The School-at-Home Program and Art over Maths posts were about an activity in the holidays that included art, history, cooking, and poetry in an integrated course by yours truly. Let’s cut through the chase, while the kids kinda like that sort of thing, what they really like is the SuperParents Holiday Driving Program.
Yes you heard it, DRIVING.
We go to a large semi-deserted carpark, and the kids hop on my lap and take over the wheel. I control the pedals and provide some instruction, but otherwise, they get to steer the car and drive. This is a great opportunity to discuss safety tips like looking left and right, how to be aware when you drive, and how the car handles on the road. The best thing is that they have lots of fun feeling how a real car behaves.
Wouldn’t it be cool to have a remote control for your child? You can finally leave your child and they’ll probably be safe, and will probably behave more or less within the bounds of what’s acceptable. This remote control will have some simple functionality – your child won’t get into a situation where they won’t get too hurt, or too much into trouble. They’ll probably be fed automatically come the right time, and of course toileting with occur without too much of a hitch.
Don’t laugh but the child remote does exist! It’s not an electronic remote control unit. It’s available in most Asian countries and is called a domestic maid. Many asians hire these domestic helpers from poorer developing nations to help in the home. The typical day for a maid is quite long – they wake up at about 6am to clean the house and prepare meals, and stay up until all the dishes are washed *manually*. Through the day their role could involve anything from cleaning the car to carrying the shopping bags. And of course, in line with this post, they will literally spoon feed your children and ensure they are accompanied while you finish your meal. There is no such thing as work choices for maids.
I happened to see a family with not one but what seemed to be two domestic maids at the Singapore airport earlier this year. Whipping out my trusty phone camera, I videoed two short clips of children running around whilst the child remote control maids go into standby mode. This standby mode basically allows the kids to play so long as they don’t trigger any of the previous parameters we discussed above.
This is not parenting, mate. You can’t let children be brought up by someone who has no clue of your culture, hardly speaks the language, nor has received very much of an education. Most likely coming from a village setting, these maids are struggling with the appliances at home, the amount of work they’ve got to do, and the expectations from their boss. They are also mostly very young girls with little or no parenting skills.
It is already commonplace to hear stories of child abuse when children are left alone with the maid, or children who grow up with Indonesian or Filipino accents. What is more telling are stories of maids doing whatever is needed to pacify the child – from holding the child in arms and rocking to sleep, to constant feeding, to giving in whenever the child so much as squeaks. What kind of tyrant is such a child potentially growing up to be?
Having such maid is illegal in Australia. There are of course ways in which you can get temporary and very inexpensive help into the country; and this was offered to us about 10 years ago. Back then, we were living in a small town house. Trying to visualise another occupant in the house, and their role to keep a small patch of floor clean was enough to indicate that we didn’t need our privacy invaded. I don’t want any maid or domestic help living in my family home. I want to parent my children. And I’m willing to make sacrifices in order that I’ve got a hand in it. Of course that’s a luxury that not all people have.
If you had a choice, would you hire someone to live with you so you could reduce the amount of work you have to put into cleaning and cooking?
I understand that Riley Lee Shakuhachi Master once practised and eventually made a recording of his Shakuhachi in a storm drain after it rained – adding an ethereal quality to his already sublime music. Practising music outdoors might help musicality and might inure a musician to performance anxiety.
Shakuhachi Players Practising Music Outdoors
We didn’t exactly have such lofty goals today.
Having bypassed violin group class due to lateness (it’s a long story), all three of us felt we had to make it up at home. It was my idea to stop by the memorial gun at Birdwood Parade and have a violin practise session overlooking the Swan River. How could we not? It was the middle of winter, but the sun was nice and warm and the view was breathtaking.
Check out the video I took of William doing Suzuki Music practise overlooking the Swan River.
The children enjoyed it so much that they insisted on two practise sessions each, rather than the one short one I expected to conduct. All in all a really positive training experience, and I liked seeing the bounce in their step after they packed up.
The video below is of my precious little girl – aged 5 – at a large indoor rock climbing facility in Malaysia. In that one hour plus session, she scaled up multiple walls and was the centre of attention on a particular two story high wall. On coming down from that one massive climb, there was all round applause from climbers and spectators.
