To cringe at this guardian article about children and books

[MyopiaUtopia]

Surely I can't be the only person to think this is one of the most humblebraggy self-congratulatory and smug articles ever?!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/01/how-to-raise-a-little-bookworm-in-the-age-of-smartphones-and-tablets

What a lot of codswallop.

She has her head in a book all the time because she's so embarrassed by her smug mother. Just read the whole article ...can someone hold me coat while I gip!

What a load of drivel, people complain about iPads on restaurants as the dc are not engaging- what's the difference if it's a book. Similarly reading while walking along a street is as risky and antisocial as being engrossed in a screen.. then she goes on to say she's loaded up a ton of audio books. Who's to say other kids aren't doing the same. I bring dc to the park to get exercise and burn of energy. They do not bring tablets, neither would they be allowed to bring books!

Maybe it's the PMT I'm literally crying.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I've just read the article, skim-reading most of it as it was so cringeworthy. Imagine receiving this woman's round robin letter at Christmas.

Imagine receiving this woman's round robin letter at Christmas.
😂😂😂 I do like the Frog and Toad books though! Forgot all about them.

It could all be summed up in just 10 words;

My 8 year old daughter enjoys reading fiction for pleasure.

I think reading is very overrated if you have to plough through a long article like that!

"So how do you raise a bookworm in 2020? Personally, I started by prioritising my own pleasure."

I really wondered where this article was going at this point. And let out a childish snigger.

In small shops, she often quietly tucks herself away in a corner to read – and then, when I call her to leave the shop with me, the assistants will intervene and beg me not to disturb her further. “Look at her, she’s reading,” they’ll whisper to me, in a tone of wonder

The shop assistants are begging a child to sit there potentially ceasing a book they’re reading for free like it’s a public library? My arse.

And what sort of bookshop is awed at seeing people reading? Isn’t that kind of the point of them?

Cringe. Flora's mother is one of those mothers

Actually I think she has a valid point.

Oh she does have a valid point, it’s just the way that she is carrying on like her child is the only one that reads and the general public are so stunned by it they stop and stare.

I read to and with my kids from babies (14 and 11 now), got them a library card and went regularly, took them to the Hay festival. They aren't bookworms though. Having to read so much for school kills the love of books for its own sake, they want to do something else when they get home.

Also I think with a third of children overweight or obese, it's more important for kids to be active actually and save their reading for bedtimes. They spend so much time sitting at school, then sitting at home doing homework, sitting then reading for pleasure for hours on end isn't great, they need to go out and run around or have an active hobby.

Interestingly, novels were once regarded as anti-social, mind-numbing, conversation-killers beloved by the young.

In the car on the way to the grocery store yesterday, my daughter had the option to play on her tablet or read a book, and she chose the book. I suppose I should alert the the media.

Look. Unless the child was sitting there reading War and Peace at 4, it isn’t news. There must be some tiger mums reading that thinking wtf?

It’s like that Canadian comedian Katherine someone who goes on and on about her own kid. Cringe worthy that adults don’t realise no one is interested and everyone thinks their kid is way better than yours anyway. Most people twig this after about 6 months of parenthood

People pay to go see Katherine Ryan’s stand-up so I think she’s doing something right.

My ds is 13, and a print addict (as am I). He also loves his PC/phone. In my world, neither is acceptable at the table, or skulking off to the corner of a shop in a show of your book/phone being more interesting (unless told you can sit down and read while waiting for an extended time). No one, apart from his teachers, has ever commented on this. And neither would I tell anyone else about what he is reading or how many books he has read this week, because nobody cares.

God knows why if I want to hear people banging on about their own kids I can stand in the school playground for that for free. My parents really liked her and saw her live but said her show was mostly centred on this and it was dull as a result - she’s the same on talk shows.

We know the child is actually probably sitting there, filling her nappy and chewing the book. !!!!!
Maybe yours, not mine, all mine read, and not thanks to one of the teachers who wanted one of mine with a reading age about 4 yrs above her age ,to read the age appropriate books in the classroom!!! I read to them, made up stories, they read to me, made up stories they taped. They also watched tv and films etc. I like both , so do they, not mutually exclusive. We even made books, pop up ones too.

Even worse when friends sent it to me saying how wonderful...🤢

I am unconvinced that she has read that many books to Flora if she thinks female baddies are vanishlngly rare. The wicked stepmother character is an absolute staple of children's literature.

I also think that the bit about having a wide vocabulary and strong understanding of plot helping with reading is bollocks as well. Our eldest, who we were reading chapter books to at age 3, was very slow to read. Inane five-sentence books about Biff, Chip and Kipper was no motivation to learn to read in comparison to proper stories.