Tag Archive | parenting

Exercise doesn’t have to mean Sport!

Jun1

I’ve just got back from an exercise group I do. It’s nothing too serious, just various forms of leaping about to great music that gets us moving, and laughing and puffing! But it has a seriously beneficial effect on my fitness which is the point. And, even better, it has nothing to do with sport.

Sport is always all over the media and I get sick of it. I know I’m very much in the minority here; sport is generally most people’s thing, especially football and the powerful seductive machine it’s become – and big business of course! But just because it does nothing for me, wasn’t very good at it not being competitive at all, and there isn’t a sport I want to do, it doesn’t mean I’m a couch potato who doesn’t exercise, am not fit, and don’t appreciate how important exercise is for health and well being.

But exercise and keeping fit, doesn’t always have to mean Sport – a misconception many people are under.

I really feel for all those children like me – those who just are not interested in or don’t enjoy sport. Being a minority, it can be easy to think of yourself as weird!

So this is a plea to take a moment to appreciate that not all children will be into sport. And not all children will be good at it. But they can still be good at moving around and getting exercise. The point being that everyone can be fit and healthy without necessarily being involved in any kind of sport or competition at all.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that exercise is more important than sport because everyone can do something active – at their own rate, in their own way, of their own volition, and especially important: without judgement or competition.

I just wanted to put that out there among you because I know that there is a good chance that some children will be made to feel bad about themselves because of sport. And I fear that there have been far too many children in the past – and probably it still goes on – who have suffered in the name of organised sports, from things like; not being good at it, from derogatory remarks about their skills (or lack of), from not being picked, from not winning, from feeling inferior and useless. So we should make sure that doesn’t happen.

It is of course essential for us all to exercise. It is essential for the very core of our health – our mental health as much as physical. But exercise does not have to involve sport. Great if there’s a sport you love, your kids love, and you are involved and excited by it, and therefore encouraged to do it regularly – you’re already exercised. Splendid!

But for those of us who are not like that, all those children and young people who are also not like that, we all need to know that being fit and healthy does not always need to be equated with a sport and you’re not less of a person for not liking or wanting to be part of sports, team games, competitions, or what everyone else is good at. Some children recoil from team games, it’s agony for those who are shy or reserved, or lacking in the necessary skills. They’ll come to it later – or maybe they won’t. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that the habit of being active becomes an enjoyable part of everyone’s lives, children and adults, not something kids dread. It becomes part of your family’s routine because, not only is it part of maintaining good health – it makes you feel great too. It would be wonderful if children, early on in their lives, actually get to feel that terrific buzz of endorphins that exercise and movement gives you, so that they continue to make it part of their lives throughout. That they realise it doesn’t have to be about winning or losing, and doesn’t have to involve sport unless they want it to, it doesn’t have to involve others unless they want it to.

So while all these summer sports splash themselves across the media please also let your children know that they are not less of a person for not being interested. While finding something else, just as important, that gets them going, maybe social, maybe not, that keeps them fit, that’s fun to do, and ultimately makes them feel good.

Do you Home Educate to The Gender Gap?

May1

I’ve been reading (wading through actually – I had to concentrate) a book about the brain.

It’s called ‘The Gendered Brain’ (by Gina Rippon) and is a deep investigation into the historically and ingrained belief in a perceived difference between the female and male brains.

I say perceived because actually, after a thorough investigation into the the mass of research, especially more recent evidence resulting from neuro imaging, the fascinating conclusion is that the differences between the female and male brains are negligible. There are in fact more similarities than differences. Which therefore begs the question; where does the gender gap in expectation and achievement of our young people come from?

The conclusion they draw, after extensive examination of all the research, from past to present, and the debunking of so many damaging myths evolved mostly from badly reported media coverage of scientific findings relating to brain research (neuro bollocks they delightfully call it), is that it is mostly learned from interaction, cultural influence and life experiences. The gender gap does not evolve because male brains are bigger and better than female brains.

