Home educated to college

I've been meaning to write about this for a long time now but just didn't ever seem to be able to find the words.

When you start on a rather odd path like home educating, especially a free-range, autocratic, child-led home education, college or structured education seems a long, long way off and for some it never comes at all. But like all things, if and when it does creep up on you, it can be a shock or at least for me it was. I started recording Facebook 'lives' last year and my August / September ones were all tinged with an air of sadness and the emotional-ness of the loss I was feeling over my eldest going off to college after 12 years of not being at school and 17 years of being with me pretty much 24/7. Don't get me wrong, I was excited as well but it was a big change for the whole family and I really had no idea how he was going to emotionally cope with the environment of a college with over 4,000 students (I wasn't bothered about the academic side).

Anyway off he went, my gorgeous, sensitive, free-range child and we were blessed to have him looked after, nurtured and cared for by total strangers. There were ups and downs of going from no academic study to 3 days a week of Maths, English and a level 2 Games Design course plus the fact that the college only catered for people re-taking Maths and English GCSE not those who had never even studied Maths or English GCSE. But the staff were absolutely amazing - DS was given extra work to do and was helped in every way possible.

DS has never been diagnosed with dyslexia but when he started trying to read when his sister was teaching herself at age 4 (DS was 7) he showed classic signs of it. I am dyslexic so knew what to look for. At that point I asked if he wanted to read and he said no so I told him to stop - he was only doing it because his sister was. We always brought our kids up to play to their strengths and at that age his strengths were climbing trees, drawing maps, playing computer games and mental arithmetic so why learn to read when you don't want to or need to - that was our philosophy. Left to his own devices, he eventually taught himself to read some time between the ages of 11 and 12 with no issues at all.

At college he was supported by the learning support team and assessed with additional needs due to his dyslexic symptoms and at times he availed himself of the mental health services when he felt overwhelmed or needed some time out. All this was done with no judgment or stigma, as I feel it should be. We all have mental health and need support from time to time and the same with a helping hand with academic work.

Anyway, I'm here to let you know that all went well. He coped, he passed all his courses with the best mark he could get and he managed that all in 8 months from an academic standing start. He started the equivalent level 3 course yesterday.

Why am I telling you this though? Am I just wanting to blow my own trumpet on how amazing I am as a mother and educator!! Nope. Instead, I want to remind everyone out there that there are alternatives to mainstream education that don't need you, as a parent, to be a teacher or amazing at imparting knowledge to your children. When my DH and I decided that DS was not going to school because we didn't want him to be taught to read or anything until he was ready, we decided that as the main stay at home parent, I was there to parent my children with guidance and love, not educate them in the ways of Maths, English or anything else.

Although I have helped other people's children pass GCSE Maths (I am a geek who LOVES maths) I am appalling at imparting my mathematical wizardry to my own children. I am mean, short-tempered, have no patience and become possessed by the worse teacher you can imagine. Not at all Mum of the Year material!! In contrast, I am their Mum, I am their taxi driver, I am their confidante (if needed) to name just a few but I am not their academic teacher and I don't need to be. Most of their 'education' from me has been around emotions - trying to have empathy for where someone else might be coming from if they act in a certain way that causes upset; not taking offense (as it is pointless - read my post here); holding your boundaries whilst being kind; not labeling someone as something but rather labeling the behaviour; the 5 languages of love, etc.

All the academic stuff is better taught by teachers and that seems to have been borne out by DS's experience. I am hoping that the emotional resilience he showed over the last year is due to my DH and my nurturing of him and his sister over their lifetime but I can tell you that his academic prowess is all his to congratulate himself on as well as the college staff who facilitated his learning.

So remember:

1. there are alternatives to our education system
2. you don't have to be a teacher to home educate - you just have to care about your kids :-)
3. children DO NOT have to follow the national curriculum
4. it does NOT have to be expensive to home educate
5. it is possible to pass Maths and English GCSE in 8 months having never seen the curriculum before (3 hrs a week per subject whilst doing another course)
6. you can get a job without any qualifications - just thought I would throw that in there in case you are still reading!
7. if you are MY child, don't ask me to teach you Maths unless you want to see my Mrs Trunchbull impersonation!! In fact, don't ask me to teach you any academic subject
8. MOST IMPORTANT - you are all unique and AMAZING (watch my FB 'live' to really instil that in you) 

If you would like further information about home educating please feel free to get in touch.

How I went from bent to straight!!

My friend's cancer got me into essential oils. She had had 2 re-occurrences of breast cancer and she wanted a decent quality Frankincense to add to her natural health regime. We found doTERRA and an AMAZING frankincense. My friend hasn't had a reoccurrence since and is an avid sharer of all doTERRA products.

(I did a Facebook 'live' about it on my Essentially Shamanic Facebook page which you can view here)

My friend and I shared the cost of a doTERRA enrolment kit but soon realised that we both needed more oils each so she then got her own account - that is how good they are. Here is what really sold me on the oils though:

No more antibiotics for Indie

I home educate my children and we have various other children in and out of the house on a regular basis, with or without infections. Whenever someone got ill my daughter would fall ill too and it would ALWAYS affect her lungs. Nothing helped and she would end up on antibiotics more times than I was happy with. After getting the oils we would diffuse OnGuard (a protective oil blend) any time people came over and quickly I purchased another diffuser for her room so that she could diffuse either OnGuard or Air (a respiratory oil blend.) She hasn't been on antibiotics since.

