i am dad

Not enough time (though bettongs and star-city pencil holders beg to differ)

 

 

 

 

Time, time, time.

If only it were that easy to drum up more of it.

 

We never have enough of it, of course, when it comes to time for our kids, but I'm one of those parents who has (time and time again) fallen prey to the perilously easy trap of assuming that dedication of some specific attention to my kids just isn't possible. It'll take too long to do that. Maybe tomorrow. Or on the weekend. Or next week sometime...

The funny thing is, on those occasions that I've just thought "to hell with it, let's do that (thing you'd like to try)", it has rarely taken much time at all.

 

I'll share two quick examples with you.

 

 

 

After the upteenth time reading the fabulous story of Billy Bilby's Barbecue (by Colin Thiele), Master J decided he was rather taken with the bettongs in the story (don't worry, I didn't know what bilbies or bettongs were either before reading this story!). Evidently, Billy managed to get bettongs to come visit him by putting a nice sign up to show where he lived.

If we made a sign showing where J's place was (reasoned J), maybe the bettongs would come to visit his house as well?

Goodness, sighed dad. A whole bloody sign? I mean, nice idea and all, but a quick cardboard one would turn to muck the first time it rained outside, and a real McCoy wooden sign would involve visit to a hardware store, etc., etc.

I choked back that response and said, "Okay, tomorrow let's do it!"

All up, it took one hour. To drive down to the hardware store, select some wood, and pick up a hammer, nails and hand saw (some basic tools we didn't have at the time). To come home, cut the wood, nail it together, paint "Jamie's Place" on it, blow up some balloons and tie them to the sign. J helped out at every stage in that process.

One hour.

And did the bettongs come that night?

Of course they did! They saw J's sign, bounded right onto it and accidentally popped the balloons attached (as you can see in the picture).

And the sign's still there in the back yard now, making it a handy tool for other 'secret' Australian animals J thinks of inviting over to his place from time to time.

 

The next little idea came courtesy of the amazing Mr. Maker, who demonstrated on his program one day how to make a pretty cool-looking pencil holder.

Again, when J decided he'd like to make this, the first thought I had was that there just wouldn't be time this week.

But again, I shoved that aside and -- just like Mr. Maker likes to say -- said, "Okay, let's make it!"

 

 

 

Again, this took all of about one hour.

 
To head down to the local art shop to pick up the basic supplies needed (with J directing the kind shop attendant around to help find the necessary items, brandishing his little list), then head home and put it all together. The list was a fun (and educational) little addition, given J decided on what was needed in the morning and wrote the list himself with some oral help from dad with the spelling. Gave him a real sense of ownership for the project.

 

 

So there's a whole two hours of my time, that resulted in a whole lot of magic and fun for Master J - experience that is timeless and priceless. I am, to be quite honest, a real dud when it comes to arty-crafty stuff, but J appears to tolerate my clumsiness... Maybe the time means more to him than any of the tangible products that come out of it.

 

If only I could do this more often: stop assuming things will take longer than they actually do and instinctively figuring I have less time for my children than I actually do.

I'm working on it!

 

 

=D

 

                                        

               

The Legend of the Golden Snail

 

I guess it would be fair to say that a defining part of childhood is working up the bravery to explore beyond the immediate horizons. Through this children hopefully come to realise that first appearances can be deceiving. Some things look scary and ugly when in fact they are something else, and some of the things that glitter aren't actually golden. How we choose to interact with things can play a huge part in what happens later down the line, and the subsequent choices we need to make.

Beyond that, I think it would also be fair to say that getting children to read and think about their world(s) is helped along mightily when you have a stupendously brilliant story to experience!

I felt this on several levels when I read Graeme Base's The Legend of the Golden Snail to Master J last night.

How about I let the author himself introduce it to you?

 

 

 

Mrs. R picked up our golden-shelled friend at a local bookstore here in Geelong, on the enthusiastic recommendation of one of the staff.

The book and story exceeded any of the most enthusiastic recommendations possible! Master J was fascinated with it from the outset, and quickly began to make connections, guesses and -- dare I say it -- some pretty profound hypotheses and conclusions. It's been a while since I saw him so involved in and animated about a story. Gosh, it's been a while since I've been as taken in and wonderstruck by a story!

I also have to admit that it helped to read this book after reading Master J's school reader set for homework that night. I mean, there's only so much joy and interest that can be generated from a 10-page book called This is a Puddle (with every single-sentence page in the book oriented around something else in the vicinity of said puddle)...

For Master J, it was like handing him a fully-fledged garden after letting him look at a collection of tiny nondescript artificial leaves.

 

I'll also include here the more Hollywood movie trailer style promotion of The Legend of the Golden Snail (although it doesn't do a lot for me, especially in comparison to the author-led introduction above).

 

 

 

Gotta admire a person with talent, too. Graeme not only wrote and illustrated this story (and other ones like Animalia), he also wrote and performed all the music featured in the promotional clips above!

If you can get a hold of it, Master J and I thoroughly recommend The Legend of the Golden Snail. An absolutely beautiful story for children.

And, erm, parents too! 

 

 

 =D

 

                                      

 

IAGOLP

 

 

Worlds of wisdom on parenting?  Image: Sarah Gilbert

 

 

No. It's not a new app from Apple catering to golfing enthusiasts based in Korea.

IAGOLP stands for Imaginary Authoritative Guidelines On Laudable Parenting.

You see IAGOLP everywhere these days. Whole sections of mass-market bookstores are dedicated to them. They're a regular fixture in newspapers, magazines and on those plasticky hosted morning television shows. And sure, you can find them all over the Internet these days in the form of sites and blogs.

Apparently, the act of parenting has been such a colossal mass failure over the past 40,000 years or so that we need a constant stream of authoritative experts (many with impressive tertiary qualifications, and many whose children have already in fact grown up and left home) to help rectify this sad situation.

I'll be referring to IAGOLP in many of the posts I add to this blog.

To me they're like a set of standards that are fuzzed enough to apply to everyone (and therefore, nobody in particular), and make parents feel like they're doing something noble and dedicated by being willing to buy a book on the subject. There are of course the occasional highly relevant tips and tricks, but IAGOLP can also be brilliant for stoking the guilt you already feel about certain aspects of your parenting, and turning you into a paranoid parenting android.

It can, of course, be a very positive and proactive thing to read around and listen to advice. But not, I think, at the automatic expense of drawing on your own common sense and just applying eyes, ears, heart and grey matter to the context only you and your family can ever really hope to understand.

Besides that, I don't think I've ever seen anything in a self-help book or on a talk show that came remotely close to the accuracy and relevance of advice or anecdotes from everyday friends and acquaintances. People who weren't trying to sell it to me, basically.

What do you think? Am I giving the voluminous parenting 'self-help' industry (and our collective infatuation with it) an unfair rap?

I mean, book sales don't lie, do they?

 

 

=D