This has huge implications on the way we raise and educate our youngsters.

In the light of that fact, if we examine the way we behave towards, respond to, teach, influence and educate our young people, we may well find that it is us who are contributing hidden messages about gender all the time, it is so culturally ingrained, and we may well be doing so about related achievement too.

The author says that it is important to “register the gendered bombardment that is coming from social and cultural media, as well as from family, friends, employers, teachers (and ourselves) and understand the very impact it is having on our brains”.

They say that right from tiny babies, and possibly even before, children become alert to the rules of social engagement in their world, which continues throughout childhood, adolescence and the whole of life. And an explanation for the gender gap may be based not in having either a male or female brain, but is a “tangle of brain based and world based processes” we pass through as we grow. These can lead to damaging self fulfilling prophecies and stereotype threat that will lead children to believe that they are good or bad at something simply because they are either a girl or a boy. When they should instead have a strong sense of their identity and aptitude based upon their personal skills and individual ability to learn and achieve whatever gender.

I thought I was fairly aware of our behaviour but I can see, after reading this book, that we respond to the new boy and girl babies in the family differently. It is somehow, so deeply rooted in our culture to do so. You only have to walk around a toy shop, or child clothing rail to see it publicly encouraged. And I am quite appalled how easily we succumb to these insidious stereotypes, even though I liked to think we were very conscious about the way we parent. Clearly not enough – I’m ashamed to say!

After reading this book I realise we have to be more mindful than ever about not promoting gender differences in choices or stereotyping in a way that may inhibit our young people’s self esteem and consequently achievement, as it is youngster’s self esteem and identity that plays the biggest part in their later achievements and not whether they have a brain that’s encased in either a female or male package. Such a vital point to keep in mind as you home educate.

The author says that it’s the gendered world that predicts a gendered brain; the lessons learned from our social experience, rather than our biological make up. And that gendered influence is extremely powerful even in today’s enlightened society; “gender stereotypes are a real brain-based threat that can divert brains from the end point they deserve”. That’s well worth keeping in mind.

And consequently worth asking how gendered is your parenting and educating climate, and whether you are falling into the unconscious stereotyping I was. Whether you’re inadvertently promoting the idea that some things will not be for your child simply because they’re either girl or boy.

Every day with a child is a chance to influence a future

Mar1

Since it’s Mother’s day this month I thought I’d bring back up this idea from way back. For it still is true and is so remarkable when you think what it is you do when you’re a mum, and I think you need reminding how incredible you are!

Actually, it involves fathers too, and they quite rightly have their own day of celebration. So this is for all you parents.

Have you ever considered what the title says: that every day with your child, presents an opportunity to influence a future?

Have you ever thought of it like that? Possibly not when continuous days with children can be extremely wearing, doing activities at their level a bit boring, and their endless energy totally exhausting!

But if you think about it, every moment you spend with children influences a future. Their future. Your future. Society’s future. The earth’s.

Why is that then?

Well – children are so readily influenced; so believing and naive and absorbent to learning. The experiences they have with you, however large or seemingly small, make an impact on them. They are like little computers gathering input from the things around them, from the things that happen and are said to them, and assimilating that with what has happened before. Small children don’t even have the filters that come with maturity to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad. They just absorb it all. Take it fairly literally. Digest it. And what they perceive becomes part of them.

So whatever experience they have with you, whether it’s fun or loving, wise or trusting, harsh or unjust, exciting or dull or dismissive, it moulds their understanding and view of the world, their education and even their personalities to a degree.

All interactions with our worlds shape who we are and what we do with our future. And the biggest influence on that shape comes when we are young, through the people we’re with.

Like your child with you.

That’s the way in which being with children has the opportunity to shape the future; we’re shaping a future being.

No small responsibility then!

But it needn’t be daunting. For it is quite simple really. Simply being with children – and being simply a good parent – does the trick. And don’t panic about that good parent bit – you probably already are or you wouldn’t be reading this.

