As well as wings…

From ‘Persuaded’ at the Brighton Fringe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All I ever wanted to do was hide in a cupboard. It took me ages to find the guts needed to publish.

Where then has this daughter come from?

The one who can pace across the stage as if she owns it. Who can publically perform despite demons from Drama School. Who can convince audiences to laugh or cry with the character she portrays and make us believe that’s who she really is, (I know different). Who has such courage and confidence to fight the inherent shyness so many actors and actresses have. And who has grown into someone who is not what her parents are, doing things her parents could never do.

We cannot ever own all our children need to be, even though you think that’s the way of it when they’re small. Or lead them to emulate what we were.

And the biggest thing we can give our youngsters as well as wings, is the confidence which provides the lift to fly them.

I’ve just been to see my eldest in one of the Brighton Fringe productions and she was terrific on the stage – something I could never ever do.

But the performance I’m really applauding along with that one, is the courage it takes not only to do it, but to live her independent life so different from ours.

And while I bruise my palms with clapping, my soul is blushed with pride!

Terror and tissues and emotional tornados

  “I feel sick!…” she said.

Well you wanted to do it, I thought, perhaps rather callously. She was only four at the time but I felt totally stressed at the thought of her performing live on stage.

“…And I want the toilet.”

Again?

She was nestled up against me in the dressing room looking small and strange in her Mickey Mouse Costume.

“Come on Chelsea, you’ll be fine,” said one of the grown up dancers in her rustly, sparkly outfit which Chelsea would rather be wearing.

She took Chelsea’s hand and walked from me towards the huge looming dark of the stage wings. One tall. One tiny. It was as much as I could do to stop myself from running after her and grabbing her back. Gut-wrenching doesn’t come near describing it. My organs were doing somersaults. Not sure who was more terrified.

I swore I was never, ever going to let her do this again however much she said she wanted to. I was her mum. I knew best, didn’t I?

I joined the others in the audience and dribbled my anxiety to Charles from behind a tissue.

“But it’s just in her,” he said. “It’s her who wants to perform, it’s not up to you. She’s just so into it.”

“I know. But she didn’t understand about shows and stuff, she’s too little.”

“She’ll be fine, you’ll see…” he broke off as the hush descended with a fanfare and the curtain rose.

Definitely me more terrified.

For my tiny little four-year-old stood totally alone and totally cool with it, centre stage, beaming in the spotlight as she waited patiently for silence to settle. Then single-handedly announced the forth coming show to hundreds watching with a voice that suggested she’d been doing it for years. And strutted confidently off to mounting applause and ‘Aws!’ from all around.

And I knew then that she had in her that something I had no concept of, that I completely underestimated, and really had no part in developing. Performing was part of who she was; I didn’t always know best.

It’s been like that all her life. A tornado of emotions as several times a year we watched her in every show and got through all the times she felt sick.

“You can stop whenever you want to,” I always said. I always got the disdainful glare. Even a ten year old could make me feel like an idiot for thinking that was an option.

It was only Drama school that nearly destroyed it. Making her so hung up about an ability she was sure about before, just like any institution hangs kids up about their abilities if they can’t be forced to fit. How I hate them for it. But with that indomitable courage she’s bounced back.

And this weekend I’m going away to see her in her first performance in the Brighton Fringe. 

And I know I will be filled up with love and pride. And will no doubt need those tissues more than ever!

Awe-filled way to educate…

Dandelion out of concrete!

Awe in the world – I reckon that’s the best thing about being with little kids. Sharing their awe in the world, a world which is new to them of course.

Bit of a pain when you can’t get anywhere quickly because everything has to be examined; the bug on the pavement, the cat on the car bonnet, the dandelion growing out of concrete, the seeds from the sycamore, or even the odd dried dog poo. And they find endless delight in the clusters of city pigeons that strut around the benches in the precinct. They even find awe in their own feet sometimes.

Boring to us it may be, yet it’s all new stuff to learn about when you’re new to the world yourself!

Sometimes having small kids can even reignite your own awe in the everyday things we adults take for granted. That’s one of the wonderful things about having your kids around you – they make even you take notice of the little things. When you really examine the colours on a pigeon you find the most extraordinary iridescence.

If we’re not careful we can take this for granted. And overlook the essential part all this plays in our children’s education.

For this observation is a basis for educating – observational skills are valuable learning skills. Observation helps build knowledge of the world. Observational skills are as essential as all those other skills you equate with education like reading, writing and sums, which are really only a small part of the whole range of skills a person needs to become educated.

To become educated, and to fulfil the whole reason for education if you look at it beyond just gaining grades, children need to be equipped with the skills they need to live in that world. They need to look at it to learn about it, understand it, interact with it, care for it, take responsibility for it – starting with oneself, and work out how to make a contribution.

