I recently spilled the secrets on how the expert parents actually manage with their own children? Have you ever wondered if the dentist lets her kids eat sweets or how the teacher gets her child to do their spellings without resorting to tears and tantrums on a Sunday afternoon? I asked those questions (and more) in How the experts parent and today I am back with more!
One of today’s teacher parents admits that she doesn’t do homework with her own children! The point of this series was to show just how challenging parenting is. We can have the best skillset and bring out the best in other people’s children but sometimes doing it with your own is far harder. I have a teenager sitting his GCSE’s this summer and I am finding it really hard to get him motivated and studying, despite being able to tutor other teenagers with great results! I really need to take my own advice from my getting your teenager to revise post!
Another teacher admitted her son is named after a student! I can say my former student’s names definitely impacted on the names I gave my kids too!
The Art Teacher
So, as a secondary school art teacher I have to regularly set homework and follow up with detentions if not completed. My own daughter is 7 and regularly gets homework set… We very rarely do it!!!
I’m in constant conflict because I see the value in homework to some degree but at the same time, I think family time and time for hobbies are equally (if I’m honest, more) important!
I think my job has prepared me in some respects to becoming a parent, definitely, as they’re getting older (perhaps not those newborn stages, but what can really prepare you for that?!) www.mummyburgess.co.uk
Primary School Teacher specialising in EYFS & early child development
How old are your children? Arthur – 5 and Charlotte – 2
Do you practice what you preach or is it harder with your own kids?
In terms of learning through play and child development I absolutely practise what I preach, sometimes to the extreme that I feel my expectations may be too high whenever they go to a setting and it doesn’t quite match up to my own ideas of how children 0-5 should be taught, or the kind of activities we do at home!
In this respect, I feel like my profession has prepared me well for the best ways to help my children learn, but it makes it really hard to go and view schools and nurseries with just my parent hat on instead!
In terms of behaviour management, I only wish my home ran in the same way as my classrooms! Where I could command a room of children and generally keep to some high expectations in terms of behaviour, my own children rarely listen to me and never, ever tidy up their toys! I suspect that a lot of this is down to the fact that I am much more emotionally invested and they also wear me down at my hardest moments – like bedtime when I’m super tired! I do judge myself too harshly on this as I feel like I should have a handle on this sort of thing at home bearing in mind I’ve had so much experience within schools….and I convince myself that other people feel like I should too!
Did your job prepare you for your children?
I came into parenting with certain ideals of things I wouldn’t do based on my teaching experience. For example, I have taught so many children with speech sound difficulty from using a dummy that I was adamant I would never use one. This actually worked against me as my son had such severe colic that he really would have benefitted from being given one earlier (and so would I after many, many hours of his constant crying). In fact, I’m the end, both of my children spoke early and have fantastic communication skills – we just made sure that dummies were for naps and sleeping only and they had to take it out if they wanted to talk.
Thanks to teaching and childcare, I have a full repertoire of engaging songs to use for different scenarios and I am well versed in breaking out an instructional tune at any given moment. I had loads of learning resources and puppets already and a good experience of how to communicate with and develop language during play – and I’m not sure I’d have fared half as well without this experience. It’s also pretty helpful now that my son is in Reception and learning Phonics!
Any funny anecdote you have about your job and parenting?
Me as a pregnant teacher: “I’m coming straight back to work after 9 months. I’ll work until my due date. My children will sleep through the night straight away because I KNOW how to teach kids stuff…toilet training will be a breeze – I’ve already done it with 18 two year olds all at the same time. One on their own will be easy. They will always do as they are told, they will never make any sad choices and I will NOT tolerate tantrums. I’ll keep a full eyfs learning journal for them at home to share with their teachers, which will be super easy as I usually do 30+….oh an no using TV to time fill. “
Me as a parent:
“I knew nothing! How long can I legally extend my maternity leave for and how do I make it last forever? Here non-sleeping baby, have another milk feed and sleep in my bed instead. I can’t even remember your name let alone write a load of observations on what you’ve been doing – have the iPad whilst I figure it out.” Read plenty more blog posts from https://www.arthurwears.com here.
Teachers
How old are your children? Jo’s son is 21 this year and Leisa’s daughter will be 20 this year.
Do you practice what you preach or is it harder with your own kids?
We have definitely tried to practice what we preach as teachers. For example, we started reading and singing little songs and nursery rhymes to our kids during pregnancy. The kids both love reading, poetry and expressing themselves in writing. In fact, each time parent/ teachers events were held at their schools, we were always in awe of their work and grades. My son sat and passed his GCSE English in year 10! As teachers we have very high expectations of them and don’t put up with poor behaviour at all. My son was punished (having to make and take his lunch to school for a month instead of dinner money) because he foolishly took on a dare by his friends to let off a ‘stink bomb’ in his class when he just went to secondary school. He got a proper shouting at too, and that helped to ensure that he was perfectly behaved after that.
Did your job prepare you for your children. My son was named after one of the best behaved boys I taught in my first year of teaching.
Any funny anecdote you have about your job and parenting. We often share funny things that happen in the classroom each day with our kids and now they send us funny teacher/classroom things they find online. We also loved that they got the love of travel from us as we went on holiday during almost every school break when they were growing up. Read more from Joleisa
Parenting children is hard work and this shows that we all struggle at times and don’t always get it right!