Being a good parent is about being engaged and positive and fair, encouraging and caring, showing them what an unbelievably exciting place the world can be, what a myriad of fulfilling possibilities there are, how incredible all aspects of the planet are, how being loving and caring of the planet and the people in it will bring love and care back to them, and how to deal with aspects of the opposite in a way that dissipates harm rather than expanding it. Just showing how a simple acts of kindness and goodness makes life good – that’s enough to shape a good future – make it simple and sweet. (And that will also include a bit of ignoring at times too, so don’t worry – they need their own head space and down time as you do).

These are the ways in which we have the opportunity to enhance a future. Everyone’s future, for the way in which our children grow up will impact on everyone if you think about it broadly. As they come into contact with others, they will send out little ripples of influence out into their world too, impacting on those around them. Their learning will expand from them and help others learn. It is a wonderful, ever evolving cycle and it starts with parents. And perhaps it’s even more influential if you are home educating parents showing the world a diverse way of doing things. Diversity is always good – it helps the world to grow.

That’s what you’ll be doing as you parent your children. So if you celebrate Mother’s Day, celebrate parents per se, celebrate the incredible opportinity you have to make small impacts upon the world. And celebrate the important irreplaceable job you do as a parent.

Enjoy a Happy Parent Day. You deserve it!

Showing others the way

Feb2

I was visiting a little local museum the other day. And there was such a lovely hubbub of children and parents, busying with all sorts of activities. This being a school term weekday I could only imagine that they must have been home educators. Apart from the fact that you kind of recognise their vibe.

I couldn’t exactly describe that vibe, I just know it when I see it; the engaged buzz, the curiosity of the kids, the keen and respectful way they all speak to each other; adults and children alike! You know what I mean? I so wanted to join in!

There were one or two disapproving looks coming from other members of the public, and I could see one of the HE parents cringing with guilt for disturbing the reverent peace in there. (I remember feeling like that early on – almost guilty for being out in public in school time!)

But cringe you shouldn’t for you’re doing an amazing thing and it might be that the vision and example of home educating families out in public like that, may rescue another family from being stuck in school when it’s not working, when the parents may not have otherwise had the courage to go ahead. The sight of you, doing what you’re doing, might just be providing that little bit of faith and encouragement another parent needs.

This reminds me of a little story I shared not so long ago about the time when our home educating days had actually come to an end. Imagine that! Hard, I know, when you’re completely immersed in it, the idea of it being over seems impossible, especially when you can feel so exposed, judged, criticised sometimes. Or just noticeable – when all others are in school. When people seem to feel entitled to comment. Or you’re getting vibes of disapproval like these. But be bold with your home educating, for it may be you’re secretly helping another along the road, you never know:

Here’s a conversation my eldest, Chelsea – now well beyond her home educating days, had on a coach the other day.

She was aware suddenly that the folks behind her were talking about education. Then home education came into it and her ears pricked. She earwigged for a bit;

“I home educate my two children; they’re almost teenagers now,” said parent 1. This provoked the inevitable sceptical murmurs from parent 2. And the usual comment: “Well I would worry about the social side of it.” Along with other slightly disapproving remarks that suggested inevitable failure. Chelsea could sense parent 1 feeling the need to defend herself.

So she couldn’t resist chipping in at this point.

She turned round. “Sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t help hearing your conversation. I was home educated,” she told them. And put them straight on the social bit! Told them how many others did it and there were plenty to meet up with, how she would be out and about in groups, doing shared activities etc – just like you’ll all be doing.

They chatted on a bit, although parent 2 had less to say at this point, probably realising she couldn’t continue to denounce something she knew nothing about. Then she had to get off the coach and that’s when parent 1 tapped Chelsea on the shoulder.

“Do you mind if we chat a bit more about home education?” She asked. “It’s just so interesting to meet an adult who was home educated, you so rarely do.”

