crying Day
• Build A Den And Defend It With Nerfs Day
• Look Sadly At DVD Boxes For The Best Part Of An Hour While Deciding What To Watch Tomorrow Day
• Nice One But No You May Not Consult Siri For A Cookie Recipe- Look One Up In A Book Day
• I Don't Know What You Can Do Now- Why Not Do Your Homework Day
• If This Is So Hard Then We'll Need To Do This On Thursdays Too Day

Whatever we end up calling it, resistance is futile. And until you realise this (Oh dear children) we shall continue to use this weekly exercise to covertly hone the essential debating skills you will need later in life.

You're welcome.

Books books books

Our 3 kids couldn't be more different. You hear people saying it again and again but it's really true- use the same biological building blocks to create new life, donated by the same two parents, raise the products in the same household applying the same principles and you will get very different small people. Our household is no exception to this universal law and here's my favourite example: Reading.

I vividly remember when our eldest realised that the tiny random squiggles on a page of paper actually meant something. He was 2 years old and far too young to appreciate ‘The owl who was afraid of the dark’ (my favourite book from childhood which had made its way onto his bookshelf in a dog-eared-held-together-by-Sellotape kind of condition). He pulled it off the shelf and asked me to read to him.

After a brief but useless explanation that he wouldn't understand it we snuggled down together and began to read. I moved my finger below each word as usual but only got to the end of the first paragraph. Eldest was awestruck. He was giggling and pointing his finger at the words too, alternating between looking at me then the page, and bouncing up and down on his knees in excitement.

He had no clue what I was saying. He didn't appreciate Plop's predicament or understand that the little owl was in considerable distress (and therefore a jovial response was somewhat inappropriate).

But he had discovered something new: the words coming out of my mouth (whatever they were) were intrinsically linked to the book I was holding. In fact, the words were also quite probably connected to my finger that continued to move across the page as I spoke.

Eldest child LOVED this discovery and took over the bedtime reading himself. For the next 10 minutes he babbled, pointed and laughed his way through Plop's stilted conversation with his owl parents and, stopping to turn the page occasionally, told me of their helpless frustration at parenting their fearful little barn owl and their worries for his future in owl world.

Even before starting school eldest child quickly latched onto the simple phonetic rules and applied them constantly- often stopping without warning in the street to spell out N-E-X-T, or C-O-S-T-A, then squeal as I rammed him up the ankles with the buggy as I'd not anticipated the emergency stop in time.

These incidents predicted that eldest child would prefer a mechanical, formulaic approach to reading which has proven true- both for reading and lots of other things too. The principle transfers seamlessly to other situations:

• c + a + t = cat

• 1 + 1 = 2

• Take crisps and juice into soft play area = We leave the soft play area. Immediately.

• Sit on baby until he turns red = Make mum go red and shouty and find yourself swiftly transferred to naughty step

Eldest child has thrived with this kind of learning and quickly got the rules. Educational people have probably got a name for it. It’s the kind of method that favours structure and predictable results- where effect is always due to cause. It's safe and constant and has boundaries that he understands and can function within.

For this reason he picked up reading really quickly and was free-reading reasonably complicated books by year 2. However, the flip side of this approach was a loss of engagement with the text. He could read stuff but not necessarily enjoy it. He would often race through his reading homework in record time, but on asking him what the story meant, he’d struggle to explain then become annoyed. Wasn't the primary goal to simply read the thing as accurately and quickly as possible, then move onto the next thing. Comprehension? Well that’s just unnecessary.

Cue child 2. Child 2 is very different from child 1. Child 2 has always loved books and stories and TV. Child 2 enjoys the story for the story’s sake and gets soooo excited by the cliff hangers at the end of The Famous 5 chapters that he’s been known to do handstands.

According to the universal law, Child 2 also has a very different approach to reading. And learning. And life. For him:

• c + a + t does not necessarily = Cat

• 1 + 1 may not always =2

If we dialogue about these things and I prove to him that they are true, he will accept them. But only after he has challenged them and I have proven them worthy. (For this reason Child 2 was a very interesting toddler…)

Child 2 also hated me pointing to individual words as I read to him, which took a lot of adjustment for me after the hours of pointing and reading I had shared with eldest child. For Child 2, the story’s primary purpose is to entertain and be enjoyed. Thinking about the elements that create the words only distract from the narrative and should therefore be avoided.

For a long time this was a bit of a struggle and I couldn’t quite get how a child who loved stories so much could be so reluctant to read for himself. He also spent a lot of time batting my finger away from the page sighing ‘NO mummy, just read it!’

At school Child 2 has progressed more slowly with reading. And compared to the freight-train approach of eldest child, reading with him takes forever- because we must discuss every picture in great detail. (Why do I think the tent in the story is red and not blue? Do I remember the blue tent we used to have? It was a bigger tent than this one, wasn’t it? But I seem to remember that ours leaked- is that right? What happened to that tent anyway? etc etc).

I can learn a lot about my own approach to stuff by looking at my kids.

I do life like Child 2. I spend time on people detail and piecing together the little bits that I know to make a whole. I love the connections I can help make happen between people and projects and enjoy watching events unfold without necessarily having a long term goal. Technicalities like sorting the broadband and arguing with the sky people who promised us xxGB? That's my husband's sphere.

And I approach cooking in eldest child mode- it’s a means to an end and should take as little time as possible. In fact, if someone else wants to do it so I can play with tidy up the lego, then they are very welcome.

I also approach my relationship with God in a cutting the corners kind of way. I recently heard the learning approaches being applied to the Bible- as there is more than one way to read that too. Rush through it to get it done and tick the box for today, or slow down and make space for God to speak to you. Don’t just read- engage with your creator and expect him to respond. Enjoy the journey rather than racing ahead to the destination. There are no shortcuts to spiritual maturity (unfortunately).

So am working on this. But so far today, have spend endless hours creating this blog (do you like it??) and not read my Bible AT ALL. I have a long way to go.