Why I Don't Love the Buddy System

Photo credit: Paul Kuehnel Daily Record/Sunday News (Buddy Bench)

You may or may not have heard of the latest initiative that many primary schools across the country are rolling out.

It is called The Buddy System and it involves each child being assigned a “buddy” which is essentially someone to look out for them in the school yard or during times when they might feel lonely or vulnerable. 

It can also include allocating an area in the school yard for those who don’t have someone to play with or are feeling lonely to go to.  This area usually has a Buddy Bench, a seat for the child to rest themselves on.  Some schools use a sign on a wall. 

The thought behind the bench and the sign is, other children will notice a child who is alone and [hopefully] approach them and include them in their games.

I felt uncomfortable immediately upon hearing this.

Some kids are introverts and their energy is drained by settings like the school yard.  It can be a very intimidating place for small kids.  Oftentimes they feel a strong need to break away from the madness and regroup by themselves.  This is perfectly okay. 

Similarly a lot of kids don’t like it when attention is drawn to them.  The last thing they need is to sit on or stand beside something that, no matter what way it’s painted, shouts “Loner” “Loser” “Billy No Mates” and “I have no-one to play with.”

The Buddy System has its merits but as a parent speaking for a child who needs his own space and really dislikes people approaching him during this time, I don’t love the Buddy System.  I don’t love it at all.

He would rather die a thousand deaths than stand under such a sign, or have someone ask, no matter how well intentioned, if he is okay and does he need company.

It only serves to highlight what some kids are struggling with and striving to hide in the first place; the belief that they are the only one in the yard without a playmate and not included in the fun and games. This is how many of them see it.    

My son can feel this acutely at times but it makes it worse for him if he feels other people notice it.

Sometimes kids just want to be alone.  Maybe that stone they are examining or the trail of ants they are following is much more fascinating than a game of tag or a conversation about Minecraft.  Just maybe.

I also don’t think it’s hugely fair to expect one six year old, for example, to essentially baby-sit another in the school yard.  They are there to play, to enjoy their down time from lessons and not have responsibility that they may not be ready for, or want, placed on their shoulders.

Do teachers not monitor the yard for this very reason?

I accept it is a nice idea and very important to foster empathy and friendliness in others.  

But perhaps it is more important to recognise and understand the differences in children and what puts them at ease or sets their teeth on edge and their skin itching through being uncomfortable. 

Or just leave them be to get on with break-time as they see fit.  I know this is what my son would prefer.     

Stop Bursting my Bubble!

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“It doesn’t actually get any easier, you know.”

“Wait till they’re teenagers.”

“It gets harder/crazier/more expensive the older they get.”

Stop!  No more!  It’s too hard.  Stop bursting my bubble.  I am in a good place at the moment.  There’s sleep.  There’s wine.  The odd night out or two.  I’ve had a few hangovers recently.  The words “lie-on” are once again part of my vocabulary.  I now eat dinner at the conventional time of in the middle of the day.  Not like yesteryear when I was forced out of my bed at dawn and dined at 11am.  There are whole cups of coffee made and finished these days.

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Stop bursting my bubble.  I am in a good place at the moment.  They’ve all got teeth now. Bye bye horrendously painful teething.  They all eat proper food.  Bye bye tediously messy and frustrating solid food stage. Most of them can put on their own clothes.  The odd underpants goes on horribly wrong and shoes are often put on the wrong feet but that’s okay.  I am still brushing four sets of teeth but I’m grand with that too.  It’s all in the name of reducing future dental bills.  Three quarters of them can do up their own seat belts in the car.  They can all help themselves to snacks.  It’s all coming good.

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So please.  Stop bursting my bubble.  I am in a good place at the moment.  There’s sports.  Swimming and football.  Trips to the library.  Three out of four of them are old enough to sit still at the cinema.  The buggy is all but an accessory now.  I am months away from being nappy free.  We might even be able to pack away the cot after our summer holiday where he will probably need to sleep in a bed.  Telling them “no” is met with reasonable acceptance.  This year, three of them will be in school.

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So please.  Stop bursting my bubble.  Let me enjoy where I am at the moment.   It’s still messy.  Very definitely louder than I would like.  Bath times drain any last drop of energy I may have in my reserve tank. I am demented buying clothes for them all the time.  Hand me downs don’t work when knees, elbows and backsides are ripped out.   Shoes are definitely not made like they once were.   Their hobbies and interests are expensive and can be short lived phases. I have accepted that the inside of my house will probably always look like the aftermath of a rave until they are of an age to move out.  My grocery bill scares me.  Driving a tank for a car is another financial drain.   

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But it’s good.  It’s better.  Dare I say I am enjoying it at long last?  Sometimes.  Maybe not often.  But I realise I prefer the older age to the toddler one.  And there are no more toddlers in our house.   It’s all onwards and upwards from here on out and I am happy with that.

I am very happy with that.

So please.  At the risk of repeating myself.  Stop bursting my bubble and let me enjoy being in this manageable stage.  *I will deal with whatever the pre-teen and the full on, riddled with hormones teenage stage throws at me.

