Tuesday, 18 December 2012

December downs

Angus hasn't been very well the last few days, barking his way through the night on Saturday as a bad chest cold took hold. Sharon kept him off pre-school yesterday and today, with the result that he missed his Christmas party and carol concert, which was a shame. He also had a nose bleed today, possibly as a result of all his coughing, and that freaked him out a bit, not being used to the sight of his own blood! Angus has fairly been singing recently, in the car and the house, and it has been lovely to hear. Little Donkey, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I'm a Little Snowman and the Christmas nursery staple, When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney, have all been wheeled out again and again.

Sean learned a life lesson yesterday. He was taking part in a class bake-off with two of his classmates and had made a Yule log. I left him into school in the morning, really excited, sure he had a great chance of winning. When Sharon picked him up at home time he was utterly crestfallen. In a blind tasting he had only received two votes and was stung by some of the negative comments such as "sickly" and "I couldn't eat any more". Sean has a competitive streak, which is good, but doesn't take defeat well and struggles to take positives from criticism or feedback. There were some positive remarks such as "well presented" but Sean can't see past the brickbats. I had a chat with him on the drive back from gymnastics and reminded him he had to think why he did baking. Was it to be competitive or was it for the fun of picking a recipe, finding ingredients, learning the technique, eating the results and sharing them with his family? And to learn how to take on feedback. Not to react right away but to think about it and to consider later whether there was anything he could improve on. In 20 months' time Sean will be starting high school. It's important we arm him with the tools he needs to cope with life and make sure he feels he can talk to us. As someone said, if you want your children to talk to you about the big things when they grow up, make time for the small things when they're small, because to them they are big things.

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