A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Planning department failed to plan, causing major wobble...

Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Planning department failed to plan, causing major wobble...

One of the things that I had a hard time dealing with when we were deciding whether to take Emily out of school was the fact she was an only child and I felt that by taking her out of school we were condemning her to a lonely life without all those kids in school to play with.

As it turns out Emily was very lonely at school even with all those kids to play with and eventually that concept lost any validity. However over the last 14 months there have been days when the worry about her being lonely is overwhelming.
Most of the time I think we have a good balance of being with friends and having the down time that I know she needs,but sometimes the balance is off.

I think the nicer weather has been a trigger for her feeling left out and lonely.Her best friend A lives at the other end of the village and on the nights she is staying with her mum (parents split up and she stays 4 nights with mum) she has children who live near her and they spend time playing on the allotments, this happens spontaneously and last week Emily expressed a wish that she had friends nearby to play with in that way.Now the rational side of me accepted the fact that quite naturally she was feeling a little lonely and that I had not been as proactive in arranging play dates etc and that we could work on ways to ensure she see's more friends. Then within a short space of time (after watching her swinging on her own in the garden looking,in my opinion,sad) the totally irrational side took over and blew it up out of all proportion,all the old fears came back and I felt so responsible for her sadness.

It took me a while but I let the irrational thinking go and looked at it for what it was without projecting all my own fears and assumptions.Emily does like company but she also needs her own space and it was simply that the balance was off and thankfully this week we had things planned that have allowed me to see a more balanced view.

Monday she had a play date,Tuesday she was with her cousin,then had a sleepover with E ,today was Home ed and she made some new connections with a couple of the boys there.A friend they normally play with wasn't there and they were more involved with the other children and Emily got to play with them both at group and later when we went back to my friends house for a cuppa, so a stronger connection and the possibility they would come to play means another couple of playmates in the future.Tomorrow she will have 3 hours playing with two other home ed friends,some weeks they are great mates some not so great but generally a good experience for her.Friday best friend A will be here for tea.Things don't just happen, her friends don't just live up the street and it takes work to plan things,her group of friends has taken time to evolve but is still growing.I just let things slide a little in the planning dept and had a wobbly few days because of it.

3 comments:

Michelle said...: I've always had to work at the having friends over and days out and so on. I suppose Clo doesn't get much choice as I encourage friendships with the children of the parents we like.

What is the Lake District like for midges? We are planning on a trip and I've never visited the Lakes but a friend told me I should avoid the warm weather because of the midges.; 22 May 2008 at 20:32
Lynn said...: I got overtired and stopped organising things cos it was easier not to!! Just got to get the balance right;-))

How exciting your coming to our neck of the woods:-))
Not too sure about the midges,never seem to be a problem in the garden but I am assuming your camping and I have never camped out here(or anywhere for that matter)but I will ask some folks who do and get back to you on that one.Would love to get together if you do come though.xx; 22 May 2008 at 22:01
Elizabeth (My Reading World) said...: Even though we have the two children who play very well together-every now and then we wonder what to do with them not having local play mates. We know they could be lonely at school too-so it isn't a worry about HE'ing them. We just don't live in a normal neighbourhood for them to just meet kids--and we know that has as many con's as pro's. I just wish it didn't always have to be so organized.; 3 June 2008 at 12:14

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