teach them to talk

I'm a big talker. Always have been. Many of my kindergarten reports said kind things like 'bit of a chatterbox!', or, 'always has an opinion!'.
Nice ways of saying 'oh my god could she just stop talking for 5 freaking seconds already??!!'

(If I only I could find all those dear ladies now and let them know karma has totally sorted me out on this one  ... times two actually ....)

I digress.

I've always been a big talker - I credit myself with being a pretty good listener too - and while these things are to a measure personality based, I think how to listen, and how to talk, are on the (endless) list of skills we need to learn, too.
Preferably starting at home.

I learnt about debate at my mother's knee, literally. My parents enjoyed lively discussion, had no qualms disagreeing on things, managed their disagreements with wit and humour, and knew when to agree to disagree (one of the most necessary conversational skills one should master I reckon).

I spent many evenings listening in on the lively political and social discussions which took place around our dinner table, and the braai-fires and living rooms of our family friends.
My parents lived in an age of disinformation - what news they were able to access was often heavily censored, there was no internet, and the ability to listen - really listen, to read between the lines, to intelligently ask the kind of questions which would give you the information you needed and crucially, to talk it all out, was all the material they had with which to form their opinions and views on their world and its future.
I didn't always understand what they were talking about, but from early on I picked up the ways in which one conversed, the rhythms and patterns of debate and discussion. How to disagree, how to stick by your guns, how to see something from someone else's point of view and if necessary tailor your argument to make sense in their terms. How to back down, to concede, how to walk away with your dignity intact.
I learnt that one doesn't always need to speak louder to be heard. That it's the strength of your argument, not your language which'll win your audience over.
I learnt how good language can cow the greatest conversational bully, how and when to let your emotions show, or not.
I learnt exactly how much wine one should consume to be razor sharp and entertaining, and how just one glass too many can turn you into a droning incoherent bore.

These are some of the most valuable lessons of my childhood, I never underestimate for a second how incredibly lucky I am to have learnt them at home. And today, as we all feel very raw about the violence at Lonmin mine yesterday, these are the things I'm pondering again, and recommitting myself to teaching my two chatterboxes how to talk.

To really, really talk. To listen. To glean the facts from the excessive amount of news, opinion and information which abounds today (the exact opposite from my childhood but arguably no more clearer), to know how to identify the truths and the lies, to decide for themselves what those are.
To debate - with themselves, their contemporaries, their world.

I can't arm my daughters against natural disasters, car crashes or freak accidents, but I hope to be able to arm them against lack of communication. Something which I regard to be as dangerous, and almost more destructive, than anything else.

pop quiz

What goes:

'Whino!'

'Burd!'

'Graffe!'

'Ant!'

'Ebra!'

'Lephant!!!!'

'More 'lephant!!!!'

'Buck!'

'Burd!'

'Lion!'

'Monkey!'

'Baba lion!!'

Answer: The Lion King, as narrated by Sunday.

sunday's summer vocab

'Moar pull' - more pool

'Moar bubbells' - more bubbles

'Moar toss' - more toast

Sounds idyllic huh?

yoga with kids

Friday's always been a bit of a yoga fan. I credit the amount of yoga I did while pregnant with her.

Learning The Sphinx from one who knows  ~Aug 2008

Doing The Child with me, on a trampoline ~ Feb 2009

And these days, with the help of these clever bilingual Yoga Cards we printed out and laminated, she likes to 'teach' her sister. And learn some Italian too!

The all important 'Laying Out the Cards' ~ my little Montessori girl

Um ... The Plow?

The Big (wobbly) Tree

The Cat Child Afternoon Prayer?

Which one next?

Free-style yoga!

La Casa nella Prateria is a fabulous site for all kinds of things - yoga, Montessori, parenting stuff, crafting with kids.
And the site name translates into Little House on the Prairie - what's not to love?

who you calling stupid?

Ah the sins of a four year old. Still so sweet, so innocent.

Friday came home from school a few months back calling us all 'stupid'. The perfect example of a boringly responsible parenting moment.
'We shouldn't call people stupid Friday. It's not a nice thing to say to someone and you can hurt people's feelings.'

The trend continued for some time, we carried on gently reprimanding her, but we didn't want to turn it into a biggie and I was pretty sure the novelty would wear off. (Or, more likely, move to much worse words. Ack.)

The girls and I went away with some friends for a few days and the 'stupid' bug spread like wildfire, putting me in the unenviable position of The Mum of the One Who Started it All.
Don't laugh, you'll get your turn one day.
Soon the climbing frame was 'stupid', the cereal in the bowl was 'stupid', the stones on the path as we went for a walk were 'stupid' - and it was getting boring.

I upped the discipline, tried banning the word, having quiet to-the-side (as in 'now I'm serious and lest you be afraid') chats but egged on by her peers, I honestly wasn't having much effect.

Help came from a very unexpected quarter. Late one afternoon as the kids sat drawing at the dining-room table of the seaside house we were staying in, the peace was shattered by Friday screaming; 'Mummmmeeeeee, a baboon! Mummmeeeee, a baboon!'
I ran in from the kitchen to see a large male baboon sitting shamelessly on the table, eating crayons. The kids scattered as I stormed him, yelling and clapping my hands.
He nonchalantly jumped off the table and sauntered out, taking a box of puzzles for closer inspection on the verandah as 3 women, a dog and a bunch of kids shouted at him through the (now closed!) door.
Eventually, having tried and rejected several cups of tea, the puzzles, a tub of baby-food and a tomato sandwich, he moved off, and we tried to calm the kids down.

There were tears and re-enactments, claims of bravery and terror. Juice needed to be drunk and bathrooms visited, lots of hugs were required - I could certainly have done with a gin - but after some time, when we'd all calmed, Friday said quietly from her place on my lap,
'Mum, that baboon was really stupid hey?'

And I had to agree that he was.

Since then we've hardly heard the word. It occasionally crops up, but now her usage is almost always completely correct.
It seems what was required was a context, a real self-experienced context, for her to decide for herself the meaning and appropriateness of the word.

I'm certainly hoping future life lessons won't be quite so dramatic, but I'll not forget what I learned from this one:
Contextualise always. Let her find her own way, she almost always will in the end. Remember the baboon, use the baboon - this story will have many other applications in the future.

Sorry 'stupid' bab, you had to be the fall guy on this one.