She could very well be the poster child for women of the 21st Century.
She’s intelligent, fearless, physically fit, confident, and tactical. Brought up by equal parenting, she sees both the man and the woman as equals trying their best for the ‘team’. Best of all she has not been told that girls can’t do this or that; she’s not been indoctrinated to think of stereotypes. As a judo practitioner, she faces off both girls and boys and knows to fall back on technique and mental strength rather than think of issues of physical power or strength.
How would you feel if you were told you weren’t good enough all the time? If you constantly met people who just thought of you as ‘arm candy’? Or who judged you on your vital statistics? All this just because you are a woman. Do you think you’d start to doubt yourself?
Her strengths? She empathizes for the team, but knows to look out for herself. She is composed, steady, and will probably be underestimated constantly.
I remember class down time after exams in Year 8 sitting in the AV Room and watching the movie Flashdance, and listening to the theme song ‘What a Feeling’ by Irene Cara.
Can there be another more inappropriate movie to show a bunch of pimply hormonal 14yos? Classified an M for its raunchy scenes it was really interesting to see the reactions from some the kids, and hearing the goss about how these two classmates of ours were ‘getting it on’ at the back of class. How did I miss that? Oh yeah, I was sitting closer to the screen for a better view.
What would you think if your child’s school put on some inappropriate movies for your children? I remember seeing a bunch of shows I shouldn’t have watched. I mean for chrissakes – Jaws at 6yo! Bo Derek at 7!
This is the ultimate 80s love song from Human League released in 1986.
Come on baby, dry your eyes
Wipe your tears
Never like to see you cry
Won’t you please forgive me?
In ‘86, I was in my last year of high school – which were some of the best, non-complicated and carefree years of my life. They were to dramatically change with my entering a different school for year 11 & 12.
Be a Fun Mum’s Workhouse or Housework post discussed how to motivate the entire family through chores and was a follow up to a comment from another post. The issue centred around a blogger’s daughter who was becoming increasingly non-cooperative and unhappy with housework and her chores, and/or perhaps resenting the clearly delineated task list per room. Check out her post – it’s got a cool download!
My take on the situation is that the room by room task lists themselves might be regimenting the household chores – an already thankless collection of menial jobs – and that might easily lead to resentment in children. A discussion I had with my son who is 8yo confirmed my initial thoughts and which I put forward in the comments section. While my suggestion was to come up with incentives against the chores done, I wasn’t entirely convinced that that would work, and decided not to pursue that line of thought further.
One really interesting motivational suggestion that I happened on last weekend was to manage chores allocation with the children at the start of every week. Meaning, you can get that document Kelly created at the above post and modify it so that there is the option to assign the chores to different people by day of the week. This way when you collaborate with the kids, you can get them to decide on which tasks they would choose to accomplish, and they’ll take ownership of that decision because you didn’t tell them to do it. Sweet!
My children typically are expected to keep their rooms and the activity room tidy. Many of the other chores that they get to during the week are done without much prompting. In the above video, Beth5 has decided to dry and put away the dishes. In her own time she has washed up appliances, attacked the BBQ (which raises my blood pressure), washed the car, and set the dining table. Those chores are not really part of what she’s expected to do, but she’s part of ‘the team’ and seeks to carry her weight around the house.
Look at the tools you use and make sure you’ve got ‘buy in’ from the members of your team. Get them to be part of the decision making which in itself might lead to less dissension, and an improvement in team awareness.
Life in a Northern Town by the Dream Academy. One of the best songs from the 80s – and I absolutely love the dance version. Listening to the song just reminds me of being on holiday in some far away place.
Forever Young is a cover version of Alphaville’s Forever Young done by Australian band Youth Group and which had renewed popular recently. I just love the vocals – what a tribute to the Awesome 80s and to Australian bands.
“Youth is like diamonds in the sun,
And diamonds are forever …”
Heaven by DJ Sammy, originally by Bryan Adams, was voted Top 10 80s Cover by Nicholas Christie. I knew I had to put it together with Forever Young after I heard the awesome dance version.
“Oh, thinking about our younger years,
there was only you and me,
we were young and wild and free …”
