The table was rarely visible! Cant’ believe this was 15 years ago!
Home educating was such an inspiring experience. Never regretted – sorely missed!
Now those little ones are grown ups they dash home for visits between work schedules and off they go again leaving the house to fall back into the ordered quiet I once wished for but don’t enjoy as much as I thought I would!
Isn’t it always the case that you fail to appreciate this stuff until it’s gone? Who’d have thought the chaos that home educating kids bring to the house would ever end and you’d miss the stuff-strewn style of home-decorating that’s an inevitable part of it. You think it’ll never change.
It does! So does your role as parent.
It’s funny, but it’s the offspring home educating me these days, as much as the other way round. I learn so much from them, as I like to think they learnt from me. We continue to learn from each other actually – that’s how it should be.
On her visit home recently my eldest was talking about the drama teaching she’s doing at the moment, not that ‘teaching’ is really a concept we ever adopted. It was more consensual learning and guidance that was a shared experience not a one-way ticket. We were talking about this and she expressed an approach we could all learn from.
She said that the only thing she really asks of her students is that they are kind. This creates a nicer environment and experience for everyone.
Her words really made me think. How many learning environments have we experienced that could have been so much better if that was the approach which governed it? How many teachers, facilitators and leaders could well do with adopting such an approach! And how much more progress would students make as a result?
And it would have even helped nurture along some of our less productive home educating days when my agenda had been overtaken by ‘teaching’, usually in a grump, instead of kindly facilitating my learners’ experience!
We’re only human. We all fall foul of human failings sometimes. But if there is nothing else that you can progress with during a tricky home educating day, you can always practice being kind and let the day take care of itself. I’m sure there’ll be a better outcome because of it.
Something I thought I’d share in case you want to try it out on a tough day!
Ross Mountney's Notebook 
Thank you so very much for taking the time to write such a moving comment. We are indeed lucky. Wishing you blessings for the next phase! 🙂
Aww Ross, I love your story! Your daughters attitude is wonderful – my daughter has a similar approach with her maths tutoring. These home ed young people will make amazing teachers!
I have home educated for almost twenty years, and have a twenty three year old who has just left home for the second time. I still have a thirteen and fifteen year old home educating, but times are definitely changing. There have been occasional days that I have longed to have the peace and freedom to do as I please and go where I like without having to be responsible for anyone else; days where I have wanted everyone to go out and leave me alone; desperate for peace and quiet.
However, my eldest has already departed and my teens are regularly venturing out alone with friends, and the reality of the future is easily imagined, although it doesn’t seem quite so appealing now. I know I will feel an incredible sense of loss when my last one moves on, and I will miss those crazy home ed days, but like you I’m sure we will continue learning from each other, as we do now. How lucky we are to have walked this path! ❤️
Thank you for another wonderful story! Xx