Mommy's no fun

There are so many times that I've wondered while playing with the kids that I'm just no fun. I can be funny and goofy pretty easily. But how often am I really unencumbered by household needs or even my own need for a personal break that I can sit down and enjoy my kids in what they are playing for more than 5 minutes?

Besides that struggle that a lot of moms have, I also battle the teacher side of me. So Tobey was doing a concentration game on the computer last night. Much more fun for him than playing the Memory Game with cards. He knows the rules of flipping over two cards but has yet to really master the strategy of flipping one card and then actually purposefully seeking out the second card to match the first. He doesn't always pay attention to everyone's turn and often forgets cards that have already been flipped. It irks me but he'll learn sooner or later, especially with our coaching.

But oh, when it came to the computer concentration game, he was flipping willy nilly and it was driving me bananas. The online concentration game only has 8 cards vs. the 36 we use when playing real cards. So I know 8 cards should be simple for him. But he is clicking haphazardly, not "using his brain", if you will. He certainly wasn't paying attention or trying to remember anything, I think he liked the sound of the click. To me it was obvious that he was just doing trial and error until the computer says he got a match. And it drove me crazy.

I remember when researching and studying the use of technology in education, that was one of the criticisms of some applications of technology in education. Kids "waiting" for the computer to tell them if they were right or wrong versus them self-evaluating, calculating and seeking out the right answer.

So "Mrs. Chang" couldn't stand it anymore and I tried to train him to use "strategy". To verify that he was really paying attention to the cards, I'd have him say what the cards were when he flipped them. To instill some strategy, I made him stop after the flipping one card and talk through which other cards he had already seen before. He got a pair doing exactly just that and I rejoiced. Then when I was coaching him again, I saw his mouse just "doodling" around the border of the webpage. Distracted, off in another land.

So in frustration, I ended the activity mid-game and we proceeded on to the bedtime routine. But as we did, I couldn't help but feel I just turned what should be a fun activity together into a chore. Was I a party pooper for trying to get him to play "smart"? Or maybe I could have had a more fun tone instead of a teacher tone? Should I have let up a bit, since we do play Memory Game and he's slightly more strategic when he plays with real cards? Was I being strict because of my own viewpoints about computer games?

All I know is fun turned into drudgery on my account. At MTO yesterday, Edith Lin mentioned that when picking schools and also if homeschooling, it's important not to squelch kids' natural curiosity to learn. I find that I don't do that, as long as they learn things MY way (sarcasm intended).