Anyone who knows me or who has followed my blog for a while knows of the challenges I’ve faced over the years with my very physically-expressive son. A summation of the issues we’ve faced can be found here, although my blog is sprinkled with posts of desperation, frustration, and sorrow over the episodes and situations we’ve found ourselves in over the years.

One consequence of his behaviours is that we have tended to avoid certain situations. Up until this past year we stayed away from any place where one might find a concentration of toddlers and small children playing, as for the longest time these were guaranteed targets. This pretty much ruled out playgrounds, indoor or out. If I did venture to one I would pass it by if there were too many children there. If there was anybody there other than ourselves I’d have to shadow Son closely, including having to climb up on play structures with him lest he try to shove somebody and they fall from up there. I’m sure many parents watched me thinking I was a paranoid mother who worried my precious son would hurt himself. Little did they understand it was their own children being hurt I was worried about. How I envied Mums who would sit on a bench and knit or read while their kids played happily (and kindly and gently) with others. Mine was not a world of hoping other kids would be there to play with my children.

I’m happy to say that over the last year, and most especially in the last six months, I have seen some dramatic changes in Son. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say dramatic absences of certain behaviours. It has been quite some time since he hit, scratched, or otherwise assaulted some strange kid (wrestling with good friends can sometimes get carried away but it’s a totally different dynamic). I have been cautiously hopeful that there IS indeed a light at the end of this tunnel, and that Son is finally maturing and growing out of these behaviours.

Today was an especially unique day and will go hopefully go down on record as the Beginning of the End. We went to the playground to enjoy some rare sunshine, and when we arrived there was another family with two kids, aged 3 and almost-5. Son pointed this out as we walked from the car and I started to give my “Now let’s be polite, this is a sharing place, blah blah blah” speech when Son announced that he was going to make friends with the boy and play with him.

‘Scuse me?

And he did! Darned if he didn’t go over there, introduce himself, and say “want to play with me?”. The other boy, doubtless bored with the company of his little sister, eagerly agreed and for the next half hour the two traipsed around like best friends. Who was this sweet, gentle little boy that used to try and push toddlers off the top of the slide? Son was having a ball and the thought of committing preschooler-violence on anybody didn’t seem to cross his mind at all.

When that family left, Son announced that it was “boring playing without friends”, but just then a group of boys that looked his age came to the playground. They were marching along the perimeter wall of logs and rocks. Son, feeling a bit shy, nevertheless got up the courage to go over there and ask if he could play with them. My heart began to ache as I saw the boys look at each other as if to say “Who is this kid and do we really want to play with some stranger?”. They eventually said yes, explained that they were playing Follow the Leader, and instructed him to go to the end of the line. But just as Son got up behind the last of the three boys one of them announced he was going to do something else and the others immediately followed. The look on my son’s face tugged at my heartstrings. Here he was finally getting “out in the world” and he smashes into the wall of Playground Politics.

I can honestly say I have never seen this type of behaviour in the homeschooled children we’ve met who are of this same age group. And my kids have never encountered the “We’re a Tight Posse” attitude. Oh sure, not all homeschooled kids get along, but they’ll give you a chance first. You may fail on attitude, friendliness, or have any other personality fault but I’ve never seen that “let’s shun the new guy” look.

The boys soon began playing on a climbing structure and Son told me he wanted to play with them. I encouraged him to ask. He went over and asked 2 or 3 times, but the boys just looked at each other and didn’t answer. Finally I decided it was time to step in. I asked the boys if he could play, got names and ages out of them (Son was delighted to hear they were all 5) and he joined in. But the kids were not very inclusive. I watched surreptitiously from a nearby perch, listening to what went on. At one point they got underneath the slide and opened up an ice-cream shop. Son tried to participate but he was largely getting the cold shoulder. I was torn between being excited by this sudden dramatic turn in his socializing skills and desires, and aching for him that he was being excluded.

In an attempt to engage them or otherwise get their attention, Son began to put on some silly faces and do “funny stunts”. The kids rolled their eyes at each other (these were 5 year olds!) and told him he was weird. My heart stuck in my throat as I looked to see how Son would react. But he just smiled confidently and said “I’m not weird!”. The boys soon got called to go “back to school” (all day Kindergarten?) and we walked down to the beach from the playground.

Son told me how he’d done funny things, like pretending his ice-cream cone had turned into a snake. I commented that I thought it was funny, too, but that I got the feeling those boys “didn’t get it”. As we talked I got the sense from Son that he had either missed the slights being sent his way, or he simply didn’t care. I have learned not to underestimate his intelligence and I’m going to go with the latter. If so, my goal of raising confident, self-assured children who don’t fall victim to clique-ism or other such behaviours is off to a good start.

It really felt today like a whole new world is opening up, both for Son and myself as his mother. It means, for example, that I might soon feel confident leaving him with his sister in the kids’ section of the library while I run to the bathroom by myself (actually, I confess I recently did this). I’m not worried about child abductors, no, I’ve always worried he’d belt some little kid. It means I can bring books and knitting to the playground and not have to shadow him up and down child-sized ladders and platforms. It means we can go to indoor playgrounds and I don’t have to be worried about judgmental parents accusing my Son of being a bully or a psychopath (or me of being a neglectful mother).

And for my boy, today was the second time I’ve seen this look in his eye (wanting to join in with a group of kids), but the first time I’ve seen him so actively pursue his desire. He wanted to play with somebody, and he appeared to understand that fighting or shoving would thwart his agenda. Not only did he keep his hands to himself, but he was polite and confident, talkative and friendly. A whole new world of interaction has opened up for him, too. Apparently, it was his time!

