Idolising Children?

Ah. It has been a big week. Aren’t they all. Anyway, as a consequence, less words this week. Less articles. Less blog posts. Less Whispers at Bedtime. And, there have been books, and a Christmas Tree put up. Boys are writing Christmas lists and Santa is going to have his work cut out with “Agents” Lego.

This week’s Whispers at Bedtime gives props to my favourite song writer of all time Anthony Atkinson. I understand he is now also a primary school teacher. Lucky kids!

Anyway, I pull out the guitar after bedtime stories and sing a few songs. Anthony’s work is high in my repertoire. The boys favourite song at the moment is “ecstatic” and gradually they have asked questions about all the lyrics. I’ve done my best to explain. But, how do you explain the concept of “ego” to a five year old? You can see a youtube clip of The Mabels (Anthony’s old band) playing the tune at the Bridge Mall Inn  in Ballarat on youtube. I showed my boys. Surely that is another aspect of the internets we hasn’t thought off. I can take my children back into the pubs of my misspent youth through youtube. They loved it!

Song: Ecstatic from “Scenes from a Midday Movie”, The Mabels (circa. 2003)

Tags: anthonyatkinson, ecstatic, the mabels, songs

I’m still really enjoying having the chance to contribute bits and pieces to the GeekDad website. The team of contributors are great, the information sharing amazing and the foster a strong sense of belonging - which is just dandy at the moment.

If you haven’t checked out the site - you should - the posts are always current and engaging covering a very broad range of ideas that are right in the corner pocket (IMHO).

Anyway, GeekDad has exposed me to a small but active group of people promoting the value of role-playing games for children. As a consequence, I will be researching and writing more about the value of RPGs for kids and continuing to explore the potential with my own boys. I think part of the appeal to them is that every fortnight I still role-play with a group of blokes, we visit each others houses, cook a meal and tuck into a Friday night of imagination, rule disputes and complex narrative. We use the GURPS system these days, I think it appeals to the rules-nuts amongst us, but for me it is about the flexibility of creating any world, fantasy or real, at any time in history and creating a story within it. For the kids, they get to see grown men coming over to continue to use their imagination and particiapte it story telling - it is a lot different to sitting around watching sports on the TV. Of course, as a parent I want to place greater virtue on my own activities than they probably deserve, but what the hey.

So, thanks to GeekDad for helping challenge and facilitate new ways of engagement with my own children. As we raise kids, we need to draw on as many diverse and different resources as possible. As I wrote in “Idolising Children” parenting should not be the preserve of parenting-experts who write and sell books telling us what we should be doing. For each individual child the strategies will vary, for parents the process is one of experimenting and doing the best with the knowledge you have.

Role-playing games are one way I think we can continue to foster creativity and imagination, story-telling and cooperation in our kids well into their teens. You see, children role-play, in early childhood education we call it “domestic role-play” the act of children making sense of their world by playing out scenes from the everday, education circles are seeing the value of primary-aged children undertaking play-based learning and role-playing should be a way that we make play acceptable and important into adulthood. Just because we become older. doesn’t mean that make believe and play are any less important. So, don’t take it too seriously. Maybe you need to do some role-playing with your kids.

Tags: roleplaying, raising children, imagination

Another week has passed. Another cartoon appears over at Whispers at Bedtime.

“ask mum” is a little reflection on the challenges we dads face during those infant years. there is something between mums and babes that we can’t quite tap into…

Tags: comic, dads, fatherhood, whispers at bedtime

I sang my boys to sleep again tonight…it is as rock n’ roll as I’ll ever get. I love it.

So - as a treat - a preview of Monday’s “whispers at bedtime” comic.

sleep well.

Tags: comicwhispersatbedtime singing fatherhood

A big thank-you to Sarah Kanowski whose recent comments from Mem Fox shows we can take the childcare debate to a new space that is not about blame and guilt for mums.

She is right that fathers need to feature in the discussions about the decisions to put children into care, but we also need to recognise that the cost of the quality of childcare we should be demanding for our children is very high - and I’d love to see further research on the productivity value of childcare as a solution to workforce issues.

Early this week I identified that stay-at-home dads are beginning to get some attention, and if we are to shift to a society that recognises the importance of all of us “working to live” rather than “living to work and consume” these ideas and attitudes need to continue to  be more vocal and present in the debates.

It is beautifully written. What is this woman doing simply producing on the ABC!

Tags: fatherschildcare debate