It´s Her way or the Cryway.

It has come to my attention that I seem to be in training to be Supermum one day.



Whilst staying on the farm and having the fortune of looking after the 5 yr old girl that lived there for a few evenings a week for 2 months I now know that I don´t want to live with a 5 yr old ever ever again. And if that means putting off the kiddies for a couple of decades I think I can handle that because a child that refuses to go to bed without a packet of chocolate biscuits - I can´t handle very well at all.



However there were a few things I learn´t about looking after the dear little thing whilst being left in front of her favourite 7 TV programs a night and her insesent whines for something or nothing. Admittedly anything I´ve previously known about childcare I got from Channel 4´s Supernanny but I wasn´t sure how easily translated ´the naughty step´would be in a Spanish Bungalow. So I prepared the littlen for bedtime by saying in 10 minutes or after the next program you´re going to bed and got her to aggree with me. The more she watched TV though the more it became a problem for her parents of how close she got the the set. So a few weeks into babystiting duties they told me to tell her not to sit too close and if she didnt obey to switch the TV off. So one evening, armed with the determination and firm believe of Supernanny herself, I prepared for battle.



One, two, three times I asked her to move away from the TV and defiance was ever more apparent. So I reached for the plug and switched off. At first I walked away and sat down explaining why the TV was off. This was a mistake for she was used to just going behind the TV and switching it back on. This did not sit well with me and I had to make sure I took complete control of the situation. So I tried getting rid of the plug but some how the 5 yr old became an eletronic genius and managed to work the TV post plug. I didn´t understand but just went to the main socket an switched off. And stayed there. At first she decided to act all let´s play a game which weaker sitters might think means she´s come round to your way of thinking and is ready to co-operate. But beware - they are distraction techniques designed to lull you into a false sense of security until - pounce - they are in control, again.

Unfortunately my lack of communication skills in her language made it slightly difficult for her to understand why I was sitting on the TV controls but I tried to keep explaining in my limited spanish. This went on for 10 minutes and she had just decided to give in when her parents came home. There arival changed her mode of behaviour becasue she knew that one scream in their ear would sometimes (not all the time I had noted) work and thus undoing my work on dicipline. I´m pretty sure at times she tried the whole ´she´s not letting me routine´hopefully the parents didn´t fall for it. ´

Having now left the farm and living in a flat and teaching English in the city of Madrid I now find myself tutoring another ´challenging´child. She is Spanish but her Dad is from America and she goes to a Scottish school in the city where they follow the curriculum of UK. (Her mum says it´s English but all the teachers are from Scotland which is a separate country much to the confusion of foreigners I come accross). Last week it was her SATS. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo lucky I only had to do them once and I was 10-11 when I had to. She is 6 years old. 6 and she had a whole week of exams! It´s just not right. She feels herself that it´s not right as last Tuesday there was a Comprehension Exam which she outright refused to do. As soon as I was told this I had uneasy flashbacks of my own refusals in class.

I am compasionate of the amount of work she is given as homework by the school (3 separate exersises for completion the next day at times), her difficulties with reading (she mixes up letters and words which could be classed as Dyslexia but I refuse to label a child who is simply different) and her recognition of her differences compared to her classmates leading to her low self-confidence but I don´t know if I´m the best person to help her through this. Because my understanding which comes from my own experience isn´t letting me, at the moment, find a solution or process to help her through her problems.

It´s something that has to be worked on I guess. It´s just sometimes, when we´re reading Biff and Chip and answering the corresponsing questions I get the same terrible boring, pointless feeling that I had myself as a child. Although to be fair Biff and Chip is way more interesting that what I had to read and those Magic Key adventures remind me of the good times. But still when we´re doing some maths exercises like find the missing number, or what´s the pattern - I don´t know who still needs improvement - me or her.