Mean(s) | But I Smile Anyway...

Linda’s prompt for SoCS this week…

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “mean(s).” Use it with or without the “s,” any way you’d like. Have fun!

In my job, it is an essential skill to be able to work out exactly what a child means.

At three or four, or even five, some children are just not that articulate.

(Please don’t get me started on the whole ‘technology’ debate… devices may be great, but they are the sole reason why children can’t actually socialise face to face, or even draw decent pictures, and write decipherable words… swipe? just sayin’)

Be it English is not their first language, or they have speech issues, or more generally, they are used to dumbed down vocabulary, they cannot always verbalise what they mean.

Questioning is a skill we really have to hone. From working out what they are trying to say, to recognising the object they have drawn, it’s only by our talk that we sometimes get to the bottom of it.

Believe me, I have seen some strange things in the past, as well as heard some weird things, which translate to normality, but what you first hear/see… OMG!

I loved a child telling he his dad was getting an electric chair for Christmas ( a gaming chair!), reading a sentence telling me the child “loved to taste cock” (Coke!), and that they enjoyed riding a dick (bike!)… and don’t get me started on the phallic drawings, scribbles and randoms, that I have to translate!

And all this has to be done with positivity. We don’t want a child to lose confidence if we just say “What on earth is that?” or “What did you say?”

Recently I noticed a poster in school, and to be honest, I want it in the nursery – it encapsulates what our reactions are to a lot of things the kids draw…