Wonky Viv can run again

I am now back to running because of Deep Blue (a soothing oil blend.) I use it religiously every morning and night, and additionally before and after exercise. I haven't seized up since joining doTERRA and, as you can see from the picture (where I am standing as straight as I can), that is great for me.

Top tip - if I think I am going to seize up I use marjoram which is an anti-spasmodic but generally if I methodical with the deep blue, that doesn't happen

Essential Oils help with emotions too

Anyway, there are so many other ways these amazing oils have helped my family - reducing anxiety in my son when he started college, helping my husband get better sleep, stopping me getting migraines, helping me stay motivated when exercising, and so many, many more. The oils are also AMAZING for helping me when I feel 'Mum guilt' - but more on that later!!

Get in touch with me and ask me any questions

I will be adding more uses in future blog posts but if you want to know more please get in touch either via Facebook, on my Facebook business page (where I do weekly Monday Live Moments or MLMs!!); go and check out my latest Natural Health Solution classes or visit my webpage. I am here to help in any way I can because I wish I had known about these amazing gifts of the earth sooner!!

February & March 2017 Monthly Moments

Obviously I am stunningly biased against schooling (in the favour of home educating) for this very reason but this is always great to see it being said again in slightly different words by someone new. In the age of robots, schools are teaching our children to be redundant by George Monbiot.

And here's another one The Secret of Happy Children - Get rid of teachers and ban homework. Again interesting ideas about why schooling is making children tired and things could be improved for everyone pretty easily.

Similar things have been said by Ken Robinson (some of them over TEN years ago) in his fabulous TED talks - Do schools kill creativity?, Bring on the Learning Revolution and my personal favourite RSA Animate video Changing education paradigms which everyone should watch for the fantastic animation alone!!



Interesting article about raising "good" kids which once you get over the "good" in the title is really worth reading.

And now onto something completely different for those crafty people out there:

I am trying to knit my first pair of socks with proper sock yarn at present and this wonderful page has demystified all the weird 'turn heel', 'heel flap', etc. stuff which is great. Then I am using this pattern and there is a whole tutorial which goes with it which is also fantastic!! I love the internet!!

Also here is a great reminder about how social media is taking over with a great Lion King parody by Dustin and Genevieve.




Recently I have found myself getting fed up with Facebook as there seems to be a lot of advertising courses but also because I can not keep up with the number of people posting. There is also the studies now that are showing that social media is now increasing loneliness and envy and reading the article in The Telegraph resonated with me. One of my resolutions for this year was to try and see the people I love face to face and really connect. I know that isn't easy to do but so far it is going quite well and I am enjoying the more intimate connection I get from that.

Ah Permaculture Diploma / New Year - where am I going?

I suppose it is always around this time of year that I contemplate where I am going in the upcoming year. I find January is a time of reflection for me as my birthday falls near the beginning of January as well as being the actual start of a new year.

Well, I got a great surprise in that one of my diploma projects got signed off in January with another one nearing being signed off. I have nearly finished writing up my wonderful collaborative Introduction to Permaculture course design that culminated in York's Introduction to Permaculture course run by 2 other permaculture diploma apprentices and myself back in November.

All very exciting but the diploma is also taking a lot of my time and that is something that I do not have a lot of. So the time has come to re-evaluate.

Something I always thought near the beginning of my diploma journey was using the permaculture principle of designing from patterns to details to concentrate, via my projects, on the circles of my life split up as follows:

1. my house
2. my street
3. my easily walkable neighbourhood
4. my walkable area (within 30 minutes)
5. my locality
6. my city
7. everything else needed to create community / remain connected to everything

with more effort put into 1 through to a lot less effort for no 6 and a weird amount of effort for 7 due to wanting to reclaim entertainment tasks from the economy such as cooking, childcare and fun. Across all the circles there is a need to connect with people, nature and myself and then contribute to the communities in those areas.

I also wanted to honour my quadrinity, as taught in the Hoffman Process, of intellect, spirit, emotion and physical body.

This is not something that I have touched on explicitly so far in any of the 10 designs but they are always in the back of my mind. However all these 11 areas are very important to me in different ways but how do I deal with them all in a way that is understandable? This is something that I have struggled with a lot whilst doing the permaculture diploma. Being dyslexic I tend to think big and assume that everyone is going to get where I am coming from. They don't!!!

All you need to do is look at the number of spreadsheets in my diploma journey planning, logging, documenting project plan here. It makes perfect sense to me but it isn't that easy to follow without some sort of explanation. And therein lies a problem because when it comes down to it I really cannot be bothered to explain all the many small details of my inter-connected way of thinking. I don't have the time and even if I did it would be taking me away from doing all the fab things I get to do. So what do I do now? I don't really have an answer. So I am going to keep doing the things I have been doing since starting the diploma and I will just see where this year takes me. I am going to stick to my plan as long as it doesn't cause me stress.

