As you are probably aware, the government has introduced a new Phonics Screening Test which comes into play this June for all children in Year 1, after a one-year pilot. Children will have to read 40 words with their teacher, which will be a mix of real words and nonsense words that are made up of letters and sounds that are part of the phonics route of teaching reading. It is not compulsory to teach reading using synthetic phonics, though a lot of schools do.

I am not a teacher, but I do have a daughter in Year 1 and have seen the range of reading skills that her classmates show. They used phonics to teach reading in Reception and they still use phonics, along with other methods, to teach reading in Year 1. RoRo is reading books at Stage 5 in the Oxford Reading Tree (and the equivalent in other schemes). The vast majority of her reading is now recognising whole words that she knows already, in addition to this, she uses context to work out what words she doesn’t know say – sometimes she still decodes, but for the most part, she’ll do something like look at the first few letters of a word and the last few, look at the length of the word and look at the picture and the words around it, to work out what the word is – from meaning. Decoding now forms a miniscule part of her reading process. And, from what I’ve seen, this is the same for a lot of her classmates. There are, of course, still some who are using decoding the bulk of the time, but not very many. And there are others who are further ahead and almost never use decoding – recognising the majority of words, and working others out from context.

Phonics worked wonderfully as a teaching tool for most of RoRo’s classmates, but the teachers have always shown adaptability and have helped the children to use different methods. One of the most important things has been the use of story books and non-fiction books that engage the children and help them pick up words and reading in general because they want to know what is happening, or find out more about something. We love phonics and I have already started introducing some letters and sounds to Eleanor – very gently, of course, and with no pressure (I’m not a Tiger Mum!) But I would never, ever, ever, try to get them to read nonsense words to practise the letters and sounds. The point of phonics is to help children learn to read. The point of phonics is not to teach them to excel at reading a large number of letters and sounds but never be able to translate that into actual reading.

The government claims that the point of the Phonics Screening Test is to “identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills”. But… do you know what? That’s what teachers do already. Year 1 teachers and teaching assistants work with children according to their ability and needs in learning to read. They will do things like guided reading in groups, individual reading with teachers, teaching assistants and parent volunteers. And they will help those children who are struggling, using the most appropriate methods for them. They don’t need a 40-word check to tell them who needs help. What they could probably do with is some extra money to give those children who do need extra help a bit more one-to-one help.

What they definitely don’t need is a bunch of children getting stressed out about taking a test at the age of five or six. They don’t need a bunch of children getting thoroughly confused about having to read nonsense words when what they really want to do is read about Floppy and Kipper’s latest adventures with the magic key. They don’t need a week off timetable to fit in testing all their children themselves. And they don’t need the extra stress themselves of administering a test.

If we lived in Spain, then the Phonics Screening Test could well make sense, because Spanish is spelt phonetically. English is not spelt phonetically. Some of it is, yes, but most of it isn’t. There are plenty of letter groups that have different sounds in different words, there are plenty of sounds that are spelt in a huge variety of ways. You learn to read ‘bough’, you’d expect to then be able to read ‘tough’, but no that has a different sound and then again you have ‘through’. To, too and two sound the same but look very different.

In the one year pilot, only 32% of six-year-olds who took the test reached the expected level. Is this because they couldn’t read? No, it’s because most of them could read well and taking a step back to decoding nonsense words and reading a list of words instead of a story, is not at all helpful or indicative of actual reading levels. The government’s explanation was that “pilot schools were only given details of the content and structure of the screening check shortly before the check took place”. Which essentially translates as “they were actually testing they could read the words, when they should have been testing that they could do a test in a specific way and specific format”. If they’d had a whole year to teach these children how to decode nonsense words and read a list of words instead of a book, they’d have passed the test. They might not actually be able to read books to the level they would if they’d been learning to read, of course, but that’s OK, because the government will be able to tick a box, which is what matters, isn’t it?