And she and Chelsea chatted on for a while about how it panned out for her, whether she ever got asked about it, etc. And of course the other inevitable; the GCSEs, what effect it all had on her future.

“It just ceases to be relevant after a while,” Chelsea told her. “They came up when I wanted to go to college, but I got in anyway and went onto Uni from there.”

The parent still asked about exams.

“Put it this way,” Chelsea went on. “I didn’t do GCSEs or A’ Levels, I still went to college and Uni, I did a foundation degree, I’ve been in work continuously and have my own business. I’ve never been asked about it recently, and now I’m doing a Masters.”

I think the parent was reassured.

So you see, however immersed in your home education you are now, there will come a time when it your family will be beyond it. You will no doubt have taken many a diverse route along the way, but it will cease to matter by then anyway.

And there may also come a time when your young ones are at the point where they too can reassure someone else coming along in their wake.

Meanwhile, be proud of being out and about with your learning. You may not know it but you might just be helping another family step away from a path that is not working for them, and be part of thousands of others who are successfully demonstrating that education can be developed in ways other than those dictated by the system – a myth the government is doing its best to hang on to!

A Philosophical January

Jan2

How do you fancy starting January, and your new home educating year, by getting a bit philosophical?

Ask yourself this: How are you going to start your new home educating year? And what do you want it to look like?

It’s a good way to begin another year. Not necessarily to make rigid resolutions. More to have a loose idea of where you want to go and what you’d like to manifest in your home educating life. After all, we’re often instructed to set intentions in other elements of life so why not with home educating?

I remember pondering this question one morning, before the children were awake, so it was very, very early. Early enough to see the light begin to climb up above dawn’s parapet and illuminate the condensation on the window. I’d opened the curtains so I could watch it highlight the land and warm the first stirrings of life. Mine included!

(And the cat!)

It began to work and ideas were kicking in. And one question I’d been mulling over a great deal at that time was: What are we raising our kids to do?

Many parents, especially those of school children, become so desperately engrossed in the idea of results and outcomes and tangible measurable achievements, that are recognisable or quotable to the mainstream public, that they begin to believe that this is what education is. And never even ask that fundamental question; what are we raising them to do in the wider scheme of things.

But when I deeply thought about it, I discovered that the answer was something bigger than schooly things like grades and outcomes and ticking boxes, wider than just the academic results you achieved from a system that upheld that as the only thing of importance.

What we wanted was to raise our children to have a warm, loving, intelligent, caring and connected life. A life that fulfilled them in positive ways. A life that not only connected them to others but to the planet they were on, in an understanding, productive, and empathetic way. And a life that contributed much – to their well being – to society as a whole, – that made it worth them being there.

Were results the only way to get there?

The small things that we sweat over them learning like times tables, or neat writing, or grammar or manners, or test results, or completing the next level in their science work, are really only small things.

The big things are how they feel, how they behave, how they treat others, how they care about the impact their actions have both within their nearest world of family and the wider environment and its people. And the way we educate them about those things comes directly from the way we, and the loving others that are around them, behave towards them. How we behave towards others. How we behave towards the planet. The importance we attach to those things. The importance we attach to understanding them.

Sometimes, I found, we lost our way.

Sometimes, I found, our home education could become too intense about getting them to learn things, academic things, things that the system deemed important (but we didn’t), that we spoiled that loving, curious, warm, caring relationship we wanted with our children and their learning. And we needed to stop, stand back, and think a moment about what we were really raising our kids to do, what were we raising them to be, and what example were we setting as to what was important, and why.

There is a time and a place for stopping and reflecting and being philosophical for want of a better phrase. And no better time than the start of the year.

Educating can be warm, caring and curious and still be successful. Our parenting needs to remain warm, caring and curious. And it is always worth taking time to think about whether you’re getting too bogged down in the smaller academic minutiae that others deem important, but which can easily lead you away from that more caring perspective and your own core reasons for doing what you do. The way you want to do it. The way you want your home educating year to go. How you want it to look.