And so I am going to start with a re-evaluation of myself:

1. I am more than a someone doing a diploma in permaculture, I am more than someone who home educates their children, I am more than a wife, a daughter, a sister, a volunteer at my local community hub, more than a self-employed IT / PA / social media person, more than a friend, more than my jobs, more than my relationships. I am all those things and more.

I am the embodiment of all my relationships / all my connections with the world.

2. What I do does not need to be measured to be valued (do not mistake measurement for value eg. salary, school grades, etc) whether it be via salary, signed off diploma projects or whatever.

3. When I forget who I am and I become disconnected - I need to be aware eg. shopping for stuff I don't need, eating stuff that doesn't fuel my body properly, etc

and then:

4. Celebrate the connections in my life and build more:
i. honour the space I live in eg. declutter (minimalist month), use the space in a conducive manner
ii. continue making cider with people on the street every year, connect with my neighbours in other ways, help-yourself front garden
iii.working at the local community cafe & volunteering at the local youth club
iv. regular walks - health and wellbeing and awareness of my neighbourhood & member of my local Timebank
v. use my local shops eg. greengrocers - local produce, local businesses, local market
vi. walk/cycle as much as possible
vii. grow the great connections I have with my friends and with nature

Intellect
Admit my dysfunctionality
Recognise it = awareness
Confront it = will
Move on = take action

Emotion
Recognise the need to listen (observe)
Recognise the need to be heard
Enlightenment is a group effort or Charles Einstein's idea of us being inter-beings

Spirit
Honour the fact that I am part of nature

Body
Just do stuff and find positive body issues

These are just ramblings that I have written as they have occurred to me against the backdrop of the 11 areas mentioned above. A journalution of sorts (click on the link to find out more about journaling) and there is so much more I could write because working on myself and my place in this amazing universe is never going to end. The universe at present seems to be presenting me with many amazing opportunities to help people get the word out about brilliant courses, fantastic services that will help people find themselves or great products that honour the planet.

I get to continue honouring my planet by being part of the lives of the wonderful natural resources that are a whole host of amazing home educated children (including my own.) The next creative generation!! Every day I get to be part of that. It really needs to be celebrated.

So whether I take a pause from my diploma, give it up, keep working on it - it doesn't actually matter because those 11 areas mentioned above (and so many more) are always in the back of my mind along with the need to looking after the planet I live with.

#30dayswild - days 27-28 - drawing, open door theatre, edible plants and bees again

Well, who would have thought it? Because of the #30dayswild challenge, I decided to have a go at drawing again. I have done some in the past but there has always been that nagging voice in the background: that voice from my art teachers at school: that voice that told me I couldn't draw. I did have one art teacher who told me I was ok because she taught a type of doodly art like this> and I really, really liked doing it but I also really liked the idea of sketching and I was definitely put off that at school.














In later life, I tried my hand at zentangle and again enjoyed that very much but I always wanted to sketch, draw and maybe even do a bit of coloured drawing!!















So thanks again #30dayswild challenge because day 27 I picked up a pen and had a go at sketching. I then posted the pictures to the facebook page to see what people thought and I have been blown away by the response!!


To date, I have 175 likes/loves and loads and loads of fantastic comments. I will be trying my hand at more sketching tomorrow as I am off to an arty friends house for the day and it will be #30dayswild inspired art!!!

Day 29
Today couldn't help but be a nature inspired day because my dd's home education theatre group performed a short version of Midsummer Night's Dream in the York Museum Gardens. The weather didn't hold up which was a shame but luckily we were under trees and nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of the children or all the adults watching. It was fantastic and such a fantastic city center venue in which to perform!!

Another great thing that happened today was that the York Press did a great double-spread piece about home educating in York which featured some of the performers in the play. You can read it here.

One of the reasons I home-educate is because I think children should spend more time in nature. It seemed pertinent to the #30dayswild challenge.

My dh had never been through the relatively new edible wood mentioned in #30daywild blogs here and here so before the performance, we took him there so he could have a look.

I got to take some more photos and try some plants!!

I am hoping to get my hands on some of these types of plants for my garden and I might well be getting an edible daylily from my arty friend tomorrow which I am very excited about.
I love eating daylily nearly as much as nasturtiums.


I also tried to get some pictures and videos of the bees on the lavender but again didn't do too well. I do love the sounds in the background of the video of children in nature and this bee picture didn't turn out to badly.

#30dayswild days15-17 - nettle tea, recycling, rose and alliums

Wednesday 15th June

I was going to York University to attend the One Planet York Launch so I decided I would do an observation experiment with myself by walking to the Ron Cooke Hub from the York University Library one way and walking back a different way.

I discovered very interesting things such as I do actually have to pay attention if I want to notice things. I was talking to my wonderful brother for part of the journey in the morning (hence the longer walk because I went round and round the campus whilst still talking to him.) It meant that I wasn't observant at all. I did however notice that there was way less bird song on the campus and wondered if this was due to lack of trees.

The transition between walking on campus and then onto Field Lane was a noticeable increases in birdsong which surprised me. The gardens on Field Lane were filled with flowers, hedges, trees and this seemed to encourage wildlife way more than the green on campus.

