Day 6 #blog365
The bustling world of You Tube, Nintendo DS, Pokemon, makes it a challenge sometimes to bring my family together. Sunday's are no device days. This often frustrates my digitally driven teenagers and tablet consumed six year old. But, I enforce it.
A day in Galveston, visiting the Zoo, going to a Movie, all options. But not necessarily in the budget. As parents my husband and I decided that one of us would stay home until all of our children were in high school. Well our little one came along and extended this for a few more years. As a teacher, well, inexpensive or free options are a must. The ultimate family night for us is playing board games.
My family has about 100 board games we have collected over about twenty years. Our favorites are Ticket to Ride, Titanic, Risk, and Taboo. The face-to-face time board games provide allow us to laugh, interact, and rekindle after a long week of school. Getting away from technology is not only important for my children but also for me as I am now a Twitter chataholic participating in 2-3 education chats a day. I need to step out of teacher mode and into family mode for a day or more every week and have conversations with my boys.
I always struggle with balance between teaching and family. To alleviate a lot of this my husband and children help with all of my science club competitions and attend them as well. It is amazing to see my teenagers mentor my students. This also provides an opportunity for more conversations and bonding. Every day I sit down one-on-one with each of my boys and just talk with them. Discuss school and life and even yes...Pokemon for that is the biggest interest for two of my children.
Being a mother is my most important role as a person. spending time with my children is very important to me. But, I also strive to create many opportunities for my students to learn and grow. Combining them just works. My students all know my children and they laugh and share ideas too. As a large group we do bond and make lasting relationships. I still communicate on Face Book with many of my students from my first year of teaching up to more recent years. We share life-experiences and it has been amazing to see them grow up and graduate high school and attend college.
Ultimately though, turning off the devices on a weekly basis plunges our family into an engaging chat, laughter, and personal bonding day. This plunge is needed. Family time needs to come first because they just grow up too fast and before you know it they will be on Face Book away at college sharing photos and telling you about their life experiences. Be a family, be a mother, then be a teacher. You can great at all three.
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