Secondary wobbles

Well, it's been a funny old time,as usual, round here with lots of thinking and soul-searching going on. I knew already that I'd be wobbly, as I always am in September, but I wasn't prepared for the extra wobble of having a child who would have been going to secondary school. For some reason this made me more wobbly than ever as I started to question whether he'd be able to do this or that if he were in school, and whether he'd have more confidence in this area or that one, and whether doing what he has been doing since birth, ie learning mostly on his own and choosing what to do for himself day after day, is still the best thing for him. I mean going to secondary school is such a massive change in a child's life, and maybe what has been fine up till now won't be good enough any more and I should maybe stop kidding myself that I can provide all he needs. It also seems that the length of time until he is independent and will have to go out in the world and fend for himself has telescoped into such a short time frame that he won't possibly be able to do and learn all the things that he needs to, especially as we're coming up to the teen years where I won't be able to get him to do anything at all. That leaves us with, what, two weeks or so to cram everything in and fill his brain with 'what he needs'. It's ok I'll go and have a lie down soon then everything will be all right again and I'll realise that he already has all he needs. He has a love of reading, a willingness to learn, an ability to be totally self-leading with his learning, and a capacity to pick things up very quickly once he sets his mind to it. He also has two parents who will do all in their power to make sure that he has all he needs to complete (or not!) whatever task he sets himself. We are also building up an amazing community of people around us who we can call on for help and guidance, from the lovely local librarian, to other home ed parents, to people we know who are passionate about what they do, be it the arts,working with wildlife, or just living their lives on their own terms.

I appreciate that what I am about to say could be interpreted as being rather negative, but I have to say that I am also aware of all the things, to do with school, that he doesn't have and hopefully never will. He doesn't have some other person or body making important decisions for him and then making him follow their made up-rules about how to go about this, whether in academic terms or just in daily life. He doesn't have the experience of being belittled or hurt, physically or emotionally, on a daily basis by adults and children alike. He doesn't have the stomach-churning dread of going to the place that does this to him every single day. He doesn't have his individuality intentionally squashed and moulded into a more acceptable form by someone who has no idea who he is, and no willingness to find out. He doesn't have relentless 'busy work' to do with no time to sit, think, reflect, do nothing, get bored, find things out for himself.

I hoped that writing all this down would help me to see it from a different angle and it has. It can be hard to explain to people who are at a different stage in their journey from the one I am at. It can be easy to have your energy sucked out of you by negativity and narrow thinking. It is hard to explain to someone who believes that there is nothing wrong, and everything right, with the way schools do it, or even that it is just inevitable and is something to put up with and get through. I don't ever want my children's childhood to be like that. I am arrogant enough to feel that I have reclaimed their childhood for them and given it to them, to choose to do with it what they will.

Shaking off the shackles

It has become painfully obvious to me recently that the computer can be a force for disquiet as well as for good. I made a conscious decision this week to take a step back from some of the activities I take part in online and I was very pleased to note that I'm feeling a lot less anxious and worried, perhaps as a result of this decision, perhaps not. I have tended to get sucked into less than constructive discussions, whether as a contributor or just a spectator. All of this takes me away from 'real life' and something which should be a source of support and comfort actually adds to the feelings of impotence which have been plaguing me. As I've said before it is a case of balancing my need to keep myself informed, and looking after my emotional well-being. I've come down on the side of backing off from things in cyberspace which are sapping my energy and drawing me away from the things which are truly sustaining and which have suffered as a result of me becoming a bit obsessed with things I can do nothing to influence. I am truly grateful to those people who are working tirelessly to ensure our freedom to home educate and I will continue to support them in whatever way I can, but there comes a time when I have to admit to myself that there is only so much I can do in that regard. I have forced myself to keep away from my computer and to turn to those things in my life which are really sustaining, such as my relationship with members of my family. Worrying about how and whether I can add anything meaningful to certain online discussions has sapped my strength, and at times I have felt myself being involuntarily pulled into the screen and away from my family. I could feel it happening and felt powerless to stop it. It's utterly mesmerising at times, but I've managed to break the grip of  this cyber-hoover.

