Play School

There is something very beautiful about the mind of a 6 year old. Take my grandson for instance. Life for him is so simple. He wakes up and spends his day learning new things and having adventures in the best way possible - with minimal risk. He is at the time of his life when everything is black and white and problems can be solved by telling a grown-up - and letting them deal with it. He is a very lucky boy because every day I meet children who are repeatedly let down by the grown-ups in their life.

My grandson stayed at my place last night and he came into my bed this morning for a cuddle before breakfast. 'What are you thinking about' I asked him after the cuddle and he'd gone quiet. 'Football' he replied 'what are you thinking about?' 'Work' I said. 'What do you do at work?' he asked.  I explained that I worked with children and their families, helping them with any problems they might be having in school. 'Like what?' he asked. 'Well, bullying for instance. A child may not want to go to school because they are being bullied.'

 'I was bullied once. It didn't stop me going to school.' he told me.

This came as a surprise to me as neither my grandson nor his parents have ever mentioned that he had been bullied. 'When did this happen? What happened?' I asked him.
'When I was in the nursery. Harry and Ayo tried to pull me off the trike.' Given that this was 2 years ago and wasn't actually bullying but small children fighting over a toy I responded 'You are right to be upset about that but that's not really bullying. That was an argument about a toy and although it wasn't nice of Harry and Ayo to try and take the trike while you were playing with it that isn't really bullying. If Harry and Ayo tried to take toys from you all the time, if they called you names or hit you and made you worried and scared that would be bullying. He looked very affronted and said 'it was bullying. It was the big trike!'

We had a lovely time yesterday playing 'school's'. He was the teacher and I was the pupil. After calling the register he gave out the whiteboards for the 'phonic session' which seemed to me to consist of repeated chanting. We then had a playtime and came back in for Maths which involved me adding millions and trillions. I got bored. I started to chat to the little imaginary child on my right. 'Teacher' told me to stop talking. I tried but I soon got bored again sitting on the carpet and I started to chat and fiddle. 'Teacher' threatened me with a loss of Golden Time. First I lost 5 minutes and then 10. As Golden Time is at the end of the week I wasn't too worrried about missing some of it as it was too far away from the here and now for me to care and I was still bored so continued to chatter and fidgit. Finally 'Teacher' snapped and sent me to the headteacher. 'Have you ever been send to the head?' I asked him once we were back to being ourselves. Outraged he said 'No!' Apparently he is a very good boy.

He keeps a diary. After we found pieces of writing on bits of scrap paper and old envelopes scattered around his mum bought him a diary which he now keeps under his mattress. He is only using it at the moment to record big events in his life such as catching chickenpox, losing a tooth and Chelsea beating Barcelona but he does this independently. I'm going to start him blogging. A few weeks ago I woke up to find him logged on to my laptop and using the Cbeebies website to play games. I had no idea he could navigate a computer. He had logged in as a guest because after trying to log in on my profile using his name as a password and failing (and being miffed that I hadn't chosen his name as a password) he knew enough to try the guest profile. I was even more amazed to find him on his DS this week sending an email to a friend!

When I was 6 I was almost reading - well I was able to read the 'Janet and John' books in school. But I badly wanted to be a 'real' reader and be able to read, not books, but the newspapers. Both my parents were avid readers of newspapers and I desperately wanted to read the 'News of the World'- a paper which caused a lot of debate in my home and was hidden from my view instantly making it more appealing. I remember my dad would send me to the local newsagents (yes, at 6 years old and times were not so very different then - reports of the Moors Murders filled those very papers - what was different were parents perceptions of danger) and having purchased his paper (Daily Mirror) I would walk home pretending to read it so that passersby would be mightily impressed by this young girls reading ability. My dad rarely got a newspaper in pristine condition as a result.

After our 'school' game I told my grandson about my teachers when I was at primary school. He was aghast at tales of Miss R, an elderly spinster that makes Miss Trunchbull from Roald Dahl's 'Matilda' look like a pussycat. I had to explain to him what a 'cane' was. Oh I love his innocence.