Alternative Parenting – Page 5 – a hippie with a minivan

Thoughts for Anaya

Today, just a bit more than an hour ago a family lost their little girl… A daughter, a sister…

My heart is breaking for them… I can’t even imagine…

Her name is Anaya and I first started to hear her story when buzz started on the Internet in search of milk donors not long after her diagnosis. I have been following her story ever since then.

Baby Anaya was diagnosed in May 2010 with Infantile Krabbe Leukodystrophy. She first started showing symptoms in February of 2010 at the age of 4 months. This rare disease causes demylination in the brain due to lack of a specific enzyme required to metabolize fats. It can strike families with no medical history of any neurological problems. Two healthy parents who both carry a recessive gene for this enzyme deficiency can produce a perfectly healthy looking newborn, who, at the age of three or four months, will begin showing symptoms of Krabbe Leukodystrophy.
The outlook for kids with Krabbe is bleak. In most cases a baby diagnosed with infantile Krabbe will develop normally for a few months and then lose their motor skills, the ability to hold their heads up, the ability to smile, laugh or speak, followed by loss of sight and hearing. Seizures may or may not occur and average life expectancy is less than 2 years.

With the love of her family, the gift of mama milk from many candian moms and amazing care, Anaya lived for nearly 2 years and 3 months.

This is not the usual type of that I write but there is something about Anaya and her family that touched me and effected me so much. When I looked at her pictures, I saw my little girl in her. I felt a connection, I had her in my thoughts often especially when I was next my own little girl’s bedside.

So today I grieve with the family, and thank them for sharing her life with so many people.

To know more about Anaya’s life you can read her mom’s blog here…

EC setback and update…

Elimination Communication has been an important part of parenthood for me. We have used the method with 3 of our children and it has only been a positive experience.

With Colin we started when he was about 2 months old… before that, he hated peeing in his diaper and would cry and cry if he did. I had heard of it before but didn’t think it was for us. Honestly I thought it would be messy, it would be more work, I thought that I wasn’t attentive enough. I had the same misconceptions that people often have the first time they hear about it. I was open to try however and it changed everything. My upset, crying baby was now a happy baby that refused to go anywhere else than in the sink or potty or toilet. He showed me that EC was so much less work than diapers, it was cleaner and he showed me just how much control a baby could actually have. I never looked back. He was completely potty independent by two.

I started with both Khéna and Wilhelmina at birth. Though Khéna still has a few accidents at night, he was also potty independent at two.

With both Colin and Khéna we ECed with diaper backup. They didn’t actually use the diaper that often, but we seemed to feel more comfortable having it on. With Wilhelmina I decided to go diaper free from birth.

We used diapers (gdiapers with washable liners) during our trip to BC when she was 8 weeks old, but after that she was in either in normal underwear or the one-wet trainers that I had made, but she was consistent enough that we didn’t see any need for diapers.

Things were going great until the camping trip in June and her becoming sick afterwards.

At the age of 18 months, she was in diapers for basically the first time in her life. Though we still brought her to the potty and kept the routine intact she was having many more misses. EC also proved to be a lifesaver more than once in the hospital and in tests. (Urine tests, VCUG etc) The biggest setback however was because of the nephrostomy. We could get the trainers on her but it was much more complicated with the tube, so having her naked or in a diaper was easiest. The other setback with the nephrostomy was that it was draining directly into the bag on the outside, which left her with only a small portion of urine which made things much more complicated as she probably didn’t have much pressure on her bladder so she didn’t feel that she had to go.

When we headed to the hospital for her surgery at the beginning of October, I didn’t even bring the potty. I knew that it wouldn’t get much use. I couldn’t even hold her or get her out of bed for the first few days and of course she had a catheter anyway, but once she was a bit more mobile and then tubeless, I would just bring her to the toilet. However, I think it took time for her to get used to the feeling of having a full bladder again, so, since coming home she has been using either the one-wet trainers or has been in diapers…

But in the last few days things have now changed. I noticed that she had an interest in using the seat reducer on the toilet, so we tried it out and has not turned back. She now she runs to the bathroom and says “pipi” when she has to go. Instead of going often and in small amounts the timing is again spacing out as it did when she was smaller when EC was at its easiest point.

