Ready Kids › Home Alone Ready › Badge 6 › Lesson 6.4
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Message like an adult
Send a message with what happened, where you are, and what you have done, in the first line.
1Look
Two messages
Two messages
Two phone screens side by side. Left: a message reading hey so um something happened dont be mad but. Right: a message reading Leak under sink, tap off, towel down, I'm fine.
A parent at work reads the first line and nothing else. Which one did they get?
2The idea
Do not bury it
When something has gone wrong, your first instinct is to soften it, explain it, apologise for it. A parent reading on a phone at work sees the first line and nothing else. If the first line is don’t be mad, they now know nothing except to worry.
The first line says the thing. What happened. Then where you are. Then what you already did. That order, because that is the order they need it in.
3The idea
The three parts
What happened: five words. Power’s off. Leak under sink. Smashed a glass.
Where you are: only if it is not obvious. I’m at the Patels’. I’m outside.
What you already did: so they do not tell you to do it. Tap off, towel down. Torch on, fridge shut.
Then stop. No sorry, no story. The story is for when they get home. A message they can act on in one glance is a grown-up message. It is also shorter, which is the only kind of shorter that matters.
4The idea
Before and after
Before: hey mum so I was getting a snack and the glass thing slipped and I didn’t mean to and there’s glass everywhere sorry sorry are you mad. After: Smashed a glass in the kitchen. I’m fine. Swept it, shoes on.
Mum reads the second one in two seconds and replies: ok, leave the last bits, home at six. Neither version is more honest than the other. One of them works. The same shape works on a 911 call: what happened, where you are, what you have done.
5Build it
Rewrite three rambling messages
One line
Three long, worried messages. For each, drag the three parts that matter into one line and delete the rest. The page shows the before and after side by side.
The third one has no what-you-did in it, and that is the part you have to add, not find.
6Decide
Water is coming through the kitchen ceiling. Which message?
Pick one to carry on.
7Say it
The shape
Say it like three headings
“What happened. Where I am. What I did.”
Say it before you type. It stops the sorry getting in first.
8Find them
Which of these belong in the first line?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 3.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Send one real message to a parent in that shape, about something small from today. Three parts, one line, no sorry.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
What happened. Where you are. What you did. The first line says the thing.
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