Loving the Here and Now

Like many people, I suppose, I strive to “live in the moment” more. It seems I’ve spent my entire adult life looking ahead to the next step of my journey and not savouring where I am at the time.

The most recent shift in my life came 1.5 years ago when we moved from our urban 2-bedroom apartment to a suburban house with a yard. I was so excited about the move; while I loved our old neighbourhood, the apartment faced North and got little daylight. Now light streams in from all sides, all day. We also have a huge wrap-around deck. In the summer months it extends our living area to the outside. There is a huge yard with a play structure and plenty of room for me to grow vegetables.

But it’s not “ours”. We are renters. For many years now I have desperately wanted to own a home. It wasn’t long after moving to this house that I began to sour on it, seeing how much I wanted to change and couldn’t. For the past year or two I have been focussed on The Next Step in our lives, purchasing a home. We’ve saved up, the market is dropping, all was going according to plan, and I could think of almost nothing else.

Then Husband got laid off. He couldn’t find work, so he started his own business working from home. He’s not making the money he used to (not yet, anyways) but wow, is it ever wonderful having both of us at home (now that we’ve got a schedule for ourselves, that is!). I realized a little while ago that I didn’t want to him to work out of the home anymore, that I was willing to forgo a higher income to maintain our wonderful lifestyle.

And with that acceptance, an amazing transformation happened that really surprised me. I began to fall in love with the Now.

Between training for a 10km race and geocaching with Daughter I’ve been discovering many new trails and green spaces in our area lately. We essentially live on the side of a heavily forested mountain. Neighbourhoods are connected by paved walking trails that wind through small sections of forest and cross ravines where fish still spawn.  There are dozens of hiking trails. Nearby is a massive Conservation Reserve where a wide, paved service road runs 11 km through a spectacular alpine valley to a region of Old Growth forest. Here are just a few photos, all taken nearby:

So while I dislike the manicured lawn aesthetic of our suburban residential street, in minutes I can immerse myself in the kind of soul-lifting natural beauty that brings me closest to a spiritual experience. I have heard the great horned owl calling, mornings are filled with birdsong from chickadees and warblers and sparrows. The staccato sound of Pileated Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers is like a musical drumbeat. And the other day while running through a wooded area I passed underneath a Black-Eyed Junco, sitting on a low-hanging branch singing his heart out. How lucky am I?

As for the house, my perspective on being a renter has mysteriously “righted” itself again. Instead of seeing the things I want to change, lately I see a whole lot of money I don’t need to spend, and headaches I don’t need to take on. Life feels simple, and free. And I’m grateful for the Now.

A personal challenge

Today I did it: I registered for a big 10K run held in our city each year.

I started running last July and have managed to keep it up, although over the worst parts of winter I slid a bit in my endurance due to too many missed runs. I have started up again in earnest in preparation for this 10K run, which is to take place on April 19.

It’s perhaps an interesting observation that I am less concerned about doing the run than I am about getting my sorry butt out of bed early enough to make it downtown by 9 am on a Sunday!

Diagnosis: within the normal range!

I mentioned before that the school brought in a “classroom consultant” to help the teacher figure out how to deal with Son’s hitting issues, not to mention a couple of other children who were also bringing “challenges” to the class. The consultant came on two separate days to observe the class, with an eye in particular on my son’s behaviours. After her observations and further discussion with the teacher, funding for an extra teacher was approved.

This past week the consultant met with Husband and I to discuss her findings and to interview us. We didn’t know what to expect, but my fear was that she was going to suggest that Son had some kind of “diagnosable condition” like ADD or whatever. She spent most of the time asking us questions about Son – his likes and dislikes, which situations work well for him and which don’t, questions about his abilities to perform tasks, play with stuff, etc. She then talked about what recommendations she was going to make in her report to the teacher. The purpose of this report is to make suggestions for activities and/or changes in the environment that will help both Son and other children in the class.