I still love it on both campuses because there is a lot of green and water which is great. However at present I prefer the West Campus just because of the diversity of green with trees, bushes, lawns, wildflowers, etc.

I spotted Jack by the Hedge on the way back so now I have nailed that one I need to move onto another edible plant that I can try and recognise out in the wild!!!

I also discovered this bug in my filofax and managed to get a picture and with the help of facebook and instagram friends discovered it was a ladybird larva so thanks #30dayswild - I learnt a new thing today!!!

I then started my Ecology online course whilst waiting for my dh to finish up at work.

It looks really good and shouldn't take me too long. I have been meaning to learn more about ecology for ages so thanks again #30dayswild for giving the impetus I needed to actually just get on with it.

The link is here in case you are interested yourself.



Thursday 16th June

Today was about learning the plants in my garden which I mentioned at the beginning of this challenge in this blog post. Whilst the kids were busy playing with their friends I took the opportunity to check if I could remember the plants that my Mum had told me about 2 weeks ago and I didn't do too badly!!

I checked under the trampoline and got my photos.

Obviously I know that this plant to the left is Jack by the Hedge and although it is growing ok here some of the plants nearby at struggling without support so I thinking that they should be moved to over by the fence. However I definitely recognise this plant now even in the wild which is great.

The eaten plant to the right is wild garlic or ransoms and I thought it had disappeared last year but it came back this year. It isn't faring too well probably not helped by the wild geranium next to it.

And then we have this other variety of geranium (Geranium phaeum) near by with the purple patches on the leaves. The chickens love eating this. Then there were the yellow and red poppies. Pretty little plants on the edge of the trampoline.

Trying to discover what plants are edible isn't always easy so resources like this or this are really helpful.

It was then time to chop up my dried nettles and store them ready for a cup of tea. Oh and then have a cup of nettle tea in my wonderful see-through glass infuser tea mug from Marks and Spencers here. Well worth the £7.50 I spent on it. See below.

Friday 17th June


A home education trip to meet fellow home educators at Castle Howard resulted in watching kids playing, having a picnic, trying to get fresh water oyster shells out of the lake, photographing peacocks, chatting and generally having a good time.

The weather held even though it had promised rain and the sun even came out once we had left the playground area and gone to admire the walled gardens.

I am not normally a fan of roses but I took the time to smell all the roses as part of #30dayswild.

It was really fun working out the roses that I actually like the smell of - namely The Nun to the right (which smells like a typical rose but not too overwhelming) and the Leander rose which smelt like peaches and is now my favourite rose.

I also learnt about alliums and get some lovely pictures on my phone including the purple one in the middle with a lovely, very yellow bee on it.

When I then started writing this blog I wondered whether ransoms (also being of the onion family) also had an allium name and they do - allium ursinum. I love alliums!!!

They were all so beautiful and the one in the left corner made me laugh by being called allium purple and round - genius!!

I then did my bit for the wild by making sure that I collected and brought home as much recycling from the youth club I volunteer at as I could and putting it in my recycling bin.

And bringing back the tuck shop emptied for my son to store his lego pieces in.

All in all a fab few days of #30dayswild moments and pictures.

#30dayswild day 6 & 7 - friends, sun and Museum Gardens

Day 6

Today I got my copy of How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff and I also had some rare free time so I decided to spend some time appreciating my garden and reading my book. I only ordered How I Live Now because I saw an article in the Guardian about Meg Rosoff condemning UK education policy as an 'assault on childhood' - what a woman!!



Here are the views I got to see whilst I was reading the book.

It was great to spend some time enjoying a book and stopping occasionally to enjoy my garden was a bonus.

This is one of the things I am loving about the #30dayswild challenge - it has made me slow down and actually observe myself  (needing to take some time for me and finding the space to do that) and it has made me think about my surroundings whether when walking, in my house, in my garden, etc.  

Later when I had a friend over I shared some Sweet Cicely with her - again something I might not have thought to do without the #30dayswild challenge. I am gaining knowledge and I want to share it with people. She loved the pods.

Whilst we were sitting outside I decided to have a got at my now dry nettle stems and started splitting them into 4 strands. It was not as easy as I had hoped and took longer than I thought but I managed to get some strands done.

I did a few more when she was gone whilst my husband finished carving a spatula with one of our new knives mentioned in the Bushcraft Show blog post here. I then finished the book and highly, highly recommend it to EVERYONE. It was a fantastic book to read as part of the #30dayswild challenge because there was food foraging, wild camping, river swimming and other wild activities.

Day 7

Knowing that I was going to be spending most of the day in York so that my dd could attend her drama class at the York Theatre Royal I decided to again spend some time noticing the nature that is in York.

It wasn't difficult to find some lovely nature throughout the bits of York I visited. We are very lucky to have the River Ouse running through the centre of the City which is always lovely to walk along or look at.

Quite often recently there has been a bird of prey place in the Museum Gardens and they had lost one of the new additions. It had a great time looking around and exploring.

I took the picture to the right with my phone before I remembered that I had brought my Samsung WB250F camera with me.

I got these other pictures with that camera and you can see the difference!!

I am trying to get better at using my camera so again the #30dayswild has again helped me to practice with the photography skills which is always easier if I remember to take my camera AND I remember to use it!!