Hopefully, the test (or ‘check’ as it’s been called) can be administered without too much disruption. Hopefully, it won’t give children a knock-back in their progress at learning to read (whether through insisting on testing recognition of phonics letter groups rather than actual words, or through making confident readers feel like failures because they can’t decode a nonsense word. And hopefully this test, which is as nonsensical as some of the ‘words’ it tests, will be scrapped very soon.

Edited to add: There’s an interesting response to the Phonics Test consultation from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (PDF).

If you’re worried about the test at all and would like to help your child prepare for it without adversely affecting their actual progress in learning to read, Oxford University Press has brought out My Phonics Kit, which is based on the Oxford Reading Tree and treats the nonsense words as ‘alien words’. We’ve received a copy to review, and we’ll be giving our verdict next Sunday (My Phonics Kit review is now live), but on a first quick flick through, it looks like they’ve done an excellent job at providing a comfortable introduction and practise for this test.

What do you think about the new Phonics Screening Test? Are your children going to be taking it this year? Do you think it will confuse them? Are you going to help prepare them for it at home, or let the school prepare them as they want to?

Eleanor has started asking ‘Why?’ It took me a while to register that she was doing so and seemingly actually asking ‘Why?’ rather than just repeating a word she’s heard Rosemary use.

‘We need to hurry up and get dressed.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we need to go and meet Granny.’
‘Why?’
‘So you can go to Painswick and see Tulo*’.
‘Oh. All right.’

The thing that fascinates me is that, unlike my (probably inaccurate) memory of Rosemary’s first Why phase, she does stop asking when she gets an answer she’s satisfied with. I’m sure Rosemary just kept asking until she got fed up, as did I at some point, which led my dad to retort with his mum’s stock phrase (must be said in a Welsh accent):

‘Why is a letter and you should know better.’

A phrase I have been known to use myself, but so far not on Eleanor. Perhaps that phase is yet to come.

Rosemary,  is asking ‘Why?’ more too (so, yes, Eleanor’s probably been influenced by her) and actually listening to fuller answers. Previously, she’d listen to the first few words and then drift off to some imaginary land. Now, she’s asking follow-up questions and listening to the answers to those, too.

This great for Chris, who has a scarily wide knowledge of just about everything. For me, whose most common response seems to be ‘Oh, gosh. I don’t actually know. We’ll have to look that up when we get home. Or ask Daddy. He probably knows,’ it’s a little worrying. I may need to read an encyclopaedia.

*AKA Edward, AKA Mr Tibbles (my sister’s or mum’s cat, depending on who you ask!)

Do your children ask ‘Why?’ Do you enjoy it? Or find it difficult because you don’t know all the answers? Any tips on websites that will give you quick answers to questions your unsure of?

If you’re a parent and you tweet, it’s very likely you’re aware of Kirstie Allsopp’s (of Location, Location, Location fame) campaign against homework. And I see and hear other parents complaining about homework and saying they are homework free.

I just don’t get it. What is wrong with homework?

I always loved homework. Even when I was home-schooled for a few years, I insisted on getting homework (spellings and vocabulary, that kind of thing), though that was probably more to do with my being a bit weird and desperately yearning to be at secondary school already. Actually, by university, what I loved most was making homework or revision calendars – with lots of complex colour-coding.

Rosemary loves homework. Rosemary had been wanting to go to big school for a long time and whenever we asked what she was looking forward to most, she would say ‘Homework!’. She was a little disappointed that the homework she got came in the form of looking for the number 3 and the letter S around and about or finding circles in your living room. She wanted worksheets dammit. Which I can totally understand. Worksheets are great. You can sit down and do a worksheet and you have concrete evidence that you’ve done it, plus you can colour it in and make pretty doodles on it. And stuff. I used to make worksheets for myself to do at uni, because they didn’t tend to give them out.

