Alternative Parenting – Page 20 – a hippie with a minivan

satisfying days…

There are some days that are just satisfying…

This morning we were up at 6 but not sleepy… The boys had breakfast and I surfed the net a bit while I drank my coffee… then I started on the kitchen and the boys cleaned up the floors to make sweeping easier… then headed in their rooms and did their beds… without me asking…

At about 8:30, Xavier decided that they should go play outside so they brought all of their stuff into the kitchen so that I could help Khéna and Colin get dressed… and they headed out into the back yard and played..

and of course that meant that I could finish the kitchen, make my own bed, start a load of laundry and sweep and wash the floors without being interrupted…

They came in at about 10:15 and we sat down and did the magic trick that Annie shared on her blog and they all took a few turns each doing it and figuring out why and how it works and then did a few dissolving experiments… finishing with a baking soda and vinegar “explosion”…

It is now just after 11am and the house is clean, Khéna is napping on me and the older boys are playing downstairs and laughing… Supper tonight was made yesterday so all I have to do is heat it up this evening and I might make a bread to eat with it this afternoon…The day is not near to being finished but I just know that this mood will continue.. it is just one of those days…

and days like this just make the rough days all worth it…

may be weird to say…

but after 6 1/2 years of non-stop nursing I am realizing that I am venturing into unchartered territory…

I have never nursed a 2 year old by himself… (or in this case with only his older brother and not a new babe)… both Xavier and Colin were 2 years and 2 months when their brother was born… both of them had experienced the change of my milk in pregnancy and were nursing a bit less at the end because of the belly and the milk…

but this time, there is no belly, no change in milk and no change in nursing habits… nursing often and for longer periods of time than his brothers at the same age…

and it is not only the nursing that is different, but the fact that he is still the baby of the family. That at 2, he is not becoming a big brother so he doesn’t have any of the “responsibilities” that big brothers have… he still has first dibs on nursing or having his needs met… especially now that his brothers are getting older and can do more things for themselves…

I do want another little one… but I am happy that we are waiting… I am enjoying having the kids get older and having things get “easier”… there are challenges of course but doing things as a family and getting out the door is getting easier and when the baby that we have now is doing things more for himself I will be ready to have a baby again…

So for now I am enjoying the uncharted territory of the 2 year old whose only role is being little brother and the baby of the family…

New blog…

We are trying this out and hopefully it will continue….

The boys wanted to write something recently and then we had the idea of starting a blog and sharing the things they write and do… So it is our homeschooling blog that will hopefully be a journal of what the boys are doing, thinking and what they are interested in…

So here it is…named after the translated name of the park nearest to our home..

On the sidelines…

Last night I went out for a supper with some of the ladies from the homeschooling group…

We were to go to a fine Italian restaurant (Restaurant Laöra in St-Hilaire to be exact) and have a supper and talk and share… it was awful…
not the company, not the food, though it wasn’t amazing… but the atmosphere…

The restaurant had booked another group that were having a x-mas party and were really partying… and it was so loud that we had to scream to be able to talk… it was just really unpleasant… I wish they would have at least told us that there was another group and that there would be live rock music we could have made the choice to go elsewhere…We asked them if they could put the volume down just a bit and they ignored us… awful… really awful…

but something else happened last night… and I really felt pushed to the sidelines because of our choices…

The local group have been getting together for the kids to do things and they assumed that I wasn’t interested… and maybe I would have been, maybe not, but I don’t think it was their decision to make… I have to admit that I am pretty hurt because one of them is a good friend.

They just really don’t get the way we do things… So I wrote an e-mail this morning saying that I was pretty hurt that they made the decision for me and my children and that unschooling isn’t about doing nothing, it is about having resources and activities available and letting children make their own choices about what they want to do with them. That even if we were invited, it wouldn’t guarantee our participation but at least the kids would have the option and they might very well be interested… and even if they didn’t do it they might like to hear the other kids do it and would love to get to play with them after… (they were doing oral presentations)

Though I truly believe in the way we are doing things I am getting tired of being in the sidelines all the time… having people misjudge what we are doing yet not wanting to learn more. Trying to explain and instead of being listened to having the person go into a defensive mode and see what I am saying as judgement instead of opinion…

The friend whom I am close to called me after she got the e-mail and said that she really felt bad about it and that I could of course come over… but I didn’t go… I would have felt too uncomfortable and I am feeling a bit too hurt by the whole situation…

another reason against time-outs and power struggles..

I came across this article while looking for articles against time-outs that would appeal to a more mainstream audience… and I was quite happy to find it…

Though it was mostly repeating things that I have already know (time-outs are detrimental to attachment, do not work the way parents think they work, do not solve the problem but only focus on behaviour etc… ) something that was said really hit home with me…

“Sending a child away when they’re distressed is essentially saying to them, “I can’t handle you when you show this side of yourself. Come back when you can be the manageable Susie or Johnny that I can handle.” Not only are we telling the child that we only find the good, compliant version of themselves acceptable, we’re also declaring our inability to cope with all of who they are…..When a parent sends a child away because they can’t handle their misbehavior, they’re effectively telling them that they (the child) have the power to render them (the parent) incompetent and helpless.”

This is something that I really hadn’t thought about before… and it makes so much sense.

As parents we need to be guides to our children, we are their leaders and their teachers. If our children are taught that they can render us “incompetent and helpless” by behaving in ways that we do not like, we are entering into a power struggle that we are sure to lose. How can we teach children to deal with stressful situations if we cannot deal with them ourselves.

I have to admit that this is something that I have and will most likely again struggle with also (not time-outs per say, but power struggles and dealing with stress in impulsive ways) and I know that it is something that I can and will work on… and in the last months things have been getting easier…

Food for thought isn’t it?