A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Feeling lighter

Saturday, 29 March 2008

Feeling lighter

I have had a busy but enjoyable day today.

Emily seems to be coming down with something again and has not been feeling well all day and is hot to touch but is feeling cold and shivery. She has gone to bed with two water bottles as she said she needed to warm up and wouldn't settle.Alan will take them out once she goes off to sleep so she doesn't over heat.

I have worked through the doubts of the last few days and feel confident again about our approach with Emily's education.

I thought back to the little girl who came out of school and the change in her today is like night and day.In all the information I have read about home schooling and unschooling in particular it seems that allowing children to read at their own pace,without pressure and when they are ready whatever age that may be enables a child who has difficulty to find their own way.

I feel lighter and have been much more relaxed since I confronted the fears I was having.

4 comments:

Grit said...: shark has gone from a virtual non-reader to a little girl who will happily read stories intended for grown ups. she's done that in a few months while i've bitten my knuckles through and got to the nerves of steel underneath. and get well soon emily! this is such cold ill-making weather!; 29 March 2008 at 20:47
Claire said...: Although we may appear to have a structure of sorts it is by and large child lead and reading is one area in particular where I will not under any circumstances force the pace. It just feels way too important an issue to possibly blow their confidence in - and such an easy area to blow their confidence in. H is now showing interest in reading a little - although she always chooses when, where, what and how much :-)

It alwasy strikes me as a little ironic that reading is an area where so many home educators seem to tread with so much thought and caution whereas it's the area that everyone else seems to jump up and down about and make all kinds of judgements about.; 29 March 2008 at 21:25
Stacie said...: Good for you! You are attentive and only have Emily's best interest in mind, so I'm sure you'll make the right decisions. :-); 29 March 2008 at 21:49
Lynn said...: What a nice surprise, I had just finished watching Johnathon Ross on BBCi and decided to pop in.
Thanks you have made my night by commenting,just what I needed.It is great to hear these things first hand.
I had the evidence right in front of me but my vision became blurred.

Your comments have added to the renewed strength I have felt to carry on the way we are.xxx; 29 March 2008 at 22:44

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