Everybody has bad days, and so do kids. Yesterday my son was having a Bad Day. And we happened to visit with Grandma that day. She’s not too happy with our lifestyle choices and is constantly bugging me about the kids having “no schedule”, not being around other kids enough, and being overall ill-mannered and badly behaved due to what she sees as my complete and total lack of discipline. So it sure didn’t help when, after 2 or 3 hours of good times, Son lost it with me and I in turn lost it with him. Grandma lost it with him, too and then tried to assure me that my losing it was “just what he needed”. I was depressed for the rest of the day, but fortunately the kids and I did have some good talks about it and I strove to chalk it up to just one of those things we can’t guilt ourselves about too much, as Wife Mom Maniac so eloquently wrote recently.

Today was payback. Today was a Good Day. The sun shone gloriously on a frosty world this morning and so we decided to head to a local park by the beach. First we hit the playground. Daughter, who has recently discovered the joy of being addicted to a good chapter book, settled herself into a cozy place in the sun and spent half the time with her nose in her latest Enid Blyton book.

Meanwhile, Son played his heart out and didn’t knock anybody over. In fact, he was a social butterfly! He was so kind and polite and sweet my heart just swelled with love.

I sat and enjoyed a spot in the warm winter sun, and got to read a fair amount of my own book. This has not been my playground experience in the past few years and so I relish such opportunities. Could it be that my kids are finally moving out of phases that made going to a playground an exercise that required my complete focused attention?

After an hour and a half or so, Son announced he wanted to head down to the beach. Daughter relocated to a sunny bench with her book (after a break of about 30 minutes to run around and play with her brother). Son stripped off his shoes and socks and headed to the sand. It had to be less than 5 degrees Celcius down by the water and I was chilled with my woolen socks, fleece hat, winter coat, and mittens. Check out Mr. “Cold Makes Me Warm”:

He jumped off rocks onto the sand below, and eventually Daughter joined him (more sensibly attired, I might add).

You can see how clear and still the water was today. It was very beautiful.

The kids ended by playing around on the Giant Anchor.

And as the sun began to get lower in the sky we headed home.

It was just the spot of fresh air and sunshine we all needed after a month of rain and dark gloomy skies. There were no fights, and everybody seemed to have a great time, including me!

When I was nine years old, a family friend whose children had grown and moved out of the home presented me with a huge box full of books. Most of them were by Enid Blyton, books that her children had read and enjoyed, and they were now being passed on to me. I devoured them, and for years looked everywhere for Famous Five or Secret Seven books. When I grew up I kept some of them (I’m not really sure what happened to the rest).

Years later I found myself with a daughter who is about the age when voracious readers such as herself become interested in chapter books. Well, actually she seems a bit behind on that front compared to other early readers I know. I tried a while back with a Magic Treehouse book, but after reading a chapter or two she requested that we go back to the picture books we get at the library each week. Until last week, that is. I was rummaging around and found my old Enid Blyton books. I decided to give it a try with her again. I asked if we could read a chapter or two from this book (Five Go To Billycock Hill), and then we’d do one of her books.

I’m delighted to say that she immediately took to them (probably because the Famous Five include a rather clever dog) and we ended up reading several chapters that night and never got to her other books. Every night since then we’ve read chapters from the book, both she and I enjoying them to the point where I often relent to read “just one more chapter!” because I myself am caught up in the story.

These books were originally written in the 1940’s and take place in England. They are an amazing glimpse into the lifestyle of the past. The way the children speak is so quaint, with lots of “Oh, do let’s!”, “Jolly good!”, and “Rather!”. One of my favorite memories is the way Blyton described the meals the children would eat when out camping or hiking (which they did alone, by the way, the eldest being only 15 and the youngest around 10). Bought from local farmers, which were everywhere it seemed, the children dined on “creamy milk” (doubtless raw), fresh bread and home-churned butter, home-made marmalade and jam, cured hams from the farm’s own pigs, and fresh eggs. Even Daughter, who is notoriously selective in her tastes, lamented that the meals sounded so good that she wished she liked more foods!

Sandwiches were wrapped in paper, tents were canvas sheets set up with pegs and strong branches. Drinks were bought in glass bottles and doled out in cardboard cups. The total absence of plastic is hard to miss. The kids slept in “rugs” rather than sleeping bags, and each child always carried a pocket-knife.

There are some darker sides to the old ways that are also captured in these books. Corporal punishment was frequently mentioned (although generally not in a favourable light). There was rampant sexism; the girls were treated more like delicate flowers and relegated to tasks such as preparing the picnic lunch or washing up afterwards while the boys went off and did the more “manly” chores. The tom-boy George (short for Georgina) was never accorded the same privileges as the boys even though she was tough as nails. The children attended unisex boarding schools and had nannies/housekeepers at home (Daughter was quite astounded by the concept of a boarding school, wondering how any child could want to be away from home so much). There is a stereotyping of “bad guys” as being “common”, disheveled, and otherwise down on their luck. And regular glimpses of war-time attitudes towards “traitors” and “the enemy”. Some of her stories go even further: the current one we are reading involves a trip to Africa where the “savages” are described with typical Colonial-style discrimination and stereotyping. In others she paints a rather intolerant view of “Gypsies”. I don’t recall noticing these much as a child reading the stories, and I suspect the significance is largely over the head of Daughter, too. Those issues that do strike her as odd are questioned and discussed, and overall I think the benefits of this “look into the past” outweigh any political incorrectness found in the tales.

