Tots To Teens: Bop to the beat with music classes

Being organised, nailing screen time, and meals for sleep-deprived parents

Getting children involved with music from a young age can have long-lasting positive effects.

MOST children love music. They enjoy bopping to the beat, humming to tunes, and banging drums from a young age. The Mini Music classes offered by the National Concert Hall (NCH) in Dublin aim to build on this natural affinity.

Organised as part of the NCH’s Learning and Participation winter programme, the classes are for children up to the age of eight. Over 10 weeks, they attend hands-on classes led by trained workshop facilitators who introduce them to various percussion instruments and show them how to make music using their voices.

The classes for younger children last 30 minutes and cost €120 per 10-week term, while older children attend 45-minute classes, which cost €150 per term.

Places can be booked online at nch.ie/learn-participate.

Staying organised

Running a home and a family takes a lot of organising. There are meals to plan, doctor and dentist visits to schedule and after-school activities to coordinate and it can be hard to keep track of it all.

This is where the ‘This is You and Your Home’ journal comes in. Produced by Lisa Daly, a mum of five from west Limerick, it’s designed to help you stay organised and on top of things. It has sections on household outgoings and bills, cleaning rotas, birthday reminders, tax and insurance information, and so much more.

It costs €45 and can be purchased online at www.thisisyou.ie.

Meals to go

Life with a newborn can be exhausting. The relentless rigamarole of disrupted sleep, cluster feeding, and nappy changing can mean everyday tasks like housework and meal preparation can fall by the wayside.

The Eatto New Baby Meal Box is the ideal gift for sleep-deprived parents. Costing €69.95, it contains four main courses, three side dishes, two desserts, and a cute card congratulating the parents on their new arrival.

Instead of making do with whatever they can find in the fridge, parents can sit down to a homemade meal of meatballs in tomato sauce, lasagne, or salmon with chorizo and leek sauce. They can have creamy mashed potato or spaghetti on the side, followed by a slice of strawberry cheesecake or apple crumble.

It will make life with a newborn a lot easier.

Nailing screen time

Most parents worry about their children having too much screen time.

If one of your intentions in 2024 is to reduce the amount of time you and your family spend on screens, the Instagram account of author, educator and mother of five Andrea Davis is full of tips on how to do just that.

At @betterscreentime, Davis makes a distinction between different types of screen time. She believes that time spent creating and connecting online can be beneficial while time spent consuming can be detrimental. 

She also advises how to help children differentiate between what’s real and what’s fake, how to protect them from online predators, and how to deal with arguments about time spent using technology.

Free ADHD course

Parents of children with ADHD may be interested in an upcoming course at Shannow Family Resource Centre in Abbeydorney, Co Kerry.

Parents Plus is organising it in partnership with the HSE’s public health nurse department and aims to help parents understand the challenges of ADHD, manage concerning behaviour in their children and learn how to reduce levels of parental stress.

The course takes place from 10am to 12pm every Wednesday for eight weeks from January 10. It’s free of charge but places are limited and should be booked in advance by calling 066-7198018.