I am almost always, yeah OK, always, thinking or trying to brainstorm fun ideas to entertain the kids on weekends and holidays. I suppose it's the anal part in me that cannot just let nature take it's course and let the leaves fall where they may; I have to have a plan; Where should we go? What should we do? Where should we eat and what should we eat when we get there? I know, I am tiring myself and then I wonder why I am so finished by the end of the weekend. Have I somehow done my family an injustice by not having planned anything, or at least have the slightest clue of what we could possibly do for entertainment? Surely I have failed miserably if any of them dared come to me complaining of...shht...boredom(whisper). My husband suggested the horror of all horrors..."maybe they could just entertain themselves"..eeekk...I am about to go into convulsions, quickly, someone pass me a paper bag...I admit that maybe, could be, I suppose I could try it. We'll start in baby steps.
I often imagine that I'm on the other side of a dodge ball court with my kids, they're constantly hurling curve balls at me and if I am not prepared, I'm gonna get body slammed; in the same way I feel that if I am not somewhat prepared for a day together, I get slammed. Mom, what are we doing? Mom, where are we going? Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.....call me anything else today PLEASE; if one more person says the word Mom I think I may just need that paper bag.
Do we bring it on ourselves? Is the stress and inadequacy's we feel, our own doing? Is it our fault as parents that our kids just don't seem to know how to entertain themselves anymore? Do we blame the play centres and restaurants with play areas, for constantly supplying entertainment and not allowing our children to just sit and behave. As kids we didn't dare move from our chairs or utter a word at the table while the grown ups were engaged in conversation or even if they weren't for that matter, you were lucky if you managed to whimper out a small, quick plea for the tomato sauce without getting "the stare". We were seen and not heard and if our folks really had their way, kids weren't seen or heard.
We have had a really fantastic, not perfect (still working on the fact that things can still be good without being perfect), half planned, half not, weekend, as I said..baby steps. We had a full monty, camp out in the garden on Friday night, with all the gear, very cool. Spent an unplanned day at home on Saturday(didn't quite go according to plan though) and a lovely day out with the kids at the Science Centre today, once again, allowing something and someone else to assist in entertaining our children.
Children today are expected to keep up with the Joneses and if the don't, they fall behind; a survival of the fittest, if you will. This means, basically, that we have to keep up with the times and pump them with every conceivable bit of information we can find, but surely we can still stop from time to time, smell the roses and just let them be bored for a few minutes, assuring them of course, that as alien as the experience feels at the time, it actually will pass and will not kill them?
No comments:
Post a Comment