When The Tutor becomes the pupil
Motherhood sure gives parents a lot of new roles, and if you’ve read my book, you will be familiar – as I’m sure you already were, with some of these roles. In my capacity as a mum, I’m a chauffeur👮🏾♀️, Nurse👩🏾⚕️, Chef👩🏾🍳, Party planner💃🏾, Entertainer🤹🏾♀️, Fixer👩🏾🔧, Hairstylist💇🏾♀️, and of course a tutor👩🏾🏫. Trust me, that is naming just a few 🤩.
The Terrific Tutor
My duty as a tutor to my children is becoming more daunting as they grow older. We are not just sounding and blending words anymore, we’re now doing more of creative writing, structured sentences, grammar and punctuation. And that’s only English! Don’t even get me started with maths 🤯. Anyone who knows me knows I’m hopeless with maths. I mean, my Secondary School Certificate score in maths was a P7. My only P score and I was prouder of that than the subjects that got me distinctions.
So you can imagine my dismay with the maths homework my eldest is bringing home now. He’s only in year 3 and I’m reaching for my phone the moment he needs my help. Yes, Google has become my bestie 🤦🏾♀️.
I must admit that I look forward to his English homework. This is because when he finishes, I always go through his homework to make sure he did the right thing. Guess who’s better for it, it has actually been helping me, especially since I started writing again. My tenses were all over the place and my grammar had suffered from years of dormancy 😄. Tutoring my children is really helping me brush up on this and even I can’t believe I’m enjoying maths (pretend we’re not talking about elementary maths).
My knowledge of animals is also on another level, just this morning, three birds were outside my window – no, not singing sweet songs 😁(Bob Marley’s song comes to mind) and I actually knew they were magpies 😱! The boys love animals so we watch a lot of animal documentaries which has resulted in me knowing so many animals and their habitats, even what they eat.
Nature Awareness
I’m also more attentive to nature and observant about my surrounding. When on my power walks, I look out for interesting things to share with them. There was a week I noticed a group of rabbits on my walks, I took pictures and told them a rabbit must have just had babies and their burrow/Warren (i know that thanks to habitat tutoring) must be nearby. Hubby and I saw a dead snake and had to take a picture to show them. Luckily it was still there when they returned from school, by the next morning though, it was gone and the boys were convinced a lucky fox must have eaten it. 😊
Dead snake Hubby and I saw 
One of the rabbits I saw.
School Projects
Whenever I see a letter for a school project, I cringe. These projects require so much time and efforts cause most times you have to be as involved as they are in it. But guess who now knows so much more about fossils, don’t even try me on flowers 🤗 and I can actually name and recognise some Van Gogh Artwork 😙.
I know pretty much all the carton theme songs, add Football too that, yes the leagues have different theme songs 🙄, did I mention Superheros too and the cool dance steps as well.
Conclusion
Tutoring my children is fast becoming my favourite role in raising them. It stretches me and is definitely making me a better version of myself. You should watch my son and I practise spellings, he complained about my pronunciation so much that I would type in the word for Alexa, Google or whoever that computer voice is to read it out. 🤷🏾♀️
In all, I’m better for it, though ageing fast 👵🏾. In tutoring them, I’m being tutored myself and what a world of good that is doing me. Do you enjoy teaching your children, please share your experiences.
How’re you tutoring 😉.
Aunty Lulu
Tutoring my children gives a sense of fulfillment. It’s usually a time of bonding with them. Sometimes we argue on answers and procedures, then we resort to Google. The mail for the annual science fair came in yesterday and my heart skipped for a second considering the time and energy that would go into the project to be submitted in a few weeks. I am grateful for the privilege and I am definitely better for it.
Thank you Kunbi, I love how you put it, it really is a privilege and a time of bonding.