ANYONE FOR SYNCHRONISED FRENCH HORN?

Oonagh Roy - 11 Feb 15

In a bid to make sure that your three-year-old doesn’t fall behind the evolutionary curve of humankind, there is no avenue of extra curricular activity parents will not explore.

Now, I understand the benefits of sport and exercise for children. We all want to improve their hand eye co-ordination, balance and fine motor skills. But parental guilt that you are not doing everything humanly possible to give your child the best start in life is contributing to extra curricular insanity.

The options are endless: there’s French, Spanish, Mandarin, swimming, gymnastics, fencing and Kung Fu. Tae kwon do, tennis, ballet, tap, modern, street dance, drama and circus skills. Spy club, film club, coding, pottery, art, piano, keyboards and clarinet. Guitar, saxophone, drums, violin, singing and brownies or scouts.

Then little Johnny arrives at the school gates with his French Horn and you can see the shockwaves of panic ripple through the playground. You look to your own four-year old, busily whacking a bush with a shitty stick and ask: Am I denying the world a wind instrument maestro? Could the horn be his future?

I do think it’s important to expose your children to a range of activities in order to see if they have a natural affinity or love for any particular pastime. But then you can become more selective.

My children take part in a brilliant street dance class. I seriously believe that come adolescence and adulthood their ability not to look a total tit on the dance floor will always impress more than an ability to felt. Equally, I believe teaching kids to swim is a good life skill. They don’t have to smash the 100m freestyle world record, but neither do I want them to drown.

Football is a brilliant, sociable, healthy activity and something they can enjoy for the rest of their lives. To be honest, I still harbour some hope that my little boy will become a world class footballer. I think the role of footballers’ mum sounds way more fun than footballer’s wife. You get the perks, but not the need for depilation or spray tanning. It would also answer a few pressing questions on the subject of pension provision. However, in the absence of sporting glory, I would settle for a child who enjoys a good knock around with their friends.

Ultimately, if your five-year old has not perfected the down dog yoga manoeuvre, it doesn’t spell disaster and a life destined for physical ineptitude. It’s sometimes important to remember that merely months ago they were utterly delighted to discover that their willy grows magically. It really doesn’t matter that they can’t volley a ball into the net.

During term-time I reckon that, in addition to school classes, one physical and one cerebral extra activity a week is enough for the average primary school age kid. They still need time to do their homework, play with friends and simply be.

School holidays seem to be an exception though. This is where, for many parents, the frenetic need to fill childrens’ time with culturally, intellectually and spiritually fulfilling experiences goes into overdrive. Clearly you need to make sure that when back at school and the teacher asks everyone to write a few sentences on what they got up to in the school holiday, yours is not the kid writing; ‘Successfully collected the full series of Tamagotchi toys from the McDonalds Happy Meals selection.” Thus we find ourselves frantically dragging our children around any number of museums, art galleries and exhibitions.
We’ll decide that a day at the science museum is the only way to restore our child’s ability to compete with the Chinese in a global marketplace. As we herd the resistant little buggers around the history of particle science, they’ll repeatedly ask when they’re going to see the bubble man. That or go to the cafe, the shop, the toilet or home. As we carefully breakdown the philosophy behind molecular biology, they’ll try to work out how many raisins they can fit into one nostril. Then how many into their baby brother’s nostril.  Sometimes we need to know when to quit.

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Oonagh Roy

My name is Oonagh Roy and I live in North London. I am embarking on a new chapter of my life that is going to be spent doing things that make me happy. I have spent the past seven years at home looking after my three, small delicious children, Maya 7, Ela 6 and Rohan 3. I can no longer pee without an audience and I regularly awaken to find lego wedged in unlikely places. Previously I worked as a financial journalist on trade magazines covering capital markets in Eastern Europe and then Asia Pacific. I flew around the world interviewing Presidents, finance ministers, central bank governors and bankers. The plan now is to garner an avid, vocal and extensive base of influential readers for The Intrepid Hound and simply see how life takes me.

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