And so it was that we went to the library and decided to see if they had any Enid Blyton books. The librarian pointed them out to me, but informed me that they were “modern editions” that had been “fully revised”. She commented that the originals were “totally inappropriate” for a public library and that I would not find them in any branch. I picked one up and noted with dismay the Saturday-morning-cartoon style illustrations on the front cover.

When I opened a modern Famous Five book to sample the stories I was further dismayed. Not only was the style of writing as foreign from Enid Blyton as Douglas Coupland is from Walden, they’d actually changed the names of the children! I guess the name “Dick” would apparently elicit too much adolescent giggling to be taken seriously, while Julian’s nickname “Ju” probably rolled off the tongue in too politically-incorrect a manner. The modern prose and the complete removal of any flavour of mid-century England resulted in a book that, had I not seen her name on the cover, I would simply never have recognized as her own.

Blyton was born in 1897 and died in the same year I was born. Doubtless someone recently decided to capitalize on her immense fame as a children’s author, purchased the rights to her name and book titles, and then completely redid every element of the story. It was truly tragic, and my heart ached. I resolved then and there to hunt down as many of the old versions as I could find (I recently picked one up at the local thrift store, and I know used paperback bookstores generally have a good selection). I was also greatly saddened that the legacy of such a fine author had been obliterated by political correctness and the glaringly obvious assumption that North American children could simply never relate to their grandparents’ childhood experiences (and would never want to). I mean, how on earth could you ever solve a good mystery without a cell phone and a laptop? It’s a most despicable affront to literature, in my humble opinion. But this also provided a great topic of discussion for myself and Daughter who, I’m proud to say, is as uninterested in the modern versions as I am.

I cannot help but feel convinced that if Enid Blyton were alive today to see how her name has been prostituted she would be horrified. I hope, however, she would also take some comfort in knowing that those of us who grew up on her stories (after a previous generation had already done so), are proudly sharing them with our own children and making clear the distinction between her marvelously adventurous tales and the Scooby-Doo Gang knockoffs that prostitute her name in a blatant attempt to bolster sales. I’m truly sickened and saddened by these modern books and hope that today’s children will not be deprived of knowing her true charm, wit, and style. Not to mention, the priceless opportunity to engage our children in a bit of history.

I got out of having to write a learning report this week for our homeschooling program by doing a family survey for the program instead. So I thought I’d write a post here describing what a week in our household looks like with respect to learning. Here are some things we did over this past week:

My son recently discovered Reading Eggs and I’ve been wanting to encourage a wider variety of computer game play, so I got him an account and renewed Daughter’s at the same time. He’s completed up to Level 18 and Daughter is at Level 50. Both find the games very easy from a reading skill perspective, but they enjoy playing the games and opening the “eggs” they get when they complete a level. They’ll play on this site for a good half-hour at a time, and lately have been doing it about once or twice a week. Sites like this are good examples to pull out when probing family members wonder if our kids are actually learning anything (“Why yes! Little Johnny’s Reading Eggs report says he has just mastered three new phonics!”).

The weather has been very wet lately so I took them to an indoor play centre in our local mall. During the day there are very few children and my kids have lots of room to run, climb, and play. My son is doing extremely well at “keeping his hands to himself” and so for me it’s a nice break: I sit on a comfy sofa and knit while they play. They come out glowing and sweaty – good exercise! It costs about $15 so we don’t go very often, but when we do it’s a treat for all three of us.

Later in the week the weather cleared a bit and we took the dog for a walk. We hit a local forest trail, pretty much empty in the middle of a weekday, and the dog ran around exploring the woods while the kids and I ambled along, stopping to climb on fallen trees, examine mushrooms, or squish through muddy sections of trail. We usually hike for about 45 minutes, stop for a snack break, and then head back. We do this about once a week, weather permitting.

We also hit the thrift shop this week, which we go to about every other month or so. It’s another favorite rainy day activity. The kids get to play in the toy section while I pick out a whack of clothes for them (I scored a beautiful Donna Karan sweater for Son for $3.99!). Each child is allowed one toy to bring home. They are, sad to say, usually plastic junk that I would never pay for new. But not only are we saving plastic from the landfill, but after a few months when the toys have been forgotten I bring them back to the store as a donation, thus recycling them again! Daughter likes to peruse the kids book section while I hit housewares. I found three glass tealight holders for $1.99.

This past week we also went to pick up our annual purchase of beef. We got a half-cow last year and still had lots left so this year we just bought a quarter. We get the meat from a pair of sisters my mother knows, who are in their seventies but still live on the old family farm, raising a few cattle each year that live a life of grass-fed luxury and never see hormones or antibiotics. On our way to the pickup spot I talked with the kids about why we buy our meat this way and not at the supermarket. These sorts of opportunistic conversations are a hallmark of Free Learning. The subjects we’ve covered, the questions that have been asked, are all so much a part of how the kids accumulate knowledge. Yet such learning moments are not often valued by traditional educational methods.

About once a week one child or the other, or both, will come and help me cook or bake something. This week I was making palacinka (as they are called in Husband’s family), also known in my family as English Pancakes. They are basically crepes, which we serve with lemon juice and sugar. Son asked to help out. He worked with me to measure and mix the ingredients, flip the pancakes, and dress them. Cooking is a lovely way to spend time together, and it is very educational. The kids learn about math, chemistry, and nutrition in a meaningful way but to them it’s all just fun (and yummy!).

