I've been meaning to blog for a while about the nature of independence in a child. In common with many (most?) parents who come at parenting from an attached/gentle/responsive standpoint and many (most?) home educators, I've heard all the accusations of "you make her clingy!" "you have to let her go sometime!" and so on and on.
She was a very high need baby and so very slow to outgrow those needs. She chose to wean from the breast shortly after we took her out of school at five and a half. I had known this about her from very early on. I think she was about six months when I first commented that I'd still be feeding her when she went to school. If I really want to shock someone now, I quite enjoy telling them that I breast fed her till she left school. Sometimes I tell them that happened when she was only five! She still likes to co-sleep and because she is petite, I was still able to carry her in a sling till she was about 6 (on rare occasions...sometimes she just really needed to be close while I needed to do something else).
More supportive people told me that if you meet a need it goes away and I firmly believe that, but at times it felt as though her pit of need was bottomless. I didn't see the "more independent" child that research suggests will be the outcome of a babyhood and toddlerhood of having your needs met by a responsive parent. Not for a long while. But no matter. I took as the foundation of my parenting principles the idea that I would be *here* and that she could go and come back and go just as far as she could manage. I have no doubt that one day that will be to the four corners of the globe, I hope so. I certainly learnt a lot and created some wonderful memories in my travelling years. It's just that for a very long time the ties only stretched a tiny little bit.
The irony is the same people who complained about me holding her all the time and not making her "tough it out" when she really couldn't cope with the amount of separation school entailed are probably the same people who have fits and criticise me as a slack parent (which is why you really just have to be the parent you feel is right for you and your child..because you cannot bloody win!) now that she is 10 and *desperate* to prove her competence out in the world. I let her because all the time she has been glued to my side like a limpet she's been learning the skills she needs for independence. I know her well enough to know that she is both cautious and sensible, but also where she needs a bit of reminding. We talk through situations that might arise and how to handle them, but ultimately you only get those skills by doing.
So the big things this week were her birthday treat and an accidental bus journey. Her birthday treat was to go to a lovely cafe at the top of our road (well, just across the main road, but there's a crossing) and buy milkshakes for herself and two friends. We know the cafe staff and they know her so I wasn't too worried (and it's holiday time so I don't have to worry yet about her being picked up by truancy officers). I gave her enough money to buy the shakes and a portion of fries to share and the use of my old phone so she could ring if she needed to and off they went. She did ring about 5 times but I think it was more about the excitement of being able to than needing to. She ordered, worked out how much it would cost and rang me to confirm her decision to leave the change as a tip. She did well. Later I could hear a relative muttering about how awful it was that I let her. I'm sure quite a few of them have their knickers in a twist over it, but tough. I love seeing her confidence and competence increase.
The accidental bus ride came about this morning when we were going to meet my mum. H has been *dying* to go on a bus on her own for a while now and I've not been sure how I feel about that one yet....but we got on a bus today and I didn't have enough on my oyster card, or any cash on me. We were late to meet my mum so I told H to stay on and meet Ducky (long story, but what she calls her grandmother). I then walked up, ringing Mum on the way to let her know to look out for solo Hannah. I got there about 10 mins later and found them together. Mission accomplished.
So yes, there's some teally stretching going on there and yet, she still wants to sit on my lap half the day!
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
In which we make a different use of a Maths Brainbox game
We love Brainbox games. We've had various of them over the years and really enjoyed them, so when a home edding friend on Facebook was selling the Maths one, we jumped at the chance to get it. But it's a very different experience to playing the others we have (The World and English Kings and Queens), where even the observational things *mostly* also impart useful information, crops grown in a country, the kind of clothing worn in a historical era, designs of flags, etc, but on the maths one, the questions seem to be entirely observation and the answers do not demonstrate or add to knowledge of the maths in any way. How does it matter what colour the sum is or which sum is shown with carrots or bananas?? We played it once then gave up.
Today I had an idea of how to use it differently and we started picking cards at random to see whether the maths on it was something Hannah already knew how to do. So far we've covered Venn diagrams. We looked at the card, talked about the example shown on it, discussed vocabulary, then made our own example using different sets of Hannah's friends. We then looked at perimeters and watched a Khan Academy video about properties of a circle. This introduced Hannah to the concept of Pi. ("is it Pi or Pie, Mummy??") It took a while and will need to be revisited at some point, but for now I *think* she got it. Lastly, I questioned whether she did actually know all the highlighted functions on a calculator and she read the labels. I pointed out that I meant did she know how to do them, not could she read it? Mostly, she could do them, except for square roots. So I explained that and she wrote a few examples in her book.
She's now preparing for a sleepover with her cousin and making more wands for the Harry Potter party.
