Play “Old and Tired” for your kids

I say the phrase “I’m old and tired”  all the time in my classroom and here’s why ; the more you say to a child :   “ I need your help , remember , I m old and tired”  the more your child has a chance to help you. Kids will find you amusing but kids also love to know more than you.Kids love to be the teacher, love to take on grown up jobs ( sometimes)  ! It’s also proven that one of the best ways to reinforce a skill is to learn it and then teach somebody else. So… I encourage you to use this phrase at home. You may not be old but you can use your age to “explain “ why you need your child to help you with or refresh your memory of ______ . It has likely been 20 + years since you were in kindergarten so trust me the curriculum is different . Have your child walk you through things like ; new math like 10 frames ,  how to spell ,word definitions ,  how to read words that have bizarre spelling like “who or two “ …,,Kids usually find the phrase humorous and will play this game regardless of whether the child knows you are playing “dumb” or not . As for being tired , when is this NOT true for parents or adults. A parent /adult gets so much information by watching their child problem solve and communicate information. Warning: The only downfall of using this phrase is that it affects a child’s perspective of what “old” is. You can always add that you are old “compared “to them. My principal who is younger than me got her feelings hurt when she came into my class one day and we were brainstorming similarities and differences between two people. I asked my kids to do a compare and contrast between my principal and myself . When asked what was similar ,one of the little boys proudly said “Well ,you are both old.” The principal was shocked , but after my explanation agreed it was a similarity ,we both were “old and tired.”