And that’s why it’s important that you regularly stop and question!

(You can read more on our educational philosophy and what we wanted if you scroll down the page above: ‘About Home Education’)

Meanwhile, here’s wishing you a very Happy New home educating Year!

Warm winter habits

Dec1

I’ve just got all my numerous layers off after a winter walk along the dripping lanes and village pavements. The roads are awash with mud and the gutters still thick with remnants of autumn leaves, debris and general flotsam battered down from trees and gardens by the storms and winds we’ve had. Grateful to be back in again I head for the kettle.

That’ll be my walk over for the day and freedom from guilt (and even anxiety) about stopping in all day. For despite the lure of the fire and the uninviting lashing of weather at the window, I still have to leave the computer or whatever I’m doing and push myself out at some point. Because I know, if I don’t, there’ll be a payback later. Not only will I be stiff and achy from being still too long, I shall have stiff and achy spirits from being indoors. Spirits that I know will readily spiral down to some dark cave below floor level, accompanied by an irrational temper and irritation that exceeds anything PMT throws at you! This is what lack of outdoors time does to me. Actually does to everyone, especially kids.

It’s SO important to get outside.

.I know I go on about it a lot. But there really is no substitute for outdoor time – I’m a huge advocate for it. Especially essential when you’re home educating, have no other reason to go out, and would otherwise not choose to on bad weather days.

I know it’s hard. I know it’s sometimes a mammoth undertaking to get them all togged up and out when they’re resisting, when you just get out the the door and the baby has pooped their nappy, or someone’s supposedly got a bad foot, or their wellies are hurting. You begin to wonder why you’re bloody bothering. But, have faith, it will have an impact – invisible perhaps at this moment of being at the end of your tether, but trust me. There are numerous benefits you wouldn’t even guess at.

Google ‘why children should get outside’ and you’ll see what I mean. It lists them and links to many articles worth a read. Not only about the physical benefits, but also the mental and emotional benefits, the cognitive and social too. Benefits you may not have thought of. Exercise and outdoor time affects not only their bodily muscles, but their heart and brain too. Not only how fit they are, but also how intelligent they are. Were you aware of that?

And, in reality, the bad weather rarely lasts ALL day. There will probably be brighter moments, or moments when it’s not so fierce. It also pays to remember the old adage: there’s no bad weather – only the wrong clothes! Charity shops are great for those extra coats etc.

So many times I battled to get my youngsters out – even into their teen years, (see the Story in ‘A Home Education Notebook’ in chapter 24 called ‘The Outdoor Miracle’ where I even got the teenager singing) – and then when we got back the indoor grumbles were forgotten.

It was always worth it.

Not only for this moment either. For if you set good habits whilst they’re young, it’s more likely to continue into later life, giving them a generally healthier life over all. It also sets such a good example. If you advocate for being outside; it influences what they think and do far more than anything else in their lives.

I see so many reports of children being over sedentary and under exercised it’s truly worrying. Best not to let yours be among them. Habits cultivated when they’re young are more likely to be remembered and returned to even if there are gaps in practising them.

And when you get back you can return to all those lovely Christmas things you’ll no doubt be doing for the coming celebration.

And when it comes, may yours be a happy, healthy and joyful one.

Merry Christmas

And if you fancy a peep at my rambles do link up on Instagram!

The risk of Comparison-itus

Nov2

I know I’ve gone on about the wonders of the internet for home educators and how it has completely changed the the prospect of it, but you see, the internet wasn’t really a ‘thing’ when we started all those years ago, particularly not available in the rural area we lived in.

So I have the comparison with home educating without it!

Consequently I have enormous appreciation of all the incredible opportunities it affords to find information, find out everything you need to know, challenge the total monopoly the government had over the education of our children, challenge and make public our misgivings about a system that doesn’t work for many, and most essential of all; to be able to connect with others doing the same.