These days, she gets some phonics flashcards to practise the letters they’ve learnt at school, and a reading book. We also get a letter at the start of each week telling us what they’ll be doing at school with suggestions on how to support them at home. They’re just suggestions and there’s no obligation to do them, or testing them on them or anything. Examples include finding out about Spanish artists Goya and Dali and talking about 3D shapes. Still no worksheets, sadly, though Rosemary has a number of books with those kinds of activity in them, so she gets her fix in another way. I’d be happy for more homework, as would Rosemary. We tend to do letters, reading and numbers in the morning, while having breakfast or after getting dressed, while Chris often helps her investigate things further on the internet or in the library after school. And, of course, there’s plenty of unplanned, spur-of-the-moment learning that happens, too – spotting letters and numbers on signs, counting the cutlery, doing science experiments with dissolving things in liquid, and so on and so on.

I think one of the points that people have against homework is that there are far better individual ways to learn and that it should just be down to the parents to bring learning opportunities into family life (like those unplanned, spur-of-the-moment things I mentioned already). But can’t you do both? And does every parent have the ability and know-how to spot those learning opportunities?

I think homework has many benefits:

• helping tie school and home together – providing a sounding board for the child to discuss what they’ve been doing at school
• introducing children to time management
• increasing self-esteem – the pride and joy in a child’s face when they accomplish a homework task is evidence itself
• keeping the TV off for a few more minutes
• showing that learning doesn’t only happen in school
• helping parents to be involved with their children’s education.

I also think it’s a little like vaccinations and if a bunch of parents abstain their children from homework because they feel they can do better at home, the children whose parents do almost nothing at home (whether through lack of time, knowledge, education or desire) will lose out. They’ll see that their friends don’t have to do homework and they’ll get out of it and then they’ll have no link between school and home left and their learning will be predominantly limited to school. If you feel that strongly about being able to do better yourself, why are you sending them to school at all, really? Why don’t you do it all yourself?

But maybe I’m only pro-homework because Rosemary happens to like it too and because I liked it so much? If she struggled with it and hated it, perhaps I would too?

What do you think? Are you a homework junkie or an abstainer? Do you love those worksheets and want more and more of them, or do you want to shove them on the fire and run out and learn by jumping in muddy puddles? Or a bit of both?

This afternoon, I spent 5 minutes or so making a new word flip book for Rosemary, using a Post-it pad. She’s been doing very well with the flip book I made a few weeks ago and that we’ve been adding to, which started off just with the first letters they learnt at school (SATP) then added in new letters (IN) and soon some short words. We added more letters over half-term, as she had wanted to go ahead, and a few more words. But the last couple of days she’s started making jokes about it – pretending an S is an N and the like. And it occurred to me that she was getting fed up of just doing the letters. I asked her if this was the case and she confirmed it was.

She’s been blending for about three weeks now and can now do so without sounding the letters out loud (though she does sometimes feel the need to put her hand over her mouth or ask me to close my eyes) and I figured she really needed a bit more. So I wrote down all the letters that she knows (with the Jolly Phonics actions – she knows some other letters in different ways) and wrote down a bunch of words and even some sentences using these letters.

And then I thought that maybe I should see if I could come up with a story of some kind and perhaps I could illustrate it and wouldn’t that be great? (And, you know, I have so much spare time that this would be the best thing to do, of course.) Luckily, I hadn’t quite got round to it, when she got back from school. Because, in her book bag, I discovered a… wait for it… proper reading book. With words. For her to read. I did actually let out a ‘Squee!’ As a devourer of books who wishes for a lottery win mostly so she can spend more time reading, seeing my daughter on the brink of a lifelong reading journey is actually giving me butterflies.

And, considering how few letters they can use, it’s a pretty darned good book. Unsurprisingly, because it’s written by Julia Donaldson who is one of my favourite children’s authors – and, no, not just because of The Gruffalo; my favourite is probably Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book. She’d already read it at school (the teacher sounded out the letters and she blended them – so a bit below what she can actually do), so initially we had to negotiate the problem of her extremely good memory (inherited from her father as you would probably guess if you know me at all) and just saying the words that she remembered, but once I got through to her that sounding out the letters and putting them together would make words and that those words would tell the story, she was happy and enthusiastic to try – and read two pages easily. She could certainly have read more, but she was desperate for her bedtime fix of Horrid Henry.

