Should we let our children learn from their own mistakes?
It is a fact universally acknowledged (thank you Jane Austen) that parenting is difficult. There’s no real training course, no previous experience and yet the risks if you get it wrong are serious and far-reaching. In particular, as parents, we are challenged with different situations to deal with almost every day.
I encountered just such a situation last week at my local soft play centre. It made me think about how far we should go in letting our children learn by their own mistakes.
As with most soft play centres, there’s a big slide (it always makes me think I’m in The Faraway Tree as I slide down it with my 2 year old) which is always a favourite with most of the children who attend. I’d noticed that there were two children a little bit older than mine hanging around the bottom of the slide and trying to walk up it. They had collided a few times with the kids sliding down resulting in one child running off in tears.
Taking your children to the theatre – Lucy’s Top 10 Tips
We all know the magic of going to see a live performance. And I really believe (well I would, wouldn’t I?) that it’s really important to expose children to live theatre from as young as you can. And what better time to do this than in the panto season? The time of year when every town and sometimes even village has a pantomime for you to take your child to see.
The great thing about going to see a pantomime is that they are primarily designed for all the family so you don’t have to worry about children making noise, dropping sweet wrappers and getting up to go to the loo. However, I did think it might be useful to put together some top tips for taking children to the theatre generally. As part of my research, I asked our Regional Partner and veteran panto director, Simon Fielding, what his top tip for taking children to a pantomime was. His response: “Don’t be afraid of them making noise, pantomimes are meant to be crazy”.
Anyway, here they are: Read more »
A Baby for all Seasons
A good friend of mine was told last week that her five-year-old daughter would always be at a disadvantage educationally because she had been born in July. This advice was given to her by an experienced teacher at a well-known secondary school who said that this was such a well-known phenomenon as to almost go without saying.
I must admit that, as an August baby myself, I was slightly taken aback at the suggestion! It’s also not something that I have ever worried about in all my years of working with young children. However, five minutes with Professor Google suggests that there is at least some science to support the theory.
Careful the things you say, children will listen
I took my 4 year old son to a birthday party last week. Just before we got there, he fell over and so was a bit tearful and clingy when we arrived. He didn’t want to join in with the rest of his friends who were being entertained by a well-known local clown. Tom’s a very confident child and is usually very good at joining in so I knew that this out-of-character behaviour was because he’d just hurt himself. As a result, I was quite happy to let him sit on my lap for a bit until he’d settled down.
When the party entertainer saw that Tom wasn’t taking part, he came over and said “Come on, Mr Shy Boy. Come and join in!” He walked away and I said to Tom, “Go on, Tom”. And Tom responded with “I can’t, Mummy, I’m shy”. Although I didn’t show it at the time, inside I was quite annoyed. Although well meaning, the flip comment that had just been made in front of my son was inaccurate and unhelpful and, while I don’t think Tom believed it about himself, it gave him a good reason not to join in. Read more »
Children’s communication skills – a casualty of the online era?
When I was
a teenager, if I wanted to arrange to meet a friend at the weekend, I’d call my friend’s home phone (having asked permission to use my home phone first, of course). In most cases, the friend’s Mum or Dad would answer the phone and I’d politely ask to speak with them have a conversation, make our arrangements and put the phone down.
If I were a teenager today, I’d probably simply bbm/text my friend “R u free Sat?”
There’s no doubt that the ability to communicate remotely has advanced hugely since I was young. However, while all this technology is extraordinarily clever and useful, does it mean that our children’s communication skills will lose out? Read more »
My Favourite Things for half-term fun
With half-term virtually upon us and a two and four year old to entertain, I’ve been finalising plans for next week and thought I’d share my recommended family days out. So, in the words of Maria Von Trapp (an icon when it comes to entertaining children) and, in no particular order, “these are a few of my favourite things”…
This is an all-time favourite and, although we live in London, the 45 minute journey to Beaconsfield is well worth the drive. Handily located just off the M40 or 25 minutes on the train from Marylebone (station is a 5 minute walk), this really is such a lovely place to visit. Read more »
Dyslexia – symptoms and learning techniques
One of the team at Perform – let’s call her Jane – is dyslexic. I’ve been aware of this for a long time but I didn’t realise until yesterday that she wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until she was 21 years old and at drama school. It was discovered when she handed in her first essay and her tutors were amazed that she had got as far as she had without specialised help.
It wasn’t like Jane’s parents didn’t try. They were regular visitors at her school throughout her primary years to try and see why their clever little girl was struggling so much with reading (she didn’t read until she was in Year 6). Unhelpfully, the school kept saying that she was just lazy - something they knew their daughter was not. Read more »
Children and eye contact – helping your child look people in the eye
Darling, look at Jane when she says hello to you!
Does that sound familiar to you? Have you ever said it to your own child? I know I have!
I’ve always been passionate about helping children make eye contact, especially when they meet new people or talk to adults. I think it is such an important skill to have. You only have to do an internet search for “Looking people in the eye” and you’ll find hundreds of pages about how hard people find eye contact. There are forums and websites completely dedicated to the subject so it is obviously a big problem out there.
Closer to home, eye contact is something we get asked about frequently when we talk to parents whose children come to Perform. Looking into someone’s eyes when you talk to them demonstrates confidence and we all want our children to be confident and to show this to the outside world. Eye contact is crucial for good communication skills and, if taught early, it can be with you for life. Read more »
Are you confident when speaking in public?
Because of my background as an actress, I’ve always mixed with people who are pretty confident speaking on their own in front of large groups of people. It wasn’t until I started Perform and attended courses in Child Protection, First Aid and various other childcare-related subjects that I realised how many people find speaking in front of others frankly terrifying.
Yes, I realised that not everyone was the all singing-all dancing type like most of my friends, but it was still a bit of a shock to me that there were clever and articulate adults out there who were frightened to speak out on their own. We’d go around the circle asking for contributions and it was amazing how quietly people spoke. I remember one course when an attendee actually left half way through the session because she found it too intimidating. Read more »
Discovering your “fun” and “firm” voices
When we train our teachers for Perform classes, one of the sections we spend the longest time working on is their voices. I’m not talking about their singing voices here; they are, after all, trained actors and singers and wouldn’t get to the training stage if they didn’t have a great instrument. What we work on is teaching them how to effectively use their voice to inspire and control children.
At Perform, we encourage our teachers to have two different types of voices for effective teaching: their energised, fun and inspiring voice for the majority of the time; and a low and firm no nonsense voice to use to ensure control when necessary. Read more »
