Imagination
'J': Imagine that you are in a forest and got surrounded with a tiger, lion, elephant, snakes and witches. How will you come out of them?"
Me (Just after coming back home in the evening: I don't know.
'J': Pass?
Me: okay pass.
'J': Stop your imagination (giggles).
Limit
J was nagging too much for watching TV. I let her do that and got busy with some chores. She kept watching for pretty long. On realizing, I told her, "There is a limit to watching TV." I switched off the TV and she went in her room with a meek face.
J went to play downstairs, and returned home late in the evening. I showed her some anger ,"There is a time limit for playing outside."
One day to a naughty and lazy J, I said indulgently, "There is a limit of being so naughty and lazy kid."
The reply was then, "Mama, there is a limit of saying limit too!"
Drama Queen
J loves planning, making list and then doing them one by one. Only hurdle is she loves planning about play time, watching TV time, reading story book time, cooking/baking time and sometimes art and craft time. You may almost see a very matured girl in her while doing all these.
You ask her to include some solving maths problems or writing Hindi dictation in her daily plan in summer holidays and quickly she turns into a defensive, unruly, cry baby.
So much of drama, my god!
Happiness
It is so fun to see, how much excited and happy a child (even on reaching 8) can become by getting undisturbed time from her parents. J has divided her summer holidays into with mamma-papa zone and without mamma-papa zone. Without mamma-papa zone means weekdays, office hour, day care. She has friends there, she has fun too, but she so looks forward to weekends and for some days when we can manage to take a day or two off.
After going through immense guilt on not being able to give her enough time I have now made peace with it.
Actually in last summer holidays, I have gone through work at home status and have found that actually staying all day at home does not mean I was taking care of her all the time. I was still worried about my work. After few hours of togetherness J used to start with her usual demand of watching TV and I had to agree on that. Also it used to get on my nerves sometimes to do art and craft, find games, cook interesting food, read and find interesting books and so many pedagogic duties every day.
Now we keep most of our weekends and evenings for her and we all wait for the together time! Happiness is to seek, it can be found even with limited time.
Games
While traveling for many hours, while waiting for the eye doctor, while J or I get bored from our usual stuff, we have managed to find different word games and that keeps us busy for some time and we get fun time with each other!
Age 3-5
When J was learning different languages, we used to select a language and one of us would star a game by saying a word. The next person would say another word but someways related to the first one;
Example: car, wheels, road, lamp-post and so on
Age 5-8
Word Intakshari- One person will say a word and the other person will say another word starting with the last letter of the first word.
Example: car, road, drum, monkey and so on
Started at age 8 (actually invented this today while waiting for our turn in a doctor's place)
Sentence Intakshari: One person will say a sentence and other person will say a sentence using the last word of first sentence.
Example: I love food.
We should eat colorful food and so on.
Just so talking
Sometimes it happens that out of no reason J gets aggressive or distressed. It happens mostly in the evening when we all come back home. There are mostly three reasons which I have figured out till now.
Hunger and thirst-some quick snacks like bread jam or even a milk chocolate bar and a glass of cold milk or cold water helps.
Physical discomfort-Headache or tummy ache or extreme tiredness from the activities of whole day.
Following the first step and then a bath and lying down wearing soft comfortable cloths helps.
Mental discomfort-Some not so good things happened in the day care or school and that could make J extremely vulnerable. It can mostly be some fights or differences in opinion with friends.
Sitting with J, initiating a talk by discussing about my day, telling her about my colleague and then softly asking about how was her day at school. She opens up like a bottle of 'bubbly'. I just let her talks and listen to her. Then we talk about several other things and somehow after around half an hour I could see her smiling and frown free face again.
Main challenge still now is to identify her problem and sometimes I also come back home with lots of baggage of discomfort! Those days, we both stress each other out!
Such is life.
'J': Imagine that you are in a forest and got surrounded with a tiger, lion, elephant, snakes and witches. How will you come out of them?"
Me (Just after coming back home in the evening: I don't know.
'J': Pass?
Me: okay pass.
'J': Stop your imagination (giggles).
Limit
J was nagging too much for watching TV. I let her do that and got busy with some chores. She kept watching for pretty long. On realizing, I told her, "There is a limit to watching TV." I switched off the TV and she went in her room with a meek face.
J went to play downstairs, and returned home late in the evening. I showed her some anger ,"There is a time limit for playing outside."
One day to a naughty and lazy J, I said indulgently, "There is a limit of being so naughty and lazy kid."
The reply was then, "Mama, there is a limit of saying limit too!"
Drama Queen
J loves planning, making list and then doing them one by one. Only hurdle is she loves planning about play time, watching TV time, reading story book time, cooking/baking time and sometimes art and craft time. You may almost see a very matured girl in her while doing all these.
You ask her to include some solving maths problems or writing Hindi dictation in her daily plan in summer holidays and quickly she turns into a defensive, unruly, cry baby.
So much of drama, my god!
Happiness
It is so fun to see, how much excited and happy a child (even on reaching 8) can become by getting undisturbed time from her parents. J has divided her summer holidays into with mamma-papa zone and without mamma-papa zone. Without mamma-papa zone means weekdays, office hour, day care. She has friends there, she has fun too, but she so looks forward to weekends and for some days when we can manage to take a day or two off.
After going through immense guilt on not being able to give her enough time I have now made peace with it.
Actually in last summer holidays, I have gone through work at home status and have found that actually staying all day at home does not mean I was taking care of her all the time. I was still worried about my work. After few hours of togetherness J used to start with her usual demand of watching TV and I had to agree on that. Also it used to get on my nerves sometimes to do art and craft, find games, cook interesting food, read and find interesting books and so many pedagogic duties every day.
Now we keep most of our weekends and evenings for her and we all wait for the together time! Happiness is to seek, it can be found even with limited time.
Games
While traveling for many hours, while waiting for the eye doctor, while J or I get bored from our usual stuff, we have managed to find different word games and that keeps us busy for some time and we get fun time with each other!
Age 3-5
When J was learning different languages, we used to select a language and one of us would star a game by saying a word. The next person would say another word but someways related to the first one;
Example: car, wheels, road, lamp-post and so on
Age 5-8
Word Intakshari- One person will say a word and the other person will say another word starting with the last letter of the first word.
Example: car, road, drum, monkey and so on
Started at age 8 (actually invented this today while waiting for our turn in a doctor's place)
Sentence Intakshari: One person will say a sentence and other person will say a sentence using the last word of first sentence.
Example: I love food.
We should eat colorful food and so on.
Just so talking
Sometimes it happens that out of no reason J gets aggressive or distressed. It happens mostly in the evening when we all come back home. There are mostly three reasons which I have figured out till now.
Hunger and thirst-some quick snacks like bread jam or even a milk chocolate bar and a glass of cold milk or cold water helps.
Physical discomfort-Headache or tummy ache or extreme tiredness from the activities of whole day.
Following the first step and then a bath and lying down wearing soft comfortable cloths helps.
Mental discomfort-Some not so good things happened in the day care or school and that could make J extremely vulnerable. It can mostly be some fights or differences in opinion with friends.
Sitting with J, initiating a talk by discussing about my day, telling her about my colleague and then softly asking about how was her day at school. She opens up like a bottle of 'bubbly'. I just let her talks and listen to her. Then we talk about several other things and somehow after around half an hour I could see her smiling and frown free face again.
Main challenge still now is to identify her problem and sometimes I also come back home with lots of baggage of discomfort! Those days, we both stress each other out!
Such is life.
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