Are you struggling with delivering top-quality lectures to your child? If you have two or more children, or a child and a dog/cat/goldfish; do they exchange knowing glances when you start a sentence with ‘When I was your age…’? Do their eyes gaze over well before the internationally agreed 15-minute mark for eye-gazing? Do they stare at a point over your head and look like they just got the news that there will never be another movie released in the Marvel Comic Universe?
Here are five tips to raise your lecture game.
Adopt a casual stance. One that says ‘Hey! I’m just chilling here by the side of the counter putting things away while you all sit on your backsides seeing who can make the best fake burp.’ Hunched shoulders and clenched fists can alienate your audience.
Adopt a soft and pleasant tone of voice. This does two things: a) it first confuses your listeners. Scary things delivered pleasingly? What’s going on? Let’s listen some more till things become clear b) It terrifies your listeners. Remember Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs? Now, keeping your voice happy-sounding as internal rage builds up within is difficult. But if you hear your voice go up a few notches on the screech scale and a mirror cracks in the house immediately picture yourself with Daniel Craig on a beach somewhere. But, don’t retain the picture for too long as the desire to scold might go away. And we don’t want that to happen, do we?
Stay on track. Of course, everything is the patriarchy’s fault. We all know that. But if you’re lecturing your children about how they have too many toys and are spoilt little butt cracks, stick to the topic. It’s easy to segue into how this is causing the ice caps to melt, but don’t go there. Their small brains cannot process that much information. Keep that for another day. And that’s an important lecture so don’t skip it okay? ‘When I was your age’, ‘When my parents were young’, ‘When perming your hair was cool’…. are all guaranteed to derail your lecture even before you’ve warmed up. Expect a volley of questions like ‘What’s a perm?’ ‘What are cassette players?’ ‘When you were young was there Siri, Alexa, pencils, water?’ ‘Did you have friends when you were a child?’
Inspiration can strike at any time. You never know when you will have an amazing idea for a lecture: they might come to you in a dream, in the middle of an ongoing lecture or even rudely interrupt your time with Daniel Craig on the beach. Be prepared and write them down in your leather-bound Lecture Journal. (LeJo is the next BuJo)
For best results, always lecture with a silent adult partner. They can let you know through subtle hand gestures when you are not adhering to tips 1-4. This can be annoying at times and you may wish to throw your LeJo at them. Or direct a mini-lecture on patriarchy at them. Both are excellent choices. When done, return to Daniel Craig’s patriarchy-free embrace on the beach. Don’t lecture Daniel though. Even if he does something stupid.