A Glass Half Full

Today I was conversing with a friend about the size of the glasses we have. She was wondering if her glasses were bigger than ours and we were musing that because of the fluting on our glasses if you filled them to half the way up you probably wouldn't get very much drink. We wondered where the "half way" mark would be on our glasses if you were judging by volume.

I figured the kids could help us find out where "half a glass" actually WAS on our glasses. I think easiest way to get my kids interested in doing scientific experiments is to show them how I do it, so we played a game with it. I got a permanent marker and got the kids to each have a guess where "half way" was on a glass. It's through discussing things like this that you really begin to get an idea of things like "volume", "size", "halves", and the conventional language and meaning of measurement. The kids have heard that liquid is measured in litres or millilitres (or mls). It is something that they will grow familiar with over time, but not something I need to push. Once they have experience with measuring liquid, for experiments, or cooking, or craft, or buying liquids, filling bottles... then words like cups, litres and millilitres will just be normal, and they will have constructed their own understanding of how much those measures are.

I filled the cup all the way to the brim, and then poured that liquid into a measuring jug. It was exactly 300ml. I asked my son(7) how much half of 300ml would be, and he didn't know. I counted the divisions of 50ml on the jug. There were 6, so I asked him half of 6, which he got, and we counted up 3 and found 150ml.

Then the moment of truth... pouring the water back into the glass. "I got pretty close!" he cheered. This is fantastic for him, because he's finally aiming for a best guess rather than perfection. He's come so far. I'm happy for him.

This is such a cool way of doing things because the results are self evident and he gets to assess for himself how well he is doing. He gets to feel successful and know his own merits without it being anything to do with my approval of him. My judgement or ideas of him are not necessary when he can assess for himself how well he is going, and when he is the one setting his success criteria he doesn't feel crushed when it doesn't work out. He's not disappointing me, or facing my criticism; it's a low risk activity.

And yep... our glasses are half full at about two-thirds of the way up the glass!

Kiwiburn 2015

We just went on the best family camping holiday to date.

When I first heard about the "Burning Man" festival in Nevada, USA, it was through the videos on internet and an amusing episode of The Simpsons. It was something that I didn't even look into hard, because the ideals of the thing seemed intuitive to me. What I didn't know was that there is a regional event here in New Zealand called Kiwiburn.

It's said time and again in my parenting circles that "it takes a village to raise a child" and this festival really did feel like that. What happens when you get nearly a thousand hippies camped on a farm with a little forest, in the Central North Island of New Zealand, next to a river? Well a lot of it comes down to values.

The Simpson's episode warns that a Burn festival may not be "family friendly"... but a lot of that has to do with the family and their cultural ideals. Much of that which was cherished by the people at Kiwiburn were ideals that our family already held dear - freedom of expression, conscious decision making, explicit consent, creativity, collaboration, participation, having a go, taking reasonable risks, taking responsibility for one's actions, recycling/upcycling, gifting and rehoming, and basically cleaning up after yourself, making a contribution... and enjoying electronic dance music and tribal rhythms :)

At this stage of my children's learning voyage, it is shaped predominantly by the experiences social contexts we provide. Interacting with different people, in different contexts, people learn that certain things have a place and time, and Kiwiburn provided a fairly unique social context. We knew before the festival that this is an environment where people often greet each other by hugging and express affection openly and physically. We believe in a person's body being their own, and so we let the kids know well  before we even got to "The Paddock" that at Kiwiburn people often hug, but that if they weren't comfortable with hugging someone they didn't have to, they they could instead say "no thank you" or say "hi" and wave instead of going in for a hug. The fabulous thing about this environment is that the people knew that different people have different social boundaries, and that a person holding back is not an insult. Everyone was very accommodating of our kids and never pushed social engagement especially with our toddler, who they let engage on her own terms.

A lot of the things that the adults at burn events do will never be interacted with by children. One burner told me: "I bet they enjoyed seeing adults play. I see burns as giant playgrounds for adults." Some of the ways that adults "play" are not child friendly. Thankfully most of these they keep to themselves. My children are ignorant of most of the sexual habits of adults, but it's not like they haven't seen naked bodies before. Some people might find it particularly inappropriate to expose children to nudity, but at events like this there is a disconnect between nakedness and sexuality. A naked body is just as likely to be a canvas for body art. My children are used to seeing naked breasts. That's just how you feed babies. There were a lot of people in states of undress at Kiwiburn. Our kids didn't care.

I consider the lack of body shame to be a parenting success on our part. The children know that these things have a time and place, and they aren't going out in town wearing no clothes. They were clothed throughout the Kiwiburn event, buy they weren't phased by people stripping down to cope with hot weather, or to celebrate around a bonfire.