After drama the children always like to spend some time in the Museum Gardens.




This gives us parents a chance to catch up with each other and it gave me a chance to get some pictures of us all connecting with and enjoying nature.


It was fantastic as always seeing the children running around playing together and we had decided to visit a different part of the Museum Gardens.

I sampled a coffee from the No8 Pavilion Pop Up Cafe and also enjoyed briefly visiting the Edible Wood and Artists' Garden that were created as part of the York City Art Gallery refurbishment.

Below are some of the things that I saw whilst walking through the gardens on my way home.

Mint

Peppermint

Edible Woods

Mental Health in Young People

I am in love with Natasha Devon after reading her Guardian article about being sacked as the Mental Health Tsar because it led me down the path of watching her TEDxYouth talk here and then her conference talk here.

She is someone who obviously really cares about children’s mental health and knows that things need to change.

This is something that is very dear to my heart as a mum with 2 children and mental health problems in my extended family.

What I was shocked by reading the Guardian article was that rates of childhood depression, anxiety, self-harm and eating disorders are up by 600%!!!! 

Within the last year I have been attending training courses around youth work and the first one I attended last year was about mental health. I was shocked that evening to learn that people in their early 20s were glad that they weren't growing up as teenagers now. Only just not teenagers themselves, at least 2 of the participants said that things are changing that much for teenagers that they were glad they were out of it.

Here are some of the main things about that I learnt on that course:

1. stress lasts 20-60 minutes: that is that its effect on a human body lasts 20-60 minutes. As opposed to ducks who flap to get rid of excess energy, humans have no automatic way to reduce the impact of stress.
2. Human beings need to feel they have choice otherwise they feel trapped.
3.  Emotional resilience, which allows you to bounce back, DOES NOT come from being stressed or under pressure.

Looking at the statistics in the Guardian article and remembering the points above, it seems that things are getting out of control for our young people. The problem is that even though Natasha and many others (e.g. Ken Robinson) have been saying for ages that things need to change, it seems that many of the changes that have been implemented recently are going to make things worse NOT better. 

Over the last decade of home educating, I have seen the result of changes in schools as part of the home education community in my area. It seems that there are people taking their children out of school in ever-increasing numbers because they don't like the stress that their kids are put under at ridiculously young ages. This can't be right. 

As Ken Robinson said in his TED Talk - Bring on the learning revolution! - children are one of our natural resources and we are cannot afford to waste our young people's talents. Again this is one of major reasons I home educate and I have written about it in previous posts (here and here): I want my children to grow up with passion, and knowing their passions. 

Ever since Ken Robinson's - Do Schools Kill Creativity TED Talk back in 2006 (still the most viewed from TED ever!!) things don't seem to have shifted much although ironically schools now test more then they did back then.

Around the same time as that TED Talk Natasha created a body confidence lesson based on her own experiences with bulimia and depression which she talked about at the TEDex talk here and summarised below:

"They [eating disorders] would not happen if we didn't live in a culture that told us that if we looked different our lives would be better"

"We live in a world that provides fertile soil where low self-esteem can flourish."

"Loving yourself has to come from within"

The self-esteem team and Body Gossip education program are definitely things that I am going to be looking into and discussing with my both my ds and dd.

The talk that Natasha did at the Conference in April was about the mental health issues of young people and what a massive problem they are. She stated that at the crucial developmental stage of our children's young brains where they need:

1. safety
2. nurturing
3. valuing
4. a creative outlet to express their emotions in a positive way
5. space and time to think
6. time to play
7. support
8. someone who will listen to them without judgement

they are getting academic pressure and stress: "the education system is giving with one hand and taking away with the other."

She states that school is an environment that de-constructs self-esteem and low self-esteem is the key diagnostic criteria for the 4 most common mental illnesses in children - anxiety, depression, self-harming and eating disorders - the ones that have increased 6 fold in recent times.

Our children don't need stress or academic pressure to be able to deal with it or acclimatise them to it for later life. They aren't adults yet: their minds aren't ready for that. 

Mentally healthy and resilient adults are grown out of children who have such traits as: self-esteem, a healthy body image, positive self-belief, empathy for other people and the planet, a passion for life, an ability to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes, accountability for their actions, etc.

As Natasha says "well-being needs to be at the heart of any curriculum and education does not mean anything unless it happens within the context of a healthy mind." I hope someone starts listening but if history is anything to go by, I am not holding my breath. However what we can all do is let our children know that their mental health is way more important than any test result.

I have never told my children that they cannot go to school. They are free to choose every day of their lives. A fair number of their home ed friends have chosen to go at various times of their academic careers and they have always done really well. When you choose to take charge of your own education whether it be at home, at school, whilst travelling, later in life, etc. it is amazing what you can do. 

Passion + desire + freedom = whatever you can dream is possible

Lying, empathy and doughnuts

You can tell that there is a lot going on in my life at the moment because I seem to go in these waves of writing loads of blog posts and then nothing for months and months. The weird thing is that I tend to write more when I am busier. Maybe it is so that I get my thoughts down on a page so I don’t forget in the mad rush of life. Well whatever it is, here is another rambling of mine.

