How far I have come…

I have said it in the past, yet I will say it once again. I have always wanted to journal, yet never found the medium that inspired me to keep at it. This blog is what changed that for me. Now, as more years go by, I am enjoying going back and seeing how much I have evolved as a parent and as a person… as I updated the blog I happened to find myself re-reading a few old posts. It is amazing to me how far I have come in the last years.

When I started this blog I was a mom of two… Xavier was 2 and Colin was about 9 months old, I was the moderator of the AP board on a very popular mainstream site and needed a place to rant. I defined myself as “AP” though I was past that “list” stage, yet it was still was a way to find like-minded people. I was not yet an “unschooler” though I did know that we would be homeschooling with little to no structure. I had ideals, I had a parenting philosophy, I knew what was important to me, yet I did not have the experience. I read what I wrote so many years ago and realize how I was so “new” at being a parent.

So many things have changed over the years, yet it has only evolved in what I see is a positive way. I remember being told “oh, you just wait and see…your kids are young/you only have one/you only have two” when it came to subjects that were not in the mainstream, as if my ideals would change as my children grew or I had more. I agree, they have, but they have not been crushed or been left behind, they have only evolved or have been reinforced.

I used to have ideals that I believed were true and possible, now I have the same ideals that I know are true and possible. I have seen my children learn to fall asleep without ever being trained or crying and without having sleepless nights, I have seen my children wean without weaning them. I have seen my children learn to walk though I always held them and wore them. I have seen how EC works and how amazing it can be to have a baby not wear diapers. I have seen my children learn to read without having taught them. I have seen my children learn boundaries without punishment, whether it be physical or emotional.

It is what I have seen and experienced that has made something change in me.

I no longer have the rants in me that I once had. I saw that shift when I decided to change the name of my blog from “Paxye’s Rant” to “a hippie with a minivan” back in 2007

I knew that I didn’t need to rant as much anymore but I don’t think I understood why as much as I do now.It is in this respect that I see how far I have come…

I now see that my rants were often signs of defensiveness. Not defensive because I felt I was doing something wrong, but because it was all still so much of an unknown. I was parenting in a way that was foreign to the way that I grew up, that was foreign to the way those that surrounded me parented. I knew in my heart that it felt like the right to parent for us, yet I did not yet have a concrete example of the results that would be attained by doing so. Of course, I am still learning each and every day how to break the cycle of the way that I was brought up. I am still a fairly “new” parent with many trials ahead of me.There are still many mistakes to be made and that have been made, that I have learned from and am still learning from. But, I can see that it is no longer as easy for other parents to say “just wait and see”, I am now a more seasoned parent of four that is not only talking the talk, but has been walking the walk.

I look forward to seeing this post in another 6 years and again understanding how far I have yet again come from where I am now.

Everybody is a genius…

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,

it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.

~ Albert Einstein

As home learners we are sometimes faced with criticism or questions about where our children rank among others. People ask about testing and wonder if our children are learning at the same pace as others in their age group. People’s expectations of our children often seem much higher then other children and there often is a voice of “concern” about our children’s learning. Honestly, I wish people would just mind their own business.

There are many reasons we choose not to send our children to school and those reasons have evolved over the years. I know that there are many homeschoolers out there that choose to homeschool for very different reasons then we do. The majority of those, do school at home. Working from a set curriculum, recreating a more personalized school structure in the comfort of their own home. We, however, do not.

One of the main reasons that we choose not to send our children to school was because we don’t agree with the system. Not just the school system itself, but the whole way that learning is approached conventionally. In a past post I explained how unschooling is different in that the focus is not about teaching but about learning.It is about leaving behind the idea of teaching separate subjects and instead about the child understanding the world as a whole.

Where our children rank, is of no importance to us. Not because we don’t care, but because we are confident that they are learning what they need and what they want to learn. We are using a different system of learning that can not be measured in the conventional way, nor do we want them to be measured it in the conventional way. Through letting our children learn at their own pace we are letting them be geniuses in their own right. Their passions shine through every thing they do and their knowledge is always expanding.

When I was a student, I was awful at math and I hated math class. It was not that I didn’t like actual math and logics, I actually loved it. But the way that the subject of math was taught in the schools that I attended didn’t coincide with the way that I understood math in my head. I would get the right answer, but I was never able to show the “correct” way that I got to my answer and because most of the marks were focused on that, I would often fail and I did fail… or actually, I should say, the system failed.

We all have our strengths, we all have our ways of understanding things, not all of us are set on the same path in life, not all of us have the same passions, same goals. I see unschooling, life learning, as a way to celebrate and bring out my children’s strengths,as a way to set them on the path that they are destined for. I believe that not teaching them in a conventional way will open the path up so that they can learn and advance in their own way. As a child I was taught that I must conform to fit in, to succeed, if not I was teased, I failed classes or felt like an outsider. I often failed to see how separate school subjects related to the real world, or related to each other, and forgot about them as soon as I passed the test, only to need to relearn them later on if the need (or want) came up. I was taught that I must live up to the expectations of others to succeed. It was only when I was out of school that I was able to find myself. I want my children to be themselves now, to live up to their own expectations, to have control over the own success.

