Marble Magic

One of the things that I found absolutely terrifying in the months before our eldest daughter started school was the idea that we actually had to be somewhere in particular, by a particular time, that time being 9 am, on five consecutive days a week.  At that time we were seemingly fighting a losing battle to be anywhere much before 10 am, no matter how early we got up, and giving up the luxury of not really having to be anywhere at any particular time seemed quite daunting.

At Easter I met up with a very old friend who has a 5 and a 6 year old.  My friend is a self-confessed “morning hater” so I quizzed her on how she managed to be a non-morning person and get her kids to school on time.  The answer, she told me, was fairly simple.  Her children wake up starving, so they were required to be dressed before breakfast was organised.  Then they had to be all ready to go to school before they began playing with anything.  Hmmm I thought.  My girls are never actually very interested in breakfast, but there was potential in the idea.  So we began working on the idea that there was no getting engrossed in games, puzzles, art projects, or generally any fun stuff until we had had breakfast, cleaned our teeth, got dressed, and packed kindy bags.  This was actually amazingly easy and the girls just seemed to get into it, particularly the youngest, who seems to love these little systems.

Fast-forward a few months and we are now happily into our second term of school.  I am still amazed that we have actually managed to get there on time every day (sometimes very much JUST on time) but nevertheless on time.  We have recently enhanced the system with the addition of marble rewards – a marble can be earned at each end of the day for getting ready for school/kindy/bed with no fuss, plus can be rewards for super-special things, and can be removed for bad behaviour.  We keep the reward/removal action for the extremes as I don’t want to be hassled for marbles every 5 minutes, and the loss of a marble is viewed as an extreme disaster so the crime must be serious enough to warrant the major meltdown that will ensue.  The threat of loss of a marble however is a potent tool that can be used reasonably frequently. 

The marble system also doubles as our pocket-money system.  We were grappling with what to do on that front as it seemed like a good time to introduce pocket money for our 5 year old, but we knew that the 3 year old would want to be in on the action too, so any system needed to be simple enough to apply to both.  This works awesomely as 10 marbles can be cashed in for $1, which must be deposited in the piggy bank, and piggy bank money can be saved for purchases of the earner’s choice.  The girls had a head start as were each given $5 for their birthdays by a family member, so the $2 they have earned since then quickly gave them a reasonable amount, which I’m slightly embarrassed to say, was immediately spent.  They might get a bit of a fright about how hard it will be to save for the next purchase but if it gets too demoralising we can always alter the marble:money ratio.

So, for now, we have found a pretty good system for getting the girls out the door, on time, in reasonably good condition…most of the time!

The Power of Praise

I have always considered myself absolutely hopeless at art - as in a total non-starter.  Creative, I could be, as long as we could loosely define creativity to include cooking, gardening, sewing, but as far as drawing or painting, count me out.  


The peak of my artistic endeavours was a caterpillar created from egg-carton at Raetihi Primary School, of which I was extremely proud.  Unfortunately its existence was uncannily short-lived thanks to a couple of bullies, lurking around the corner of the classroom after school, who accosted me and stomped the poor creature into oblivion.  Luckily I have a partner who is quite talented in the artistic way, so it was pretty easy for me to avoid challenging myself by fobbing off my daughters’ requests for drawing to their more talented father.  

However, recently I got talking to a friend who told me that it has been proven that anyone can become good at anything with the will and enough practice.  This passing conversation, in conjunction with watching my daughters learn to draw, made me wonder if it really was kind of lame of me to put myself into a “non-able” box, when maybe I could actually learn this skill, in the same way that I have learnt to do other things in my four decades on this planet.  


So, I have been trying to actually learn to draw.  Not in a really academic kind of a way, but just in a “well let’s give this a whirl” kind of way.  When the girls are drawing, I sit down and draw too, and when they ask me to draw something, I have a go.  I have to say, that the very best part of this whole thing has been the positive feedback from my girls.  “That’s a really great fish Mum.”  “You’re really good at drawing princesses.”  “Can we pin my Mickey on the wall Mum.”  “Dad, look at my Spongie that Mum drew.”  Even the aforementioned Dad has contributed with positive comments regarding my efforts.  


Now if anyone outside of my four walls actually saw my efforts, they would no doubt conclude that there was an artistically-challenged seven-year old with a penchant for drawing Sponge Bob, Mickey Mouse, and renditions of the various fish from “Tiddler” on the loose, but I am quite proud of my little efforts, and get thrilled to my core by the kind comments from my family.  It’s really got me thinking about the power of praise, and how, if a 40 year old can learn something new with a little bit of positive feedback from those around her, how much can our children achieve with our support and encouragement. 


I know that we all do work hard to praise and encourage our nearest and dearest, but I think it’s easy to forget just how good that really feels.  Equally, how much do we teach our children by being prepared to give anything a go, and really showing them that we can do anything that we set our minds to?  Be brave with your efforts, and be generous with your praise - both will make you and yours great.