For example, there is a “rocket ship” structure in the classroom. It’s basically a large wooden box, about 2′ x 3′ and 4′ tall attached to a corner of the room with a single large circular opening as the “entrance”. While some children love to play in there, and can do so quite successfully, for my Son such an environment is courting disaster. The consultant told us that this sort of structure is actually challenging for many children and is not the sort of thing she would recommend having in a preschool class. At the very least, it should have two entrances so children don’t feel “trapped” or a “peephole” through which kids can communicate with those who don’t wish to go inside. These are the types of things that will go into her report.

By the way, a very interesting outcome of our discussion of Son’s behaviour in tight quarters led to the eye-opening suggestion by her that our boy might be claustrophobic. It was one of those lightbulb moments where Husband and I just went “wow….that would explain so much!”.

I also told her Son’s story: how he started out at age 2 “randomly assaulting” children without so much as a glint of expression on his face other than curiosity perhaps. His modus operandi was to grab hold of their checks and squeeze, to scratch slowly, or to pull hair: all sensory experiences. And then I described how, over the course of his fourth year (age 3 to 4)  he began to show clear signs of empathy, recognizing that he was hurting kids and feeling bad about it. The aggression then changed into a response to clear frustration or anger (which was sort of a relief for me; I’d worried that Son was a sociopath!) with hitting now being the most common occurrence. But the key piece of my worrying was my suspicion that he still, every now and then, appeared to lash out at a child for “no apparent reason”.

Well, the consultant explained to me that there was “always a reason” (I’m sure she meant in the absence of any pathology). It may be that the “victim” had done something earlier that wasn’t noticed by anyone (like a verbal exchange). Or it may be that the “victim” was in the wrong place at the wrong time as the child finally let loose in response to something that may have happened earlier with a different child or group of children. She explained how kids process emotions and how it is not at all unusual for their frustration to come out at times that appear disconnected (to us) from the event.

She also pointed out that keeping that anger/frustration under control takes a whole lot of energy (ask any parent, ha ha) and kids are already expending huge amounts of mental energy as they engage in various play activities around the classroom. Taking turns, sharing, working together, figuring out puzzles, exploring building toys, creating art…all these activities take mental energy and some kids can be particularly challenged by them. For example, one day my Son apparently engaged in a friendly 20 minute game of “Bingo” with 3 other children at a table without any incident: that alone required turn-taking, patience, dealing with the frustration of not marking their card, not winning, etc). The consultant said that some kind of physical outlet after such an activity would be good for our son and kids like him, as this had obviously taken a good deal of focus on his part.

At the end of our talk I was so relieved. She saw nothing abnormal about his language, motor skills, play, etc…his “personal challenges” are limited to the social/behavioural aspect of dealing with anger and frustration in socially appropriate ways. I told her that I had been worried she would tell us he has some sort of “disorder” and she said that if she had noticed signs that were consistent with a known condition (autism, etc) she would be ethically bound to share that with us: she saw no such signs. What a relief!

So here’s the bottom line: she agreed that our boy has many behaviours that are what would be called “sensory seeking” and “sensory avoidance” but not to the point of having SID or something similar. She agreed that his “aggression” at age 2 was probably just sensory-seeking. She suggested that he no longer engages in “unprovoked” attacks, but rather has difficulty regulating himself when angry or frustrated. She pointed out the many ways in which he successfully navigated challenging situations during her observation, and I myself have noticed these more regularly now. It’s to be expected that when he has reached his limit he will “fail” and we shouldn’t let those obscure all the successes that came before that final incident.

The extra teacher will continue to work with him as I have done since the very beginning: giving him the tools he needs to replace the hitting with more socially appropriate expressions of emotion. He is doing SO WELL with this and now that he has someone to stand by him through the whole preschool day, I am feeling really confident that he will make huge progress.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have my gut feeling about him validated. It has also helped me to get a clear mental picture of where he was and where we are going. The worst part of all this journey was not understanding why he was doing the things he was doing! Now I feel I understand and it gives me a much clearer picture of where to go from here. I also see that light at the end of the tunnel and am so grateful!

