A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Pirates, Party's, Pet behaviour.

Sunday 17 February 2008

Pirates, Party's, Pet behaviour.

I have been trying for far too long to get a picture of a pirate(first choice was Johnny Depp) on here and this is all I can come up with!!! It should wave about but at this point doesn't seem to be,maybe when I publish post? If you are at all interested you could try clicking on it if it isn't moving.....

The reason for requiring a pirate picture?
It was Milly's party at a local pirate attraction.It all went off really well.When we got there Milly was dressed up in a pirate outfit and the other children got eye patches and a gold hoop earring, the venue provided two staff to take them on a treasure trail around the exhibition which is all about the Rum trade,slaves and pirate ghosts,then on to the vault for food and games and dancing.We all followed on and then chatted whilst the children enjoyed the party.I took the camera but true to form forgot to actually take it out of my bag.....

I was pretty glad I didn't have to do anything today,I was shattered.We had a lovely family get together yesterday, We started the preperations on Friday by making a huge pan of bolognese sauce which after a couple of hours cooking really slowly was thick and delicious, and we spent a good part of yesterday cleaning up the aftermath of the sleepover and ensuring we had enough chairs, knives, forks, etc for twelve people, I always tend to leave this till the last minute but luckily my sister just lives in the next village so can help out if we are stuck.We used to regularly host party's with lot's of folk and lot's of children, I do love to feed people but somehow over the last couple of years we have got out of the habit.The food was a success and we had a good laugh and Milly was very lucky and got some lovely presents and lots of money, some of which we are going to try and get into her building society account. Emily finds saving a hard concept to get her head around, she is very much a live for today kind of girl and money burns a hole in her pocket, although to be fair she had saved £50.00 from her christmas presents and put it towards the DS lite and games we bought her for her birthday, so maybe a new trend in money management!!!!The guests had all gone by 7.30 and Milly and I took the opportunity to have an early night.

Alan and Emily have gone up to bed and I was just going to do a quick post but got sidetracked by the pirate photo. It is freezing now so the heating must of knocked off.I will venture out with Beauty for her last toilet break and then hit the sack. Just a note on Beauty, Alan has been letting her off the lead over the last week or so and I don't want to jinx things but it seems she may have turned a corner and she has been coming back when called(not from the corner she turned you understand!!) and although she has been interested in the dogs she could see in the distance in the park she didn't run off after them.She has also gone past most dogs without lunging and barking so we feel all our hard work is paying off!!! Fingers, legs, toes, everything crossed!!!!

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This is me.....

There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.” Stacey Charter.

Why we Home educate

( Slightly edited from a blog post I did when we started out) In the end the actual decision to take Emily out only took a matter of days but before that it had been around a year and a half of talking about ti and reading books, Free range education by Terri Dowty, Educating your child at home by Jane Lowe and Alan Thomas were two that had a real impact for different reasons. Free range education has lots of examples of real life home educators and I think I can say that it was this one that convinced me the most that we could do it. We are two very average people ,neither of us left school with many qualifications, we went on to do quite well in our chosen professions and had no need to think about the education system at all until Emily came along.

I knew about home education and when Emily was born considered it as an optionbut always felt my lack of education would be a problem and that I wouldn't be capable of providing her with what she would need.Looking back with hindsight it is easy to see how wrong I was!!

School never really suited Emily......After the nursery year at a very highly rated, high achieving school we knew that particular School wasn't for us and took her out. We enrolled her in a lovely village school with only 70 children in the whole school .The ethos of the school was totally different, the children didn't wear uniforms and there was much more emphasis on the children being individuals.The head was a sensitive and principled man who wanted the best for the children. We thought we had struck gold.Over the reception and year 1 Emily gained confidence and really started to bloom. It was at this time she was diagnosed with dyspraxia( we had had to go down the diagnosis route as our observations of Emily's difficulties were not enough to enable the teachers to tailor things so she was helped and given less work in class) but she managed quite well in the more relaxed play orientated early years.Year 2 with more emphasis on academic activities got progressively harder for her. She is very sensitive and it wasn't just the academic side it was the embarassment of having to put her hand up for the toilet,seeing others being told off and worrying in case she did something wrong and got the same treatment, panicking because she couldn't do the work and the teacher never had time to sit with her (alot of this did not come out until she had left school) her behaviour at home became worse and worse she was so angry and obviously stressed . At this time we began to seriously consider taking her out but held back because of my lack of confidence in my ability to provide her with an adequate education ,my health being so poor was also a major stumbling block.

Then in year three it became blatantly obvious that something needed to change .She was struggling on all levels and we couldn't allow the school system to damage our daughter anymore.She became ill with a bug that was doing the rounds and she was off for two weeks , during that time I had a conversation with a friend who home educates her two children and I was so upset I couldn't make a decision and she said just go with whats in your heart and that really helped me to shift my thinking and stop worrying about what I couldn't give her and focus on what I could give her.

We never sent her back.I still get emotional when I think of that time , the look on Emily's face when we told her she would never have to go back to school was priceless,the immense sense of relief that we were off the treadmill of school life and the excitement of the time ahead and to be honest the fear of the unknown......

So here we are four years on and a lot of reading and researching later I feel comfortable with what we are doing . The changes that have happened so far have been helped along the way by the many wonderful blogs out there.They are so varied and there are so many different approaches , I have found ones that I can identify with and have read a lot of archive material that has been written in each and found answers to so many of the questions I have had that they have helped me to sort out what will work best for us .As much as I wish we had done this earlier and saved Emily from the distress that she went through I do believe things happen for a reason and that the time was right for us to take her out and that looking on the bright side one of the benefits is that at least she has had a taste of school and now we all know without a doubt that it is not for us !!!!

It is very liberating to be making decisions based on what works best for us as a family and not what society expects.

Let your child be a child.

No child was ever spoiled by too much love.

Be authentic with your child.

Listen openly to your child’s needs.

Believe in your child’s good intentions.

Find the humour.

Look past the behaviour… what is your child feeling?

Have fun with your child today!

“There is no reason why we cannot say ‘No’ to children in just as kind a way as we say ‘Yes’.” - John Holt

“Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” - Oscar Wilde

Children thrive in a peaceful and loving environment.

A child needs love most when things go wrong.

Children reflect the treatment they receive.

A few qoutes I like....

Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in, broadside, thouroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly shouting, 'WOW'.... Beth Moore

The perpetual testing of public school children is like a gardener constantly pulling his plants up by the roots to see if they are growing....(unknown)

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instuction...Helen Kellers teacher

I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand...Confusious