My kids got in and did. They took part, and were supported to take part. They were offered musical instruments, art and craft supplies, and opportunities. They watched as adults tried to do things they had never done before. They watched as people unashamedly messed up over and over again trying to rope walk, paint, do yoga, juggle, perform card tricks, or use a hula-hoop. They watched as people tried to improve their skills by practising the things they found really difficult saying things like; "Step back when I try this; I'm going to drop it because I'm really bad at this..." and "Just one more time! I think I'm getting better...". Taking part was more important than getting things "right". Making your mark was more important than making a masterpiece. Getting better, was better than being the best.

If there's one thing that an event like this has, it's a lot of people with a lot of energy. I was thankful to have my exhausting progeny be cared for by young people who felt that their energy was contagious. My kids socialised with people from toddler age to grey haired elderly people, who all listened to their fresh take on the world, and helped to contribute to their understanding of their world. They were cheered on as they dressed up like rock-stars, or had the supportive presence of other artists as they wrote their name in shared art space, facilitated as they collaborated with spray paint on canvases destined for a community art gallery, spotted as they climbed up towering artworks, or thanked for collecting pine cones for use as kindling in the drum-circle fire.

Kiwiburn has a tradition of gifting. "Burners" are encouraged to give each other gifts (without expecting money or favours in return). My eldest son was given many treasures, but the greatest was experience, and the one he remembers fondly was being given hand crafted items to redistribute to other people.

When asked what the greatest thing about Kiwiburn was his reply was: "MAKING FRIENDS!"

Cooperative / Collaborative Games

Our society has an overwhelming love affair with competition. Arguably, without competition we wouldn't have the impetus to improve, but putting ourselves in high risk situations actually shuts off the reasoning parts of our brain and makes us less good at clever problem solving. Babies don't learn to walk to be better walkers than each other. Our drives are there to empower us, and so are our relationships with others. As a society we grow strong when we know our own strengths and weaknesses, when we can build relationships with others, and we know our contributions are valued and we will get help if we ask for it. We don't need to strive for independence, or co-dependence, but rather, healthy interdependence. We are social creatures.

So here I am trying to get my children to play together. On the days when it is working they have an amazing synergy. The main thing they do together is playing with props - mainly Lego and toy cars. They create worlds together, most commonly recreating and combining different stories they have heard, from movies, videogames, YouTube casts, books, and personal experience. At times my eldest sounds like a cartoon super villain. They have teams of ninja battling zombies, and cars, rescuing princes and princesses, dragons, Pat and Jen, Hiccup and Camicazi... they get to be the characters and feel what being them is like, and wonder what if...?

As they get older I might get them into real "roleplaying games". For decades now people (well, nerds) have played games with paper and dice, and rules that standardise the beasts, powers, tools and threats, and the physical and magic laws of fantasy worlds in which they co-create stories together. Whether that's Dungeons and Dragons, or Vampire: The Masquerade, or pop culture spin offs like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, grown ups often need these rule systems because.. they are basically competitive. You can't have a struggle without something to fight against, whether that's quests, or your co-story makers, or the world officiated by your Game Master. Conflict is the essence of  drama.

For Christmas we got the family a copy of the game King of Tokyo. It's a relatively simple strategy game (that isn't completely random) aimed at 8+ age group. It's a cool game. With parents helping, my 7 and nearly 5 year old really love to play it, but they really need the assistance of a mediator. One of the things about my kids is that they are very close to the now. If playing short multiplayer video games like Pikmin 3 Bingo Battle has taught us anything, it's that, retrying a game over and over may give us the chance to win every now and then, but at the moment losing is huge. Losing against a game is one thing, but losing to a person is a tragedy, especially if the small person in question becomes a gloating maniac in their supreme domination of their competitors. As a child I hated competitive games, because I hated hurting other people's feelings when I won and they lost, and I hated losing, probably more than most people could understand.

I was lamenting on social media, the screaming rage of siblings desperate to play boardgames but unable to cope with it, and a friend of mine suggested getting board games that were collaborative rather than competitive ones. She sent me a couple, which was utterly awesome! Again, community is all about supporting each other like this, and as I have made friends on the internet over the years one of the bests things has been "paying it forward" and sending gifts to people. It's also lovely to receive.

I showed the games to my two older children and I noticed a few things happened.  The boys were only interested in playing Kakapo Rescue, because it was familiar subject matter to them. They knew what a Kakapo was, and the idea of the game was pretty easy to get across. They were really engaged with it and excited. They liked handling all the little pieces. They came up with strategies, and they were happy to follow my lead. They wanted to go again once the game was finished.