So no, where my children rank among others, is of little importance to us. We see that they are learning every day.  We see that they are advancing, that their interests are evolving, that they have confidence that they can be successful at anything they put their mind to,  and that their genius shines through every thing they do.

Elenco Electronic Snap Circuits

This came into our home at Xmas time and didn’t come out right away (I kept forgetting to get batteries) But once it came out it has been out almost out every day since…

Snap Circuits

Snap Circuits is all about circuits. You build a circuit by snapping the pieces together (hence the name). You can make a light light up, music come out of a speaker, make a fan go (and fly off) etc. You put resistors in, or add things in different sequences and see what happens… what happens when you add a cup of water to a circuit? I can’t wait to find out! The instructions and explanations are clear and though we just have the basic kit for now, there are so many things that can be done and I am sure we will add other kits in the future.

Snap Circuits

At the moment, it is Xavier that has the most interested since he can read he can read the instructions, though the diagrams are quite easy to read also so slightly younger kids or not yet reading kids with an interest probably will be able to do some of them also…

double checking...

I remember taking electricity classes in High school, I remember not understanding the diagrams. I remember a friend doing the work for me because we were in pairs and he got it and I didn’t and leaving the class most likely as ignorant about electricity and elecronics as before the class, and maybe slightly more confused. If we would have had something like this, I would have understood completely. Even in a tactile sense snapping the pieces together is satisfying and I am looking forward to having a turn too…

Winter Unschooling gathering…

On the 2nd we left for the Winter unschooling gathering at Oka national park. It was amazing!

We were only 7 families which made the gathering the perfect size for talking and sharing and for the kids to play and have fun without being overwhelmed…

I stuck to my plan of not taking to many pictures and instead just enjoying and living the moment..

Karen Knitting

We talked and shared, the kids played and played.

The first night we got there it was more about settling in, on the second night we had a great potluck with amazing food and great conversation. After Supper the kids, and a few parents, all headed to the playground in the dark and played games under the stars, coming back in with red cheeks and noses and ready for sleep. During the day, they played Sardines (an amazing derivative to Hide-and-seek where when the hidden person is found, the group starts hiding with them until everyone is there) and board games and just hung out in other peoples rooms or outside…

Colin

Simon and Khéna Xavier

In the snow for the first time.. Willa

On the third day the Ice slide was re-opened (it had been too mild for it) and the kids spent part of the afternoon on it and then we headed back after supper in the dark for a few night slides when the park was closed and we were the only ones there…

I feels so refreshing to be with people that share the same lifestyle, the same philosophy of learning, the same attitudes towards children.

I took the camera out when we went to the Ice slide just before heading home…

Swish....

Ice slide at Oka National Park

The boys and I

Oka Beach...

falling asleep on daddy

I even made a video 🙂

If you are in Montreal, Oka National Park is a great place not too far away to head for the day for a walk or sliding…

Can’t wait for the next unschooling gathering!!

Re-post: my favourite parenting books…

After a comment was posted last night asking for book recommendations I thought it would be a great time to do a repost of my favourites.

I would guess that many of you already know and love these books but if you don’t, and you have kids, or have kids around you, you need to read them..

The difference between these books and mainstream parenting books are that these are not all “how to” books… they are not books meant to give quick fixes while putting parents into an “us against them” frame of mind with children. They are not all-in-one manuals and instead all compliment each other.  These books will change the way you think about children, will help you communicate with your children and will give the tools to recognize that “bad behaviour” is often a symptom of an underlying need that is not being met.

Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason: this book points out what is wrong with the system of rewards and punishments. Kohn focuses on parenting with unconditional love and respect and giving children the chance to make their own decisions.

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More: This might be a bit more geared toward the older child, but it is a great book to read while children are still young. Neufeld and Mate talk about how society has been putting an emphasis on opportunities to socialize and as a result children are forming attachments to their peers. They point out that attachment doesn’t stop in infancy and it is important to keep our attachment to our children, to be a strong and positive primary role-model until they are able to stand on their own as an adult….

The Continuum Concept: In Search Of Happiness Lost
: Jean Liedloff spent 2 1/2 years in the south american jungle and this is her account. The focus here is to be a very present parent by always having your baby with you but at the same time being very passive and not child-centered.

Playful Parenting: As a play-therapist Cohen shows you how to communicate through play. The book focuses on the importance of attachment in infancy and all the way through the teen years, and goes through all the problems of rewards and punishments, and permissive and over-authoritarian parenting.

Child Honouring: How to Turn This World Around: This was written by Raffi, yes, “Baby Beluga” Raffi. Read his Covenant for Honouring Children.

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane): This is not a parenting book per say, but it is a great read. This book gives you the tools to deal with fears we have as a parent and how to teach kids to be safe, without being over-protective. Listen to your intuition.

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