A timely reminder and Daemon fever

I have read Colleen at The New Unschooler for some months and she has helped me progress along this road with her honesty and humour. I have found by reading her journey so many similarities to ours and have benefited greatly by the many words of wisdom that the commenter's leave for her. She wrote a post recently where she had been having some doubts and wrote a list of the reasons why she chose to unschool I now have it printed out and right in front of me to help as a daily reminder of those reasons.

I remember starting out with immense excitement and I remember getting butterflies at times during the day when I would think how lucky we were to be free and out of the school system. Sometimes you just need a timely reminder...

My initial feelings of euphoria got overshadowed by doubts and concern,it seems so irresponsible to let your child make all these decisions and have so much freedom in the things that they do!!I had years of traditional thinking to overcome and it wasn't going to go without a fight.The evidence of allowing more freedom is right in front of me , if in the little time we have been doing it those are the benefits, then we will carry on, further challenging that traditional thinking.

I have realised we were going too fast and for us it makes more sense to say yes more and move slowly along the path to self regulation.It is no big deal to take a step back and reassess the situation.

I still get butterflies at the strangest times when I think of what we are doing, sometimes when we are out in the car during school hours listening to music with Milly laughing and joking,cuddling in bed when the kids go past outside to the school bus, sitting in the dining room with Milly in PJ's having spent the day doing "stuff" together. Our relationship is so much stronger,even handling the strops is easier when you spend so much time together, you are more aware of what is likely to be causing the behaviour. This is working for us we just have to accept it is a journey and that the hurdles we come up against can be jumped, we may need some help but it seems there are so many people willing to share that it is more than possible.
I have had some lovely people drop by and leave comments.Writing this blog has been a very positive experience.

Emily and I have spent a day with Daemons!!
Golden Compass fever struck.
Alongside the Northern Lights novel I bought this weekend I got a sticker book with details about the characters in the film so we started to read it today and Milly started to put stickers on paper and we ended up hours later with a laminated masterpiece. She was so proud of it and although there wasn't much writing in it she really wanted to try the words herself and would ask sometimes for help with spelling but she showed real persistence in sounding out the words and getting down her words, I was very impressed(remember this is the girl who wouldn't pick up a pen when she came out of school!!)and have to say a little surprised at how confident she was at attempting some words.
We then spent a very long time adding pictures to her blog and she asked me to put some on here but I know she would love some visitors to her blog if you feel able!!!There is link in the sidebar....