positive parenting....

I read the Daily Groove, a parenting enewsletter by Scott Noelle @ http://www.enjoyparenting.com/ - thats the kind of parenting I'm in to. Careful on the authoritative, listening and learning from the child's experience, healing my own childhood behaviour patterns whilst guiding, supporting them through. And with home ed it is helping me to sharpen up on giving just a bit too much so that at the end of the day I don't have much left and so here I am at bedtime on the one evening I can't hand over to J, frazzled, neurotic about bloody laundry piles, picking things off the floor, asking the kids to do this or that and them not doing those things, not bcs they are 'defying' me (although perhaps some would see it like that) but you see how it could get to screaming lights out and just ignoring them - in fact if they had school tomorrow I might well have done that.
Instead I have taken myself away. Put the kettle on, tapping on here for a moment and then perhaps some chanting, or hey maybe I'll start chanting now! There.

Biggest has simply said 'shall I do bed time Mum?'
And the littler ones said 'Yes!'
So she has taken them a snack and is reading them a story
How cool is that?!

I'm glad I walked away. I'm now going to sit in silence for a moment or two while my tea brews before I even glance at the surface mess around here - a sure sign that a lot has been learned, explored and devoured today! Then I'll hopefully get to give them a quiet kiss before sleep :)

when to lead and when to be led

OK so i got a bit cocky. its all been going well for about a week - woo hoo. A winning plan has been setting up little learning experiences around the home, particularly in the mornings -- lace cards, washing line low down, that was this morning. April very much appears to be self teaching, reading her books in bed, following her own flow. I feel very much still in this deschooling state with her in particular.

Today a friend came round and introduced the idea of going to the woods for chestnuts. J didn't want to go, ill. I seize the moment, chuck veg in a pan for soup when we get back and we go. Its good.

We come back have soup and then kids are playing.....
Its Monday, we normally go swimming on a Monday afternoon..... I fall back on this plan, even though the kids are playing pretty well... stick to the plan stick to the plan...

The plan kind of pushed us too far tiredness wise. Particularly when I then tried to entice my middle into number line thinking when we got back ??!! (no idea where the sense to try that came from , other than thats what I wanted to try in my head last night..!) But heh its ok - I've stopped jumping to the conclusion that we should give up home ed every time i have a wobble (even though my middle casually asked to go back to school at tea time following my clumsy number line silliness....)

All good. Even on this bad day, it is not compounded by seeing lots of others  and spinning off into other trips... I am missing good solid meal preparing support, but I always was during the school years too so thats nothing new. Getting better at asking for help :)

I just pushed it

Good Week :)

I feel like the cat who got the cream, getting a grip on what is possible with this home ed choice. Time is ours. Creativity is ours. Direction is ours. Magic.

trial and error

Last Friday was hard, middle lovely said she wants to go back to school and the emotional pull between us meant that I want to give her everything and I'm calling out to say yes yes of course love, you can go back. I am learning about being so easily swayed and of course being with them for all of the time again means that its harder to separate out who's needs are who's. I'm very sensitive (as are the kids of course) and I embrace this sensitivity, I think it is a strength in so many ways and it is finding strategies to not get pulled into every emotional twinge going! (This also true of other people's conceptions of home ed and friends' various reactions to our decision!)

So my middle is helping me by being so open and clear about her feelings. I am happy that I have my partner there kind of standing our ground and reminding me that if we say yep sure you can go back on Monday, it could just as well be a few weeks down the line where she says I want to come home again..

So its about responding to whats not working and building on what is working. On Friday I could totally see what she's missing the hustle and bustle of the other children around her, learning alongside, structured activities and the variety of what her excellent adults did with her in reception last year... In a way I wonder whether we should have just taken biggest out as she was heading for year 3 and had had enough of various elements of school so was up for a change. Where as middle pretty much really liked school, what she had experienced of it so far (ie. pupil led, learn through play, unstructured approach which would undoubtedly change in year 1). I can't pretend to offer her anything better than this. But what we are doing is sticking together as a family. The pluses of this are immediate to spot in terms of confidence, joy of life, relaxation, but particularly with middle, are a kind of big question mark for her as if to say what now?

So our response is to say we will carry on this trial til Christmas and to now make a priority of networking and finding other families. There is a school about 10 miles away who embrace flexi-schooling and I am keeping this as an option too - fairly certain that our old school wouldn't accept it and not sure that even if they were willing to discuss it whether i would be comfortable as being a path blazer family for that one in our local climate. the four families that we have kept in touch with are warm about it but there is a strong culture against it. Not sure whether to pursue this line of thought.

