Facebook - Act I

Not anything to do with Home Education. What do you do when you are facebook friends with your children? They get to see all sorts of messages from my mum friends, not all in terribly good taste. And the other way round, my dear relatives get to see tasteless comments from my offspring if they have a look at my wall.

I have ticked off each of my sons once via a comment after some mis-spellings of swearing (double whammy). I have now promised I will not 'see' anything I might be annoyed by in future. We have sort of agreed that if any of us defriends the other it's just part of facebook and we have the perfect right to defriend whoever we want. All very mature so far.

Let's wait for Act II.

The Moon

Well, I love the full moon because it is so round and lights up the house at night.

Earlier I suggested a sit on the bench outside to the children, but it's too much like middle aged nature worship for them.

I'll just have to go out there by myself.......

It is very still out there, just the ringing of the bells for 11 0'clock. There is a breath of wind, colder than before, but the trees aren't moving. The moon is burning through a thin layer of cloud. I felt very transitory sitting on a door step which will probably be there in 50 year's time.

Taking photos

We went off to take photos today. I'll add some when I can. It was such a good feeling to be asked to get into the car and just go to somewhere photogenic.

The children have discovered the joys of going to playgrounds to lark around and take pictures of each other. We swap cameras/mobiles and snap away. I hold onto the kit when they need both hands for climbing.

It means being outside so I get some nature observation time too, ie touching sticky leaf buds on low tree branches and peering at nettle flowers. I had no idea they flowered until so late in the year.

It made a good contrast to my filthy temper of yesterday :)

Not good

For an autonomous home educator I can rant and rave about handwriting and spelling with the best of them. I well and truly turned into a mum from hell today.

All those awful phrases came out. The ones you know about because you have used them in anger and fury when you are fed up of not being able to easily impress the family and friends with neatly written letters or lap books.

To be fair I only suggested one word of handwriting practice per day, ie copywork. I even said it could be their own names, which they started writing at pre-school. Eye roll. This is regressing by 8 and 10 years!

Oh the arguments ran on and on, upstairs, downstairs....

Private schooling, state village schooling, they said that if with all those years of school their writing wasn't very good then so be it. I said that meant it was now MY turn to impose decent handwriting on them. That stumped them.

Confess, who amongst you hasn't yet used the example of Obama and his mother as an argument for doing the school work your mother sets you? Well, today was my day for bringing that one out.

Finally they both gave me examples of fresh handwriting and I stopped roaring.

We did have a discussion about the fact that I still think my autonomous approach is best even though I can't really say why. My son explained that it was because of my approach he started saying 'I love you' to me. That is the heart of it. They told me to lie down under a duvet and stood around watching me calm down. I felt a bit of a twit after that and couldn't help smiling.

Change

I am using this as a starting point for reflection.

1. My older son has a work experience week next June. So we have been discussing ideas. I approached one local company on his behalf. The answer was no, but I'm glad I asked them. Then my son had a second idea, I approached them with an email, and lo and behold, the answer is yes. I am over the moon. We need to do a careful follow up to confirm things with them and with my son's school, so everyone knows what the position is.

What a change that is, thinking about the world of adults, work and business.

2. My younger son astounded me 2 nights ago by asking to do some maths right there and then. I zipped down stairs to my maths HE shelf, took the appropriate year book plus an exercise book I had free, then whizzed back. We looked at the contents page, saw how clearly it was laid out and my son asked me to just say things when he asked, and asked me to do the writing, so I did.

Come the morning he told me he wants to do Maths O level and A level. So my next project is finding a kind maths tutor and finding out about the Maths sessions at the closest Montessori secondary school to us. The book I have is ideal though and I have the next book up too.

3. My last change has been about the old debate on age ratings. This one just won't go away. However time is on my side, on all our sides, because the children are moving inexorably towards magic 18 anyway. The change was that I used the phrase 'trust the process' with reference to my own growing slackness as a parent.

As they get older I will worry less about obeying the strict rules and will be more of a push over, but pushing me to be like this just makes me jam in my toes! So I am advising my younger son in all seriousness to back off and let me get more relaxed as a parent in my own time. He has, so I think he can recognise a universal truth when he sees one!

LAN party

We loaded up the car with 2 computers, plus all the extras. There was a one hour set up period, then the lights were altered to be more party-ish and Guitar Hero was turned on.

It was such a good experience, calm, fun, chilled, relaxed, silly. There were some parents there too, mainly fathers, for the whole evening. The age range was 8? up to 20ish?, plus parents. There were some girls there too. They played with each other more, laughing and joking, lovely to see, that little bit different from how the boys interact, but all in the same room together, getting what they wanted out of it.

There was a pizza and garlic bread supper at half way, but people took their own sweets if they wanted, so it wasn't regimented at all. I drove off to get some crisps my children wanted half way through.

Someone I knew from years ago was there too and for the last 2 hours I found a corner to sit in and read my book with a cup of coffee beside me!

People took their systems apart around 11pm, all very calm. We were busy at home afterwards setting up the systems again. Amazing...no cables were lost, nothing was damaged, no drink spilt on anything. I'm still on a bit of a high after all that.

Thumping Bass

Yes, the ceiling above my head is almost moving! Our household has well and truly moved into the teenage years of music, games, computers etc. One person wears headphones and the other likes a room full of noise. I'm like that too, so I can't complain.

I actually asked H if he'd consider bringing his music and speakers down here so the kitchen would be more fun.

A Midsumer-Night's Dream

'The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.'

This is what I love about choosing to read the Shakespeare play listed for each term. Slowly, in my own time, I discover what has been on my shelf for decades, just there, funny bits, shocking bits, single words used with meanings I had forgotten about. Even the print is frail, some of the letters must have been a tiny bit worn when they were type set, so they have not picked up the ink evenly.

B is for Birthday

My son H doesn't like his biological birthday, so a couple of years ago he appointed 12th October as his official birthday. This took some getting used to. I was worried that come his bio birthday he would be unhappy at not getting a present from me. Anyway we managed to divide up into the people who agreed to go along with it and those like me who preferred to give a present on the anniversary of his birth.

This time I was more content with the idea and while he was asleep went into his room to attach a big Happy Birthday banner right across the walls. I made a little heap of presents and cards too.

When I woke him in the morning he smiled the largest smile ever, a wonderful beam of joy and surprise on seeing the banner.