And all this starts with observation. It starts right back with you taking ages to get to the shop because you have to examine all these tiny parts of their world on your journey. Talk about them, point things out, answer questions about them.

Giving time to doing that helps encourage their awe in their world, helps keep it fresh, helps keep them interested and if they’re interested they’re learning.

It’s worth giving the time to what you think are irritating insignificances because while you’re being irritated by the constant stopping and observing, your child is learning and adding to their understanding and therefore their education.

That takes time.

It only takes ten minutes or so for them to learn how to add up. A complete and valid education takes a lifetime – a lifetime of awe in their world. Just like Newton was awed by the fact the apple fell down not up. What discoveries might your child make just through their observations of the world around them?

So, slow down, take as many moments as you can to foster and nurture that awe and observe the world. Who knows what it might lead to!

Not saying ‘love you’…

Her first Uni year is coming to an end. She is anxious.

I took a liberty, usually only afforded to mums of little ones; I reached out across the settee and touched her hair. Twiddled the long shank of curl round my finger in an affectionate gesture.

I just wanted to offer comfort. And you can’t swaddle up big people like you can when they’re little and hurts are easily healed by hugs on lap. It doesn’t work any more; not just because they’re big but because they don’t want it in the same way.

I was expecting “Get off!”

Instead, she turned to look at me and softened her Ipad eyes into love. She put the screen aside and laid her head down on my knee, lifting legs up. She’s too tall to stretch out on the settee now – there was a time when she could only just see over it. She quietly melted.

We stayed like that a while. I stroked her hair.

It’s not saying ‘love you’ all the time that tells them how much they are loved. It’s those gestures that pass between you, at whatever age, which truly tell it all.

Sophia’s Choice

To read my post today I’m redirecting you to the brilliant website ‘Sophia’s Choice’ managed by the lovely Charlie Hughes.

She writes about natural, organic ideas and choices for parents and families and she invited me to write a guest post for her site about home educating and how parents of school-going children can learn from our approaches too!

So do pop across and have a read;

http://sophiaschoiceuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ever-thought-about-home-education-ross.html

Parenting – what matters most?

It does all end, you know; the night feeds, the nasty nappies and poo and piles in places you’d rather they weren’t. Plus the fading opportunity to sit still for five seconds without worrying that the kids have gone suspiciously quiet.

It feels like it will be forever, those sticky chins, soggy faces pressed in your neck and an adoration that is always yours simply because you’re mum.

But of course it isn’t. And you don’t really get that till twenty years or so have passed, when you have to work harder for your adoration and you suddenly appreciate those gems of parenthood collectively because they’ve moved on by.

As I pass into this new phase of parent-to-adults – well; more best friends really – I wonder what I would say to those of you at the beginning of your parenting life?

Like others before me, I could say it’s an opportunity too precious to waste. But when you’re going through it with tinies I know that means nothing really, because it’s impossible to imagine a time you’ve yet to experience.

I think I might say something else instead.

I would say; make moments with your child matter.

Make moments that matter, both to you and to them. Make the moments you spend with them count. Because all of what you do counts towards the creation of a caring, conscious, conscientious human being who, collected with others make a caring conscientious race.

And I would say that twenty years from now it will not matter how much money you spent on them, which phone you used, how big your income, how tidy your house or how many friends you have on social media.

What will matter will be the contribution you will have made by the way you parented your child. By the moments you made. The memories you made.

That’s the only thing that really truly matters.

That’s what I would say.

Holiday rebellion!

…a walk by a river…

Start a rebellion. Take your kids on holiday in term time.

After my little holiday without them, I’m put in mind of all the times we took the kids away – usually only for little inexpensive jaunts – and how educational it was. And it makes me think parents should rebel because it’s as educational being on holiday as it is sitting doing stuff in a classroom.

Not that the schools or politicians would want you to know this. They’d rather keep your kids in schools with heads down taking tests so that they can collate results and put them in statistics and con us that the results show that kids are being well educated so we should vote for them!

They’re not being well educated. They’re just being well tested which doesn’t do a lot for the kids’ education at all.

Of course, it depends on your definition of education.

If your definition of education is to develop in your child the knowledge and skills needed to live a life out in the world beyond school then nothing could be more educative than getting them out and showing them that world.

If your definition of education is one that’s only measured by scores then I guess you won’t get what I’m on about.

Let’s face facts; scores are only scores on paper. Skills and understanding are what’s needed to lead life, not scores.

Going places, seeing different cultures, experiencing a diversity of lives, places, people, ideas, foods, dwellings, projects, conversations, languages, habitats, terrain, environments … these are the experiences that show kids the real world, that develops intellect and gives them a broader view of the world and how they might work within it, more than that just getting scores.

But they have to get scores – or pass exams, I hear you say in panic.

But do they? How many? And how much do they need to be in school to do that?