This week the family visited with mother-in-law in her new tiny apartment (she lives in the interior of our province but rents a place in the city during the winter) the kids had nothing much to do, so she pulled out a few pens and some paper. The children happily amused themselves drawing pictures, somehow working a storyline into their drawings which they then played out by drawing on each others’ pictures, thus expanding the storyline and bringing each other’s creative energy into the activity. Once again, these are the sorts of things that traditional educational methods tend to overlook as learning moments, but by paying attention to what the kids do and how they do it, I find learning is everywhere and in everything they do.

Househunting has been rather depressing lately. I got attracted to a neighbourhood that was about 15 – 20 minutes closer to town and shopping than where we were originally looking, but that one place (which was cheap due to some unique circumstances) has not worked out (owners won’t reduce their price) and most everything else in that area is outside our budget. Now the original area seemed so much farther away. I found myself drawn to an alternative solution…

There’s a new townhome development (all duplexes) that is surrounded by parkland on three sides and in the same area as the place that didn’t work out. You literally walk outside your back door, onto the trail, and can run for miles without crossing a road. The homes are gorgeous, both inside and out. The place is all landscaped with native plants and various environmental considerations have been taken in its design. I went to visit and was blown away by the showhome. We could get a brand new home, 3000 sq ft (that includes a large semi-unfinished basement) with fir doors, trim, earth tone walls, the works. It was nicer than my mother’s place. And the price was cheap by city standards. I went back and forth on it for a few weeks, and then after it seemed this last place fell through, I came to the conclusion that we should just buy the townhome.

I got very excited thinking about my beautiful master bathroom with its double sinks and deep soaker tub, about my kitchen with huge pantry and tons of cupboard space, about my living room with built-in tubes in the walls to hide the cords, and about the trails. And in this frenzy of home design lust I told myself that it didn’t matter that there was no yard (all common area outside) and that I’d be living in a strata community (where the largest vote wins). And so while Husband was off on a weekend road trip with Daughter (her first foray from home without mama!) I dragged Son and my mother back to the display home for another look. Mostly I was hoping to get her blessing so she could side with me and convince Husband to go for it. As we walked through the available unit, which now had paint, cabinets, and flooring, I was trying my best “look at this!” and “look at that!” sales pitch to Mum (yes, at age 41 I still crave approval from Mother). Suddenly this little voice popped into my head. It said: “You know, it’s just a house”.

That voice was unbidden, unappreciated, and unwanted. It was raining on my unbridled joy. I ignored it and continued on, chatting with the charming salesguy and trying to figure out how I was gonna talk Husband into this within the next 7 days (which is how long they agreed to hold the unit for us). I left with a stack full of papers that included strata minutes for the last 2 years (from earlier phases of the development), and couldn’t wait to settle down to read them.I didn’t know where that little voice had come from, but I was determined not to let it discourage me.

So that night I poured a cup of Caf-Lib and curled up with the papers. As I read through them, that nagging voice came back, only this time it was building in strength. I began to get cold feet. I began to worry. Was this a mistake? Why was I suddenly feeling the need for time and restraint when, had Husband been there, I would have begged him to put a deposit down that very day.

Well, in the end it was the strata minutes that took the wool off my eyes. I am so NOT a “rules and regulations” type of person! Reading about how I’d  have to fix every nick, dent, and scrape that showed up on the house regardless of the cause (my kids or a storm) immediately (with only the approved materials, no budget shopping here), how I’d have to choose from only certain colours for curtains (not that I wanted any – the place came with wood blinds), and how I’d have to submit a detailed plan, in writing, with drawings (!), if I wanted to so much as put a potato plant in the ground outside my back door (or even place a raised bed container on the ground out there!)…well, it all started sounding like living in No-Fun Land. I spent years straining under the limits of my mother as a youngster (and she really wasn’t all that strict) and the idea that I would willingly subject myself to a committee of strangers overruling every domestic decision I made…well, it was just too much.

I went to bed that night and thought about that uninvited voice – and I realized what it was. The showhome was like that dress you see in the store window, you know, THE dress. You dream about it, you dream about how you will look in it, about how much your friends will admire it, about how grown-up it will show you to be, about how Happy you will be when you own that dress…And then you bring it home and you hang it in the closet with all your other clothes and suddenly….it’s just a dress.

And that was it. I realized I’d been sucked in by all the glittery design elements of the display suite and the new-home smell of the place. The entire development was one big display window and the sales people made it all sound so fabulous. But at the end of the day, the granite countertops and trendy dark-stained cabinets are just that, countertops and cabinets. I KNOW from experience how quickly newness wears off. Would I be as happy as I thought when that happened?

And then, in a twist of fate, a book I’d placed on hold came available for me at the library the next day after viewing the townhome. It’s called Made From Scratch: Discovering the pleasures of a handmade life, by Jenna Woginrich. I’d heard about it on a simple living blog somewhere and gone and requested it from the library. The next day I had it in my hands and it was like a reality check, like coming home. I’d spent the last year or two immersed in the philosophy of simple living, dreaming of a little acreage so I could plant a bigger vegetable garden, have backyard chickens, let my kids out to play unsupervised, continue composting. I wanted another dog, a cat, and maybe some other animals one day. What the HELL was I thinking??? I almost moved our family into the epitome of suburban life, but without even the modicum of privacy that owning your own backyard brings. A strata community? For me? The rule-hater? A place without yards, no chickens, no hanging your laundry out to dry because we’ll all look like peasants?????

