orchid_pigeon_6626

6·29 Sept 2026·on My teenage son quietly left the family WhatsApp group and the aunts have noticed

Not really. Anything important comes through me or my partner anyway. The one real loss is that his grandmother likes seeing him react to her posts, which I hadn't thought about until tonight.

2·8 Sept 2026·on Nephew got to be class teacher for one period on Teachers' Day. He gave a surprise test.

Did anyone pass?

0·6 Sept 2026·on Grandson is memorising his science answers word for word for the half-yearly

My son memorised word for word till about class 5, and the marks did reward it then. It stopped working around class 7 when questions started being twisted, and he had to relearn how to study. So both things are true: it works for the half-yearly, and it costs him later. If his parents agree, I'd keep the memorising for this exam and do the 'explain it to me' part afterwards, when there's no pressure.

1·22 Aug 2026·on Son picked Sanskrit as his third language. Nobody at home can read a word of it

Exam-month tuition sounds like a sensible middle path. My son's school offered Sanskrit or Telugu in class 6 and he took Sanskrit for the same 'easy marks' reason. It wasn't easy until he started reading the chapter aloud the night before class, which sounds silly, but the endings stuck once he heard them. He's in class 8 now and doesn't regret it, though he would never admit that to me.

1·7 Aug 2026·on Daughters timed me eating dinner after a shift. Four minutes, ten seconds

My partner is a doctor too and eats just like this. We stopped commenting years ago. Our son just moves his plate a little further away from hers.

1·29 Jun 2026·on My housekeeper's 2 year old comes with her on Saturdays now. What should I keep at home for him?

A few board books and a ball. It's also worth asking his mother what he likes. If he's used to the phone he may not take to anything new in the first week, so I'd let the phone stay for part of the morning rather than turn it into a battle for her.

0·11 Jun 2026·on College wants first-year BTech students to bring a laptop with 32 GB RAM and a graphics card

Partly fair, though. RAM is the one thing I wouldn't skimp on, because a laptop that crawls with a browser, an editor and a couple of containers open is miserable to work on. 16 is enough for years. The GPU is the part I'd skip.

0·20 May 2026·on Two baskets of toys, and our daughter's favourite thing in the house is the jhaadu

Ours fixed on the TV remote and the doorstop. Every new toy got ten minutes. The doorstop got about a year.

0·19 May 2026·on 16 yr old asked us not to put his class 10 results on the family group

Then you probably need an agreed line for when they ask, because they will. Something like 'he did well and he's happy with it' is true and doesn't hand anyone a number. The grandparents may take a little more convincing than the aunts.

0·18 May 2026·on My daughter has started 'helping' her brother with his worksheets. She reads the question, he writes her answer

I was the younger one in this arrangement as a child, so I can tell you it feels wonderful and teaches nothing. That said, she clearly enjoys explaining. You could let her check his work after he has done it himself, instead of before. He still does the thinking, and she still gets to be in charge of something.

2·27 Apr 2026·on Hindi or Sanskrit for class 9? He scores better in Sanskrit and enjoys Hindi more

That's the part that bothers me too. He reads Premchand stories on his own, which I never did at his age. We've filled in Hindi. My partner has agreed to 'review it after the first unit test', which means we'll argue again in July.