Alternative Parenting – Page 34 – a hippie with a minivan

Schools are for Fish…

Thanks Ania for the link to these!!

“Go to your local public school, walk down the hallways
and see what behaviors you would want your child to emulate.”
-Manfred B. Zysk

“By breaking up topics into age-appropriate subjects as schools do,
learning is divorced from real life, and therefore limited.”
-Sara McGrath

(and of course you can read Sara’s blog here)

I hope there are more of these…I love them!!

what they don’t know they know…

Every once in a while my mainstream schooling propaganda mind gets hold of me and I try “schooling” the kids by asking what certain numbers are etc… Xavier hates it with a passion and not only will he not tell me, he gets uninterested and almost gets upset and just says that he doesn’t know… I learned my lesson and don’t do it anymore, but then my brain starts asking if he is really learning…

then out of the blue he surprises me… he can do simple math… addition and subtraction… he knows that 2+1=3… though he doesn’t know that he knows it yet and would never admit it…

I got a game installed on the computer a few days ago that I didn’t know if it would interest him or not… it is an older game… I think 2001 but it is not really dated… “The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions”… pretty much the goal of the goal is to do “something”… it can be to get a mouse to his cheese or a bowling ball into a basket… to do what you have to do, you have to build a contraption… you use ropes and pulleys, springs and generators, gravity etc… it teaches you how gears work, how ropes and pulleys can work, how somethings are heavier than others…

logic…physics….

I started to play the game and naturally Xavier sat down next to me and watched… then while I was up and doing something he decided to play and was really good… we went back and started his own game and now he is advancing though the levels… today as Simon sat down next to him and he started a new level he pointed out how many of each thing that he had for that levels contraption… (eta… it is shown by having a small number next to each picture)
He is learning without knowing it and applying what he is learning seamlessly and unconsciously… this is the way that he learns best… It makes me proud that we can provide that environment for him…

Ellaroo Action shot…

I love my new Ellaroo… the colours are so chocolaty…

8 years…

Yesterday was our 8 year anniversary… wow… I can’t believe that it has been 8 years already… then of course… that day seems as though it was an eternity ago…

My mom was here for two days to visit and when she actually showed up I realized that Simon and I could probably go out without the older boys… Khéna of course is too young to be left for an hour or two… so Simon and I went out with Khéna and went to the little Thai restaurant that I love. It was the first time we have been out to supper together like that in about 5 years… of course we had Khéna… but it is not the same…

After the restaurant we went to a little cafe for dessert and coffee and then walked around a bit before heading home… of course the boys were still awake and had just got out of the bath when we got home…

I was a great evening…

oh… Here is one of my gifts….

A new Ellaroo… the new ELSA… mmmm… chocolate coloured…

what's next?

ok… someone once asked somewhere when saying that I was a weirdo and “bad mom” because of CLW (child led weaning)… “What’s next? “child-led internet surfing” or “child-led menu planning” or “child-led potty-training” “ (btw… she has since somewhat apoligised, but I haven’t forgotten, or really forgiven… she said some other harsh things)

I think I will deal with these one at a time…

child-led internet surfing… I have to admit… I don’t understand that one… Xavier can navigate quite a few pages of the internet though and I let him… he knows how to go back a few pages, he has self-learned the symbols and colours that often mean yes and no, open and close, play, pause etc in a video… it is actually really surprising what he has learned to do by just doing it… though we are often the ones that open the pages for him (i need to work on a favourites page for him), sometimes if we leave a link on the desktop and tell him about it he can double click it and start games etc… he also now has our old computer set up in the playroom that he can play games on anytime he chooses…

child-led menu planning… umm… why wouldn’t you? We are all members of the family and we all need to eat… why shouldn’t kids have a say in the menu planning?

When I am planning meals for the week I always ask the kids what they want and yes we eat those things, along with things that Simon chooses and I choose… what do the kids ask for? Pizza, fries, soup, pasta, fish, broccoli, mac and cheese, Shepard’s pie, sushi (colin), tacos, bagels, eggs, oatmeal, pancakes and the list goes on… what ends up on the list is a mix of what all of us feel like eating… sometimes it is a meal that I like more than the others, sometimes it is a meal that Simon loves, sometimes it is a meal that the kids love… What is important is to get them used to eating in a healthy way and they will make healthy decisions, pizza is most often homemade, homemade tomato and barley soup, oven fries etc… and if it wasn’t for the kids having a say in the meal-planning we wouldn’t being eating Broccoli or rice… foods that I never liked, but because of the kids liking it and asking me to make it for them, have become important staples in our diet…..

child led potty-training…. umm… of course! what is wrong with allowing someone control over their own body, especially when it is something that they are the only ones that CAN have control over it!

First… EC is exactly that… babes at birth know their pottying needs, they communicate that they need to go, parents choose to listen and aid them in going in a potty, bowl, toilet etc… (something that is the norm in other cultures) or they choose to ignore (by choice or by cultural ignorance) and train the baby to use diapers instead, only to need to untrain and re-learn later on.

It is a bit scary that adults think that they have control over the elimination of another human being. I have seen a few examples of how children are “taught” potty-training… it can be really sad…

If a child has been trained to use a diaper, then they should be allowed to untrain and relearn when they are ready… for some, that may be later, for some it will be earlier… but they will do it when they are ready…