All I can say is thank GOD, or FATE, or the UNIVERSE or whatever was looking out for me that I saw the light before I put any money down. And I want to put a special shout out to my dear, sweet, wise Husband, who allowed me to follow my irrational thinking to its logical conclusion (had he fought me too much on the townhouse I likely would have stubbornly dug in my heels and not resorted to reason). He said he knew I’d see the light eventually. Bless him! I love that man.

So tomorrow we are off to look at four properties, all but three are over 2 acres and one is exactly 1 acre. Ironically, one is the very first place we looked at, a bare lot that we almost bid on but then decided the grade was too steep. We just may bid on it again (with a lower offer now that it has been sitting unsold for a couple of months). I decided that even a steep acreage is better than no acreage, and this one is in a lovely semi-rural neighbourhood just a short bike ride away from our favorite summer swimming hole. I’ll let you know how it goes.

A couple of years ago I was trying to explain the philosophy of unschooling to my very traditional MIL and SIL. They were having a hard time believing that kids would just willingly, and of their own accord, learn all the things they “needed” to learn. Oh sure, they could understand wanting to do craft projects, playing soccer, and maybe even doing some fun science experiments. But MIL felt that there were certain things no child would want to do, and the example she gave was handwriting. “How many children would sit there and practice their handwriting if they weren’t made to do it?”, she asked, recalling evenings spent with her eldest grandchild supervising the filling of worksheet pages for homework.

I can’t blame MIL for thinking this way because several years ago I likely would have thought the same as her. The same as most people in our society. There’s this belief that certain subjects just plain “aren’t any fun”, but are necessary for a proper education, and therefore children must be coerced into doing them. The first problem with this paradigm is so few people have ever seen Natural Learning take place that it’s unbelievable to them that kids can remain curious, driven, and inquisitive about the world around them long after the toddler years. The second problem is the notion that forced, fact-based learning is the optimal, if not the only, way for children to learn.

If you stop and think about it, it’s pretty difficult to get far in this world without writing, even if you are a small child. At the very least, children tend to be possessive; writing one’s name on a project, placemat, or book is often one of the first times kids encounter the benefits of having such a skill. But more than that, we live in a world of words. Kids encounter them everywhere and are naturally drawn (when they are developmentally ready) to acquire the skills of reading and writing, in the same way (I presume) that a human child living 20,000 years ago would naturally be driven to acquire the hunting and gathering skills that he witnessed every day. I’ve yet to hear of a child who, if left to his/her own devices, does not at some point become interested in picking up a pencil and writing letters.

And so it was with Daughter. She started writing letters when she was about 3 years old and is now able to write whole sentences. Nobody has ever “taught” her how, nor did she ever ask. It came about Naturally. She loves to draw, make up stories, and create games and all these things are enhanced by the use of the printed word. Here are some recent examples of her work:

Last week she picked up a blank greeting card and did the following:

Later that week, she decided to prepare a surprise for me when I came home from work. She made eight little cards out of cardstock by cutting out rectangles and folding them in half. She then wrote “clues” on them, which I followed around the house, picking up the next card and clue, until I came to the “treasure” at the end: her, hiding in the closet! She had no help with this activity, in fact nobody knew she was doing it until she got her brother and father to give it a test run.

You can clearly see in this first card that she is taking care as she works; she crossed out the line that had too many errors for her liking and started it again. Here are some more cards in the series:

Finally, a while back she found a toy catalog inserted into our regional paper. She was concerned that she wouldn’t remember to ask for certain favorites by the time it was Christmas, so she decided she should write her letter to Santa early:

This sort of thing has been going on for years, and every year her writing gets neater, the letters more even in size, her spelling more accurate. Practice makes perfect, so they say, but who says practice has to mean writing “Jill and Jack ran with Spot” over and over again at a time when one would much rather be outside enjoying a sunny day? I can think of a million fun and spontaneous ways that a child can get to practice their handwriting without the need for worksheets (unless they like that sort of thing), homework, and forced assignments.

Having hopefully given a small demonstration of how Natural Learning applies to handwriting, an important issue I’d like to mention is that of correcting a child’s work.

How well I can still visualize my lined note book from elementary school, filled with short stories and sentences we’d been instructed to write, marred by bright red slash marks. The teacher would correct my work by rewriting my words with the proper spelling in the same bright red marker. I remember looking at my writing in terms of how many mistakes I’d made, not what I’d written, nor how well I’d progressed, but by the number of red slashes on the page. The exercise seemed pointless to me, other than a way to be tallied up and compared against the rest of the class (fortunately I was good at writing, so my self-esteem didn’t suffer). Some might think the role of teacher and the process of learning necessarily includes making those red marks and comments all over a page. But now I look at it in a whole new way, and it truly saddens me.

Life in the Free Learning world is so much different. You’ll notice in the examples above there are several mistakes. Some letters are written backwards, words are misspelled, and the grammar isn’t always perfect either. Some might think it prudent to point out these mistakes to Daughter. “How else will she learn the right way?” they might ask.

My daughter wrote those things without having any idea that she was “practicing her handwriting”. Nobody sat her down and said “now we’re going to practice our writing”. Nobody told her that the point of her creative efforts was to be grammatically correct. Instead, my daughter had an idea to do something that she thought would be fun for her (the dino card), a special way to say how much she appreciates her family (the card treasure hunt), and a practical way to ensure desired toys don’t get forgotten before Christmas (the list). Writing was simply a tool to accomplish all those things, it was not the point of the exercise.

