A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Home alone...

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Home alone...

After the second dose of migraine meds did their job we headed out to meet Maria and Devan.

A fabulously sunny day meant we were able to lay on the blankets and chat whilst we waited for them. Milly didn't want to go on the park til Devan got there so ... we chatted and cuddled and laughed and cuddled and laughed some more.

Lovely to see Grandad - Maria's Dad who is known as Grandad to many folk :-) - on his super dooper new mobility scooter and also W one of the children Maria looks after. Milly and Devan had a good run around and went on all the equipment whilst Maria and I stayed with W in the sandy part and chatted. Good to have a catch up and a reminder that we must make time to see each other more often....

Back home and as we drove through the village we saw Amy walking up towards the park. When we got home Milly decided she would head to the park in case she was there. About an hour later they arrived back soaking wet and with Jazz ( another girl from the village ) in tow having had a water fight in the park they asked to carry it on in the garden. I supplied jubbly lollys and off they went. They had been using large plastic drinks bottles to soak each other but I asked Alan to set up the sprinkler on the hose for them :-)

Although it was sunny it was getting cooler and water play lost its appeal after a while. They walked Jazz back as she had homework to do and then Amy went home for her tea before calling for Milly again and off they went to the park. Milly came home full of a story they are creating together and spent at least half an hour telling me it :-)

Today has been a lovely home day. My Mum and Dad came for lunch and left about 3.00.

I have broken the habit of a lifetime today and done some ironing!! Alan normally does all the ironing but as he has been so busy with the painting I decided to sort out some of the easier to iron things and reduce the mountain in the spare room . I survived the experience ;-)

Milly flitted about chatting to us and then friends on line whilst playing club penguin. She was supposed to clean the trampoline down ready to try and sell it but somehow managed to fill her time with other things and before we knew it Al was home and they watched a bit of TV - a Glee episode I do believe - whilst I made a green smoothie and then began the two week menu and shopping list.

Amy and Emma called round and the three of them went of to the park for an hour or so. Amy came back to ours so they could work on a story board.

Alan and Milly had planned to have some time together tonight and go to the beach to walk Beauty and have a chip supper. They now have another member of the team as Amy has gone with them so they can continue discussing their story :-)

I am loving being home alone:-)

Although I am at home a great deal I am rarely on my own. I have always needed time out on my own so this is not a hardship at all.

TV and food then perhaps a bath and a book and maybe even a moment or two meditating before Mary Portas on TV later.

By which time the travellers should be home.

Friends coming for lunch tomorrow to look forward to :-)

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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