Nat and Han start Blogging

After intensive pressure from me Nat started, today, to record his day to day experience in this blog and, of course, if he was going to do this then so, she decided, was Han.


Am I being “ A Victorian Dad” by pushing Nat this way? I may be but I think my reasons are justified. Nat, like me, has a degree of dispraxia and I don't want this to handicap his future in the way it has handicapped mine.

In my case, this problem caused me, at school, to shy away from writing whenever I could for fear of the ridicle my hand writing brought upon me; this fear followed me to University where I studiously avoided writing anything I didn't have to. I was, and still am, utterly self-consciousness about the childishness of my hand writing. As a result, I live with the words of my personal tutor, who after advising me that I had achieved a good 2:1 degree immediately followed up with:-

“I’m not saying you would have gotten a First if you'd written more essays BUT you would have gotten a First if you'd written more essays"!

This is the nightmare I live with, that my Son will waste his potential, the way I’ve wasted mine, because this minor problem stands in the way of everything else and grows to overwhelm his self-esteem.

I’ve an IQ of around 135, two degrees (BA & LLb) and have passed the first stage of a third (BSc), I’m fairly well read, have a very good memory and, I’m told, a marked aptitude for problem solving and seeing the big picture.

With all this going for me I work over night in   

A Call Centre!

So here’s the deal; Nat’s hooked on Warhammer 40,000 so if he makes a real effort to record what he does each day, as a short entry in this blog, then I’ll not stop him from going to the Gamesworkshop, on a Saturday, to play Warhammer. If he TRIES to produce interesting and informative blogs then this effort will be rewarded with cash to spend on more Warhammer stuff.

I’m hoping that this will get him use to the idea of writing as a rewarding and pleasurable task that he has no difficulty performing, in addition I hope it will stifle forever the dread of writing he has which is already becoming more and more apparent.

In addition, I hope, Han will be inspired to follow suit (she already likes to write as witnessed by her Torquay journal), I’ll know what my kids get up to when they’re away from Home and they’ll have a record to look back on when they’re older and can’t remember what it was they actually did during their school days.

Well That’s The Plan here’s to hoping that it works!