A Happy Ending

Note: if you are new to this blog, or reading after an absence, you might want to check out the two previous posts to get the background of this story…

We recently had our monthly parents meeting at Son’s preschool. The issue of “inappropriate communications” was raised briefly, and the rules for addressing issues and concerns was restated for all. Then the teacher spoke about inclusion and what that meant to her (that all children have a right to be there). She also introduced the new teacher and reminded people that this person’s job was to assist “one of the children” so that hopefully things would be running more smoothly. By the end of this it wouldn’t have been hard for someone to connect the dots and come to the fairly obvious conclusion that an anonymous (and unpleasant) communication had been received that was directed toward our family and probably questioned his right to be there.

We then broke off into groups to discuss various scenarios that occur in the classroom and how duty parents can respond to them (last month some parents had asked for this opportunity). However, given what had just preceded this exercise it was no surprise that many people were focussing on the issue of kids hitting each other and kids getting hurt, etc.

I should tell you that I ended up figuring out the most likely candidate for our mystery letter even before we went to the meeting. At the meeting she stared at her shoes most of the time and didn’t look very happy, while you could see everybody else thinking “wow, what sort of intrigue has gone on that I haven’t heard about?”. I deliberately did not sit in her group when we broke up for discussions. Within just a few minutes of starting I became aware that someone behind me was crying: a discreet glance over my shoulder confirmed that it was my Suspect, sharing something with her group. She was pretty much in tears for the rest of the evening, and before we left I saw her sitting next to the teacher in a “confessional” position, crying. I don’t know if she confessed or if she just finally broke down and expressed all the pent-up feelings that led to her doing that, but I was glad to see it. Not out of any malice, but because I could see quite clearly that she was someone to feel sorry for: confused, upset, and only able to express those feelings in a dysfunctional and destructive way.

When we left, she and her partner were staying behind to speak with the teacher. I don’t think it escaped many other people that she just might be the person who had done this. I felt really good knowing that her identity may in the end be guessed at by the rest of the class through no action on my part. I am proud that we did the Big Thing.

And I’ll share a secret with you…doing the Big Thing had lots of unforeseen benefits. First, I am amazed at how easily I recovered from this incident once I let go of any feelings of anger. I was wondering if it would be very hard for me to be at that meeting (I would normally be filled with anxiety in such a situation), but I felt quite calm and in control of my emotions that night. I am sure that had I not let go of the negative feelings, the evening would have practically given me an ulcer. I am also pleased at how it changed my perspective of the person who did this. When I saw her at the meeting I didn’t feel any animosity or anger, I just felt sorry for her. By the end of the meeting, I was hoping she would get the support she needed.

This whole experience has ended up being a very “Zen” one for me, and I am actually grateful to have had the experience.

Being Big

My first reaction when I received the nasty letter was to send out a mass email to all parents saying “which one of you cowards left this for us?”. I quickly quelled that instinct in favour of calling the teacher and reporting it.

When I later received a suspicious email that could be regarded as harmless were it not for the letter, my first reaction was to reply to this anonymous person with “Who are you and how did you gain access to this confidential email group?”. But I resisted. I couldn’t explain why, but I knew that the best reaction was no reaction.

And when the president of the preschool called me yesterday morning to see how I was doing, I expressed a bit of frustration that the matter was not going to be presented in full detail to the other parents. But I recognized that revealing the full content of the letter might only serve to establish more completely any division among groups that were “for” and “against” the sentiments expressed in the letter. It just may cause more division within the ranks, rather than moving toward healing.

The president said that they felt the best thing to do, the “big” thing to do, would be not to dwell on the letter itself, but to address the underlying issues and move forward. Later that day, enveloped in the warm embrace of an afternoon with our homeschooling group, I felt a peace settle upon me and I immediately sensed that what I wanted to do was the “big” thing.