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*I hope.  But I know where to find you if I need some advice.  You can even say I told you so.  And I will try not to snap your head off.  Much love. xx      

A Few of my Favourite Things

Some of the nicest things in my world are:

The smell of my boys.  As squeaky clean babies and smelly, dirty ragamuffins.

Freshly baked bread.  Anywhere.

A drink of cold water when I am thirsty.

A belly laugh.

A good run.

A tepid shower in the morning to wake me.

Decent coffee.  With cake.  With friends.

Sunlight on my face.

Waking up in good form.

My boy coming home from school grinning from ear to ear.  Different to the one I had to coax out of his nest at 8.20am with all sorts of bribes in order to get him to school.  I fear it is only going to get harder but for now I have to run with what I am given.

A tall glass filled with ice and a G&T fizzing inside it.

Hugs and kisses from my boys.

A new book.

A good cry.

A glass of beer.

“A-ha” moments.  Big, small and in between.

Sun showers with rainbows.

Connecting with someone.

The time I saw something that I knew one of the boys would love but I didn’t have enough money at the time so I hid it.  When we went back two days later, it was still there in its hiding place. 

Waking up and it’s 8 o’clock.  8 o’clock!  That’s a lie on, that is!

When Smallest Boy wakes up and is not yet ready to join the world, choosing instead to sit on my knee for a love until he is.

My boys getting the hang of their bicycles.

That first noticeable stretch in the evenings.

May day.

My boys’ shadows in the garden during early summer.

Spotting the first summer swallow.

That scant glass of wine left in the bottle for a middle of the week sup. 

That last one is a lie.  I prefer a whole bottle of wine.

The older I get the more I realise it is the little things in life from which we derive the most enjoyment.

Doing My Head In

It was Saturday afternoon and the end of a two week school break.

The weather had been glorious for 10 days in a row bringing with it ladybirds, dandelions and cups of tea in the garden.  A full washing line of bed linen flapping furiously in the breeze was another common sight. 

But the nerves were raw.  We were tiring of having been in each other’s company for 14 days with nary a break; a mother and her four young sons.  Better not forget the dog.

All other avenues of entertainment had been exhausted; swimming, cinema, the park, a playground or three, some very lovely lunches out and in a fit of sheer desperation a bake off with mini cup-cakes, pancakes and cookies.

I found myself sitting in the car.  In fact, I wrote this sitting in the car.  Not on the seat.  No, they’d see me out the window of the house that way.

We put a seven seater through its many paces and in order to create extra room within, we removed a back seat.  Thereby creating a nice vacant space behind the driver seat.

Before I beat a hasty retreat into the car, I had sat on the top landing.  Drinking a cup of tepid tea.  Shouts and screeches floated up the stairs after me.  I remembered my sister in law mentioning she sat her legal exams with ear plugs for maximum concentration.  I made a mental note to procure some for myself.

Small feet approached.  I stiffened and an involuntary sigh filled my lungs.  It was just the dog.  She stuck a cold, wet nose under my chin looking for a pat down.  Then small human feet sounded out their approach.  Giving in, I picked up the cup of cold tea and went downstairs. 

I had sat on the side of my bed, lingered much longer than was necessary in the hot press.  Boredom forced me out. 

I made another cup of tea and doled out flapjacks to give their jaws something else to do other than shout and roar.

I got a three and a half minute reprieve.  The dog approached me again.  This time her paw lifted and she pointedly placed it on my knee.  She was hungry.

It was as I poured kibble into her bowl I had the idea of escaping into the car.

So here I am.  Sitting on the floor, writing in my notebook, listening to the sound of the wind around me.  Feeling it rock the stationary vehicle.  Every now and again a scream or a shout sounds faintly from the house.  I ignore it.

It’s quiet out here.  It’s solitary. It’s peaceful if a tad cold.  I scribble the odd word, sentence or two into my notebook and then look up as a bird hovering over the chimney catches my attention.  I can hear the hum of traffic on the main road. 

I like sitting in my cocoon, my isolation chamber.  But it doesn’t last long.  Like all of my attempts that Saturday.

The house door opens and four boys and their dog fall out and down the steps.

Screeches of delight, of victory as they find me and I am yet again hunted from my hiding place.

Sometimes, in times of need the only cure is a cup of tea.  A large cup of tea.

And maybe some earplugs. 

Today I Am Annoyed

Today I am annoyed.  I woke up that way.  Call it week two of the Easter holidays and it’s all beginning to grate or just plain old contrariness but I’m plain old annoyed today.

Then I had reason to be.

I took the boys swimming.  We go once a week but they particularly enjoy it on a holiday from school.

I forgot that 11am is the time usually reserved for older members of the community to enjoy their aqua aerobics class.  The pool was pretty busy.

That was okay.

The lesson was taking place at the side of the pool we are most familiar with.  It is the perfect depth for the boys.  Three of them can swim but two are confident only where their feet can touch the bottom.  They are unable to tread water properly yet.