So on reading some of a helpful blog by www.muddlepuddle.co.uk/ I am gathering up ideas of things that the kids could have ongoing - the lady there called it 'normals'. A book, particularly for middle as she is the one craving some organisation. I'll put some writing practise in there, and not sure what else to be honest. She's so little! I can talk to friends who trained in early years, there's that bit of me that wants to ask the experts, like i'm not qualified..! Its good to write this down because I can spot how unhelpful it is. I am a really capable human being and I can find out what will help my daughter at this point in her education. Through talking to her, following my natural mothering instinct. This was not a decision we have taken lightly. We feel it is the right thing. Stick with it mrs.

one month on

So a month ago we had just started, the winds are howling again just like they were at the beginning of the school term and it jangled my brain and my nerves then just as it is now.

So I'm learning about informal learning... or rather through reading in to a little of 'How Children Learn at Home' by Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison ~ I am finding there is a term for what we are experiencing! Our eldest in particular is very clear about what she doesn't or does want to do. The formal learning of my own schooled experience as well as my years as school teacher seems to not fit at all in to the home. And accepting like this is like falling through a vortex! A tough and tearful resistance is fighting inside me, the one that learned that you as adults need to Force children to conform, behave, understand and listen. The belief that it is only through these methods that children will be given the 'gift' of information and education.

Heavens no.

If their not up for it, their not up for it. And I am opening my heart as often as I need to remind myself to meet them half way and learn how they want to learn. Let them lead, no matter how hard this stubborn part of me wants to snatch back control and say Thats the Way to Do It! I'm praying a lot to the evolved parts of myself, of us all, God, Universe, to help me loosen my old beliefs. I instinctively know that the beliefs do not fit in this situation. It still feels totally right that we have moved away from school and just as I needed to fall through other old and limited belief systems to arrive at this point, I find myself doing the same thing now. And its no easier! Its still that stomach churning feeling as I swing higher on a swing or bounce on an unprotected trampoline. Letting go of control, releasing my resistance, trusting the flow of life. Trust

Momentarily overwhelmed

Even admitting it here is tantamount to admitting a fall. And so I think this might be equivalent to transition in childbirth. Totally freaking out, reaching out to others to catch me to help me, looking for reassurance around me, outside of me - searching for points of reference of others who have gone before and succeeded. And transition happens in every labour, not just the first, so perhaps I can look to other situations where I have lost my points of reference and gained some centrepoint to hold me while the change takes place. Playing and love gets me through, a long kiss from my husband brought my second daughter into the world. Leaning on my friends did it for the first. And head in the lap of my doula for love and reassurance did the third. When the world as she knows it is or appears to be collapsing around, the woman is alone. Can only be supported gently and quietly from the outside, it is her journey to go alone, only she can birth the baby.

And now only I can protect and hold myself as the school structure melts away from us along with the friendships (as they were), the accepted rhythm of school runs, the passing over of responsibility, I'm desperately holding on to the memory that there were positive things about school, partly so as not to alienate myself from my peers and partly because I know that we may need it some day again and so not wanting to be two-faced, hypocritical. But hey, I'm the only one judging myself so harshly. Perhaps for now I do need to reject and drop the school system for all that it didn't provide, for the depression and anxiety I link to the drudgery of allotted time slots, forced relationships with others, passing power away to 'professionals' (all the more odd as I am a school teacher by trade myself!)

And so here it is Weststar. The responsibility is back, fully landed on my doorstep.

I thought we might do vision boards today but then I think we might do lots of things and thats before the crew wake up and everything takes on a new direction...

Centre centre centre.

on joining groups

So I know how to reach other home ed families, there's a local yahoo group, but I'm stalling. I do feel enthusiastic about getting support/variety on board but at the same time I'm thoroughly protective of us right now. And this is new to me!! Not sure its been modelled for me the idea of sticking to your own, of battening down the hatches ~ I easily lose myself in someone else's trip. Which is perhaps why I became so anxious and depressed going back and forth to the school playground each day, picking up on the stresses and strains of other families, the teaching staff, the secretaries, the queues of traffic, looking searching out for a connection, a mutual sharing of experience. So now I'm nervous to reach out. I know that we will find friends for our educating journey but just like you can't go 'out there' to search for your life partner, I feel it would be needless distraction to try sifting through other home ed families in an attempt to fulfil our 'criteria'!!

When I was waiting to meet my life partner I had the idea that it is wise to live my life as truly as I can, pursue my own path as closely as possible and then there was the biggest chance that I would find someone who's path was running parallel to my own. In hindsight this worked. So i'll apply the same to family friend searching!

It feels hard at the moment to be on a different time scale to our current friends but do you know it also feels really refreshing. Knowing that I'm singing from my soul note song sheet gives me naturally more energy to offer friendships, even if we are not doing the same things during the day and seeing each other as frequently as we did when we were in the schooling rhythm, when we do meet up it is with new news, experiences, stories.