Stuff you were proud to teach a child

[Trout]

Yesterday, Rose and I watched Doctor Who together, as lots of people do with their kids. (For the hundredth time, no, she wasn't named after Billie Piper's character!)

We'd been eating jelly babies and Rose - who's now two and getting better and better at saying complete sentences - loved them a lot!

I decided to teach her about the Doctor and within a few minutes I had her saying, "Doctoroo like jeh-babies!"

From now on, whenever I get a (rare) Saturday night off, I'll get a bag of jelly babies.

So, my question to you all is, what have you proudly taught your children?

- Trout

[TordelBack]

I've really enjoyed teaching lots of normal social stuff, like 'pleeeesss' and 'tank-oo', and most recently shaking hands (which went down well at a wedding we were at over the weekend), but it has to be dinosaur names and associated noises/actions that has given me the most pleasure.  

With the absurdly varied colours, shapes and postures that dinosaurs are depicted as having in a kid's world, I'm always amazed that the litttle fella can pick out a triceratops and  make the appropriate charging motions, even when the subject is bright yellow and bipedal.

That, and say 'D'oh!' whenever he spots Homer.  

[Leigh S]

My two year old Joe (yes, named after that Joe) does a mean version of the Spiderman theme tune and an excellent call and response version of Black Sabbaths "The Wizard".

[Richmond Clements]

My 7 year old Ewan (yes, named after that Ewan), has an impressive knowledge of Jedi lore.

My ten year old, Caleb, has impressed me with this sort of thing many times, one that springs to mind was him complaining about Venom and Sandman in Spider-Man 3 and the fact that Sam Rami had said he was not going to use Venom in the movies.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

hmmm, prehaps there having been no Dr Who on TV all those years is where its gone wrong ?

My eldest two I'm thinking i shoulda spent less time on 'name that obscure lichen at 40 paces' and more on "this is how you fill out a job application, this is how you find somewhere to live, and i'll dis-own you if you ever listen to 'club hits' type music".

However my third at 15 already has a job, is perfectly capable of getting somewhere to live, expressing ranty opinions on all things geeky, listens to proper music, and can still remember all the natural world stuff, and is way more boot stompy and kick arse scary than me.

So cool is she that her school nominated her for a place on a charity trek to namibia, lesotho & South Africa this summer with 25 other young people who have had to overcome 'significant difficulties' in their lives, and she made it through the selection, the only one from scotland! shes raised £700 towards it, and i'm proud as feck of her.

she'll probably kill me for writing this tho !

[Slippery PD]

I do tend to teach my children a lot of science stuff, when they were younger the basics of why a plane stays in the air or how an engine works.  

More recently my son Ewan (again yes named after that Ewan) 10, will be doing the three states of matter at school.  So last week we were sat in our local coffee shop discussing what the main differences are and what they do.  We went much further than they will at school, but he got it, heat and energy make the different states. I think I was doing my higher chemistry when I learned that - since we moved our discussion onto entropy and the heat death of the universe......

My daughter is now 16 and thinks her dad dont know shit of any use, like which particular blue goes with that pair of shoes or whatever.  She now wants a job in fashion

Yer Slips

[DavidXBrunt]

In my case it's with my nieces and nephews. I love the fact that they have a certain sense of humour that baffles and enrages their parents. They've a love of the surreal and the silly that hasn't come from their mum or their dad. I remember my niece when she was abnout six taking an interest in sreet signs and visual warnings so we went around the house looking for them. On one there was a 'not suitable for small children' sign, which is a circle with a line through it, a face with a curl of hair and 0-3. Samantha interpreted it as 'not for baby Elvis' and from then on there was a silly explanation for every sign. It drives them mad.

Matthew did even better a couple of years ago by annoying his R.E. teacher by designing an Easter card that combined two of the things she suggested. A chicken nailed to a cross.