We shall be reading it again in the morning, and having a look at my flip book, too. The breakfast table seems to be the ideal place for this kind of practising. And, you never know, maybe Eleanor will pick it up too – at the very least, it tends to keep her amused for a bit longer than the actual breakfast lasts.

Would you like to tell me about how your children found learning to read? Did they do it all at school, were they reading before they got there? Did phonics work for them, or did they need other methods? Were you as excited as I was when you saw it suddenly coming together?

In August, we went out and bought Rosemary’s school uniform. There was a list of items, which included things like:

• school sweatshirt (worn once so far, incidentally, and bought two of them)
• summer dress
• grey, navy or black dress, skirt or trousers,
• black shoes
• white or blue polo shirts
• black shorts for PE
• plimsolls.

Most (British) schools have similar lists. We have a school uniform shop that has various items with all the local schools’ logos on, as well as standard items. We also got a few items, such as socks and tights, from Tesco. It wasn’t too difficult and hopefully it won’t all be too small before the end of the school year.

What wasn’t on the list, though, was the uniform for mums. You can’t see very clearly what I’m wearing in the picture above, but it’s a black T-shirt with a short, flowery skirt – and opaque tights. This, I’m afraid, is not official school uniform for mums. Official school uniform consists of a pair of jeans and a top. You’re allowed to vary the top a little, it might be a simple plain T-shirt one day, a smart blouse another day or a glamorous sparkly spaghetti strap number if you’re out on a mums’ night out. Jeans are pretty much compulsory, though.

The trouble is (aside from the fact that I’ve always been a bit wary of conformity) I look bloody awful in jeans. I can just about get away with it on a winter day, teamed with a big chunky jumper and boots. For the most part, however, jeans accentuate all the bits flabby bits and draw attention to wobbly thighs and bums and the lack of a tight waist. Of late, I’ve mostly been wearing skirts – maxi patterned skirts with my lovely green shoes (that I practically sleep in, they’re so comfortable) or short skirts with my new long black boots (so very pleased with these boots, I could probably write a whole, totally unsponsored, post about them). If I’m running early or on time, I’ll slap on some make-up, too, though frequently don’t manage that.

Of course, I’m not the only non-conformist but, even so, when I stand in the playground of a morning or wait, perched on the wall of an afternoon, I wonder if I should be trying to fit in a little bit more, and if maybe that would require buying a new pair of jeans. Maybe, as well as kitting Rosemary out in the school’s uniform, I should be doing so for myself as well. Maybe I could find some jeans that look OK.

What about you? Is there a mum’s (or dad’s) uniform at your school? Do you conform to it and, if so, do you do so purely to conform, or just because those are the easiest clothes to put on the morning? Or do you go for individuality? Or something else?

Please update your blogrolls/links/whatever to the new address: http://www.wahm-bam.org Thank you! The old feed automatically redirects, but it would be nice (if you have the time/inclination/know-how, of course) if you could change your feeds to point to this one (click the RSS posts link in the top, right-hand corner of the blog). Thank you again. (This, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to get back in the Tots100. Nothing whatsoever.

As you probably know, Rosemary started school a few weeks ago. She seems to really enjoy it and even tells us some of the things she’s done on a given day, only rarely uttering the till now ubiquitous ‘Nothing!’ Though they are starting slowly and still mostly concentrating on letting the children play and observing them, Rosemary has still managed to be inspired to seek further knowledge by things she’s been told about or seen or heard at school.

One of the biggest learning curves, of course, is finding her place within the school. Going from being one of the big kids at nursery school and playgroup, to one of the little ones at ‘big school’ is an important step. Finding your way in the playground is a gargantuan task – one which I have to admit never really succeeding at.