Due to aqua aerobics taking place this morning, it was necessary for us to use the other end.  

We walked towards our swimming destination and I watched other families to gauge how my two newbie swimmers would manage. 

I enquired from the (young) lifeguard about the depth of the water.  We are lucky enough to have a leisure centre where the swimming pool has a moving floor.  The lifeguard said it was the same depth as the lessons.

Now, the deep end of the pool means I am on my tippy toes but for smaller members of my family who are recently free of arm bands the tippy toes part spells danger for them. 

I issued strict and loud instructions to the newbie swimmers to wait until I got in first.    

I knew immediately they wouldn’t manage it.  It was way too deep for them.

The water started to bubble around me with frustration and annoyance.  I sourced an extra pair of arm bands for the five year old and the six year old managed just fine.  As long as he stuck to the side where he could grab hold of something when he needed a break.

If anyone else had taken my boys to the pool this morning there could have been a different outcome.  I’m not talking about a tragedy but definitely about two young boys getting into serious difficulty.

Not good enough.  Not good enough at all!

And to make things worse I’ve only got two fekin tea-bags left in the house. 

Annoyed?  I’m rightly pissed off now!

Don’t mind me.  I’m only letting off a bit of steam.

Striking a Balance

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People often ask me how I strike the balance between kids and work/play/home life etc.

What is this balance you speak of, I always riposte back.

I admit to being stumped by the question and I wonder what my own mother’s response would have been as a non-driver Stay at Home Parent to 8 children.   We lived three miles outside town and didn’t have a phone in the house until we were teenagers.  It was also pre-internet era.

I would put money on her answer being, “we just got on with it” or “two feet on the ground and arse to the wind!”

I know I didn’t have balance when we had our first three children.  I jumped straight into the deep end and I stayed there.

I had taken a huge step back from the social scene and my only other outlet was with family members, attending my wonderful breast feeding meet up once a week and various on-line support groups.

Looking back I wasn’t sinking per se but I definitely wasn’t swimming well either.

I just bob, bob, bobbed along.

I considered myself lucky that mothering my babies was all I had to do.  I wasn’t returning to work.

I did experience deep and dark moments of depression but without entering into that here, they passed of their own accord.

When I was pregnant with our fourth son, I wasn’t in great form at the fifth month.  I was also anxious about post natal depression returning when the baby was born.

Thankfully, I was ok.  Our fourth fella was a great sleeper from that fabled 6 – 8 weeks milestone.  When he was four months old I decided to do something about the baby weight that was stubbornly hanging around since baby number two.

This is where I found my balance I think.  In the form of exercise. 

When I started walking to lose some weight, I took to it like a duck to water.  There is such a thing as muscle memory and I believe my body was kicked into touch with a little daily exercise. 

The dormant memories of what it was like to raise my heart beat a little and swing my arms, stretched and woke up.

After a while the seed to try running my circuit was planted and today, almost two and a half years later I run regularly. 

I never saw myself running for anything except maybe a bus and I really surprised myself.

I run because I love it. 

Another obvious and very satisfying benefit is I am now a little over three stone lighter.

I also write a blog, have a weekly column in a local newspaper and contribute regularly to Irish parenting magazines.

I experience regular frustration and resentment because it is hard to find the time to write with four boisterous boys whose own hobbies are demanding my attention.  To have three hours a couple of mornings a week just to devote to writing would be nothing short of luxurious. 

If I am to be completely honest however, I know I wouldn’t be satisfied with just three mornings a week.

I would quite happily spend all day every day in front of the computer.

But that wouldn’t be a balance at all.

This year we will have another boy starting school and I have great plans for at least two of those previously mentioned mornings.

Looks like that balance just might be mine after all.

Thinking about it, it seems I didn’t find a balance; the balance found me.

A Pat on the Back

Today I am giving myself a little pat on the back.  Why?  Purely because I feel like it. 

I am managing, for the most part, to raise healthy and happy kids.  They may go to bed with dirt under their fingernails but they are fed and warm.  And I get them there.  I get them to the end of the day and all of them in one piece.

I also get myself washed, dressed and fed.  Okay sometimes the food part is hit and miss but I have yet to leave the house wearing odd shoes.

There are days when I can’t see the forest for the trees.  It all seems so endless, so fruitless and the frustration I feel knows no bounds.  Those times can run into weeks and I go a bit ka-BLUE-y at the end. 

Then I found this.

I told myself to pin it to the fridge where I would see it a million times a day and just breathe.

On yet another day when I was struggling, this presented itself to me.   

www.thenest.ie

Trust what’s happening.

Trust it will be okay.

Trust all is well.

It comes from an uplifting blog post on www.thenest.ie and you can read it in its entirety here.

That single word trust has been my mantra for the last while.  During those days when I can’t see that forest for all of the crazy trees.  When my head is splitting with noise levels and frustration.

I trust that it is happening for a reason.  I trust that it will be okay and I trust all is well.

In fact, I know all is well.

That is why I am patting myself on the back.  And because I feel like it.