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 »
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 »
Serious Fun
I was chatting with a friend of mine today about her new job. She’s now a “Play Specialist” at a Central London Hospital. The role has many different responsibilities but her major focus is on using “play” to prepare children for treatment, distract them during procedures such as injections and help them to understand what they have experienced. Hence the title “Play Specialist”.
She says that sometimes she has only one hour to get to know a child before they have a major procedure and that the best way to get to know them is to simply start playing with them straight away. This enables her to make almost immediate decisions about their personality so she can work out how to support them in whatever they are about to go through. 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 »
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 »
Just Say No!
No, this blog post is not about the toe-curling anti-drugs eighties-fest that is the Grange Hill Just Say No video (though it’s worth having a look if you fancy a nostalgia-based giggle). It’s about a much more prevalent problem in primary school at least – bullying.
I was bullied a bit at school when I was a child. Not obviously and not aggressively. I never had lunch money taken but there were a few bigger girls in the class who picked on me by leaving me out of games and playdates and teased me because I was smaller than them. Read more »
Separation anxiety: How to leave your child for the first time
It’s nearly back-to-school time and that means that some children will be starting school for the first time, others will be moving to new schools and most will be moving up an academic year to new classroom surroundings and a new teacher.
Now, I’m a confident thirty-something woman but even I get a bit apprehensive when I try something new. It’s normal for even the most outgoing of people so it must be incredibly scary for a young child entering a completely new environment.
Luckily, most teachers are very used to dealing with separation anxiety and they have time-tested procedures to allow children to adapt as easily as possible and integrate into the class successfully. But what about us mums? Read more »
Drama & Autistic Children
Before I start, I’d like to say that I’m not an expert in autism by any means. However, over the past 15 years, I have taught a great many children on the Autism Spectrum so I have seen firsthand how autistic children can benefit from the kind of games and exercises we do at Perform.
My first experience of working with a child with autism did not go smoothly – largely because the parents hadn’t told me he was autistic (something which is more common that you might expect). They desperately wanted him to do drama but were worried that I would not want to have him in the class after he had been judged as too disruptive by several other schools. Read more »
Louisa and the gift of confidence
Louisa was five when I first met her a year ago.
She turned up looking small and terrified. In fact, I’d never seen a child so nervous before.
Children often get a bit teary at their first session but Louisa was distraught. Her mum was in a similarly panicked state and told us that Louisa rarely talked at school, would never put her hand up in class, had huge separation anxiety when going to school every day and found it impossible to form friendships.
Her Headteacher was so worried that she had suggested she see a child psychologist because she felt that Louisa’s problems were ruining her school experience.
Well, the first week she spent in the lobby barely daring to watch through the window. And the second week was the same – except that, this time, she did look through the window. Progress! Read more »
