Sometimes I get a bit hot under the collar, stamp my foot and decide that whatever I have been told to do - I'm not doing it.
Then I wonder why my six-year-old daughter does the same.
However today, once again, I have decided there are a few things that our little family will not be doing, for one day at least.
Here's the list:
- IJ will not be doing any homework
- IJ will not be watching Newsround
- IJ will not be looking at her school reading book
- I will not be discussing keywords and spellings with IJ
- I will not be testing her on her addition and multiplication
- I will not be helping her to practise her alphabet
- We will not be doing anything related in any way to education
- We shall only be doing fun things
Why?
Because a mother knows when her child is under stress, when she has had enough and is over-tired and over-sensitive, when being asked to watch the news will only add to her current anxieties, when number work at school is getting her down to the point where she can't sleep at night, when the pressure to practise her reading every night is getting her down, when it is all becoming too much.
A mother knows when her child needs a night off, a break from it all, and when a dose of fun takes priority over homework.
So here's what we will do instead:
- We'll close the curtains, turn off the lights and turn the front room into a cinema
- We'll watch a brand new DVD, possibly Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs as recommended by A Modern Mother
- We'll eat party food followed by chocolate cake
- We'll cuddle up on the sofa
- We'll shut out the rest of the world
- We'll forget about school
- We'll forget about everything else
- We'll have some fun