I think it is too early to say that this is it… but I definitely feel that we are at the end of diapers for good.

Électrium

On the south shore of Montreal, on highway 30, just east of the 20, there is a hidden gem called the “Électrium” that not many people seem to know about…

Really, unless you are going there specifically, or out to one of the towns past the 20 (including where I live) you would never see it.

The Électrium is Hydro-Quebec’s “Electricity Interpretation Centre”… It is full of information, experiments and hands on activities about electricity and best of all, it is free! If you have read my blog for while or looked back in the archives you will see that I have already written about it, but another visit, warrants another post.

Last Friday the boys and I headed to Montreal for Wilhelmina’s Dr. Appointment… (btw… everything is looking good!!!) On the way back I went to the Atwater market to get some veggies and food for the week and then on the ride back home I decided to stop at the Électrium on a whim. Each time we had passed by the boys would talk about it but it was never a good time, so this time it was perfect and they got so excited when I took the exit.When we arrived, there was no else there.

We were met at the door by one of the guides and she asked if we wanted to just go around by ourselves or if we wanted the guided tour… The last time we were there we were with a french homeschooling group, so even though the kids understand french, it takes a bit more effort and were not able to really listen and follow. Of course, it was also more than 2 years ago so the age difference adds much more to comprehension also. So I said that it would be fun to have an english guided tour. We were asked to wait for a minutes in the unlikely event that others that wanted to follow an English tour may arrive, but no one did so we started…

(Waiting for the tour to start)

The first part of the tour is watching a series of clips on electricity made by the NFB.

They only showed the ones on electricity but the whole set can be watched here… (they are really fun to watch!!!)

oehttp://www.nfb.ca/film/science_please_1

oehttp://www.nfb.ca/film/science_please_part_2

After the watching the clips we were led into the next room which is about safety. The guide was great and really engaged the kids… even Willa was interested… well… somewhat…

Because it was just us and the guide, the boys were able to ask as many questions as they wanted and the guide was great at answering them. He was also very passionate about his job and about what he was talking about which made it so much more interesting and informative.

After learning about safety, it was the section on electricity in nature. Our own nervous system, our reflexes, the brain, heart etc… and of course, on of the highlights of the show is the electric eel (did you know that it is actually not an eel but a knifefish?). A blue panel next to the tank has lights that light up when the eel becomes electrified. Pretty cool of you ask me…

The next section is about static electricity and starts with a small film on the Aurora Borealis/Australis and lightening… both natural reactions of static electricity…

(making balls move though glass using static electricity)

This is of course a favourite section for all because static electricity means playing with the Plasma ball and the Van de Graaff Generator.

(Wilhelmina loved the Plasma Ball)

(Van de Graaff Generator)

The last section is on magnetism and generating electricity. The boys listed and took in as much as they could but soon started getting restless… they last about 90 min before this so it was actually pretty impressive!

Since we were getting the private tour we were able to cut it short at that point and the guide left us alone so that we could go back to the beginning and the we could play with everything again…

Again, this is a great, free, hands on place to head with the kids… If you are in Montreal it is worth the short ride and will make for a great outing. They do ask for people to call ahead to not be at the same time as a group, it is a small place so if a school group is there, it will be cramped and not much fun but if it a lazy day, like on the day we went, it is a great way to spend a few hours…

Colin's Carebear essay

I just had to share this text that Colin wrote…

The funny thing about Colin writing is that he doesn’t read yet, but he loves to write. I can’t wait to see what happens when the two click together!

To write, he sits next to me and asks how to spell most words but he often figures words out on his own also..

Half way through, I casually told hom that his “s” was backwards and he corrected himself for the rest…

What Unschooling is not…

It’s September, which means that we are in the throes of the not-going-back-to-school period that seems to be the start of a new year for most. This means that along with all the schoolers, many homeschoolers are writing about the new year, talking curriculum, talking methodology, new homeschoolers are asking questions and many terms are flying around. One of those terms is of course unschooling.