Most home educated kids spend most of their time engaged in the kinds of experiences described above and a much smaller proportion of their time doing stuff for GCSEs yet still pass them. Some don’t do GCSEs at all and still go on to Uni or work and productive and fulfilled lives.

And what’s even better they seem to understand what they want to do, how to fit what they want within the working world, and are therefore motivated to go for it.

And they find this from simply being out in the world rather than shut away from it. They’ve seen lives and have been educated to lead lives. That’s how it works.

So far from stopping parents taking kids away on holiday – whatever time of year – schools should be actively encouraging it. And stop paying lip service to this ridiculous obsession the government has with scores. And parents need to look beyond scores when they consider schools to whether the kids are happy there – if they’re happy, they’ll be learning.

Take them away as much as you can, there’s so much to see and do and it doesn’t have to cost a lot. A day in a wood, on a beach, on a farm, in a city museum, by a river – most are free – and they learn from the experience.

So I should start a holiday rebellion!

A funny Kind Of … Love!

 I just want to say Thank You.

If you’re not a writer you won’t know how much the little messages of support, the reviews, comments, and the endorsements for my book ‘A Funny Kind of Education’ mean to a girl! So thank you to all those who’ve taken time to write them. It lifts me up!

You have to wonder sometimes why writers do it. Why bare sensitivities and offer them up for poking? But I once read that writers write because they love the world. Because they love the world so much they want to write about it, write for it, write to it.

And that’s about right I guess.

I wrote ‘Learning Without School’ because I love kids and I want to show people that kids don’t have to endure schooling if it’s not right for them. I know some kids love school, but I also know that some suffer because of school; I have worked there and seen it. Seen it crush that natural love of learning in many. It doesn’t have to be like that.

There are other ways to educate and this book was to help parents wanting to have a go.

And ‘A Funny Kind Of Education’ is also to do with love I guess.

It’s full of parenting love, full of an example of that love of learning that all kids have and how it can be developed into education. It’s about family love most of all and how great life can be when you home educate. How basic and normal home educating is really, once you slough off years of conditioning about needing schools for education.

We did once. We don’t necessarily now. And I wanted to write a picture of how children’s education can be developed through any ordinary loving family circumstances. So do please help me spread the love; share it around any parenting networks you belong to and help increase understanding of how education could be so different and how no one needs to suffer for it.

And – yes – I’d buy the idea that writers write because they love the world. ‘A Funny Kind Of Education’ is as much a story of family love as anything and I hope even people who have no interest in home education will enjoy just for that.

So thank you to all those who’ve made their own little expressions of love to me about my writing.

It truly means so much.

x

Raising kids via the three Cs…

 ”It’s the three Rs that are important,” I was told when I was a fresh young student keen to teach. “Reading Writing and Arithmetic.”

Despite the fact that whoever thought that one up couldn’t spell and times have moved on – supposedly – I think we still have a legacy from it, judging by the heavy emphasis on academic curriculum that’s being bandied about politics right now.

But I reckon that’s always been wrong. There are other things which are of more value to leading life – the three Cs:

CARE, CONNECTION, CONTRIBUTION.

It works like this:

Without caring what you do with them, qualifications are nothing. Without connecting with others, curriculum and everything you learn as a result of it is pointless. And without making a contribution, however small, you might as well not be educated.

It is care that make lives rich, connecting with others who care that makes life happy, and making a contribution to the world that makes life worth it.

I think we’d do better by our kids to raise them to understand the value of the three Cs however old they are and however they are educated!

Composting the kids…

 Am I completely nuts?

I just have to go outside even if it’s like the Arctic and snow flurries keep biting my nose end. But I’m stir-crazy with confinement. And my bum is becoming sofa shaped and screaming at me to get off it. My eyes burning for a computer free day.

So whatever the conditions I’m off outdoors this weekend.

I used to see the same madness on the children’s faces when we’d been indoors too much. It was so much easier when they were young. I could convince them it was going to be great once when we got out, despite what conditions beyond the window suggested. They’re not so easily hoodwinked now!

I leave my youngest to the laptop and go dig the compost – a nice hot job for a freezing day. And it makes me go all philosophical.

There’s nothing more satisfying than to see the rhythms of nature come full circle. To physically see that whatever grows from the earth will eventually return to it. Us included. And as I fork what was once waste from our garden and kitchen it is turned into a reward for the soil for all that it gives us. And the quality is the result of all I’ve put into it.

Kids are a bit like that. They will gradually compost all that you put into them, assimilate it into their minds and morals and behaviour, and grow to reflect everything that you have spent time and bother putting there.

And just like with my compost, it’s worth paying attention to that. Worth being careful to only provide that which will nourish your kids; physically, mentally and spiritually.

A bit philosophical for a holiday but a really fitting thought for Easter and the season of re-growth.