Now imagine your child presenting you with a card hunt when you come home from work. How would you feel if someone had come before you and crossed out her mistakes with an angry red marker? Or written those words for her with the correct spelling and punctuation? How would YOU feel if you were her and someone did that to your work? If your child was sensitive, they might end up feeling inadequate, stupid, their confidence might drop. If they were stubborn they might feel angry at having their hard work ruined by someone else’s doodling. But I’m quite certain they would not give their thanks and appreciation for “helping them to learn the right way”. Chances are they would think twice before venturing to be so creative and spontaneous again.

So what to do with the mistakes? Mostly, I do nothing. My daughter knows what an “S” looks like, she just happens to write it backwards sometimes. If I asked her to take a close look at it, she would recognize her mistake right away. So what would be the point of correcting her, other than to steal away her pride, her confidence, and to entirely miss the point of what she was doing? If I saw a consistent error (she almost always draws her 4’s backwards) I might ask her to look closely. I would guage her reaction – for Daughter, she usually laughs and says “oops, I wrote it backwards” – before going any further. If she got upset or frustrated I would ask if she’d like some help and together we could come up with ways for her to practice getting it right. Since she’s not upset, and obviously knows what a 4 is supposed to look like, I see no problem. As for spelling and grammar, I’m also confident that she will figure out the right way as she goes along, and will either correct herself or ask for help if and when she decides its a problem.

We’re continuing with the house/land hunt but its all moving very slowly. The place we liked best, and still keep coming back to, is a small acreage in a great neighbourhood with a tiny old house. The list of issues with this place is a mile long and accordingly the owners are asking too much. We put in a low-ball offer which they refused to look at (their realtor said it was “insulting”) but it was without any subjects. Now we’re preparing to put in a much higher offer but this time we want some candy!

So yesterday we took our architect (wow, doesn’t that sound swanky?) out to the place for a consultation. The tiny house isn’t on a foundation (problem #1; it’s built on blocks) and he pointed out that, because of this, we have no idea what the ground is like underneath. Apparently you can’t just pour concrete on the ground and call it a day (who knew?). So we’ll need a geotechnical survey. This we will have to pay for ourselves but we’ll include a favourable result as a subject in our offer. As for the house, it was no surprise to us that he deemed it a tear-down. Frankly, I’m a bit relieved. I’d sworn to Husband that if we could buy this place I’d be happy to live in the “quaint little cottage” until we could save up cash for an expansion/new house. However, the more I saw of it, the more my promise was coming back to haunt me in my dreams. From the exposed freestanding wood-burning stove beside the little staircase without rails (can’t you just see a child falling on there and getting a permanent stovetop-shaped scar across his torso and face?) to the bathtub (hand made from wood and coated with some kind of clear fibreglass coating, ewwww!), this place puts the idea of rustic living well beyond this city-girl’s limits! I can be happy living in a shoebox for a while, but much better if it is a shiny new shoebox (with proper plumbing)!

Speaking of which, we knew the place didn’t have a well (they were drawing water direct from the stream with the strangest set of do-it-yourself hoses, plastic carbuoys, and pumps I’ve ever seen) so that is now going in with our offer as something we’d like the owners to do. Ditto with the septic which, as it turns out, isn’t even the far-below-code homemade job we thought it was, but is apparently a cesspool (that’s actually a real word; such a learning experience this is!). Let the owners dig out their underground pool of sewage, thanks!

We also need a site survey for reasons that cover the remaining issues. One, the stream running through the property is protected by an environmental setback that encompasses 2/3 of the acreage. This doesn’t matter to us so much, since we aren’t interested in turning the lovely natural setting into a landscaped monstrosity of lawns, retaining walls, and beds that need a hired gardener to maintain. Nor do we wish to build a 5000 sq ft starter mansion. However, it does limit where one can build a house, even a small one. The only benefit to be gained from the existing cottage, and it’s a big benefit, is that most of it sits within the setback area. The city said we’d be allowed to keep that footprint for a new/renovated home (though any additions or expansions will be restricted to the direction that lies away from that area). So, the site survey will tell us the exact location of the setback. It will also confirm the existence of a shed on the property, also within the setback area. It’s funny because, in the words of the architect, the shed “doesn’t exist” until it’s on the site survey (“but I’m looking right at it! can’t we just bring the city dude here and point it out to him?”). Then we will hopefully be allowed to use its footprint for a new outbuilding (read: Husband’s drumming studio, male hangout, and guest house all rolled into one).

With all these issues it’s no wonder the place has been for sale forever. But despite all that, with the proper due diligence it shouldn’t be anything we can’t work through. However, I’m learning, as a first timer in all this, that our biggest obstacle is one we have no control over: the mindset of the owners.

They are an old couple who built the house and lived there for years. Signs of their loving care are still visible under all the overgrown weeds and bramble bushes: huge rhododendrons and fruit-laden apple trees dot the property, as well as other mature trees and flowering shrubs. All it needs is a good brush mower and some serious pruning to make it look pretty again. But the owners have a great deal of emotional attachment to the place, which apparently translates into: they think it’s worth a lot more than it is. After all, they managed for decades without a well or septic so they don’t seem to get what an issue it is for a potential buyer. And who needs electricity other than to run a few light bulbs? (the cord jungles in our computer-laden home could single-handedly short out the entire neighbourhood with the hack wiring job in that place). They may also not be in need of the money, which means despite all our interest and due diligence we may eventually be thwarted by the fact that they simply don’t want to part with it for less than an unreasonable sum of money and are happy to wait another 10 years.

That our ability to actually make this dream a reality rests on the foibles of human nature disturbs and frustrates me a great deal. You may ask why not move on? Well first, I haven’t found anything else I like. It’s all either too expensive and/or too far out of town, or just plain ugly (I’d end up maxing out our budget on a house I hate and then can’t afford to change). The issues with this place (specifically the setback area) put it off most peoples’ wish list and reduce the price significantly. It seems made for us – small house loving, natural setting enjoying us!