Lying
It seems that as parents we are really (and I mean really) bad at telling when our children are lying. A recent new study mentioned in the Daily Mail here and discussed in the Guardian here says that parents are only likely to spot their children lying 1/5th of the time as compared to other adults and even other adults are pretty bad at stopping a lie, getting it correct only half the time. I find this fascinating and scary all at the same time as I wonder does this follow up into adulthood where we still can’t tell when we are being lied to.

I only wonder this because again recent experiences with my friends and family have made me wonder how we overcome this idea that we have to always take a side in disagreements, arguments or any sort of dispute/break-up, etc. As a Mum of two children of different genders I suppose it might be easier for me to understand from both sides:

1. how would I feel if my daughter came home and said that something awful had happened with her boyfriend?
2. how would I feel if my son came home and described the above situation but from the point of view of my daughter's boyfriend?

Luckily my dd is still quite young and although older my ds does not have a girlfriend but this obviously doesn't have to a girlfriend/boyfriend scenario, it could be any disagreement or falling out.

The lying study clearly shows that as parents we always want to believe that our children are telling the truth but not only is there the fact that we are so rubbish at spotting when they are not BUT there is also ALWAYS at least 2 sides to a dispute and we are NEVER going to know the full story.

This is where we, as parents, can learn to be supportive but also be aware that we are flawed in spotting lies and not great at holding ourselves, and therefore others, accountable for their actions. I love this video by Brene Brown about accountability and blame. I used to be a blamer (more about this later!!) There is always a place for accountability for everyone but this involves communication: if you don’t communicate your feelings and just allocate blame everyone loses. The problem is that speaking up can be really difficult for some people (see my previous post about minimisers and maximisers) and so there needs to be an awareness of this in every relationship.

This is the type of education we can give our children growing up but also we can support our grown up children by providing a safe environment where they can be heard when things are not going so well in their relationships. We can help by maybe pointing them in the direction of tools/techniques for better communication, accountability and space in which to have healthy relationships where they can help their friends/partners grow rather than blaming, belittling and dysfunction and as parents wer can do this with love and compassion.

Empathy
If we can do this with empathy rather than sympathy (another great Brene Brown/RSA short video) then even better. Empathy drives connection (feeling WITH someone) by allowing the following:

1. Perspective taking - ability to take the perspective of another person (as mentioned above)
2. Perspective taking - recognising their perspective as their true
3. Staying out of judgement
4. Recognising emotion in others and communicating that

Obviously all these things can be really difficult but helping someone find these qualities when what they really want to do is blame someone for something is never going to help in the long run. Believe me, I have tried to remove the part I played in a difficult relationship on a fair few occasions. I liked to blame so I didn't have to take responsibility for my part. However I am always 50% responsible for anything that happens in any relationship and so are you. Owning that fact and being accountable for that will help you grow as a person and is such an important lesson to tell our children, young and old.

It isn't easy: I am still someone who tends towards blame as a modus operandi but I now have the knowledge and tools to help me to find a different way and realise that blaming works for a while but like eating a whole bag of doughnuts in one go, it seems a good idea at the time but after a while it doesn't feel so good. One of the easiest techniques for this is putting myself in someone else’s shoes (or number 1 above.)

Such an easy technique but so effective (and I always like the easy solutions!!) With my dispute idea wouldn't it be great to really feel how it would be to hear the other side. To wonder (if it is your son who has told you their tale of woe) how it would feel to hear the side of the other person (imagining they are also your child) who is telling their version of the same tale of woe. Would you do things differently? Knowing that you are never going to know the whole truth would you be more kind, gentle and hold your child more accountable for their own part in the tale? Also knowing that you probably aren't going to know when you are being told a lie would you be more compassion to ALL concerned?

There are always at least 2 sides to every story and those 2 sides can be from very different viewpoints. This is something I have come to realise listening to my own children talk about a disagreement they have had. Dd’s version is always TOTALLY different to ds’s much as my take on an argument with dh is always different to what I thought had occurred. Again this is something I try to model to my children on a regular basis in the hope that as they grow into adulthood they will own up when they have been complicit in some behaviour that wasn’t wholly healthy.

Luckily they have two parents who are very different who are very active in explaining this type of thing. I am always telling people that they only thing I “educate” my children in as a home educating parent is social situations and how to be authentic, accountable and empathetic in all their dealings with other people. Even more lucky for them they also have a multitude of fantastic role-models in their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends’ parents and people that I work with. Home education also means that they can spend a lot of time with all these extra people when they would normally be at school.

Anyway here is an interesting post by Alfie Kohn author of Punished by Rewards. This book is well worth a read if you want to know why rewarding children for doing stuff either with money, stars or whatever other system TOTALLY doesn't work in the long run. However the blog post is about types of motivation and love. Quite relevant to my last blog post about getting the love you want or not!!

And here is the great Doughnut parody by Dustin & Genevieve who are awesome. Enjoy the light relief!!!

My home education lifestyle

Sitting here listening to the noise from upstairs of my children playing with their various friends online, it has reminded me of why I live the life I do.
Over the last few weeks, there have been various reminders for me but there was also that report on ITV Calendar where the family were taught lessons at home.
I am a radical unschooler a.k.a how families used to live, or I am an autonomous educator a.k.a how all adults learn (if they wanted to keep learning) or some other random label. Basically, my kids learn by living and interacting with the world.

