I am also one of today’s Smart Mom with a Smart phone to get all updates about my child’s school. I get his homework notifications online. I get his school updates on the facebook page. His education reports on a portal. And above all, all parents of the class are in a whatsapp group to discuss every single input we have w.r.t the class, curriculum, teacher, habits, food, leaves etc. This is just wonderful for a mother to have control of everything and also we never feel helpless.
I remember my school days, when I am on leave for couple of days, me and mom used to walk to a classmate’s home, get her note, come back, write and walk back, return, say thanks and come back. Today a whatsapp pic of the book saves all the effort & makes it easy.
Last week, while I opened whatsapp there were 118 messages on this parents group. I was worried if all is well, then noticed that it was some discussion about homework. Since I was busy at office, I couldn’t read the content of the discussion. Late that evening, I checked with Krish if he has done his homework and he showed it to me. He has completed the worksheet. I noticed couple of spell errors & told him, “There are 2 spelling mistakes dear, find out”. He found one and corrected it, he could not find the other. I told him, try till tomorrow else your mam will notify when she corrects. To my surprise he was feeling this very challenging. I saw him check his homework again next day too. The next day evening, while I checked the worksheet, I noticed that his mam had circled the spelling error. Me and Krish saw each other smiling.
Before I started my lecture, Krish took that day’s homework sheet and challenged me, “Amma, can u find any mistakes today?”, he had the pride attitude. I was happy to see he did not have any mistakes, though his handwriting was not very good. I gave him a hi5 and he said, “yesterday i missed it, but see.. see.. I won’t make spelling mistake here after :)”.
I liked what happened. I got reminded of the 118 whatsapp messages in the group . I opened to read them. It was a discussion about English book Page 37 Line 4 Question 3. What can be the answer, parents googling and arguing about a particular lesson’s question and answer. I closed the chat with out reading. To my personal opinion, Yes, I want to be aware of what is happening. I don’t want my child to miss something that is important. But I am also sure not to overdo it. Let it learn it either smart way / hard way but they should learn it in their way.
I don’t mind if my son doesn’t know the answer for English book Page 37 Line 4 Question 3 but what he attempts to answer should be from his thought process. I dont mind if he is not thorough about the lessons but I want him to have the knowledge that is aimed through the lesson.
Sometimes I think as a parent, we over-utilise the resources. We virtually enter into the child’s class and monitor them. Trust me, we think it is proactiveness but we are equally peeking into our child’s childhood freedom. Let them learn to make mistakes but correct on their own. Let them learn to fall down and heel the wound. Let them forget the answer to English book Page 37 Line 4 Word 3 but carry the moral of the story.
Let us allow our children to be independent , to be happy and to be a child 🙂
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http:///www.manulescu.com – manu manumanu