Thursday photo #284

Blogging is a funny game. Until recently, I’d settled into a routine of publishing posts quite regularly. Most weekdays I’d post something and occasionally at the weekend. For the past couple of months though, I’ve been writing one post. It’s taking me ages because it’s a roundup post of dog friendly days out. Researching and writing it is dull but I know it will be really helpful to a lot of people, so I want to get it done. In the meantime though, I’ve ended up posting sporadically on the blog. I’m looking forward to getting back to normal when my monster post is finally finished.

Horse riding

A few days after Lia started school last year, the girls were invited on a Spirit Riding Free weekend through my blog. Before they went, I let them have a riding lesson because they’d be riding during the weekend and I didn’t want them to be worried about it. One thing led to another and before we knew it, they were riding once a month. Then once every three weeks, and now we’re up to once a fortnight. It’s an expensive hobby, but the place where they ride is very reasonably priced in comparison to other stables and they really love it, so I don’t mind.

The only thing that grates on me though is that I’m the only one in the family who hasn’t done much riding. I had lessons as a child, but I can’t remember much about how to ride. I’ve been a few times since on the odd hack, but I’ve never had lessons so I’m still not much good at it. My husband had riding lessons as an adult, so he’s a lot better than me. So this week, I decided to put it right.

I had my first riding lesson for about 30 years on Tuesday. It was surprisingly enjoyable. I’m not great at it but I can still just about remember how to do a rising trot. I need to build some more confidence over the coming weeks but in the meantime I’m enjoying it and it’s great to know that if we go riding as a family, I won’t be the one holding everyone back.

Is it better to be good or kind?

Once a week, Libby goes to a swimming club half an hour from home. My husband and I alternate taking her and she inevitably chatters away throughout the journey there and back. This week, it was my turn to take her swimming. She started complaining about a particular child who is well behaved to the teachers but unkind to the children. This opened up an interesting conversation about whether it was better to be good or kind.

Libby knows that teachers say children are ‘good’ when they work hard and do well in their school work. She knew that some children are polite to the teachers but rude to other children. We chatted about how important it is to be kind. I asked her who the kindest children were in her class. Her friends were the first to come to mind and I asked her why she thought they were kind. Inevitably it was because they were fun to be around. I then redefined kindness as the way you treat people. Looking out for people when they’re struggling or lonely, always being nice to everyone, even those who are not necessarily friends.

The penny dropped then. She still said that her friends were kind, but explained what they did that was kind. Then, she started considering other children in the class who are kind despite not being close friends, or despite their behaviour or schoolwork not being brilliant. I reinforced the fact that while we are proud of her good behaviour and schoolwork, the thing that really matters is being kind.

Thursday photo #284

Right girls, let’s take a nice photo of you in your ballet uniform…