At present my 2 kids (in separate rooms) are talking to each other and at least 5 other people online discussing how (amongst other things) they are going to play an online distributed game of Dungeons and Dragons. They share information, are learning how to cooperate in groups, listen to each other, problem solve, discuss differences of opinion, etc.

This isn't all they do but it is the majority of their lives when in the house. It is beautiful to be a part of it when I can hear how they treat each other kindly and the ideas they come up with between them.

This social interaction is, for me, far more important than reading books (one of the most anti-social activities) or learning subjects out of context.
Computers and online activities are the books and radio of our time (in the past both those media were classed as problematic) but I think that being able to communicate with loads of people discussing all sorts of topics whilst playing minecraft, building stuff together, resolving problems, etc. is fab.

There are many ways to learn. Thank goodness.

Don't justify...just be happy!!! My home-educating and breastfeeding experiences...

My son and daughter have been educating themselves for nearly 13 years and 9 years 7 months respectively and I am one of the very few home educators who hasn't really had to justify why I think home educating is more natural than school.  The same way I didn't ever really have to justify breastfeeding even though my children both breastfed for between 3 and 4 years.  

To be honest I am not sure what I would say now if I was questioned about breastfeeding and home educating.  I know it would be different to what I would have said 9 years ago or even 5 years ago.  What I do know is that I really sympathise with people who write posts because they are so fed up of having to justify why they home educate without offending anyone, that they just get fed up and tell you the real reasons why they home educate. 

So here are some of my thoughts

Resilience
Children learn resilience from everyday life and learn it much more deeply when they are actively involved in resolving conflict or in dealing with whatever difficult situation faces them.  Bullying will NEVER fall into the category of building resilience unless it is resolved.  Seeing others get bullied will also not help children learn how to deal with conflict.

Maths - oh maths - don't get me started on maths.  I am a maths tutor, I love maths, I am a total geek but even I don't understand what the obsession is with maths.  All kids love to count.  It seems like it is built into their DNA: this desire to count steps, sort coins into like groups, collect stones and sort them into colours, or sizes or whatever.  Sorry to break it to you all but the maths your child learns at school seems pretty pointless to me unless they want to teach maths or go into a mathematical discipline at which point you are taught how to do it properly.

The fact that the powers-that-be keep changing the way maths is taught is very telling.  So is the fact that most of the time maths is taught as a separate subject taken out of context.  This makes it confusing and annoying to anyone who doesn't get maths.  Ken Robinson in his talk about Changing Education Paradigms sums it up well.  "Schools are still very much organised on factory lines...specialise into separate subjects.  We still educate children by batches.  Why is there this assumption that the most important thing kids have in common is how old they are."  Watch the full talk here and he goes into much more depth than I do.  But you do have to wonder how can we have taken such a great universal language that ALL children love and turned it into a subject where more than half of children who leave school hate maths?

How children learn
The same goes for socialising and is mentioned by Ken above.  We batch children by their date of manufacture.  Why do we do this?  Why not height, physical ability, mental ability, social ability?  Why not batch them by different things depending upon what you want them to learn?  It is already well known, and has been for years, that children learn best from people who know just a bit more than them so actually do we really need to batch children at all or could we just let them be with whomever they want to be with?  That would be more natural: letting children pick who they want to be with, like we do as adults.  You need to be around people to learn how to socialise and unless you are keeping your child in solitary confinement they are socialising whether you want them to or not, whether it be at school (where they are batched by date of manufacture) or not (where they socialise with anyone they come in contact with.)

Going to school is just one way of being
I have never come across the idea that children miss out on opportunities if they don't go to school.  But turn that on its head - what opportunities are children missing out on by going to school?  The chance to learn what they want, when they want to and when they are ready to enjoy it?  The chance to really absorb themselves in an activity without having to break or move to another subject?  As far as I am concerned our education system is out of date.  Teaching facts, especially out of context, is pretty pointless. We have facts at our fingertips every day because most of us have smartphones.  The internet holds all the facts and computers do calculations really well.

This factual, shallow learning does our children a huge injustice.  We need to be teaching our children creative thinking, conflict resolution, permaculture design, sustainability, survival skills, typing, physiology (how their bodies work), etc. NOT just facts.

We need our children to have the opportunity to find their "element" as Ken Robinson calls it and we need to be aware that we don't know what the future holds with regards to what skills we need.  I am pretty sure though that we can all agree that facts are not skills.  Edward De Bono says that schools only teach reactive thinking which is also not going to serve our children into the future.  We need design thinking, creative thinking not critical, analytical and reactive thinking and we need our children to know how to treat each other with respect.

