Just Get On With It!

I feel encouraged to speak honestly about my experience, so am continuing to try to 'get it out' (!) so to speak.

I want to move past the place of questionning home ed. Our first year shows me it most certainly is a viable option. Research shows that children thrive well through this method of preparing them for the world.

It is hard work though!! And it means bending and moving with the times, listening to each of the children, as we do to each other in the adult partnership to get needs met.

In the spirit of Getting On with It! and not airy fairying around talking about it anymore, (we are approaching the end of our first year), I have some dreams about how I would like this to be. At present it is still a radical choice, although I'm not sure how much longer this will be the case. I see school needing to come back from its extreme point on the scale and then home ed can naturally do the same. I'd love the kids to have some of the school experience just not in a 5 day a week kind of a way where many other vital experiences are pushed out.

I'd like group activities with other families that are led by one adult (without needing to pay for it!)

I'd like to see friends daily, weekly regularly, in and out of our normal routines, weaving in and out, no big deal, just together sometimes. I'd like to feel flexible enough to accept opportunities when they come, seize the good weather, the unique moments.

I'd like to not be so reliant on the web, have a bank of resources and ideas that are not always about me tapping into this screen. (I guess I need to simply switch it off!)

I'd like to maintain the stamina to introduce new things, remember to invite and ask involvement from others, remember that quieter patches are needed in the flow of life, its not Do Do Do every day for anyone, or if it is, illness or events will conspire to Stop Stop Stop eventually!

I'd like to learn to trust the ebbs and the flows, the quiet and the noisy, the many various ways we all choose or chose to raise our kids. No two journeys are the same. We can listen and explore and still hold our own course. The decision to do this was not one taken lightly.

I am immensely happy that I've had this chance to learn about myself and my family this year. I am impressed that we had the courage to try this road out for size. Having close contact with the children can only be good for their development. I trust that we will continue to build the experience that we each need to grow and thrive.