When You Work, Work; When You Play, Play

Last night I was reading with my children, trying to get Jason to concentrate since he is still struggling with reading. Justin, however, kept playing the fool, trying to distract him, and Jason seemed more interested in playing with Justin than reading, so I stopped.

Theres a time to play, a time to study, a time to read, a time to eat and a time to sleep. Dont mix them up, I told them. When you do, those are the times you get scolded or punished.

If Im not being productive during the day, why not? Am I working, or playing via surfing the internet, or replying non-essential emails that I should be doing after hours or being a busybody on Facebook to see what others are up to? When the children come home from school and Im still trying to squeeze in more work, I get frustrated and angry with the boys, and so do they.

Wheres Daddy? Justin asks.

Hes busy doing his homework, Jason replies.

Speaking of homework, I remind him, and we all groan.

Then I thought, this is stupid, Theres a time to work, and a time to play. So now I tell myself, once they reach home and until I put them to sleep I will not work. It saved a lot of frustration. Now my time and my mind are not divided. I help Jason with his homework and I help Justin with his playing. I also help in the kitchen so we can eat on time, then I help with the dishes and help getting the boys to bed and then reading with them, which I find is really relaxing for me, too. Its also a great time to bond with your children, and it creates great memories for them too that will last the rest of their lives.

Once those lights are out, Im free, with a clear conscience, to return to whatever I! was wor king on, or Im free to answer those emails and check in on Facebook. Then when its time to go to bed, Im free to play a little there, too or to just talk with my wife, undistracted by children and computers.

How are your days, are you mixing up playing at work, and then working at home to play catch up, when your children and spouse need you the most? Dont mix the two up! Work when you work, and play when you play. If your mind is always somewhere else, youre not going to be effective at work, nor having fun at home. What applies to children, applies to adults. Thats a lesson Im learning from my children before its too late, before they grow up and move away. Now I help Jason with his English lessons and make sure all the other homework is done properly, and Jenny helps him with his BM.

Somehow we all get through another day as a family, and thats a nice feeling.
-Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry puzzles

Who is Ozymandias? Why is Coleridge's Lime-Tree Bower his prison? And what is the proper spelling of The Waste Land? The solving of a poem's puzzles is one poetry's greatest pleasures In the late 1990s the indefatigable John Sutherland produced a series of entertaining books about puzzles in fiction (Why is Frankenstein's monster yellow? Where does Fanny Hill keep her contraceptives? Who gets what in Heathcliff's will?). The books were initially linked to reissues of novels in the Oxford World's Classics series, and I was struck at the time how beautifully these little inquisitions of Sutherland's, often on apparently absurd or marginal issues in the text, got readers reading again, with attention and interest. What Sutherland was doing, in effect, was smuggling serious literary criticism into an apparently superficial form of writing. Perhaps, in a sense, he was even re-inventing literary criticism. In this era of academic theorising and the downsizing of m...
Keep reading

BAFFLING BINGO MYSTERY DAY: 10TH ANNIVERSARY - A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

Image
WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S " BAFFLING BINGO DAY " I'M EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS WEEK'S SPECIAL MYSTERY BOOK CHOICE IS..... 10TH ANNIVERSARY BY JAMES PATTERSON & MAXINE PAETRO ABOUT THE BOOK: For every secret... Detective Lindsay Boxer's long-awaited wedding celebration becomes a distant memory when she is called to investigate a horrendous crime : a badly injured teenage girl is left for dead, and her newborn baby is nowhere to be found. Li! ndsay di scovers that not only is there no trace of the criminals--but that the victim may be keeping secrets as well. For every lie... At the same time, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the biggest case of her life--a woman who has been accused of murdering her husband in front of her two young children. Yuki's career rests on a guilty verdict, so when Lindsay finds evidence that could save the defendant, she is forced to choose. Should she trust her best friend or ...
Keep reading

CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed by Frdric Chaubin review

These images of Soviet architecture from the Brezhnev era are simply out of this world Soviet brutalism is not something traditionally thought of as beautiful, but Frdric Chaubin's stunning photographs, published under the facetious title CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed , should go some way to changing this. Fascinated by the massive scale of Brezhnev-era architecture, the French photographer has toured the former Soviet Union since 2003, in search of dramatic examples of these sculptural buildings. The 1970s-1990s was a strong period for Soviet architecture, especially in the peripheral republics, where outlandish designs were an expression of the striving for independence, an early inkling of the break-up of the USSR. Architects at this time picked up where they left off following the suppression of the avant-garde by Stalin in the early 1930s, and were able to capitalise on advances made in engineering in the interim period, producing buildings with enormous in...
Keep reading