No one need home educate in isolation now – which it could be pre-internet. You can tap into groups, communities and support with a click or two. Find others who think like you instead of feeling an alien for your ideas. Wonderful!

I guess most of you coming to home education now could not even begin to imagine life without the Internet. Let alone trying to Home educate without it. But think for a moment how it would be without that instant connection and support. Would you actually be brave enough to opt out of mainstream schooling and go for it? This ability to connect means you can immediately find your tribe, make contact with others like you, make it feel more like a normal everyday thing to be doing, rather than being the only one in the neighbourhood perhaps, who was considered just a bit weird!

You can almost instantly find others just like you, doing the same as you, who think like you.

But you still have to remember, of course, that actually no family is just like you. No two kids are the same, even in the same family. Definitely no two are the same in the Home Ed group you might go to. So you have to be careful not to catch the awful disease that is comparison-itus.

You might remember it from play group or toddler group, or whatever early years stuff you might have done, where there are often parents trying to top you with their child’s developmental milestones. You only had to say with such pride and happiness how your little so and so had managed to sleep through, or have a dry night, or dress themselves, whatever, and someone would come along and burst your proud parent bubble and top you by saying theirs did it weeks ago.

And this can also be a downside of social media or any connections you make on the net. It can be very easy to feel that everyone is doing it perfectly and you’re just muddling along in a mess, messing up and failing your kids.

I’ve been accused of doing it too.

As much as I’ve wanted to be encouraging, uplifting, yet remain balanced, I’ve inadvertently made it out to be all easy and roses at times and as if I’m doing everything right (Certainly did NOT – take a look at chapter 7 in ‘A Home Educating Notebook’ where I describe a bad day. And the mood and the tantrum I had in chapter 19 of ‘A Funny Kind of Education’). Even though I tried my damnedest to illustrate the warts and all, it could come across a bit perfect online.

So, when reading about other people’s home ed days, you need to remember that everyone has their bad days, everyone’s kids have their foibles, and never to compare yourself to those who appear to be doing perfectly. they won’t be. And….

There is no one perfect way to home educate.

Anything goes. Everything is a trial and error for everyone. Everyone makes mistakes, messes up, gets it wrong, but keeps going anyway. Every kid and family and circumstance is different. There is absolutely no need to compare yourself to anyone else, or to try and top others either for that matter.

Few of our Home Ed days were as perfect as this one when we’d gone out to do some field study, but it’s the good ones I tended to write about!

Our whole home educating community (online and off) should always remain supportive and not comparative or competitive and if you find yourself in a group, or connected to someone online who isn’t, I should withdraw. There’ll be plenty of others who are.

Comparisonitus is infectious. It can contaminate your best home educating days and steal away your enjoyment. You do not have to try to be like anyone else. You can learn from them, be discerning about what you choose to practice in the light of others’ experience, use people’s experiences to help keep perspective, be generous in what you offer to others to try if they wish, but there need be no judgement about it, and therefore no comparison.

Home Educating is an amazing, fulfilling, inspirational thing to do. But everyone will do it differently. Succeed at different times, rates, with different achievements. There is no right or wrong (short of abuse of course), no better or worse. No perfect way to do it.

Enjoy the benefit of the internet as you connect and learn. But make sure that you never play a part in spreading this insidious habit whilst you do so!

Let our home education be comparison-itus free!

Now more than ever

Aug1

I grew up in the city. Lived much of my life on concrete.

I live rurally now and we did so throughout the children’s childhoods. Our lifestyles as closely linked to the natural world as it’s possible to be, to the seasons, to the land and the way it produces our food, the place where we lived being an intensely agricultural area. We saw greens and potatoes grown, livestock raised, and food transported from field to shop. Sometimes we interrupted that final process and had food direct from the people who produced it.

So we were constantly conscious of how the land, the weather, and nature supports us. How it is wholly dependent on the entire ecosystem for it to continue to do so.