I have already wrote what unschooling is to me…

….it is an ideology and a lifestyle in itself. It is seeing learning in a different way, a way that happens through the learner instead of the teacher.

Let me explain again, unschooling is a lifestyle. It is trusting that children will learn what they need to learn when they are ready to learn it. It is a process of letting go of arbitrary expectations that children should learn certain things at exactly/or by a certain age. It is shifting from the idea that we must teach in order for someone to learn. Unschooling is entirely philosophy in itself and it is as different from homeschooling than it is from school.

To unschool, I believe, that you have to embrace the educational philosophy (whether you embrace radical unschooling/child-led living etc. is then another issue). You have to trust that children will learn everything they need to know and that it may not be exactly what you think they need to know. It is a struggle, yes, and I freely admit that I do struggle with it also, as I still have all of my school baggage behind me and have outside criticism that at times penetrates the barrier that I put up… but it doesn’t change what unschooling is.

And this is where my pet peeve comes in…

What gets to me is not that people don’t know exactly what unschooling is. To be fair, it is fairy complex philosophy and far leap from most mainstream views of learning and there are so many misconceptions around it. But, it is when they don’t know what unschooling is and then still use the term to describe what they are doing or part of what they are doing. Perpetuating the myth that unschooling is basically the time that you don’t care about what your child is learning.

Here are a few quotes that I have seen in the last few weeks just to show what I mean…

“I unschool until they hit about 4 then I start incorporating a curriculum.”

“I unschool kindergarten then add more structure each year.”

Um… that is letting toddler be a toddler…a kid be a kid… it is not unschooling… it’s childhood…

“We do school work in the morning and then I let the kids unschool in the afternoon.”

So basically, you are teaching your kids what you think they need to know and then letting them play/or do unstructured schoolwork in the afternoon. I would define this as homeschooling… not unschooling.

“My kids go to school and then we unschool on the weekends.”

yes… I have heard this said and um.. no!!! again… that is letting kids just be kids and that would mean that ALL kids are being unschooled.

“We’re unschoolers… the kids choose the subjects and then we make a curriculum around that.”

I would call that relaxed or eclectic homeschooling…and it is a great way to homeschool, but it is still parent-led and is not unschooling.

Don’t get me wrong… it is not that I really care about what kind of labels people want use, I really don’t care if people don’t unschool and it is not that unschoolers feel elitist and don’t want people in their club. It’s just that there are already varying degrees of unschooling that using the term is these contexts just cause confusion. Unschooling is more than just a method, it is instead a philosophy and it simply can’t be done part-time.

If an outsider was to hear these statements they would most likely come away with the idea that unschooling is not a way in which kids can learn the “important stuff” and that is sounds like another word for unstructured learning or play.

I mean, the people who say they are unschooling in these statements are saying they believe in “unschooling” then are contradicting themselves in the same breath by saying that they will teach what’s important. Their definition of unschooling has nothing to do with trusting that children will learn on their own, it is just pointing out that their children have unstructured learning periods.

So, when unschooling is put in that context, hearing that people choose to only unschool is basically like hearing that they are choosing for their children to not learn the important things and setting them up for future failure willingly. It sounds drastic, but it is easy to understand that if this is the way unschooling is presented, it is the way that people will understand unschooling and it is understandable that their reaction will most often be negative.

By only hearing such statements, they would never see the possibilities that unschooling provides. They wouldn’t know that unschooled kids can and do learn “the important stuff”. They wouldn’t know that as time goes by the learning that happens is more complex and that as kids grow they will learn more, and learn quickly.

Furthermore, and most important, though unschooling is all about self-guided learning instead of what is being taught, by only hearing the phrases above, people will never know that unschooling can also involve structure, taking classes, using curriculum, having tutors, and even choosing to go to school later on..

Unschooling is just so much more than just “not doing school”.

So I ask you, if you are a unschooler, what do you think? Is it s pet peeve for you also? Do you see the same problems?

What about the others? What is your notion of unschooling?