I wonder how many of you have had this problem as a kid: For years, the comments written by my Form Teacher on my report book had always been along those lines, "Pleasant girl, but can afford to be less talkative.", "Tends to be talkative.", "Has shown improvement in her work, but still talkative in class."
Definitely not my most glorious past, but it was a huge part of my growing-up years and I reckon it was nothing to be ashamed of. My girls have obviously inherited this wonderful gene from me, and I am not sure whether that's good or bad. Many friends have remarked that my girls are very smart and can speak very well for their age, so that's definitely a good by-product of a talkative nature. Practice makes perfect, it seems. But of course, when the chattering gets incessantly unbearable, I crave for peace and don't get it most of the time.
Talkativeness brings with it a whole set of problems. For a start, I've received many complaints from the school bus Auntie that Joey talks too much on the school bus. She is usually the first to spark off a topic of discussion, which leads to loud and uncontrollable conversations by all the kids on the bus. I would think that it's unreasonable to expect a kid to keep mum and quiet throughout an almost one-hour journey to school, but according to the Auntie, the noise level is usually beyond what the driver could bear, and before he gets into any kind of road accidents, she had felt the need to convey the dire situation to me.
I totally understand. I often feel the urge to buy a sound level meter for my home, just to check whether they are too much for my ears to take.
And so, I've sat Joey down for prep talk many times and some of these prep talk sessions had become serious warning sessions when the previous ones didn't seem to work. Now, it's gotten better, but I can imagine it's really not easy for her. The problem with my girl is that she has got a naturally loud voice. She usually needs to make special effort to whisper in order to keep her volume similar to our normal speaking voice. =X To ask her to cease all forms of communications on the school bus, is really asking a lot from her.
And it doesn't help that the school doesn't allow the kids to bring their own storybooks to school (they don't want the kids to be distracted during class if they bring out their own books to read), so I can't let Joey bring storybooks onto the bus to do her own quiet reading. With nothing to do on the bus, I can sympathize really. For a really active girl like Joey, it must be torturous.
Then again, rules are rules, and for the safety of everyone on the bus, Joey has to learn the art of keeping quiet. Better to learn it now than later. But whether my girl is talkative or not, I still love her to bits. :)
I foresee lots of similar comments on her report book when she starts Primary School next year. =X