Whoever sent that letter does not deserve the decency of a reply. Instead, I wish to focus on the issues raised; that of my son’s presence in the school being detrimental to the place. It has been made abundantly clear to me through this process that we are welcome and wanted at the school, so really that issue has been addressed and dealt with. How ironic for the sender of that letter that his/her actions resulted in the exact opposite reaction than what they wanted. Instead of feeling like we should leave, I have felt even more strongly that we are welcome.

The other issue that needs addressing is how we can accommodate my son’s needs without draining the resources of the school or the more personal resources of the teacher. Son’s assessment has resulted in approved funding for an extra teacher, so the school is not having to pay for that. This teacher, who is presumably assigned more or less to my son, should alleviate a great deal of the stress and extra work for the principal teacher. I have decided to focus my energies on ensuring that is happening, and doing what I can to help.

Thus, I now feel a lifting of the anxiety and stress associated with The Incident, and I feel empowered to move this in a positive direction. It’s a good feeling.

It’s not always easy to do the Big thing, to walk away from provocation and rise above the pettiness of the coward and bully. But having made my decision, I am quite certain that this path will lead to far more peace and positive outcomes than any meeting of the accuser on their level could do. I consider this experience to be a good Life Lesson for me, and in that sense I am actually almost grateful it happened.

Summer Break

Our homeschooling program is coming to an end for the year. Of course, for an unschooling family not much will change. I won’t have to write my twice-monthly report on what Daughter has been up to, otherwise, life will continue as it has all along.

We are, however, finishing our last community centre class today and I haven’t registered the kids for anything in the summer session (the leagues of parents desperate not to be “stuck” with their kids all summer filled up most of the classes long before I realized it was time for the next term). We’re taking a break from classes and I for one am happy about that.

As a homeschooling mum I feel like these classes are really an important part of their early education. But doing classes has been a battle for years. Daughter turned 3 when Son was about 9 months old meaning parent-participation classes were out for us, not that there were many left. In the mainstream world of preschool, 3 year olds are expected to be able to function without the comfort and security of their parents. My child was not there yet, and I foolishly tried to push the issue before accepting that a) it would not be detrimental for her to leave off classes for a while, b) it would be detrimental for me to push her beyond her comfort limits, and c) I could pretty much guarantee myself that, at some point, she would willingly attend a class without me.

Finally, when she was 4 that small step towards independence was taken and she enjoyed gym and pottery. This last term her brother finally reached the age (and, more importantly, the maturity level) to handle attending classes. Conveniently, at 3 and 5 they were able to be in the same class together. Son would feel more assured with his sister there, I reasoned, and I would enjoy an unprecedented break every now and then. I thought it was the start of a new era.

It didn’t quite work out the way I’d planned, however. Son had some separation issues (not as intense as his sister at that age, however) and if I suggested that he just not go in that day then Daughter would insist that she not go either. We dropped out of gym class early in the term because Son simply could not focus to the degree required (the first half of the class was an all ages warmup, meaning big lineups that Son just couldn’t handle) which left a 1 hour pottery class and a 1.5 hour art class. Son was hot and cold about pottery; more often than not I found myself bribing him to go. Daughter finally confessed last week that she didn’t want to do pottery anymore (she’s taken the same class for three terms now; my shelves are overflowing with the same bowls, pencil holders, and lumpy animal figures).

The only success was the art class. I credit this to an experienced teacher and a very small class size (they keep it limited to 6 kids). There are several activities, including a story time and sing-a-long circle. I was nervous about leaving my energetic, restless, and sometimes too-physical boy in this environment. So I was delighted when I came to pick them up on day 1 and saw him sitting there singing along, doing the hand movements, and clearly enjoying himself. Today is the last day of that class and I will miss it. Having 1.5 hrs to myself was gold! And the kids have always enjoyed it (this class does not go over the summer).