[robbycox]

Great thread KT, Dunno where to start mind. My little lad, Harrison (and think we can all guess who heâ??s named after!) is six in May, and the things Iâ??ve been proud to teach and the special moments weâ??ve had together in no particular order are.......
The moment he could ride his bike without the stabilizers, sounds corny I know, but to see him riding off under his own steam and the smile on his face when he realised what heâ??d done, absolutely fantastic and if any of you guys and gals remember that (I think?) Sky movies film clip/advert where Dustin Hoffman is doing the same thing? Well, thatâ??s how good it feels!
Pâ??s and Qâ??s and how polite he is in company is always good and letâ??s face it, it reflects well on a Childs upbringing if they say please and thank you and can sit at the table propery and eat with a knife and fork, sounds crazy i know but it's still something to be proud of none-the-less.
Another good â??un is building sandcastles on the beach, ok, admittedly easy to teach but something so simple and how it keeps him occupied, superb.
Reading, writing and drawing â?? constantly amazes me at his aptitude for all three, he must get it from his mother! But when he comes home from school all excited by the story heâ??s written or the picture heâ??s drawn itâ??ll be guaranteed to light up the most stressful day.
Cheers,
Rob.

[TordelBack]

...when they were younger the basics of why a plane stays in the air or how an engine works

I drive my missus potty doing this.  My son isn't yet two, but I try my best to  explain the physics, biology or chemistry of whatever it is we're doing - floating, aerating soil, flying, mixing playdough, turning water wheels,  pedalling etc.  I also try to introduce mini-experiments into play: "What happens if you do this?  Now what do you think will happen if you do this?", etc.  

I'm damn sure none of it's going in, but what  I'm really trying to do is to encourage him to think about the why of things as he's doing them.  Can't hurt.

It also really helps me think through my own understanding of things, as I find with any teaching process - I spent a happy few hours recently trying to re-understand the physics of a static wing the better to explain it.  

[Slippery PD]

yes the teaching process is rather a flagellating escapade.  You say something which is basically true and then they pull it apart in their minds.  Ask you a question that you dont know the answer too, then you have to go and bloody look it up.  Its infuriating and satisfying at the same time.

Yer Slips

[Queen Firey-Bou]

hmm, its wierd all that stuff has to go in there somewhere, it just seems that by their teen years they go mainstream & are more influenced by their peers, it'll be interesting to see if the early years influences start coming out again when they're in their later twenties/ thirties.

Its only now my fathers retired & had triple bypass etc, that i've gotten the chance to realise how like him i am in a billion wierd ways i never realised, & i spent a lot of my pre school years at his work with him.

My kids were all raised up to their oxters in pottery clay & paint, glitter & glue, digging dens in the woods, making mud pies for the chickens, always creating, very much a rural idyll. Seems worlds away sometimes, but i guess it all is in there somewhere.

[Funt Solo]

::"A chicken nailed to a cross."

[Tea sprayed over keyboard.]

I taught my nephew (when he was a toddler) that wet leaves were not aggressive invaders from outer space.  

(He'd got some on his hands, and decided that it was time to cry and panic about the wet, sticky green things stuck to him that he couldn't shake off, so I quickly grabbed a handful and acted like it was the happiest moment of my life, at which point the burgeoning tears disappeared and he decided that wet leaves were fairly cool, and something to smile about, and play with.  Abject fear of nature: avoided.)

I know, it's not much.  Still...I was proud.

[Richmond Clements]

Ahhh, nephews are great- you can tell them any shit and not live with the results!

I told mine, who is 2 or 3 that if he was bad the pigeons would come and take him away. I was delighted to overhear him explaining this quite seriously to his mum a day or two later.
Didn't stop him being bad though...

[Funt Solo]

I told my wee sister that if she touched my Amiga (yes, this was a while ago) then my small wooden viking toy would grow to full size and chop her to bits with his axe. She believed me.

(I should have been encouraging her to use computers.  Tut.  Bad big brother.)

[Floyd-the-k]

was she named after the Dr Who character?

I've proudly taught loads of stuff. In  no particular order:
- about the Moomin books
- reading (taught while we were living in Japan)
- the Lord's Prayer
- how to watch the 60s Batman movie what felt like four hundred times in one month
- the chorus to 'Miss You'
- about Dr Who
- that John Howard is evil
- cricket
- football
- umm, that's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's more