Am I imagining it?  Or are tiger mothers multiplying rapidly? (We know they are reproducing, obviously.)  My parents hardly knew the name of my school and definitely had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what subjects I did at A-Level.  No interest, I think.  Far too busy doing their own thing.  So how on earth has the landscape changed so drastically?  I’ve got friends who will not tolerate low marks, even if their child is not gifted and not clever.  In with the tutors or ship in the holiday homework and the poor little things spend their free time, noses pressed to the books.  So what happens if you choose not to take the tiger mother route (3 hours piano practice, lots of pushing and tons of extra work)?  Are you letting your children down?  But hang on…if you glance around at your successful friends – and here i mean the traditional concept of success ie good job, big salary.  They weren’t all high flyers at school.  Some of them dropped out of university.  Some of them took ages to find their path.  What’s hard as a parent is having the nerve to let them grow up as the individuals they are.  I’m trying to keep the faith and opt for benign neglect.  But it’s hard not to wobble when you see what the tiger mothers are achieving with their methods.

How to combine two wonderful activities: dog-walking and learning?  If you don’t already, I recommend loading up your iPod with BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ podcasts. These turn a 45-minute dogwalk into a sparklingly intellectual exercise (both for the body and the mind) as you trudge through the snow/leaves/puddles while mentally sitting at the table with the ultrabig boffins of the academic scene. 

So I come back this morning after the daily walk and now I have at least heard of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and am aware of what a bumper big seller it was back in 1563.  And it’s obvious that you don’t even need a dog for this – although you can’t do it without an iPod.  Long bus journeys, trips in the car, waiting to see the doctor, stuck at the airport – it all becomes far more useful and stimulating this way.

Half-term coming up. 

A good moment for lounging around which is important, however unpleasant and pointless it seems to us mothers intent on achieving, achieving achieving. 

What about just slobbing out?  Most schools pack a lot of stuff into a day and the prospect of not having to get up and do anything must be wonderful to a child.

BUT….how about a good and simple idea for passive learning that will work by osmosis?  Here’s how:

Think of your 5 most favourite paintings of all time, the ones you’d buy if money were no object.

Find them online, download them and print them out.  (A5 size is good)

Stick them on the kitchen wall, right by the table.  Or stick them with sellotape ON the table.

At least 3 times a day, your children will have to sit down and look at these.  And when they don’t notice them anymore, it means they’ve sunk in.

Your job is to make each one into a memorable story.  ‘D’you know who Vincent painted those sunflowers for?  His mate, Gauguin.  He was coming to stay in Vincent’s yellow house and it was like a home-made welcome present. Nice thought, eh?’

My faves are:

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

The Kiss by Gustav Kilmt

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli (boys will like this one)

The Fighting Temeraire by JMW Turner

The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio

The Toilet of Venus by Velasquez

My 8-year old  son got muddled and now calls Caravaggio’s great painting of Jesus ‘The Toilet at Emmaus’ – which sounds like a service station on an Italian motorway.

I’ll keep trying.

I went to a Supertramp concert last night,  Yup, that shows my age, I know.  But seeing a group that has actually written and performed songs that mean something to all of us makes a nice change in the age of The X Factor – ie people performing karaoke versions of famous hits.  

Afterwards I read up on the group and,  sure enough, the key people – Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson -  showed  their musical interest and talent early on in life.  Davies was given an old record player and a couple of records as a young boy and then a friend made him a drum kit out of some old biscuit tins and soon he was drumming for a British Rail band in Swindon. 

 Hodgson got a guitar aged 12 when his dad left home and, having learnt three chords, started composing songs.

What does that say?  To me, it’s about exposing children to lots of influences from the start.  I bought a flute and an old violin for peanuts on Ebay and left them in my son’s room and soon sounds (weird ones, ok) were coming from his room. 

Now I’m thinking of buying a drum kit.

Other ingredients in the Davies/Hodgson story are:

 lack of anything else to do  -  no Nintendo or X-Box to distract them (aka boredom)

talent

interest

energy

Find out if there’s a seedling there, and if there is, water it.

Did you see this?  In the news this week was a report about the results of the survey about the state of children’s general knowledge?  

1 in 5 children aged 6 – 12 years thought Buzz Lightyear was the first man on the moon (Neil Armstrong must be weeping) and one third didn’t know who invented the telephone. 

If yours don’t either,  you could at least start by listening to this, the song sung by the mad professors in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  A nifty way to remember the big inventors and a great inspiration to pick yourself up again after some mega-flop.

The bit about the survey that depressed (and didn’t surprise) me was that, of course,  two thirds knew that the disease Cheryl Cole had was malaria and more than half could name the winner of The X Factor, Joe McElderry.  Although there’s nothing desperately wrong with knowing that, it’s still a pity these kids don’t also know about the people who’ve really stamped their mark on our history.

Of course, I’m writing this because we make films that are easy to watch and that teach you something of lasting value.  Joe McElderry is probably going to disappear without trace pretty soon, whereas Louis Pasteur….well, enough said.

You are probably not a maths professor.  I’m not.  Nor an expert in quantum theory. Or differential calculus.  But I like collecting pseudo-brainy-sounding general knowledge stuff in case I ever go on Mastermind/University Challenge (you never know).  

 ’Pi ‘(or ‘π’ if we are going to be all Greek about this) is a mathematical constant that big brainboxes find really useful for doing their sums. It’s also an ‘irrational number’ – do you love that?  And it’s quite handy to have it stuffed in the back of your mind in case anyone ever calls you stupid. 

You can also teach it to your kids when you’re in a traffic jam. 

 Well, what is Pi?  It’s 3.141592

How are you going to remember that? 

 ’How I wish I could calculate Pi’.

That’s how.

The letters in each word add up to give you Pi to six decimal places.  Now that’s impressive.

How to remember the speed of light?  Another useful nugglet of info.  That’s coming next.