Tag Archives | Kids

Kids and music

With iPod earphones strapped to their ears, kids today are missing out on musical riches of days gone by.


I GREW up surrounded by music. Tchaikovsky and Beethoven were playing for much of my early childhood. My father’s family came from Europe and brought with them an old record player and loads of classical records.

My house was filled with the sound of great operas and symphonies. I don’t think in those early years that I liked any of it, although I was fond of Rachmaninoff.

 

As I grew older the music became familiar to me, and familiarity burgeoned into love. Now I feel deeply satisfied that I was given the opportunity to appreciate the genius and beauty of many classical masterpieces and much more. My father was musical and sampled every type of sound imaginable.

I think of this often as I try to expose my daughter to many forms of music: classical, folk and world music, each coming with its own rich history.

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Teenagers and Party Drugs

Agonising over ecstasy: What do we tell our kids about party drugs in the era of the backyard mix?

IT was a horrible story — every parent’s nightmare. A number of years ago the daughter of an acquaintance died. She was only 18 and had just finished her Higher School Certificate. She was a lovely, normal girl. It was her first trip abroad. She landed in Europe. And went to a club. Of course no one ever knows the details of these things, but her parents were rung in the middle of the night to say their daughter had died on the dance floor.

The autopsy showed ecstasy in her system. She’d been offered party drugs from what’s known in the industry as ‘‘a bad batch’’. The story, and those like it, are more prevalent than anyone could imagine.

Which brings to light a controversial issue. I’ve been battling with friends over my views regarding teenagers and drugs. Continue Reading →

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Kids in Cyberspace

Within 3 years kids will study in 3D surround-screen Hologram classes. Watching TV likewise. Our TV rooms will  soon be like something out of Star Trek. Welcome to the ‘not too distant’ future of Science Faction.

YOU only have to be the parent of a child over the age of seven to know what I’m talking about: the vacant eyes so preoccupied by what’s on screen that they can’t focus on your face for more than a few seconds before being drawn back into the cyberworld.

As you talk, your little darling types or toggles. “Are you listening to me?” you ask, only to be told in a precocious tone: “Yeahhhh. I’m multitasking, Mum.”

It gets worse. By 16, girls no longer seem to have use of their tongues. “Text it to me, Mum,” quips my daughter, barely able to contain her contempt that she has to speak and breathe at the same time. I know one mother who got her daughter to the dinner table by posting the request on Facebook. It was so like social death for the girl that, like, she never failed to come to the table again. Technologies such as Twitter are alarmingly succinct. If you can’t say it in two lines, don’t bother. Luckily, I come from the dinosaur era of the telegram: “Come home (stop) Finish homework (stop) Or no mobile (stop).”

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Time Management for Life Changers

It’s been a wild few days. Bought an Apple Mac because so much of the University course I am doing is based on using it. Another change after twenty years of being a PC user. Such a sad and funny sight, me squinting over the keyboard, losing the page and my place every other minute. A metaphor for this new world I find myself in. The main focus for me is getting a handle on time management: What to do and when? My homework, helping my daughter with her HSC homework, getting my column in each week? Eating? What should take priority? Trying to read time management guru Tim Ferriss’ best seller and Blog, The 4 Hour WorkWeek but who has time?? Continue Reading →

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