When we visited the city, which we regularly did, I was also aware of how completely sealed under concrete and tarmac this land, this earth, was, and consequently how easy it was to forget all about it as you lead city lives, with city pastimes of pollutive shopping and coffee shops and consumerism as hobbies instead of mud pie making and wildlife watching and seeing vegetables grow, as we did at home. In cities it’s like all forms of nature are seen as inconvenient, often dirty, and to be eradicated. Was only something you visited in a conveniently tidy park space.

Over my lifetime, since I made this change from city to country dweller, the majority of the population has done the opposite. When I was a youngster, most of the population lived in the country – had experience of it – knew what earth was! Now, the higher proportion of the population lives in cities, removed from this direct consciousness of the earth, the land, and the precious ecosystem. And consequently it is extremely easy to forget all about it. To forget that the land that is battened down under all this concrete is what provides us with food, with materials we need, with the very stuff of life.

If there is one subject more important than anything else, on any curriculum, it is that. Think about it.

But it’s August. Lets not talk about curriculum. It’s time off from all that.

However, being August, now more than ever is an opportunity to get outside, to use this time to re-establish contact with the earth. To get the children’s hands dirty. To get our feet off pavements and onto grass, earth, sand, rock, woodland floor, into rivers, under trees, and reflect on the fact that this is where our lives come from. Our breath depends on leaves and plants. Every little critter we find – however repulsive to you, every type of habitat we explore, is equally important within the great diverse ecosystem.

How, more than ever, as our environmental crises deepen, we must educate the young to look at and look after our earth, whatever time of year it is. It is THE most important thing to be educated about. To understand.

So try and get out there this August and enjoy it. Bring the earth to the forefront of your thinking. Bring your contact with it to the forefront of your activities. And thereafter bring it to the forefront of your education. Nothing matters more than the earth does.

Now, more than ever, we need to love it better and show our children how to live their lives so that they may do so. That’s why first hand contact with it is so important. To come to understand that the earth and countryside is not just for holidays, and to look pretty; it’s where our life’s sustenance comes from. We must remember and respect.

Combining the corn for our daily bread

Inside our minds

Jul1

Have you seen the fascinating series of programmes fronted by Chris Packham, on BBC iplayer called ‘Inside Our Minds’? There are four programmes about neurodivergent brains covering Autism, ADHD and Dyslexia and they are eye-opening! {Find them here} (And find out what neurodiversity means here, where it talks about differences rather than difficulties}

Chris is happy to admit that he has a neurodivergent brain himself and understands first hand the difficulties it causes, the stigmas attached and the real unhappiness it can generate in people when they feel so misunderstood. Or feel bad about themselves when they cannot achieve easily what others can. These programmes, he says, are his attempt to counteract that and promote increased understanding and tolerance.

The beauty of the films is that, where people usually associate the neurodiverse experiences as having a negative impact on life, which indeed they can making everyday things feel a lot more difficult than for neuro typical people, the programmes illustrate the advantages and special attributes which neurodiverse brains can also have. He even introduces an employer who actually recruits those with neurodivergent brains for what they can add to the company.

Watching them, you begin to realise what an absolutely catastrophic impact the experience of school can have on people with neurodivergent brains. How schooling could inhibit learning in a devastating way; the rigidity of it, the lack of time and support needed by those who interpret their experiences in a different way, the emphasis of the learning process being on the printed word rather than image led, or experiential approaches for example, and often the attitude of those around who are not neurodivergent and have no understanding of it – both peers and staff – who probably tend to label different learners as just ‘thick’ as one guy put in in the film.

How could school be anything other than a painful nightmare for people who don’t function in the same way, at the same rate, with the same ticks in boxes, as the majority? This, of course, immediately also impacts on social confidence and connections with others, further ostracising those who already feel they don’t ‘fit’ within a norm. It is so sad how some of the people in the films see themselves – have been made to see themselves.