So, when a few more details have been gathered we will put together another offer (hopefully by next week) and I’ll be praying that we aren’t greeted with the same response as the first one. For Pete’s sake, just give us a counter-offer at least!

The article below was copied from a post in the Unschooling forum on the Mothering.com discussion board. It is credited to Anne Ohman of the Shine With Unschooling group.

We have always unschooled. Unschooling came easily to me and my family, because I learned early on to trust my heart and my children. But for those for whom unschooling does not come easily, I try to give them the guidelines you may be asking for here. If your question is “Please define my role as an unschooling parent,” here’s what I’ve come up with this morning:
I believe that your role as an unschooling parent is to show your children as much of the world as you can, and let them choose from it what they love and want to further explore. You accomplish this by expanding their worlds with interesting objects and places and people and events and tools and books and magazines and television shows and…(this list could go on for quite awhile).
It is your job to answer their questions, without shame or sarcasm, because all questions are valuable. If you don’t know an answer, it is your job to say, “I don’t know,” and offer to look it up with your child (I tend to say, “Hmmm…I *think* it’s this…but I’ll check to make sure…).
It is your job to be interested in the world. It is your job to ask your own questions about the world. I believe it’s an unschooling parent’s job to be excited themselves about learning the incredibly cool stuff there is to learn about the world. Learn from your own children how to be curious, aware and interested.
It is your job to pursue your own passions in life. This has numerous benefits, not only to yourSelf and your Spirit, but to your child as well.
It is your job to know your children and get to know them again and again as they grow and change. Get to know what it is they love, what it is that interests them. A big part of my job involves spending time looking for various resources in the area of my children’s passions – books, tools, people, events, classes, gatherings, websites, lists – and offer them up to my children. This is how I encourage my children to pursue what they love in life, by feeding them things that they may be interested in until they’re not interested in it anymore. (They are also quite capable of *feeding* themselves in the areas of their passions, or anything else that may be new and interesting to them…but right now we re just talking about the unschooling parent’s job…).
It is your job to learn about how children learn, by reading about unschooling, by un-learning everything you once believed to be true about forced learning.
It’s your job to sometimes think out loud, to initiate interesting conversations, and to be open for discussion where you may have just shut the door before. It’s your job to realize that your child will have different opinions and thoughts than you do, and to respect that and perhaps even broaden your own world from it.
It is your job to Trust the Children. Trust that they Love to Learn, and when they have a need and or desire for information, they will get it. Trust that learning isn’t separated into subjects as school would have us believe.
It’s your job to see the world through your child’s eyes. Understand where they’re coming from, and when conflict arises, it’s your job to stop and really think about if the resolve lies within the child, or within yourself. It’s usually within ourselves.
It’s your job to see Learning in places that you’re not used to seeing learning. I was even able to find it in Ed, Edd & Eddy cartoons…it’s there if you look. It’s everywhere if you look. And once you start seeing it, the world will open up to you and your child.
It’s your job to Love your child, and to Learn from your child. It’s your job to go into each day with an open mind and heart, trusting in the fact that you may not know where the day will end up, but that you began it from that magnificent place that is a child’s curiosity.

Things have gotten decidedly less unconventional around here with respect to the adults’ work schedules, but the changes appear to be working for our family and we’re going to stick with it for now. I’ve decided to give my header a new look to reaffirm the focus of this blog: living the unschooling life.

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know that just over a year ago, my husband was laid off from his job as an engineer and spent a few months at home until new opportunities arose. These were as an independent contractor, working largely from home. We used this as a chance to rework our life such that both of us could share in the child-rearing, housekeeping, and paycheck-earning. It seemed ideal for us to share in these duties, and for a while I thought it was all going quite well. But with the end of camping season and a new learning year beginning (Son has started in our homeschooling program this year) , I have begun to feel dissatisfied with my daily life.

Working half-days (in the home office) and child-caring half days didn’t seem to allow me to get fully involved in planning the kids’ day. More often than not I found myself using the child-caring time to catch up on housework and other domestic duties that Husband, despite his efforts and good intentions, just didn’t seem to get done. Knowing the other parent was going to have the kids in a few short hours made it easier to rely on that parent to “do something” with the kids. The fact that they are highly self-directed and play independently made it easier to fall into this habit. I felt that I was missing out on connecting deeply with my kids during the day, and I felt some repercussions for that.

I also used the extra time I had to take on more volunteer work, which soon led to over-committing myself and feeling burned out. When I also agreed to add an extra day working outside the home it didn’t take long for me to feel that it was just too much time away from the children.

And so recently I came to the conclusion that job-sharing sounds great on the surface, but choosing the best person for the job may be a better way to go. Husband excels at being the “fun Dad”, who does special things with the kids that, while fun, may not be the sort of activity one would want to engage in as part of the regular weekly routine. He also does not have a sense of what needs to be done to keep a home at the level I am comfortable with (which may be that my standards are unreasonable, of course) meaning I was still doing the majority of that work but on far less time. He is, however, an excellent and highly skilled engineer. I began to suspect that if he could work outside the home more regularly it might be better for our marriage and my sanity (an orderly home brings me peace!).