But I didn’t have a buddy. Rosemary has a buddy, as do all her peers in Reception (I assume). Rosemary’s buddy is there to help her out at breaktimes – taking her to the loo if necessary, playing with her or helping her play, making sure she’s not lonely or scared. Rosemary adores her buddy. They greet each other at the start of the day with a great big cuddle and run off together to play, leaving me and Eleanor staring after her, trying to catch a glimpse of her bright purple coat as she leaps and dashes across the tarmac. And her buddy, and other older children, have been teaching Rosemary (and her friends) playground games. Clapping games, different kinds of chase, the age-old mums, dads and babies, and probably many more that we are not privy to.

This is a wonderful system (though, admittedly, the pairing doesn’t always work out as perfectly as Rosemary and her buddy, as one of her friends has found) and a brilliant idea. I have no idea if this is widespread or unique to our local school. If it’s not widespread, it really should be, as providing ways and means for the children of different ages to mix in a school is really useful. I imagine it will help cut down on bullying. And, really, how wonderful to have someone to show you the ropes – the ones that your teachers and parents really can’t help with. The ins and outs of getting on within this very special ecosystem that is a primary school. I am truly envious and really wish I had had something similar.

But, you know what? I also wish there was something similar available for me now. Why don’t they have a buddy system for the new parents? The ones who don’t have children at the school already? The ones who don’t know that the bottle they send their children to school with should only contain water and have to wait for their child to tell them? The ones who don’t know where to go to drop the children off and have to ask someone on the first day, or just follow the crowds and hope they’re heading in the right direction. The ones who don’t know how many bags to send with their child or whether it’s OK or not for them to bring a toy to show people or some books to look at or that they’re supposed to keep the PE kit in school. The ones who have no idea about the playground or school-gate etiquette. The ones who have no bloody idea how a child gets to be a Golden Child of the Week or receive a special certificate from the headmaster and why seemingly every other child in Reception seems to have had one already except theirs. It’s all new to us, too.

So, if you’re on the PTA for your school or are a teacher or a head, why not suggest it? A buddy system for the new children, if there isn’t already one in place, but also a buddy system for the new parents.

Do you have buddy systems? Have you ever heard of one for the parents? Did you (or do you still) have any issues with working out your own place within the school ecosystem? Do you drop your children off and run or hang around and chat?

(If you do have problems chatting with other parents, you might want to take a look at How do I make a date with a mum? which I wrote almost two years ago – and especially read all the comments to see what a common problem it is. You’ll hopefully be pleased to know that I do have some mum friends now, and have been known to send them texts and even share cake. But I’d still quite like a buddy, please.)

Photo (Rosemary swinging on the railings in the park after school) taken with the Kodak EasyShare M580 Digital Camera, kindly provided by Kodak.

UPDATE: This is now being tried out at our school for new parents this September (2011). If you’ve tried it out anywhere, would love to hear how it’s going.

The picture’s just a pretty picture and absolutely nothing to do with the post. If Rosemary wasn’t in bed already, I’d go take a photo of her wardrobe, or get her to dress up in her skeleton costume to illustrate it properly. But, instead I want to show off this gorgeous picture (well, I think it’s gorgeous). I’ve wanted to take nice pictures of flowers for a long time. I’ve attempted it, but they never look anything like what I’m trying to capture – especially the colours. But, now I have a new camera (*), I can take pretty pictures of flowers (this was taken using the Macro setting).

OK. Back to the actual post…

Rosemary has recently returned to a fear she had a while back. Of skeletons in her room. We know why (kind of). It’s because the heating’s gone on and the noise the radiator makes when it’s coming on sounds like skeletons clattering about (to an overly imaginative four-year-old, anyway). She knows that’s what it is, but she can’t help being afraid anyway. In fact, she says, ‘I know there aren’t any skeletons, except inside our bodies, but my imagination shows me skeletons and I’m still scared.’

