Story: Schola Cashdan & Firs Hill Level 1 ESOL
Photos: Kath Hobson
In October Kath Hobson invited us (WEA Level 1 class) to a talk by Anne Hill entitled Chatter Matters which is basically about how to relate with your children.
The students found it very interesting and wanted to share their knowledge with other parents and Messenger readers.
These are some of their ideas, comments and questions raised by the talk:
“Bringing up children in this country is very different from where we come from so we need a lot of help on how to deal with situations when they come up.” Roda Oogle
“I heard an important point – the lady said that dummies would not help children to talk but are ok for bedtimes.” Masarat Bibi
“One of the interesting things I learned is that when you ask a child a question,you have to allow her/him time to respond. For example a 7 year-old needs 8 seconds to internalise the information before they can respond. It was very useful information for me because I always get cross with my daughter when she doesn’t respond quickly.” Sobia Shah
“The other thing I learnt is that you shouldn’t interrupt a child when they say something wrongly. Instead just repeat it in the right way and the child will know his/her mistake.” Noreen Kousar
“I often play games and read with my 3 year-old son. It’s such fun.” Amira Al-Ashwal
“We were also advised not to have a TV set in children’s bedrooms because we cannot supervise what they watch in their bedrooms all the time. This also applies to letting them use the computer on their own – we parents should try and monitor the websites that they use, but how can you do that if you are busy with something else and they tell you they want to do their homework?” Amal Ahmed
“When you help children with spelling,counting numbers or anything else, do it in an interesting way like singing a song or teach them with stickers, colours or sticking pictures. “One thing that I want to know is: what do you do if the children misbehave in front of our visitors or friends? It usually is a very embarrassing moment! What should one do when it happens?” Sobia Shah
“Another difficult situation is: What do you do if you have children of different ages and they all want to watch TV at the same time?” Roda Oogle
“I enjoy the evenings with my children when we sit together for dinner and talk about what they did in school. They usually also ask me to tell them what I learned in my class.” Fatima Al-Hidabi<
“We were lucky to listen to a children’s expert who talked about child development and how to cope with our own children.It was useful to know that when talking with young children, you should sit down or bend to their level to get their eye contact.” Faiza Scott