man the crazy thing about babies is that like, some people would think that reading a baby a book about farm animals is teaching them about farm animals, but really it’s teaching them about the concept of a book and how there’s new information on each page of a single object, but really, beyond that,it’s teaching them how language works, and beyond that it’s really actually teaching them about human interaction, and really really it’s them learning about existing in a three-dimensional space and how they can navigate that space, but actually, above all it is teaching them that mama loves them.
Tumblr ate the attached image but it was Quiero a mi mama porque! Which is such a cute book, we have it too! 😀
So last week an email got sent round my college asking if
anyone wanted to read some poetry to primary school kids and I was the only one
who responded and I asked if I could do some Shakespeare, since I have quite a
lot of experience with it, and the teacher said that would be fine.
So I was discussing with friends what I should do and they
said ‘er yeah, don’t do Shakespeare.’ And I was like ‘what why’ and they went ’well,
maybe if they’re over 10 but otherwise you’ll just get blank looks’ and I went ‘well
I don’t want to insult their intelligence’ and then another friend was like ‘hey
you should do that kid’s song ‘When I Was One’, they’ll like that!!’ (it’s a really
babyish song for toddlers with silly actions) and I thought about it and was ‘like
nah actually, I’ll do the ‘Once more unto the breach’ speech’
So I learned that over the week, and I was walking up to the
school, and the whole way I was thinking ‘Oh god this was a terrible idea they’re
going to hate it, they’re going to look at me blankly like those kids in The
Polar Express, my friends were right it’s going to be a disaster’, and I was
there early, so I sat in the classroom for the first half an hour, got given a
cupcake by some kids from a different class, said hello to some of the kids in
my class, they got a look at me.
At half 2 the teacher mentioned I would be reading some
poetry, and I asked if we could go outside, which she was more than happy to
allow, and the kids were all so confused (‘where are we going? Isn’t it only
poetry?’) and we got onto the field, the teacher got them all to stand an arm’s
length apart from each other, so I could walk around them, and I did a brief
overview of where the scene came in the play, how the king is on the
battlefield, talking to his soldiers (“Could all you be the soldiers?” “Yes!!”)
and they’re attacking the French, who are all in a castle (forgot it’s really a
castle town), and they’re attacking them through a gap in the wall, the breach.
Me and the teacher emphasised that if there was anything they didn’t
understand, that was completely fine and they could ask me at the end. I asked
the kids to watch for when I held my fist in the air, which is when they had to
cheer loudly, we had a practise at that, and then I did the speech.
Everything I had been scared about evaporated. All the kids
were totally engaged, they were all watching me, they all listened right the
way through, I saw lots of excited faces, and they all cheered really well at
the end.
Afterwards, there was a lot of chatter, several of them
asked me questions (”how do you remember all those words?”, “what did you mean when you talked about nostrils?”), one boy asked me to do it again, they were all really
lovely and had genuinely enjoyed it. It was so much fun, and they especially
loved it when I told them how my big college friends had told me not to do
Shakespeare because they wouldn’t like it. Those kids 100% proved them wrong
I just finished babysitting my friend’s children, and she has most definitely mastered the no spanking/alternative discipline route. I always talk about taking it because I don’t believe in abusing children, but I’ve never personally seen it in action by a Black parent. Her children are 2 and 5 and they are the kindest, nicest toddlers I’ve ever met. They listen to her because she’s their mom and they automatically recognize she’s important and she gives them what they want (love and affection and rewards). In return they like to clean for her and give her artwork and cuddles all of the time.
To get them to listen to her, she makes sure to listen to them and what they’ve got to say instead of telling them to shut up all the time. The 5 year old asked her a few months ago why you can’t eat food that was on the floor after picking up food on the floor, and she explained it calmly and clearly. He asked 4 other questions after that and she answered all of them. He was satisfied and happy with the answers, and ever since he hasn’t done those things. She lets them gush and gush about Hot Wheels or Team Umizoomi and engages with them and counts with them and everything, so they never feel alone or neglected enough to not want to obey.
My friend lets them make mistakes by themselves on the rare chance they don’t listen so they can learn from them and let that be punishment enough. For example, the younger one we’ve been telling not to go near the dog cage because he doesn’t like dogs. He went near it a while ago, got his hand licked, freaked out, and hasn’t been anywhere near it since. The board on the wall that she uses has a column for each boy horizontally, and vertically are all the traits she wants them to have, like being nice, listening to her and their teachers, eating their food, cleaning up, having manners, etc. They get a sticker whenever they do it for the day, and they lose all their stickers when they break a habit. That’s enough punishment for them, so they don’t break it.
When they wake up, it’s cleanup time, or bedtime, she plays what she calls “musical habits”. She puts on a playlist of their favorite songs (it’s like 20-25 minutes) that make them feel motivated, and they should be finished getting ready or cleaning by the time the last song is over. If they’re not, they get a toy from their toy bin taken away or an Oreo from their snack bag taken out (aka eaten by her). But she hasn’t ever gotten to that because they always finish. They don’t even like hearing the consequences lol. And I just wanted to say I really enjoyed seeing good parenting by a Black woman that wasn’t abusive or harmful to the child’s development, it gave me inspiration and hope. Just had to talk about it somewhere.
Toddlers are so pure. She doesn’t understand that we help her with certain things because she’s little. She thinks that everyone just helps each other like that. So she tries to blow on my food and cut it up for me and tries to help me put on my shoes.
i was giving little wagon rides to a baby around the backyard one day and all of a sudden she hops off and slaps the seat of the wagon telling me to get on because it was my turn and i was like no it’s ok im too heavy and she was like NO ITS UR TURN and kept tugging on my hand so i would sit down. eventually i got on and it was just a little 2 year old trying so hard to push me around on a wagon not understanding why it wouldn’t budge but still so determined to let me have my turn lol
love galore 