The last time this fear surfaced, I addressed it by providing her with a song to protect her against the skeletons. (I did also reassure her that there weren’t any skeletons, of course.) I told her about the fear I had as a child and how I dealt with it. Who knows whether that was the right thing to do, but it felt right to me. (If you’re interested, my fear was of an evil witch who would come and get me whenever I flushed the chain, and I had a dragon to protect me, called Dreaming Dragon. To be safe, I had to chant ‘Dreaming Dragon, Dreaming Dragon, Dreaming Dragon…’ all the way from the loo to my bed.) The song went ‘Skeleton, skeleton, go away, skeleton, skeleton, go away.’ Yes, very clever and original. It worked, though. But was I wrong to buy into her imaginary skeleton scenario? If I’d tackled it properly back then would they not have surfaced again now?

The song isn’t working. Well, actually, she’s refusing to try the song at all. She’s insisting on one of us coming with her to go to the loo. To go anywhere near her room or the loo. And staying with her.

OK, so you don’t need to be a child psychologist to work out that it might have something to do with starting school as well. But what’s the solution?

I’ve been asking her to think up a solution (she’s usually very good at solving problems when she puts her mind to it), but she’s not coming up with anything. I’ve tried suggesting the song. I’ve tried reminding her (as has Chris) that it’s not actually possible for skeletons to walk round on their own. No joy. She did say, yesterday, at one point that she thought she might be nearly believing that there were no skeletons. So maybe it’s just a case of waiting it out. The trouble is, I can remember how totally and utterly real my fear was as a child. I also knew that there was no such thing as the witch, or the dragon, but I still had to do it and felt deep and crippling fear at the thought of not using my chant. So, I really don’t want to force her to do anything that might make her feel like that. Because it was horrible. I was wondering about searching for bone diseases and suggesting that she fill an imaginary rocket launcher with one of them and fire them at the skeletons. Is that a bit far-fetched, or maybe even morbid (though how you can avoid morbidity when tackling a fear of skeletons, I’m not sure)?

Thoughts? Tips? Similar problems? Other psychological manifestations of the trauma of starting school?

(*) All photographs taken with the fantastic Kodak EasyShare M580 Digital Camera, kindly provided by Kodak.

Rosemary’s always been quite interested in the body – especially bones and skeletons. Last Wednesday, at school, they went to visit the Life Education Bus, where they got to find out about the human body. Apparently, she was answering lots of the questions and very interested.

That evening, she interrupted the episode of Duckula that she was watching to say, ‘I want to look at some finger bones.’ So, Chris sat her on next to him at his computer and they did a search for finger bones. They then spent about an hour and half looking at pretty much every bone in the body, then some brains and eye balls, then some animal bones…

On Friday, Chris took her to the library in the afternoon and they got the Little Genius book (pictured right), Bones, which she loved – as did we. It’s at just the right level and gives lots of information in a very accessible fashion. I read it to her that night and the next morning and then Chris read it to her again the next night. I think she’s probably been read it at least five times already and has looked through it on her own a good few times, too.

I love it when a child’s interest is sparked so much that they want to go off and find out about all sorts of related things. This is how I remember being as a child. And, while we were able to go to the library to find things out as a child (which we also did with Rosemary – see above), I think I would have really loved to have the internet available for such quick learning searches. At the moment, it’s mostly just looking at pictures of specific things – like bones, or toads, or ponds. As she gets older, I imagine we’ll be looking at sites where they have a bit of explanation, too.

Of course, though, there are occasional problems with using the internet for quick searches. This morning, Rosemary was getting dressed and asked ‘What are these hard bits on my booboos called?’ ‘Those are nipples, sweetheart.’ ‘I’d like to look at some nipples one day.’ ‘OK. What do you mean you’d like to look at some?’ ‘You know, mum, on the internet. I want to look at some nipples on the internet, like I looked at the brains.’

Oh. Bugger.

Do you use the internet for quick bouts of learning? Do you have recommendations for good sites for children? Are there any other book series that you’ve found good – non-fiction made accessible for the younger child? What kinds of learning or topics have got your children excited, recently? And, any ideas on how to search for nipples and only get some nice, clean anatomical pictures to look at?

