The other day my son came home from school after completing a maths test. “How was the test?” I asked him as he walked through the front door, dropping his blazer, tie, belt, socks at different intervals in a line down the corridor, like a working man eager to leave his busy day behind him. “Great”, he said, “I finished it early”. “Awesome”, I said, “Did you review it?” “Well, kind of”, he replied, “I made sure I finished every question, but I didn’t check every answer, I had just done it mum, I didn’t want to do it again! But I made a paper crane out of my working out sheet!” (See photo above). Gee, I thought, typical Year 7 kid, can’t do too much work now can we! “But”, he said, “the teacher supervising saw my paper crane, screwed it up and threw it in the bin!” I asked him what he did and he said, “I told her that it had a life to live and its legacy will live on! And then I did a “bin dive” into the bin and saved it!” He pulled the paper crane out of his school bag and showed it to me with pride. I laughed, I knew he had not been disrespectful, and I told him I was glad he had saved the crane.
On the same day, my daughter came home from school and told me that they had been asked in class, to write about their wonderings of Australia. She said a little boy had written “I wonder what would happen if cows ruled Australia!” I thought that was funny and had a giggle, but her substitute teacher thought it was not, and so he got into trouble!
Don’t you think that sometimes it would be great to see the lighter side of life and not always be so precious and proper? We get so caught up in the dos and don’ts that we forget to have fun. A child’s imagination is bursting with innocent, creative thoughts and perceptions that are yet to be suppressed. Let’s nurture that and teach them that as long as we are always respectful towards others, it’s ok to have fun and laugh, after all laughter and happiness are the keys to a healthy and happy mind and soul, am I right?