Tag Archives: learning

On hitting back

Family, LearnerMother, , ,

For no particular reason, yesterday was a crap day. Whiny tired kids, whiny tired me, the husband at work all weekend – you know the kind of thing. So pretty much as soon as I could decently put them to bed, I did, and then followed them with a beer and the laptop for a cheering-up dose of Outnumbered, the BBC comedy about a 2-parent, 3-kid family, which never fails to make me feel a bit better about life.

Here’s a clip from the episode I watched last night…

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It’s not one of the funniest bits by any means, but I wanted to share it because it reminds me of one of the ongoing dilemmas we face as parents – what do you tell your children about hitting other kids? It used to be really clear in my mind –  DON’T. And while they are small, that’s fairly easy to maintain. Don’t push other kids around, and if someone does it to you, don’t hit back, just tell a grownup.

It’s not so clear cut for me now. I’m still parroting the ‘don’t hit anyone, ever’, line but particularly with the eldest, should I be encouraging him to stand up for himself more? He’s nearly eight and though I don’t want him to be aggressive to other kids, I do want him to be able to look after himself – and of course as they get older, grassing people up becomes less a route to solving a problem and more to becoming seen as a weakling. It’s not a problem at school, thankfully – where there have been issues between some of the boys the staff seem to be very good at nipping them in the bud. But holiday playscheme is another matter – he is often picked on by one of the older boys there, and there has also been some shoving around. The staff are pretty good but it is never going to be the same controlled environment that it is in school.

Summer holidays are nearly 3 months away but he’s getting anxious about 4 weeks at playscheme already, and I’m getting anxious for him, and about what I should be telling him to do if the picking on gets more physical? He knows not to hit first, but should I be relaxing the line about not hitting back? And what if he does, and it escalates and someone gets really hurt? What are the rest of you telling your kids? I would love to hear about it!

On being a Dysgwr Cymraeg

Learning Welsh, Wales, Welsh Medium Education, , ,

‘Dysgwr Cymraeg’ means Welsh Learner.

I’ve been plodding along, on and off, for about 8 years, ever since the husband decided he’d like the kids to go to Welsh medium school – which means that they receive all their education through the medium of Welsh, and become effectively bilingual. Choosing Welsh medium education for our children, when we are both first language English speakers, brings a whole set of challenges and worries, which at some point I’m sure I’ll post about in the future. In the meantime,  because it’s all about me, yeah, I’m just going to bore you with the trials and tribulations of being a Dysgwr Cymraeg.

And here’s number one – did you notice there that it was the husband’s idea to choose Welsh medium? Of course we researched it and looked into the pros and cons together before deciding, but it remains his idea. SO WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE LEARNING?

Number two – my brain is broken. I used to be able to pick stuff up so quickly when I was in school. I mean, I worked hard (not much else to do when you’re a bit of a misfit) but it was never a struggle to get reasonable marks. Now, it’s a different story. Literally nothing sticks.

Number three – everyone tells me to practise on my kids. Which would be great, if they could understand my efforts. And even when I do manage to make myself clear, with much effort and signing and brain squeezing, the responses I get range from pitying looks to mild hilarity. From a five year old and a seven year old. Thanks a million. Now I feel REALLY good about it all. And it’s only a matter of time before the three year old joins them.

Number four – the language is changing quicker than I can learn it. When I started learning, I was taught to say ‘Rydw’i eisiau’ (I want). A few years on, and that’s only taught for written Welsh and I should now say Dw’i eisiau. And my kids all say (including the three year old) ‘Fi eisiau’. STOP! It’s hard enough being forty one and having to learn this stuff, without it bloody EVOLVING around me.

Number five – mutations, those effing, blinding mutations. If you have studied Welsh, even briefly, you’ll know what I mean, If you haven’t, you just need to know that you change the first letters of certain words, after certain other words, in certain situations and weather conditions. And there’s not just one mutation, there’s three different types, each for three or six or nine letters, and about one hundred and seventy six reasons why you might use one, two or more mutations in any given 10 word sentence. FFS!!

Number six – ‘one day it’ll just click’. That’s what everyone says. Everyone. Well, if that one day could just come quite soon please, I’d be eternally grateful!

Number seven – yes. oui. ja. da. si. ano. sim. There’s seven thousand different words for ‘yes’ in the world – one for each language. Well, if you include the Welsh yeses, there are seven thousand, three hundred and sixty three ways of saying ‘yes’. I’M NOT JOKING. And they are NOT interchangeable. Kill me now.

It’s not all bad, by the way. It’s a lovely language, and I’ve met some great people through my lessons. I know from experience that when I’m getting a reasonable amount of practice, my spoken Welsh improves dramatically – when I had time to go to class twice a week, I even managed a couple of interviews in Welsh. I can’t imagine being that confident – or having enough vocab in my crumbling brain – to do that now. I keep setting myself little tasks – ‘learn 10 words a day!’ ‘listen to Radio Cymru!’ ‘only look at the Welsh road signs!’ ‘tweet in Welsh!’ but the reality is that I have so much going on at the moment that it is a struggle even to get to class once a week. To be honest I’m feeling quite close to putting the fiddle in the roof (that’s Welsh for throwing in the towel).  Though if I did that it’d be just one more thing to feel guilty about, given we’re sending the kids to Welsh school. And on balance, given the choice between more parental guilt and more Welsh lessons, I’ll take the Welsh. Oh well, dal ati as they keep telling me!