While wondering how I was going to bridge this topic with Husband without insulting him, fortune smiled upon me and fixed the problem. Husband has been made partner of the contracting firm with whom he has been working this past year, giving him a steady salary, benefits, and a commitment to making more client visits (i.e. working outside the home) both for getting new contracts and managing current ones. He also got offered a permanent, but part time, project management position with another firm that requires regular site visits. Having taken on these jobs he is really not able to commit to even one full day of child care per week.

And so it was with relief that, last week, I re-assumed my duties as full-time mother, housewife, and unschooling parent to my kids. I was supremely fortunate that my one consulting client who requires on-site visits has arranged for me to do extra work from home, meaning I now must only go out to work 1 day per week, and not every week at that. On those days we do a combination of on-call Nanny and Grandma. Both engage the children well while keeping my house tidy!

Our first week of this new schedule was last week, and I loved it! I’d spent the weekend getting the house in order, and so each day there was just minimal upkeep work to be done. Our day flowed smoothly as I focused on keeping the house tidy, doing one or two small chores, and then taking time in-between for sit-down activities with each child. I also planned an outing every day. I’ve embarked on a quest to get the kids more physically active and we’ve discovered the fun of swimming at our local pool, started up ice skating again, and are continuing our regular Nature Walks. By late afternoon the kids are ready for some down time at home, watching movies or playing on the computer, which gives me time to make a healthy, home-cooked dinner.

I swear I notice a difference in the children. There is less time to devolve from play to conflict as we move from one activity to the next. I feel so much less stressed, putting work and other commitments out of my mind, and simply trying to be present. The kids are thrilled when I say “I’d like to do something with you, what would you like?”. I’m learning that having some flow to our day seems to bring more peace to everybody.

And I notice a difference in me. I’m feeling far less stressed, I’m getting more done with the kids, and still maintaining a tidy home. I’m feeling more present during the day, and more connected to the children. I’m also having fun! On the work-from-home front, I now have two evenings “off” during the weekdays where I can get some uninterrupted work time while Husband deals with bedtime. I’m also working 3 hours each weekend morning. We have lazy, relaxing weekends so it doesn’t cut into family time much at all. I don’t feel like I’m being taken away from the kids or the housework, and yet I’m working enough to generate a significant added income. This has become more important as we embark on a search for a Home to call our own, one that will likely require some major renovation work.

I feel these changes are good for our family and I’m feeling happy about our new schedule. But you know, if we decide it’s not working for us we can always change it (and we often do!).

Daughter has been a fan of mushrooms for a few seasons now and we are always excited when Fall comes around and brings out the mushrooms. I confess I greatly share her excitement at collecting and identifying our Forest Fungi ! Here is a description of a recent hunt, excerpted from this week’s Learning Report:

We collected mushrooms on our hike and spent the next morning identifying them. We had found a large specimen of Short-Stemmed Russula, (Russula brevipes) which we learned were some of the earliest mushrooms of the season. Daughter was particularly excited to identify this because we were able to most certainly check off every description on the list (sometimes we are not sure about a feature or two). Usually I read out each description in the list (using our wonderful book All that the Rain Promises and More) and Daughter says “yes” or “no” while she examines the specimen.

She has come to know that Russulas and Milkcaps have stems that break like chalk; they are also very common in our forests and by far represent the majority of our finds. We don’t find as many milk caps, however, and she finds the fact that they exude a milky substance when broken to be particularly “cool” so she’s hoping to find one (we did once last year). We also found a great many Russulas with pinkish caps, and were interested to find out that they were Emetic Russulas (Russula emetica; also called the Sickener Mushroom and pictured in the above photo), which as the name implies causes vomiting if ingested. We knew these were not Rosy Russulas, which look similar, because ours had white stalks and the Rosy’s have reddish stalks. Here is a photo of one specimen we did not pick as a Banana Slug was enjoying it as lunch. Daughter commented that apparently slugs “did not mind” the poisons!

Note: in trying to find a link to the Rosy Russula I came across this page. It seems our specimen may, in fact, be Russula silvicola since we were most definitely not in a sphagnum habitat! Such are the problems of identification. We really should use the Internet more but it’s not handy to have a computer next to a bunch of dirty, insect-laden mushrooms! Plus we both enjoy looking through the books. We’ll have to keep our eyes open for more Mushroom Manuals (one that comes recommended by our “all the rain promises” author is Mushrooms Demystified, which I think will be on an upcoming Amazon order!).

We also found a lovely specimen that was tall, all pale grey, with a distinct volva (Daughter always giggles when she hears this word, thinking it is interesting that it is so close to the word “vulva” when it has such a different function!). At first we thought we’d found a Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) but upon reading further we realized our specimen was most likely a Grisette. It definitely fit the description of “exceedingly handsome”, and apparently they are edible, so much more benign than the Death Cap. We compared the descriptions for two Grisettes, Amanita constricta and Amanita vaginata and Daughter decided ours was the former, the more rare of the two species. It was hard to tell because our mushroom’s volva had been damaged in transit and the distinguishing feature is whether the volva is pinched at the base. Daughter was certain it was when we found it, but I think she liked the idea of having the less common species!

Given our findings of poisonous (and almost poisonous, in the case of the Death Cap) we were pleased to recall that, at the Ecology Centre, we’d been told that even poisonous mushrooms need to have their fibres broken down to release the toxins, so merely touching them cannot transmit the poisons.

We planned to make spore prints but unfortunately they were full of maggots (which Daughter found adorable and fascinating but I insisted absolutely could NOT be kept in the house – I like insects, but maggots creep me out!) so we put them outside and then promptly forgot about them. It rained heavily the next day turning them into mush. However, I collected some more today so next week we’ll report on what we found and the spore prints we made!