The other thing I've notivced this week is that just when I get to the point in life where I feel I'm getting somewhere in terms of ceating order out of the chaos that surrounds me, somehting happens to throw a spanner in the works. On the same day that I made a list of the things I need to get done around the house in order to feel that I was at a stage where I could  look confidently toward the future, I managed to damage my shoulder and was unable to complete my allotted tasks. At other times I've come down with something or things happen to stop me getting to where I feel I need to be. It's frustrating, but maybe it's worth examining this in more depth to see whether this enforced change of direction actually does me any good in the long run. I can't see it at the moment as I was so looking forward to clearing the decks and starting to see the shape of the house underneath, but then again I had two experiences that helped me to mentally map out an avenue that had become blocked in my mind. I read the mathematician's lament, an article which explores the unhelpful way in which maths is taught in schools and then I had a very enlightening conversation with another home educator whose husband is a mathematician, which very much echoed the sentiments in the article. These things helped me to realise that there can be another response to the worrying feelings of not doing enough or not doing it right. There is always a way to think laterally about an issue and to find another way through, and the way I think I should do it can be replaced by the way I feel I can do it. I hope that makes sense. At the moment I feel as though I have found a map, but I'm not at the point yet where I can see the actual landscape. However I have found a renewed faith in myself and my way of finding solutions to problems.

Healthy Kids - revisited and assimilated

I've been wondering how to bring all my random scribblings together in one place, so I thought I'd start with this one as it seemjed a) the easiest one to start with and b) still relevant to our lives. It was a blog I called 'Healthy Kids' and I managed one whole post! This is what I wrote originally:

I've been thinking about starting this blog for a while now. My main motivation is the fact that we all, as a family, seem to have been getting really out of shape over the last year or so and I wanted to try and find a way to encourage some changes without making any of my children feel self-conscious. There are issues around eating disorders in our family in the past so I want to be as sensitive as possible to the needs of every member of the family, and anyone else who reads this blog. I guess what I'm saying is that this is most emphatically NOT a diet blog or a 'fat camp' blog. What it is about is making changes slowly and steadily so that we can all start to embrace a new way of being.

Our eating patterns as a family have been getting healthier and healthier over the years, but there is definitely room for improvement, especially as regards encouraging the kids to eat more fruit and veg. We have few additives in our diet and sweets and crisps are kept to occasional treats, but we still all crave the 'nasties'.

As for exercise, it feels like we used to be more active as a family than we are now. We used to live in a town until the kids were 7, 4 and 16 months and we'd be out on foot or on bikes or scooters most days, walking the dog along the beach or down the cycle path. If we needed any shopping we'd walk into town and back and it was just a part of our life to fit exercise into our day. I think it helped that none of us thought of it as 'exercise' it was just part of life, and fun.

Since we moved to the countryside I've found it quite difficult to fit the same kind of exercise into our days. The road to the nearest village is too dangerous to walk the kids along and the only circular walk from our house is at least two and a half hours long, which is great once in a while, but kids really need achieveable, short-burst activities. We now have a bigger garden than we've ever had (we moved from a terraced house with a concrete courtyard) and the kids have a climbing frame and a trampoline, but they seem almost phobic about going outside. I'd have put it down to the change of scenery but we've been here three years now, you'd think that would be long enough for them to adjust.

So what I'm hoping for from this blog is to find new ways of looking at our diet and exercise and help the kids, and us, stay as healthy as possible. If you'd like to share the journey with us, please do. You're very welcome.

It's really interesting to read what I wrote then and to have a go at an update. Well, it felt like things didn't really improve as regards exercise, but looking back I remember a few cycle rides and walks and swimming, so I guess we didn't do all that bad. Also the road into the village has been improved and a fantastic footpath has been added. And we've doggedly continued strewing fruit and veg in front of the children in the hope that they'll give in and try it. One of the kids will eat almost whatever is put in front of her, but the other two are still a bit resistant, one of them, I feel, on principle. Just as they look with disdain on anything overtly educational, so too the idea of healthy food is met with high-minded refusal.

I'm hoping that the addition of a dog into the brew is going to produce results. The great thing is that puppies are not suppose to be over-exercised: five minutes of walking per  month of their age, thus 15 minuts at 3 months. So I'm hoping that the kids will barely notice as the amount of walking increases, as they'll be too busy running after Charlie. Sneaky eh? And as is the way with these things, after a while I'm hoping that the endorphins will start to kick in and they'll find they no longer mind or even notice the distance. When we first got Merlin I realised that I really missed walking if I wasn't able to get out some days. It had become its own virtuous circle. I like stuff like that, that grows organically as it were:-)