On coming out of the tunnel

Family, LearnerMother, , , , , , , ,

I’m sure there are lots of people who won’t be able to relate to the Tunnel, and if you’re one of them, please feel free to be relieved and/or smug that it wasn’t like that for you. Just don’t tell me about it because – you know what – though I’m out the other side, I’m not that far out yet and I CAN STILL FLIP. Yes, over the internet, and right IN YOUR FACE. You have been warned.

It goes a bit like this. You meet the bloke, get pissed for a few years, have some good holidays, buy a house and do it up, get married…oh, this is a bit easy, you think. I’m a bit bored of finishing a cup of tea while it’s still hot, or having a poo on my own, or being able to remember my own name, or of having sex, or being able to put a pair of jeans on without having to fold over the spare flap of stomach and tuck it in. I know, it must be time to Have a Baby. Mwahahahaha go the Tunnel Gods – another one heading our way…..

And so, the Baby arrives. And it is all amazing and wonderful and tearful. Quite tearful actually. The husband did say, at one point, ‘the book says you should have stopped crying by now – it’s been seven days, for fuckssakes’. For which he had Penelope bloody Preach thrown at his head. He didn’t say it again. Actually he did. At about four years. And then he remembered why he hadn’t said it again. Muppet.

At this stage, you don’t realise you’re in the Tunnel – it’s clever like that, see, it sucks you in. You just think ‘oh, I’m tired. I’m a bit down. Must be the hormones. It’ll all be fine when things settle down’. I was lucky enough, first time round, to have a baby that was a good sleeper, but I was still exhausted, useless and – of course – constantly comparing myself to those parents whose kids don’t ever sleep (well, according to them, anyway) and who STILL manage baby yoga and organic everything and stimulating play and ooze Yummy Mumminess from every pore. Interspersed with all this uselessness are of course moments of pure joy, of amazement, of love. But somehow these moments just serve to sharpen the knife edge of anxiety of how unfair it is that this poor defenceless thing has been born to me and doesn’t he deserve someone better and nobody told me it would be like this and I. Can’t. Cope. Oh, is it dark already? How weird, actually it seems to have been dark for a while. Hmm. Maybe it’s something to do with global warming, nobody else is mentioning it so I won’t either….

Of course, the minute you start to get a handle on it all, you’re up the duff again. Wheeeee! Down some more!  Oh! And again! I mean, really, how does this HAPPEN? First time round it was all headstands and ovulation charts and doctors and drugs and every-other-day-or-the-sperm-gets-stale and no booze – for about a hundred years. Second and third time, well, I think he might have looked at me across a crowded junkyard of a playroom. Who knows. Wheeeeeeeeeeee! Down some more! And some more again for good measure! My, we really did break the climate didn’t we if it’s dark ALL THE TIME…how weird that nobody else is talking about it…best just smile and wave…

And so it continues. Guilt and exhaustion and purees and sick and guilt and tantrums and tears and crappy plastic toys that sever your toe if you step on them, and more guilt because the toys are crappy and plastic in the first place, and MORE guilt because your severed toe led to you stamping on the bastard toy, and shouting like a banshee and constant ringing in your ears and panic attacks and guilt and becoming obsessed with sleep and waking up and calculating how many hours before you can slip back into sleep and oblivion, and guilt, always the guilt. And it becomes the new normal, so you forget that life was ever any different. And of course there is happiness too, and laughter, and fun, and love – it’s not all terrible by any means. Just a bit, well, dark still. But we’re kind of used to that now.

At some point though, and so slowly that you don’t even realise it’s happening, things start to feel ever so slightly different. One day you wake up and decide not to wear a hoody and maternity jeans, as you have every day for the past six years. Of course, you’ll probably have to, because you have long since sold all your nice clothes on eBay to pay for more crappy plastic toys, but still, the thought crossed your mind. And one day, the lady in the Co-op DOESN’T tell you that you look tired! Then you start noticing its a bit lighter all around. Phew, maybe we haven’t broken the climate after all. But hang on – global warming shouldn’t affect the light levels, should it? And then the thought is gone, as quickly as it came, But it doesn’t matter, because it was A RATIONAL THOUGHT!  Next thing – you start noticing how haggard and exhausted and generally unfit you are. This sounds like it’s a bad thing. Nope, it’s not. It’s a sign that the light levels are increasing, that you’re finally coming to the end of the Tunnel. And then one day your kids say to you “You used to be so shouty and grumpy all the time. Now you’re fun, sometimes.” At which point it might be wise to remind them that the shouty ogre is NEVER FAR AWAY so when I say go to bed, I mean go to bed NOWWWWWWW before I completely lose the fricking plot…Oh, er, or you could take them in your arms and promise never to be grumpy again. Your call.

It’s not until you are completely out of the tunnel that you realise you were ever in it. So this is a message of hope for those of you still stuck underground somewhere – there is light! Life will return! The darkness isn’t climate change! Of course, the downside of coming out is that you’ll realise that  you’ve been living in something approaching squalor, and your beautifully done up house needs doing up again, due to things like THIS  that seem to have appeared on every wall. In permanent frigging marker. But hey, you’re out of the Tunnel – welcome to the world!

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