When she was younger, my daughter was occasionally being told (by some of her "friends") that she is stupid because she doesn't know maths facts or stuff that is learnt at school.  Or that she wasn't liked any more because she has done something that has been classed as "bossy."  I tell my children about the difference between a person's actions and a person themselves.  One of the foundations of many communication systems like NVC or PET is the idea -> judge the action, not the person.  These are fundamental ideas that ALL children should know.  "You did something mean" NOT "You are mean."  Then there is also the idea of communicating your wants and needs from a friendship instead of name-calling and manipulation.  Again NVC has a great set of "rules" as to how to communicate your needs:

"<name of child> I experience you as bossy.  What I need from you is to understand that I want to be heard in this game situation and want to have my ideas listened to too"

or in my child language

"<name of child> in this game you are being bossy.  I need my game ideas to be heard too before we play"

NOT

"<name of child> you are bossy and I don't like you any more" -> in this scenario no-one gets their needs met, people get upset and someone has been unfairly labelled as bossy.

These are things that I model to my children as best I can as I am sure others do, but this is not something that I am aware of being taught at school as is evident by my daughter's interactions with some of her school-going peers.

Here's the Factual stuff.

WRT home educating, watch the Ken Robinson video here, do some of your own research but most of all don't judge home educators without knowing the facts.  

• You don't need to go to school to learn to read - my kids taught themselves to read at 11.5 and 5.5 years old
• You don't need to go to school to socialise - socialising is most easily learnt in a natural setting where life is lived.  
• You don't actually need to learn geography, science, maths, English or any of the subjects that are taught at school - someone else decided that curriculum and they decided it a long time ago
• School doesn't teach you anything that you cannot learn at home

Most of us just want to left alone to bring up our kids our way without having to justify it or make you feel better about the way you are bringing up your kids.  If you don't want to know the real reasons why we do it (school is out-dated, school is 40% a waste of time, school forces kids to learn stuff too early, exams have become so dumbed down that they are pointless, etc) then don't ask because one day you may come across the person who wrote the blog I mentioned at the top or who thinks those things in the brackets and you might get more than you bargained for.

But please whatever you do, do your research.  Be happy that what you are doing with your children is the best thing for them and the right thing for you as a family.  And if you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else or trying to get them to justify their decisions about their kids to make you feel better, then you might be doing something wrong and should maybe consider re-evaluating your decisions.

None of this is meant to offend anyone although if that is your bag go forth and be offended (although also feel free to read my blog post about not being offended instead!!)  

WRT breastfeeding, breastfeeding is natural and anything else is a substitute with varying degrees of health benefits from expressing, wet-nursing, using other's breast milk via a bottle, organic formula downwards.  Breast milk is the only thing your baby is meant to have nutritionally speaking.  Less than 1% of people cannot breastfeed for medical reasons.  The rest either didn't want to or didn't know what to do because they were given bad advice by professionals, didn't research it properly, we're not given decent support from friends or family or didn't know where to access decent support.  The best way to be successful at anything is research, support and practice.  Breastfeeding is just the same.  

Again I was lucky.  Breastfeeding hurt like hell but then it got better as it usually does at around 6 weeks. But don't be fooled.  You are a mammal.  Mammals have mammary glands for feeding their babies.  If you want to know more facts go here and if you want decent advice about breastfeeding go to La Leche League(LLL), Association of Breastfeeding mothers(ABM) or NCT.

My reasons
If you are actually interested in why I full-term breastfed or why I home-educate here are just some of my reasons:

I breastfed my kids because:

• I am lazy
• It was easy
• It gave them comfort
• It was designed for them
• It helped me lose weight
• It stopped me getting my periods back so soon
• It was free
• It is why I have breasts
• It means I am less likely to get breast cancer
• It has numerous health benefits for my children
• It would make my children more intelligent
• I don't like feeding my kids from a plastic bottle
• It was a great way to get them to sleep
• It can be done anywhere

I home educate my children because:

• I wanted their natural curiosity for the world to continue uninterrupted.  They learnt to walk, talk, feed themselves and go to the toilet by themselves so I believed they could teach themselves other stuff too.
• I wanted them to learn at their own pace where I believe deeper and more profound learning occurs.
• I think the National Curriculum is a waste of time.  The focus on English (which we all speak); Maths (most of which we don't need to learn) as opposed to mental arithmetic (which I think is quite useful) and Science as opposed to physiology, proactive thinking skills and sustainability (or any other skills) makes no sense to me. 
• I think exams are pointless especially now when you can only really be judged exam-grade wise against the people who did their exams in the same year as you.  The marks, boundaries and subjects just keep changing too much to give a decent comparison so making them useless to employers and academic institutes alike.  
• I wanted them to mix (socialise) with people of all ages for the most part of their day because I feel it gives a more realistic feel of the real world.
• I didn't want them forced to learn things they are not interested in or are not ready to learn such as reading.  I felt that I was forced to read at school when I wasn't ready and it made me dyslexic.  
• They only have one childhood and I would like them to have fun
• If they want to go to school it will be their choice

Useful books and authors mentioned in the blog
Edward De Bono - Teach Your Child How to Think
Tony Buzan - Mindmaps for Kids
Ken Robinson - TED talks - Changing Education Paradigms; Bring on the Learning Revolution; How to Escape Education's Death Valley and How schools kill creativity
Carl Honore - In Praise of Slow
Tom Hodgkinson - The Idle Parent: Why Less Means More When Raising Kids
Marshall B. Rosenberg - Non-Violent Communication (NVC)
Thomas Gordon - Parent Effectiveness Training (PET)
Permaculture Design