One evening last week while our eldest (8 years old) was up late having her hair de-nitted (yep - the week before the summer holidays, all our kids got nits again), I stuck a movie on for her to watch while her Mum rubbed tea tree shampoo into her head. The movie was “Innocent Moves” - otherwise known as “Searching for Bobby Fischer”.
Fast forward a few days to this weekend, and the beginning of the summer holidays for the children.
After a rainy day sat indoors watching movie after movie, and playing her DS, I was pleased to see her finally grow bored and look for something else to do. We have purposely been letting the kids do what they want at the start of the holidays - a break from the rigid structure of school and the morning and evening routine is doing them the world of good. Seeing the eldest grow bored of being a couch potato at the end of her first day doing it was great.
She wandered over to me, and I started thinking “board game”.
“Want to learn how to play chess?”
“Reallyfor them to just shuffle the pieces around the board, and get comfortable with holding them, moving them, and figuring out “taking turns”.
I relented, and we played a full game. She surprised me. She remembered mostly what pieces could do, and towards the end was beginning to figure out the consequences of her actions. Any more abstract ideas like “attacking” are a long way off yet, but she figured out “running away” pretty damn quickly.
It’s going to be fun to see the fireworks when our 5 year old beats her big sister - it’s going to happen.