Is it any wonder that the percentage of neurodivergent children home educating is very high! Thank goodness for the opportunity to home educate, although obviously that isn’t the answer for everyone. The answer would be to increase understanding of the range of people’s neuro experiences in order to better provide for them, and move away from the inflexible and inhibiting approaches to learning in the system, the curriculum, testing and school environment. But that would require a complete overhaul and a radical change in our ideas about education provision and schools.

As Chris says, we all need to further our understanding of the experiences of those with neurodivergent brains. And be more tolerant and supportive. Actually, we should anyway, shouldn’t’ we, whatever our differences. I like to think the home educating community are already at the forefront of doing that!

Not like you!

May1

You hear it so often; ‘he’s so like his brother’. Or ‘isn’t she like her mum?’ In my case I was told I was just like my dad, which didn’t go down too well as I didn’t rate him at all!

Anyway, we’re all different aren’t we?

It’s sometimes hard to allow our children to be who they need – even understand who they need to be. However, it is something parents have to embrace.

As a very simple example; I was born and grew up in the city. Right in the centre as far away from rural as you can get.

But all of our childhood holidays were spent in the countryside, so I was aware of these two contrasting worlds. And it didn’t take much growing up for me to recognise from a hunger within which of these two environments was right for my soul. I soon understood that my spirits wilted when surrounded by concrete, buildings, noise and crowds without a glimpse of rural space to rest my eyes on. Yet the surroundings of greenery, fields and solitary quiet gave my spirits wings and a sense of relief I still require to thrive.

Even though I live in the countryside now and these things are common place I still experience the sudden sense of imprisonment, when shut inside too long or under laptop. Hence why I can often be found scribbling in the shelter of a hedge bottom with my bum in damp grass, or on my daily walk (as you see from Instagram).

Of course not everyone feels this. Or feels it this way round. Ironically my eldest was the complete opposite.

We made many, many excursions into cities whilst we were home educating in the country. And as her teen years kicked in I began to realise that, unlike me, it was the city that made her spirits come alive.

I can clearly remember the time when I suddenly spotted, with shock and empathy, that familiar look on her face one day that described that same feeling I’d had when I was stuck somewhere that did nothing for my spirits.

In contrast to me, she needed the city for hers. And that’s where she lives now.

That is not to say she doesn’t relish the rural things we traditionally did like picnics and walks and encounters with wildlife and flowers. And when I’m visiting her we often find park walks to do in the city.

But we both know and accept what we each are, what each needs to thrive, and that those needs are completely different from the other.

It is SO important, I think, to know and accept that our children are NOT us. And allow them to be different. Allow them to be separate.

Allowing our children to be who they need to be, without judgement, and loving them for who they are without conditions, is a fundamental ingredient to being the parent we should be, a parent that all kids need. And inevitably one of the hardest parts! And I’m not just talking location preferences, city or rural is the mildest of examples. This relates to so many aspects of their characters and lives, from food, to clothes, from social interactions to personal identity and sexuality. Especially hard if it is something so new to us or which makes us feel uncomfortable. And of course the way they learn may be so different too, very different from the way we learnt best, and different from the accepted norm.

Life and societal conventions, rules, and so-called norms, are diverse and ever changing, so it is occasionally hard to keep up, keep open and keep compassionate.

The most wonderful result, though, is that from that respect and loving acceptance the relationship can grow stronger and remain supportive.

Being supportive means allowing our children to be who they need to be, learn how they need to learn, which home educating gives us the wonderful opportunity to do, and loving them just the same. As they grow, allowing their independence from us, and consequently practising our own independence from trying to keep them like us. To enable their own preferences to be heard, develop, flourish and blossom. Never treading them down by making out out you know better.

In fact, this is true of all relationships.

So love your children the way they are, accept the way they are, and in such a way that affords them the opportunity to discover who they are, who they need to be, whatever age they are, whatever that is. And make sure you’re not hanging onto keeping them like you.