Rosemary’s only at school for the mornings for a few weeks, so we’re trying to make sure her afternoons aren’t only filled with DVDs and acrobatics. Eleanor’s still going to my mum’s for the whole school day, so there’s an opportunity for one of us to spend some one-on-one time with Rosemary while the other one gets on with the work.

I’m sure most of you will know that I’m pretty rubbish at craft. Fortunately for Rosemary, Chris is far from rubbish. Here’s what they made yesterday:

My preferred one-on-one activity is baking, and I quite enjoying sitting doing activities in workbooks, as well – and reading, of course. The craft and painting I tend to leave to Chris, my sister or my mum, though I’ll probably be more inclined to join in the less messy the activity becomes.

Are you any good with craft, or do you leave it to someone else? What do you do for one-on-one activities? 

I am constantly amazed at how grown-up Rosemary is becoming – though, as she says ‘Well, I am four now!’ She’ll notice something I’ve left in Eleanor’s reach, or tell me all about the story Chris read her the night before, or recognise and write a bunch of letters, or solve a problem. Her drawing skills are improving fast and it’s fascinating to watch and listen to her draw on her wipeboard desk, as she gradually adds and removes details, providing a running commentary of the whole thing. She listens to explanations and says ‘I see’ while tilting her head to one side. She’ll sit down for half an hour doing maths worksheets, or spend fifteen minutes using her Scribble and Write pad to practise her letters.

But then, suddenly, seemingly from nowhere at all will come a scream. A high-pitched, angry scream, often accompanied by kicking, stamping, throwing things, slamming doors. The kind of scream that I associate with teenagers, not four-year-olds. And the triggers do not make any sense. A small thing that hasn’t gone the way she wants it to can trigger the scream, but the same small thing at some other point would elicit an ‘Oh, poopy pants. I wanted it that way.’ Being told not to do something can bring on the scream, but equally it can result in her nodding and saying ‘OK, mum, I’ll remember,’ or ‘OK, Dad, I won’t do it again.’

We’re learning gradually that there really is nothing you can do for this scream. Logical explanations do not work – at least not in the midst of it. Telling off just makes is worse – unsurprisingly, really. Any attempts at physical restraint (sometimes essential if there’s a little sister in the vicinity) tend to result in bumps and bruises all round. Trying to solve the problem while the screaming is still running, is pointless, as it tends to intensify the screaming and we get the addition of ‘Stop talking! Stop talking! Stop talking, NOW!’ Trying to work out what is wrong, is equally futile. ‘But why are you crying? I don’t understand. How can I help you?’ The response to most of these is ‘Arggh!’, shouted at intervals designed to block whatever we are saying.

What works best, for the most part, is to withdraw to another room, saying something like ‘I’ll just go through and load the dishwasher. You come through when you’re ready.’ Generally, it peters out quite quickly and she’ll come through, acting as if nothing has happened. She’ll come and tickle Eleanor, or just come through and start chatting about something ‘Do you know, Mummy, that there’s an alien living in the basement?’ Sometimes, once she’s calmed down, she’ll be open to talking about what set her off, and she’ll listen to suggestions about how to avoid it in future. But, really, I don’t think it’s going to disappear completely for a little while, at least, and having strategies for staying calm is all very well, but mostly she really seems to have no control over these responses.

I know that at least a couple of Rosemary’s peers are having the same issues. In fact, Rosemary seemed very relieved to find out that one of her friends was going through the same thing, so I think maybe it’s a little frightening for her. It’s reassuring to us, too, not that it stops us trying to help her through it (and, ultimately, stop the horrible screams, because they really, really are incredibly annoying!).

How about your children? Are they or did they go through something similar at 4 or 5 years? Is it maybe a subconscious reaction to the impending start of school? What did/do you do? Should we be putting our feed down and doing time out or something, or is it better to walk away and ignore it, then talk it through when it’s calmer? What worked for you? How long did it last?

Photo taken with the Kodak EasyShare M580