Strategic parenting

It's hard ! Lord this is difficult. Who ever said the hardest part of being a mum was the pregnancy and birth lied. It's 7:29pm and this is the first time today, that i have sat for close to thirty minutes. My princess is asleep, finally. So here i am, having some 'me' time.

And so here goes; I went to pick my little one from school today, and her teacher suggested having her attend after school lessons. She's a pre schooler; so normal classes end at 2pm, attending after school classes means she'll leave school at 4pm daily. I was taken aback  by the suggestion for a moment; considering the fact that my little one is just two months short of clocking two years. Why would anyone suggest that i keep her in school for eight hours?
Of course, i said no. I do realise that a lot of younger kids spend longer hours in school, besides normal classes hours; That's the difficult decision a lot of working parents have to take so as to 'adequately' make provision for their kids, but i assure you; no 'mother' wants to leave her young children in the hands of strangers for such long hours exposing them to all kinds of danger, many choose to, as a last resort.
Her teacher was well aware that i don't do a nine to five job, So you can imagine my disconcertion when she mentioned that, but  i could see that she wanted to say more, and so i asked.

She explained that my twenty two months old daughter was going to be promoted to the kindergatten class in three months, but at the moment, she hadn't learnt enough to be there. She was enrolled in the second term because we wanted her to be at least a year and six months before she started school, hence, the lapse. I do want my daughter to go be promoted in september, but my child psychology background cautioned me against such move, especially when she wasn't prepared to be there . So you see my dilemma ; I had to either enroll her for after school lessons and have her return in the evenings, opt for summer coaching (but that's her rest/ vacation period), school her myself (my daughter is a handful), or have her repeat the class ( for some reason this is the least liked option and this present economy isn't helpful).

On the way back home i kept remembering all the lofty plans i had to properly tutor my kids, afterall my background in education must serve its purpose na.I even had a time table and a curriculum mapped out; In my head.
Hmmmn, i tried. Lord knows i tried, but in between attending  to and entertaining an overly active toddler, playing cook and laundry man, add that to gate keeper, errand girl, nurse, prayer warrior and then you see how my plans crashed, like a pack of cards. Just one pikin oooooo. So here i am, surfing the internet for information on how to teach a toddler alphabet phonics , I found a book online  titled "Endangered minds" by Jane Healy the review was awesome, the author touched a lot of salient points in parenting that i made a mental note to order. Plus it reminded me of something i had almost forgotten : parenting is strategic. This was something i had always known; its  just that saying it somehow seemed easier than living it. Imagine this: Planning is IT. Everything we expose our children to; our actions, words, reaction, environment should be planned by both parents. We must provide mentally stimulating, enriching environments; and more face to face interaction and less tv time. The effect of excessive exposure to tv , computers,video games may not be visible at present, but the combination of all these for prolonged period makes a bigger impact than we think. According to the author, our attempt at outsourcing our responsibilities as parents to video games,computers and tv doesn't make mould thinking, well rounded children, and later on adults. But the most important information i got was this: Wisdom has its own curriculum : conversation, thought, imagination, empathy and reflection.
Back to the reason, i went searching, thankfully, i found a site www.icanteachmychild.com . So if you're new to all these like myself or you think all of these is a lot of psycho babble, i'd love to hear from you, And if you've been there,done that...abeg,share a tip, help a sister in need.
Now,let me run along and memorise my alphabet rhymes for tomorrows class, the phonics gives me a headache. Wish me well