Unfortunately, for all the early enthusiasm, the game got boring quickly. When it got boring my older child decided to try making up variant rules to see how that would change the gameplay. This got me really excited. This guy is normally reactive to things rather than an instigator, so it's cool to see him pushing to play with new ideas and try new things. It has taken us years of working together to get to the point where he is prepared to take risks.

But since then they haven't got the game out again. It seems that there is just not enough appeal. I think their collaboration works better when there is an intrinsic reward, such as the excitement of a good story, understanding new ideas, solving problems or making good food. I wonder if they have already learned that board games are a competitive context and having a board game be non-competitive is weird. Or maybe, it would have caught their attention more if they were trying to survive a dragon attack or the zombie apocalypse....

Our Sundial

Yesterday A. was keen to explore his fascination with measuring time when I suggested that maybe we could make our own sundial. Thankfully the weather was on our side and we got all day sun, which is just more evidence of the fact that we are enjoying an early spring.

A.:  "We actually made a thing that goes around and around - a sundial.

We saw what the time was and we left a heater there so we could draw around the shadow with chalk.

We put the number of the hour with I and X so you could see what the time was. Next day I stood in the circle and I could see what time it was from where my shadow was.

Right now I can't seem to find my shadow so I can't do it."

It's really cool that he gets the ability to explore the features and limitations of his experiments. He knows that the clock on the computer works with electricity. We have little discussions about this and he knows that there is a battery inside the computer so that the computer can remember what date and time it is. One of our friends has a computer with a flat battery so the computer can't remember what date or time it is.

M. was keen to be hanging out with her family. She liked the idea of playing with chalk and also likes standing up next to the heater that we were using as a gnomon.

I like being in a community where our play can spill out onto the curb and it is refreshing to not need to gate my children in, though the property manager did suggest I bring it up with the landlord. I have worked with the boys since they were smaller than their sister so that they know to look out for cars, and not cross driveways where cars might be pulling out. In some ways it's easier to "baby proof" the babies than to try and make their play environment safe. It just means that you have to be present, and include them in the decision making process, make them aware of possible consequences,  rather than making unilateral decisions about their safety. They don't have full planning skills from a young age and have very little understanding of consequences, but the more they are involved in their own planning the better they get over time. The last thing I want is 9 year olds who can't cross the street unless I am there to hold their hands.

There are lots of things that go straight over A.'s head, but I see no reason to not mention them. We used Roman numerals for our sundial and he had not encountered them before. He may not know how it all works but it will look familiar to him next time he sees them on a fancy watch or clock, or in an Asterix comic or something. I can never plan for where he is going to encounter these things, but the more he gets shown the more chance he has of seeing connections between things, and I learnt when he was very small, that if things are familiar then they are "cool".

Settling in a new town

Community BBQ and decorating discussion :)

Networking with others and being part of family and the wider community has always been something that is important to me. Before I had children I was living in a flat in the same neighbourhood as where I grew up. I like to know who I am living near, so it was really nice when we moved into our new flat in Palmerston North and found an information pack for new residents including the names of neighbourhood community organisers and a how-to on building compost heaps. The boys and I took great joy in constructing our own compost bin soon after, helping to count, match and hand-tighten nuts and bolts, hiding inside the empty bin, and foraging for dry leaves and sticks to form a base for our compost pile.

We had been here a couple of days when the next door neighbour came over to introduce herself. I'd have ventured out earlier but my husband had come down with hand, foot and mouth and we weren't sure of the status of the children. Starting to go out and meet up with people has been put on the back burner since we got here for fear that we might transmit the dreaded lurgy.

The weekend after we arrived we were invited down to the corner for a BBQ and kōrero about a seat that has been built on the outside of the fence down the end of the street. We were invited to contribute ideas about how we should decorate it. The boys had fun climbing on the newly built seat, and A. discussed his ideas for the colour-scheme with neighbours from up the street. S. wanted to have ago at painting, and started to decorate the picnic table before anyone noticed. The paint was cleaned off before it had a chance to dry, and the neighbours were very understanding and saw the funny side of it.

The boys clearly loved being involved. They have often commented that they would like to go to another BBQ and mentioned how much they enjoyed our neighbour's banana loaf. Clearly the quickest way to a child's affections is through the stomach.

We are really looking forward to getting to meet and spend time with more people. Today I had the second request for us to go out and see someone, and now we are past the contagion we can start inviting visitors over. Our first (non-family) visitor is expected tomorrow afternoon!

Chasing Bubbles

 S. comes up with all the best ideas. Today he was in the laundry with me and saw our bubble wands and asked, "Can we have bubbles?!" I have been very busy lately, packing for our move out of town, and the kids have been a little stressed as a result. Not only do they have so many changes at the moment but they also have a mother who is trying to split her attention a few too many ways, so it really helps when I take their lead and just go with it.

