A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Juggling whilst blogging....

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Juggling whilst blogging....

Trying to juggle a few things and blog at the same time.Multi tasking at it's best.
I have a watercress soup on the go for tomorrows lunch, Emily's tea in mid prep and our tea in the oven.I am also reading the new Sainsbury magazine in between prepping the food and now decided I needed to blog as I remembered The apprentice is on later and probably would be too tired to blog after.Just added in a phone call from my mum as I was dishing up Emily's tea.

Emily is watching a DVD ( the title of which escapes me a the moment).We have been to home ed group and then on to our friends house for a coffee afterwards. E Emily's 14 year old friend presented her with a DVD she had bought for her using some of her birthday money( they had watched the same DVD at their sleepover to celebrate E's birthday a couple of weeks ago)how lovely was that.She is a darling girl in so many ways.

I had a fabulous day yesterday.Alan took time off work as it was my turn to host the meditation group and he usually takes Emily and Beauty out for the morning.He had said last week that I should book in another session with Rezwanna for massage whilst he was off in the afternoon as well, so I leapt at the chance.As it turned out my friend had to bring her sons with her as she didn't have a sitter and once Emily knew that A and L were coming Daddy was going for a walk on his own as she said it would be rude for her not to be her when the boy's came!! So after some discussion the children choose a DVD to watch. We chatted and then said we really should meditate, then chatted some more then said we really should meditate, eventually we did a short meditation after a couple of readings I had found that morning,once again I was amazed at how appropriate the readings I had found turned out to be.I simply flicked through two books and stopped when it felt right and the two passages matched perfectly and then even more of a "coincidence" they were very relevant to the other three girls and the discussion we had, bearing in mind they didn't know what I had found and I had no input into the direction the conversation took at the start.

I think of myself as a very "normal" person but I am very open to alternative medicine and take a holistic approach to my health and am a believer in Angels,so when Rezwanna asked how I would feel about using some healing stones whilst she called on her Angels to help in healing I was totally unfazed and perfectly happy to go along with it.I don't need to know the science of Healing, Meditation or Homeopathy I have had so much personal evidence of them working over the last 9 years that I am convinced about the benefits and I think this has enabled me to accept other "treatments" with a very open mind.

We have just finished tea and as Emily was watching the end of the DVD in the other room we managed to have a good conversation about Parenting methods and the way we want to go as a family.Having read Alfie Kohn Unconditional Parenting I explained to Al the theory behind it and how I thought it would work for us.Al really trusts my judgement and although he hasn't read the book has understood the direction I think we should go in and is more than happy for us to try,he pointed out that taking Emily out of school took him a long time to come round to and he wasn't going to make the mistake of not giving something a go just because it was different to the "normal" methods and traditional parenting styles we have been using up till now.I think the methods will take time to adopt, it is not a "how to" book but gives guidelines for changing the way we can deal with situations,some of which we have adopted over the last few months from info I have read on Joyfuly Rejoycing and Sandra Dodd websites.

Milly is listening to a Lemony Snicket story CD ( she has listened to them all before and is just choosing her favourite ones again in no particular order) Al is washing up and Beauty is being thrown a ball by Emily and is running off across the kitchen and skidding back with it so all conducive to concentration and Blog writing!!!Got to go just can't think straight........

5 comments:

Lisa G said...: Hi Lynn,
Just found your blog after wandering over from 'by other means'! I love reading new blogs especially as old faves stop writing theirs, sob!
Nice to 'meet' you,
Lisa; 16 April 2008 at 20:16
Stacie said...: Lynn, I really think you'd like the group, Eating the Angel Way, on CafeMom, since you believe in angels and alternative health.; 16 April 2008 at 20:22
Grit said...: what a productive time! i love it when everything comes together so neatly and calmly. sadly in the grit household there's usually a big fight afterwards... i'm going to wander round some of the blogs you mention soon ...; 16 April 2008 at 23:18
piscesgrrl said...: What a great newsy post! It sounds like things are falling into place for you all there. I like the sound of a meditation group. Hmmm... I tend to "go holistic" with my health, too, at least whenever possible.

Oh, and we got Flat Stanley! Jonathan had the greatest grin on his face as he opened him up. We've already introduced Flat Stanley to pokemon and the seeds I just planted. We should've sent him to soccer tonight but since I wasn't going to be there I worried he'd get lost in the shuffle. What a fun adventure! It was great fun to read about his travels so far. Thanks for sending him to us!; 16 April 2008 at 23:58
Lynn said...: Lisa, thanks for commenting, always nice to meet someone new.I have visited you over the last few months but am a bit of a wimp at leaving comments,now you have broken the ice I will find it much easier to say Hi ;-))

Stacie, I have been interested to follow your blog about eating the angel way,I have let mine slide as I find it hard to keep up the two.I hope to get back to it soon.xx

Hi Grit,
I have found those sites to be hugley beneficial, hope they give you something as well.xx

Laura,
I am so glad he arrived safely:-))
Quite some years ago a group of sixteen started to meditate together working on healing the chakras, the leader of the group had a family tradgedy and some of us carried on and then it ended up just the four of us, we have gained so much from each other and meditation has changed all our lives.I don't make time for it as often as i should though.xx; 17 April 2008 at 20:00

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