End-Of-Day Sessions With Your Child

Teacher:  “Hello, your child seems to be a little slow in adapting to the playschool. He refuses to participate actively in the sessions of learning and playing. May be you need to spend some time talking to him before you call it a day”.

Me: “Sure, this is something which I do every day but never had any discreet or focussed objective while talking to him. But may be yes, I need to speak to him and I will surely try it”.

This was the first feedback given by my son’s playschool teacher after his two weeks there. Every day when I would drop my son to the playschool he would be the only child who would cry his lungs out followed by a lot of melodrama. I would always think, why is that we are struggling with so much adaptation issues?  Have I gone wrong somewhere or have I been over- protective about him? May be, I was. After receiving a feedback from the  teacher, I thought may be E.O.D sessions would help.

It is called EOD session because it’s literally done at the end of the day where I sit with my child and give him undivided attention. It could be sharing a talk on random topics or even reading a book or sharing how I spent my day and ask him about his. Over a period of time I realised that these sessions really helped change my son’s attitude and inclination to learn and demonstrate what he learnt.

We started when he was two and we still carry out the ritual today when he is eight. My younger son -a toddler-enjoys this small family time where he keeps conversing in his blunt words and shows his father what he learnt that day. Sometimes we get so busy with our stressful schedules that we forget that our children are eagerly waiting for our attention. Think about it, these end of day sessions will really help you to create a perfect bond with your children.  You can be rest assured that they will never feel lost. Here are a few benefits of having a daily E.O.D. session with your child:

1. Candid conversations

This is the best time to unwind and then share a light banter, bond with your child and as a family. This is the time when children who are so used to sharing everything with you will definitely reveal all good and bad they have done on that day. You can utilise this time to educate your child with values and virtues. These spoken words from a parent to child go a long way.

2.  Learning from the child

This is also a time when your child lists down his expectations from you, or even give you a feedback on how good or bad parent you were. It will force you to think if you could have handled things better. Not always should we choose to be parents, we can also be their friends. When they give us our failed points, we also get to know how mature our children have become. With that we need to also change our approach in tackling their behaviour.

3. All’s well that ends well

I do have ups and downs with my son when he chooses to disobey me during the day. I announce the most painful punishment- I don’t talk to him. At the end of the day he realises that he just cannot sleep without having his session with me. So this is the time when he apologizes and we exchange our thoughts on what we could have avoided.

4. Shyness be gone

This session is ideal for kids who are shy or very selective in talking about school or play time. I enjoy it the most when my son narrates his entire schedule. Right from the incidents that happened in school, the activities done in school to who hit whom in the garden. The things that otherwise don’t get revealed with any amount of probing, come out voluntarily during this time.

I know this is a simple thing explained in an elaborate manner. But from my personal experience I can assure that you will surely become your child’s best friend. The value of trust that we will have with our child and they in us is something that comes by default when we hear them out. This will only give you an assurance that our children can never feel lost because ultimately he/she knows that you will be there for him/her. We choose to unwind with the various social networking apps. Now let’s consider unwinding with our own children. You never know they may teach you a lesson or two in parenting. Go ahead, set up end of day sessions with your child- you wont regret it. 🙂

Moushumi says- After 12 years of banking experience, I chose to take a sabbatical for my kids and be an enterprising mother. I am a Bachelor in Commerce, Masters in Finance Management and done diploma in creative writing .Writing is my passion and wish to develop it further. My husband is my inspiration to all my aspirations. I am a mother of two sons, my elder being 6 yrs old and younger about 1 month old . I love traveling and writing about places visited and every thought that fascinates me. All this can be read in my blog Life Bytes.