Homework! Help!!

Ever had that feeling when your kids come to ask you a question about their homework?

sidenote: Yes I am writing a parenting post at last ;).

My older one D is just in her 3rd standard, and this is already a common sight at home:

D: Amma, my Hindi homework is about Samyukt Vyanjan. What does that mean?
Me: Hmmm.. let me think.. (I actually did a lot of Hindi in school, so why can't I remember this?!)
As I'm thinking: But why can't you just bring your Hindi workbook home baby, so that you can actually see what you did in school (smart deflection ;)).
Finally: What else, turn to Google!


D: Where does Violet come on the rainbow?
Me: (Very confidently, I'm sure I know this) It's at the bottom, red is on top.
D: Oh I thought it was on the top.
Me: Hmmm.. Really? Wait let me check "just in case"..


D: I need 3 words with "ei" where it is pronounced as "ee"...
Me: Weird? But that doesn't really sound like "ee"...
Thankfully hubby came up with "conceit" at this point, but still had to browse for that final "seize" !!!


Arghhh!!! I'm quite terrified what the years are going to bring. What do you think fellow parents, does anyone else feel like we need a refresher course to keep up with our kids work at school?

Homework - whose work?

It's 10:30 in the night, and I'm printing out some pictures that D wanted for school tomorrow. Yes PRINTING - searching for pics in magazines is not the done deal anymore, as D told me a few weeks back when I was persuading her to flip a few pages and look for them.

"But everyone prints it now amma!" - she informs me.

Now I'm a complete Last Minute person, so though I had the pics ready, printing them was left to the end of the day. And what happens - today was the day when the printer decided to tell me - cartridges are not available! Not EMPTY which at least I could blame myself for not noticing, but a vague error message that I've never seen before.

How accomplished do I feel now, to have found some hitherto unknown menus (apparently holding the power key with the "X" key gives some options) - with the help of dear friend Google of course, and actually resolved the problem, by re-installing the cartridges - which was not the way explained on Google ;).  Doesn't happen very often that I win over a machine, especially when I'm desperate and having visions of what a bad mom I am, but YAY at least it happens sometimes!

Phew!! So I don't have to send D without her precious pictures and worry about what impressions I'm conveying to her teacher. What all ideals we have to live up to nowadays!!!

Will this teach me to not leave stuff to the last minute? Hmm... will have to wait and see ;).

And this will have to do for my Day 9 post ;)

How to teach your kids to be independent ;)

Does anyone out there feel like kids nowadays seem to get coddled and protected a whole lot more than we used to? I know I am guilty of this behaviour too, for example, I refuse to let my kids go "out" on the road in front of home - I have no trust in their road sense, and especially no trust in the driving sense of those on the road (Ok that's a whole new post, in fact I wrote one a while back about road rules)!!

In wondering about what all we can do to make our kids more confident and independent, I realized I'm already doing a little bit, here goes:

1. D has been having her own bath since she was less than 5 years old. Started out not so efficient of course, but in a few months she started doing a very good job of it! My present task at 7 years, is to see if that shampoo wash can also be shifted off my shoulders ;).
2. S insisted on having his bath nearly from the time he was 4, thanks to seeing his older sis do it. I protested initially, but then decided to try it out. So this means that some patches don't get washed on a daily basis, and I also get a call of "Amma! Has the soap gone from my back?" everyday, but I can live with that.
3. I refuse to "do" any of my kid's homework, definitely not writing anything for them and even to the extent of not telling them any answers that they can work out for themselves. The occasional distress call for Hindi homework by D has to be answered though I try to push it to the limit by making her come up with as many words as possible before helping out.
4. In the hope of teaching them to clean up, I will remind them 10 times(10th at the top of my voice of course!) but not put away their stuff myself. Of course hubby says I don't set a very good example as I don't put away even my own stuff, but that's a whole different story ;).
5. D & S both started wearing their own clothes as early as they were able to, and now D's clothes are at her level so she can choose them herself. The part about not pulling out the one at the bottom of the pile to lead to an avalanche, she is yet to learn :). And I learnt how difficult it was to try to teach kids to wear underwear that doesn't have a design on the front of it - S holds it up and checks with me every time I give him one of these - "Is this correct?" - before putting it on.
6. The eating category is a bit more of a challenge, with D starting to eat on her own around 4 years - she used to spend hours at it, but now she's quite a pro! S is definitely leading us more of a dance, with his response to "Let's see who finishes first!" being "I can't eat SO fast!" and opting out of the competition in the first place ;).

Hehehe.. so you see the trend - more independent kids -> More "ME" time ;). Any more "how to make them independent" ideas out there, do leave a comment and let me know!