Bubbles are cool for so many reasons.
For starters.. "Wheee!!! Bubbles!!"
And, well, they are like tiny glass rainbows!...
and they make wind visible!...
and they are interactive!...
Just as importantly though, bubbles are a chance for my kids to have my attention. I am outside with them facilitating and can't be lured into folding laundry, or fixing a snack, or checking my email in the middle of what we are doing. Apart from that, they give kids a chance to chase and catch which is something that is innately human. They are like cat toys like that (in fact A.'s cat Felix started chasing the bubbles while the boys were doing the same). They are an activity that I can do while I am carrying the baby on my back, and yet I don't have to run around myself. If we have been inside and doing sitting down things for too long, running around chasing bubbles is a great invigorator. I also find that my children's enthusiasm tends to peter out just as the liquid starts to, but that may just be my luck.

Thank goodness bubbles are generally pretty cheap. Buying a bottle of liquid might set you back $7 at a toy store (in New Zealand at least) but making your own is normally pretty easy and inexpensive. If you are making your own you can always let the kids do the mixing too. It never hurts to think of the process rather than the product, though. Everything involving making and mixing processes is an adventure for us. We discuss a lot about guessing the results, and experimenting to find out which things work, and which don't. I find that it helps to warn my oldest child that things might not work well before we try something new, otherwise he can get very disappointed and grief-stricken.

 I seem to have one son who is a concrete thinker and one who is a lot more creative and abstract.

A: "I know ALL about bubbles. They're made with air and they pop when they touch a hand or the ground."

S: "I think they might fly up to SPACE!!"

Learning the Ropes

Last Monday the weather was not so great. I was anticipating yet another stuffy day inside trying to find something to stop the boys from scrapping with each other. A. was already whining that he wanted to use the computer or watch something. This is his go-to habit when he is at a loose end. Thankfully his little brother is more likely to look around for something to do, so when he said "Mummy! I want to tie this rope to the tree!" I was thrilled to say "Good idea!" and open the front door so he could run out to play. It's no surprise that his big brother didn't want to be left out so he followed to see what was happening.

It often starts out with quiet thought with S. and then his brother comes along and tries to steal the thing he's working on. He just feels lonely or bored and hasn't got the most elegant of social skills yet. The more the boys play together the more sophisticated social tools that A. uses. I still have to remind them all the time that if it's not working it's best to explain what you are trying to do. A. seems to learn best by explaining.

The other day at Playcentre there was a visit from someone from one of the local swim schools, explaining about how to be safe in and near water. A. latched on to the concepts that she was explaining to them which related to a picture book she shared with them. A. stopped her all the time and explained what was happening in the story, including what would happen if the picture was different "That's safe at the pool, because they have their Dad with them, but if he wasn't there? That's NOT SAFE!". (I couldn't help but notice the embarrassed smiles of the other parents... his incessant interruptions would have been considered "disruptive" in a class of 20 or more children, but were within range of normal for a preschool group - I began to understand the frustrations expressed by my teachers from school... ok let's face it, I still hadn't grown out of that habit even by university!).

S. sems to learn a lot through doing. "I do it my-SELF!" has been his focus for about a year now. He is only just learning how to tie knots and it is amusing how much each of the boys learns from each other. S. is often the inspiration behind the play, and A. is great at developing the ideas. If it sounds like fun S. will often let A. be the leader, even to the point of pushing him arounds, but S. will remove himself from the situation after a while and just go and do something quietly by himself. 

After tying rope between trees, "We made a tripping thing to trap people!" and then keeping people safer, tying ropes around trees, and then tying ropes around each other, the exhausting game of tug-o-war caused more stress than it was worth, so they boys decided it was time to do something else. The cats had come out to be around people and were playing a mad chasing game up and down the trees, and S. decided he wanted to climb the tree too. He's quite a good climber. Once he finally decided he was too cold and he asked me to help him down. I asked him if he felt safe and he said he didn't. "Okay, I'll help you... you can put your foot there... now lower yourself down... now your feet are almost there, you can let go! You did it! See I said I'd help you!"

Both boys are pretty good at knowing what they can and can't do. S. is quite confident. A. tends to overthink things and make himself nervous. Sometimes I wonder if he cultivates a sense of himself as a victim so that he can abdicate responsibility and feel better when he's rescued... or feel the phantom strength of indignation when he is left to languish on his own. Maybe I too am overthinking things, but it feel like if I can just find the source of the problem, root up the need, then I will be able to address it and find him a way of looking at things that will leave him feeling like he can be in charge, and pro-active, rather than letting his life happen to him.