Monster & Teeny

Monday - We went to a new (to us) Home Ed group - as mentioned on Green House By The Sea and on Where The Days Go . A really good venue for a group with a nice large room with seating at one end and a low table for crafty stuff and a kitchen and breakfast bar at the other end, a large sports hall room for ball games and some outside space too. There was air drying clay, drawing and colouring on offer, plenty of other children to run around with, science experiments of getting electricity from an apple and some cooking of spelt flour rock buns. Monster and Teeny managed to participate in it all with particular mention to the air drying clay which was used to make creations left to dry ready for painting with acrylic paints next week and the running around yelling with other children.

We left there and had a quiet couple of hours at home watching a film before A came home. Monster and I went off to Badgers where they made telephones from cups and string. When I went in to collect him at the end all of the other Badgers were lined up facing the three adults doing a song and dance about zombies. Monster was stood off to one side watching and smiling at them all. I asked him why he hadn’t joined in and he said it ‘was a bit mad really!’. Apparently the adults had performed the song and then said ‘who wants to learn how to do it?’ to which all the other children had shouted ‘yes!!!’ and joined in, but Monster had declined the offer and stood to watch instead. I really love that he was happy to stand out and not join in rather than follow the crowd.

I then took him off to McDonalds where he went up to the counter and ordered his own Happy Meal, he put the penny change in the charity box and we talked a bit about charities generally and the McDonalds one specifically. 

Tuesday A quiet day with some X boxing, some watching a film which arrived from Tescos dvd rental - Laura’s Star, which I didn’t watch but seemed to go down well with Monster and Teeny. We walked to the post office with some parcels and as they were clearly full of energy I tasked them with finding all the letters in Monster’s name and all the letters in Gromit. They did too. Using road names, drain cover letters, those on telegraph poles and lampposts, car registration plates etc. Monster constantly recognised the word ‘water’ it was written so often so I think he’ll remember that one when he sees it again too.

Wednesday  We went to some local woods with SIL, J & M, Lucy, R & R, Lucy’s friend Sam and her son A and SIL’s Mum and boyfriend - so quite a crowd! We went there loads last Autumn / Winter but have not been for quite a while. It is a smallish area of NT woodland with a large duckpond, loads of trees and fallen trunks etc to explore and a lovely safe envrionment for them to go off ahead in their games and adventures. We had a walk and then headed back to the carpark for picnic lunches, Sam and A left us and the rest of us headed back into the woods again. We found an area where very long branches had been used to create a teepee sort of structure so the children played for ages in that, bringing over sticks and branches of their own to add and weave into it. Then we followed the children (well Monster really) as they went off in front and ended up taking a very very long detour. The children did really well actually but it was rather too long and most of them needed a carry or a piggy back at some point along the way. R and R and Teeny all fell asleep on the way home in the car despite feeding them chocolate to raise their blood sugar levels and give them some energy back. A lovely day though .

A friend we used to work with in Manchester was staying locally for work so he came over in the evening, bringing many well received gifts for the children and stayed the night.

Thursday Over to Lucy’s for the day. A really nice day with lots of playing and chat. We had a brief walk down to the park on the beach where the children split into various combinations of the four of them with lots of imaginative and role playing games - and ran off loads of energy in the rather blustery and drizzling weather.

In the morning Monster had managed to storm through 3 levels of an X box game  he has been battling with and suddenly mastered while Teeny wrote me lots of ‘notes’ in her banana paper notebook which was one of the pressies from our visitor.

Friday A surprise text from Helen of Petits Haricots on Wednesday to say they were camping near us for a couple of nights meant we had a lovely visit from them today. Lucy, R & R also came over, having met The Beans at Kessingland and 3/4 of them again at Monster’s birthday party. Monster gets on very well with SB so the two of them disappeared together straight away and appeared to fall back into whatever game they had left off the last time they saw each other, which was lovely. Teeny and BB joined in as and when with a mammoth dressing up and coming in to pose fest throughout the afternoon.

Chris popped out for non-meat food to add to our carnivores dinner and they stayed for the evening too, which was really lovely. A gave the children some glow sticks to play with which kept them happily occupied as we changed from tea to wine and enjoyed our meal and further chatting. They left with moments to spare to get back to their campsite before locking up time would have meant a trek across the field rather than parking next to their tent. And made it!

Saturday A lazy morning from me, seeing off the last dregs of a cold which had laid me a bit low all week and basking in a lovely hot bath for ages. A did some gardening and the children were fairly low key. Around lunchtime we headed off to stay with Layla & Si for a lovely night out for me and a lovely night in for A. We had a couple of drinks and a relax before heading round to Chris and Alison’s for a while. We went back to L&S’s so Layla and I could prepare ourselves before going back round to Alison’s to meet Alison, Ros and Sarah to go out for a meal. We had a very nice evening although the end of my cold and tiredness from a busy week had me a bit quieter and reserved than my reputation normally dictates . Monster and Teeny meanwhile were having a lovely time with C being looked after by Si and A.

Sunday A lazy start to the day with a starter of breakfast at L&S’s while looking at their wedding photos as the children X boxed and drew pictures, then we all headed back round to Chris and Alison’s for brunch. We left around midday to get home in time for me to go food shopping. A quiet afternoon and an early night all round.

Monster was six a couple of weeks ago. He *should* have been in full time school for over a year now, he’d have completed reception and be in year one. We began our Home Ed journey in reaction to Monster’s terrible experiences at a private day care nursery when he was just 18 months old.

