My Thoughts On.... Names

This week, Wayne and Colleen Rooney welcomed their third son into the world.  Whilst the birth of a child is a wonderful thing, it's a serious undertaking. So is naming your child.  Their three sons are Kai, Klay and Kit.  From here on in known as KKK..  as one twitter user succinctly put it:

In the summer of 2013, Katie Hopkins caused absolute uproar because she candidly said she judged parents and children alike because of their names.  She went too far saying she wouldn't let her children play with others whose names she disliked.  But, whether we all like it or not, we judge on looks and names. As adults, if we went to school with someone who wasn't always so nice, we are pre-dispositioned not to necessarily warm to another person of that name immediately.

Choosing a name for your bundle of joy can be a tough experience. If you don't know what gender to expect you have two lots to get it down to.  MrM and I spent hours on names.  With the 10 year old we didn't know gender. We had a book of baby names. Night after night I called out names and we both wrote separate lists of what we liked. then we compared lists and only kept it to names we had on both lists.  That whittled it down to about four. Then it was haggling with our favourites.  I'm pleased to say 10 years on and I'm still happy with it and he seems to quite like it too.

The 6 year old was a lot easier. We started with the list we'd made four years previously. Did we still like those names? Was there any we wanted to add? Did it fit with the rest of the family?  You see; I think that's fairly important. You can't have two children called Bert & Ernie and then another called Hendrix.

Some countries have baby naming laws.  Germany, Sweden & Denmark to name just a few.  Often it's to ensure you can recognise a child's gender by it's name,  that traditional names are kept and that your child is not going to grow up embarrassed having been named after a piece of pottery or fruit.

There's also the question of being able to spell your name.. or can anyone else spell your child's name?

It's Marc with a "c"

I have a coffee shop name.  It makes life easy. I don't have a particularly difficult name but people struggle to say it or spell it right.  I blame it on three vowels in a five letter name.

The top 5 baby names of 2015 in the UK were these:

Are there any surprises in there?  How did you choose your children's names?

The Writing Rant.

Joined up - "cursive" writing is part of the National Curriculum. This is what my the 10 year old's Year 6 teacher told me at last weeks parents evening when I also brought up my issue that he's not allowed to use the blue pen he has as it's "the wrong colour blue"  - I kid you not!

When they sit their KS2 SAT's they are marked down if they cannot display they are able to employ cursive writing.  


The National Curriculum states:

Pupils should be taught to:
Write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed by:
Choosing which shape of a letter to use when given choices and deciding whether or not to join specific letters
Choosing the writing implement that is best suited for a task.

It's recommended that:
Pupils should continue to practise handwriting and be encouraged to increase the speed of it, so that problems with forming letters do not get in the way of their writing down what they want to say. They should be clear about what standard of handwriting is appropriate for a particular task, for example, quick notes or a final handwritten version. They should also be taught to use and unjoined style, for example, for labelling a diagram or data, writing an email address, or for algebra and capital letters, for example, for filling in a form.

The 10 year old has neat writing, when it's not joined up.  When he adds curls and swirls and flicks and ticks it's an illegible mess.

I agree children need to know when to use capitals, how to speak and write using the correct grammar.  Don't get me started on how often the boy says "I am going FOR a toilet" instead of going TO the toilet!  Children need to know how to complete paperwork like job applications correctly for adult life but I disagree with the NEED for their written work to be joined.

When children get into their secondary schools the teachers don't care if their pupils writing is cursive, as long as it's legible. Is there any evidence that teaching joined-up writing early is necessary or useful? Do kids need to be taught any more than the basic stand-alone forms of letters? Can they not be allowed to develop fluency for themselves?

There are less and less professions these days where you actually need to physically write. I've even given up sending Christmas cards as it's too much effort to sit and write them.  Most of us already use whatever technology is available.  Even in Year 1 at school they use interactive white boards and iPads.  

If we can concentrate on the basics, the rest will follow and we might have a generation of Doctors where you can actually read what they have written*

What are your thoughts on cursive writing for children?





*All prescriptions and case notes are of course entered electronically these days.

The Judgement Call

This week, Rachel Stevens previously of S Club 7 fame was lambasted for leaving her two children in her car whilst she "ran some errands.  Reports are she left them for 10 minutes.  Her daughters are aged 4 and 18 months. She has been judged from all sides.  Rachel herself has maintained a silent view on her actions.

But haven't we all been there?  Have you NEVER left your child in the car to go and pay for petrol or to go and get the parking ticket to find the machine is out of order and you have to trek to another part of the car park to go and get one?  The two scenario's I just mentioned are something I have frequently done. Why would I remove a child from the safety of a five point harness in a car seat in the rear of the car to drag them into a shop for five minutes so they can see all the sweets and magazines I will no doubt refuse to buy.  Roll on the meltdowns.

Last year I had a similar situation.  I collected the kids from school.  They were in year 5 and Reception respectively.  I needed to go to a pet store and get dog food.  I parked the car in the stores car park. The 5 year old refused to budge.  I can't even remember what the reason was for.  She was having one of her moments and being the stubborn moo that she is, there is no persuading her otherwise. I was fighting a losing battle.  All I wanted was dog food. I didn't need to browse, I just wanted to pop in, grab exactly what I wanted and go.  She was shouting at me, I was shouting at her. The 10 year old and I got out the car and walked into the shop leaving the 5 year old screaming and crying at from the car.  Now I can see a crying 5 year old in a car doesn't look good but by the time I came out, approximately 5-10 minutes later she was sitting with a face like thunder but not crying. It was all over and by the time we were home, all was well with the world.

Or so I thought.

Until around 8pm when a knock at the front door presented us with the Police.  I was upstairs with the 5 year old having finished bath time and she was in her pyjama's ready for bed.  I have a unnatural fear of authority. I don't know why, I've never been in trouble but I have. I'm also a very emotional person who cries at the Andrex puppy adverts.  It doesn't take much to set me off.

I started sobbing and refused to come downstairs. I felt guilty, ashamed and horrified. The 5 year old didn't understand what was happening. The police asked to see her so MrM took the now crying child downstairs. She too thought she was in trouble.

The Police explained to MrM that ultimately it wasn't safe to leave a child in a car alone. She could have taken the handbrake off, she could have got out and got run over, she could have been abducted. There are any number of scenario's. They asked him to make sure I understood and left without taking any further action.

Have I done it since?  Yes.  Not because I want to flout the rules of authority but because sometimes, she asks if she can stay in the car. Usually if I'm popping into Tesco Express to get a loaf of bread. I tell her not to touch anything, I lock the doors. I'm in and out.  Anything longer than a couple of minutes then she's with me.

I'm not a bad Mum and probably like Rachel Stevens, just doing my best.

This Week I Will Be Mostly..... week 2

Listening to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off"

Not by choice.

It's not that I don't like it or Miss Swift's world takeover - there are far worse role models our youngsters can idolise and she's an extremely talented young lady. It's a problem because my 5 year old loves it. And plays it over and over again.

It's not even the Taylor Swift original but a cover version.  The 5 year old has found a Bieberesque type boy who sings & vlogs. It's called MattyBRaps and she is ever so slightly obsessed.

Thank God she's too young for twitter and facebook.

Matty can be found here MattyBRaps