We’ll hold off on classes again until September when I think Son will finally be ready for some classes on his own. He is very much into physical play and is showing an interest in ball sports. Daughter enjoys more cerebral pursuits, although she says she wants to learn golf. I’m also considering some sort of preschool-type class for Son, no more than twice a week. It’s hard for him to be always under the umbrella of a precocious and highly verbal sister with strong leadership tendencies. I think it would be nice for him to enjoy an enriching play environment and develop himself on his own terms.

In the meantime, I’m resolving to Trust more. My kids are too young to “need” to do anything other than play and explore and follow their interests. If they aren’t enjoying community centre classes why go through the expense and effort to put them there, just because of some silly notion that kids “need” these things? Heck, as Miranda recently reminded us, her kids don’t even have a community centre (we have four in our community!) and they are obviously thriving. My children are not social butterflies and they could care less about being around groups of other kids. I must remember to honour that. Meantime, I’m looking forward to doing a lot of family camping this summer!

Gardening

It’s ecology, gastronomy, sociology, and antropology all rolled up into one, wonderful activity.

This year we planted our first ever vegetable garden. We’re using the Square Foot Gardening method, and we built two boxes. Daughter has been involved from the beginning. Here she is helping me break up peat moss before mixing the soil (the SFG method calls for a mix of 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 compost), and then planting radish seeds:

She’s watched with me as the seeds sprouted:

And she was there to pick our very first harvest:

One of the things I am learning about gardening is, especially in the early unpredictable days of Spring, to seize the day. When the sun comes out you never know how long it will stay out, so you need to be able to drop everything and run happily out into the garden. When you are an unschooling family, you can do that!

You gotta have heart

My daughter’s love of science and nature warms my heart (probably because they are my passions, too). Recently she has taken an interest in the human body, largely via Magic School Bus books and as of yesterday, a Bill Nye the Science Guy DVD that we got at the library. She watched it twice last night, and then this morning she walked up to me and handed me this:

She explained what each object was, and in such detail I was amazed. She asked me to write down what she said as she described each picture. The “balloons” are supposed to be magnified images of the object. Starting with the red heart and working her way left-to-right and then down to the next row, this is how she described the picture overall:

“The heart pumps blood through the veins to your bones and muscles. The heart makes a chop-chop like scissors. The white blood cells eat the germs. Your muscle looks like this when you are sleeping, but gets bigger when you use it. Exercise makes your muscles get bigger, if you don’t exercise they get smaller and smaller. The circles inside are muscle fibers. This is your arm with blood going through it.”

Not bad for a five year old!

Welcome to my New Blog

I’ve had another blog going here at WordPress for some time now and quite enjoy it. I decided it was time to bring my homeschooling blog over here, too. Through the magic of the Internet I was able to import the posts and comments from the old site, which is nice.

For those of you who may be new to my blog, welcome! I’ll try to keep it updated fairly regularly. I’m also pretty active at my other blog, which is about Simple Living and our family’s plans to leave the city and buy a small acreage.

Einstein’s views on education

Our library sells donated books and paperbacks to raise funds. I recently found a hardcover copy of Carl Sagan’s Broca’s Brain: reflections on the romance of science for $2. I have several of Sagan’s books and was happy to add this to my collection. There’s a chapter about Albert Einstein with a brief biography, describing Einstein’s poor experiences with schooling, his teachers declaring him a failure who would never amount to anything. Einstein had this to say about school:

It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry, because what this delicate little plant needs most, apart from initial stimulation, is freedom; without that it is surely destroyed…

Sagan agrees, at least when it comes to scientific education, which was a cause dear to his heart. He writes:

I wonder how many potential Einsteins have been permanently discouraged through competitive examinations and the forced feeding of curricula.

So the next time someone wonders how your child is going to succeed without formal schooling, consider that Einstein published four seminal papers in the leading Physics journal of his day while working as a patent clerk, and with no post-secondary degrees to his name.