Writing about that time now I find it hard to believe I went through with something for so long which I felt so bad about, that I managed to ignore and overcome all my own instincts and emotions and those of my son just because I had people, particularly professionals telling me I was doing the right thing. The fact is Monster hated it. Really hated it. He cried every morning when I dropped him off there, he cried periodically during the time he was there, ran to me and clung to me like he could never bear to let me go again when I came to collect him and then started crying again the next time he was dropped off there. This continued for nine whole months, two days a week. And we went from a crying 18 month old child to a crying 27 month old who had words to tell me he didn’t want to be left, please Mummy. But still I did it, I listened to the nursery owners and workers who told me he was getting ‘better’ and sometimes even seemed happy there for a brief time. I listened to the Health Visitor who told me that often some children took a while to settle, but they always did eventually. I listened to other parents on forums and in real life who were keen to tell me of children they’d heard of or even parented themselves who had too hated this initial seperation but eventually gotten over it and I listened to society generally that told me that aged 5 he would be off to school anyway so would simply have to get used to it, get used to that environment, get used to being dropped off somewhere by me every day, get used to holding his own in a group of children, get used to being comforted by someone other than me when he fell and grazed his knee, get used to learning things according to the National Curriculum in tidily packaged one hour segments. Oh and of course the socialisation - musn’t forget that!

It was only in a highly emotional state, 24 hours after giving birth to my daughter that I finally realised the sheer lunacy of what I was doing. I drove to the nursery with my newborn, took my son home again and promised him that he would never have to go back there again. I sent my husband to the nursery with a letter to tell them Monster wouldn’t be coming back and that was that.

I found a lovely, gentle, grandmotherly lady who came to our home two mornings a week which both solved the childcare issue as I still needed childcare to continue my job at that time, and assisted with gently restoring my son’s confidence, personality and anxiety as he was able to see that I could still leave him for periods of time without it being the traumatic, wrenching experience he’d had previously when I walked out of a door.

I would state here that the nursery did nothing wrong. It was, as nurseries go, a very good nursery. Very highly rated by Ofsted, very clean and friendly with brightly painted walls, exhibitions of the childrens’ art work, freshly cooked meals, happy smiling staff who genuinely liked children. If you were going to put your offspring in an institution I can’t really think of a nicer one.

So we started to explore the options for preschool and school, knowing that adjusting to being left somewhere was not something that would come easily to our son and that he wouldn’t magically be ready for pre school in a years time and suddenly happily trot off holding a Thomas lunchbox. I felt it would be the final nail in his coffin. I had heard of Home Education but my experience of it was limited to remembering watching Wogan interviewing a girl and her father. He was teaching her at home and she was some sort of maths genuis who took her A level aged 8 or something. She was pale, quiet, very adult and serious and it seemed a very odd thing to do. But I belonged to a parenting forum where several mothers with older children than mine had offered me sensible, common sense advice on other parenting questions and both happened to be Home Educators. They directed me to Muddlepuddle, I joined Education Otherwise, I read and researched and debated with friends and family. We went from ‘thinking about Home Education’ to deciding it was what we would do very, very quickly.

Far from the great weight of responsibility or fretting about how it would work that people seemed to expect my overwhelming feeling was one of relief. I could honestly look my son in the eye and tell him he never had to go to preschool or school if he didn’t want to. He wasn’t going to end up bullied and defeated and scared, he could stay home with me until he was ready to spread his wings in his own time. I was reassured that there were just so many other people out there doing it, that there were curriculums and workbooks and the internet and the library to furnish me with all the educational resources I needed (this was back in the day before I had heard of and embraced autonomy. At this stage it was all about keeping Monster out of that building with SCHOOL written over the door). I had learnt that you didn’t ‘have’ to go to school, little children didn’t ‘have’ to don a uniform to drape their tiny bodies and ‘get used to’ being yanked away from their parents, parents don’t need to only learn about what information their offspring are being taught and how they are progressing by parents evenings and school reports or watching undercover ‘what really happens in the classroom’ type exposes on Channel four.

Of course there is no way of knowing who or what Monster would be like if we had continued down the usual path. If we’d persisted with nursery, ploughed on through preschool and battled into reception. Would he still be crying every morning in year one? I know that there are children who do and I think Monster could well have been one of them. But what I know for certain is what Home Education has done for him, what sort of child I have a result of that decision. He is confident, self assured and happy. He has an amazingly wide circle of friends - a classroom full of children came to his recent birthday party, but instead of being all the same age as him and living within a 3 mile radius they range from babies to 10 year olds and live scattered all over the country - not dissimilar to the ideal social circle for an adult really . He is popular in his various groups and friendship circles and feels secure, loved, wanted and valued. He has passions - some are enduring and have lasted years, some are flash in the pan but he has time, space and support to follow them. He is loud and full of energy - traits which in the main he is allowed to demonstrate and enjoy without fretting over whether it is the appropriate time of day to be being loud and if it will disrupt others. He has a curiosity about everything and constantly seeks knowledge and information, he has amazing coaching skills and is excellent with younger children - a skill honed from spending much time in the company of younger relatives and friends which would not have been an opportunity open to him if he had been in school five days a week. He learns about the water cycle by monitoring puddles, looking at the clouds and explaining it to Teeny, he learns the changing of the seasons by walking in the woods and noting the changing colours and textures of the trees around him and leaves under his feet, he learns to count, add and subtract by catching rabbits on his current favourite X box game, he learns to read by spotting letters in road signs, drain covers and car registration plates as we go out walking, he learns about building friendships by conducting them and seeking out potential friends in the park, at Home Ed gatherings, the children of friends and joining in, creating games and sharing ideas. Not by turn taking games, activities designed to raise self esteem, literacy and numeracy hours or indeed any one else’s idea of how he should fill his days, what to learn about or what is important other than his own.