Today I had an idea of how to use it differently and we started picking cards at random to see whether the maths on it was something Hannah already knew how to do. So far we've covered Venn diagrams. We looked at the card, talked about the example shown on it, discussed vocabulary, then made our own example using different sets of Hannah's friends. We then looked at perimeters and watched a Khan Academy video about properties of a circle. This introduced Hannah to the concept of Pi. ("is it Pi or Pie, Mummy??") It took a while and will need to be revisited at some point, but for now I *think* she got it. Lastly, I questioned whether she did actually know all the highlighted functions on a calculator and she read the labels. I pointed out that I meant did she know how to do them, not could she read it? Mostly, she could do them, except for square roots. So I explained that and she wrote a few examples in her book.
She's now preparing for a sleepover with her cousin and making more wands for the Harry Potter party.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
In which I borrow some extra children to help prep Hannah's party
We're always up for a party, Hannah and I, but this year we are going to town on her birthday party. In part it's because she's 10, which feels significant. It's got a 0 at the end...first number in double figures and all that. A decade of life, a decade of being a mother for me. Yes, this one felt like a big deal. Also, as a rabid Harry Potter fan myself, I am so happy she is finally reading and loving the books. So could she have a Harry Potter party?? Of course.
It needs more planning than our usual "pitch a tent in the woods" style party. We're going to have the children arrive and visit Ollivanders where they will chose a wand. We are making the wands today, which is why I thought it would be fun to invite some of Hannah's friends over to help. P and E arrived about 11 and we headed out to the woods first to collect twigs for making broomsticks for Quidditch. Not entirely sure how Quidditch is going to work exactly, but will involve hula hoops on sticks for goals, a quaffle for scoring, bludgers which have the effect of stopping you for 5 seconds when they hit you and a tiny golden snitch which will be hidden in the area somewhere!
Wand-making started after lunch. We are using these instructions to make them. Some of them didn;t turn out too well....and I can't get the glue gun to work properly and we ran out of other glue and had to go to Morrisons to buy more, but the kids had fun anyway!
We're also going to have a Defence Against the Dark Arts ice-breaker. We always do something along those lines because the nature of Hannah's social life means that none of her friends know more than 3 or 4 of the others. Well, except Lucia because she has been to so many parties, does some of the same activities and often comes to family events so possibly she knows everyone! This DADA ice-breaker is going to consist of introducing yourself then casting a hex or jinx at someone else in the circle, calling their name to make it clear who is being hexed. The person hexed has to perform an appropriate action and then hex someone else.
Then Potions class with one or two things to mix up and some strange ingredients in jars.
After Quidditch, we'll finish with the End of Term Feast. Then I will go home and collapse.
It needs more planning than our usual "pitch a tent in the woods" style party. We're going to have the children arrive and visit Ollivanders where they will chose a wand. We are making the wands today, which is why I thought it would be fun to invite some of Hannah's friends over to help. P and E arrived about 11 and we headed out to the woods first to collect twigs for making broomsticks for Quidditch. Not entirely sure how Quidditch is going to work exactly, but will involve hula hoops on sticks for goals, a quaffle for scoring, bludgers which have the effect of stopping you for 5 seconds when they hit you and a tiny golden snitch which will be hidden in the area somewhere!
Wand-making started after lunch. We are using these instructions to make them. Some of them didn;t turn out too well....and I can't get the glue gun to work properly and we ran out of other glue and had to go to Morrisons to buy more, but the kids had fun anyway!
We're also going to have a Defence Against the Dark Arts ice-breaker. We always do something along those lines because the nature of Hannah's social life means that none of her friends know more than 3 or 4 of the others. Well, except Lucia because she has been to so many parties, does some of the same activities and often comes to family events so possibly she knows everyone! This DADA ice-breaker is going to consist of introducing yourself then casting a hex or jinx at someone else in the circle, calling their name to make it clear who is being hexed. The person hexed has to perform an appropriate action and then hex someone else.
Then Potions class with one or two things to mix up and some strange ingredients in jars.
After Quidditch, we'll finish with the End of Term Feast. Then I will go home and collapse.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
In which we catch up, yet again
We have been so busy I can barely remember what we've done so I'm not going to write about all of it. Or indeed much of it!
We went to a brilliant workshop on Egyptian medicine on Monday. It started with a 7 metre long time line, where 1mm represented 1 year and key events in Egyptian history were marked out along it. It was a very clear visual of both how long ago the Egyptian civilisation flourished and how long it lasted, especially when put in context with the centimeter that represented Hannah's life!
The people running it are storytellers and presented themselves as Egyptian priests as physical cures were always accompanied by spells, which were, in effect, requests for the gods to help and not hinder the patient.
After hearing about Egyptian views on religion and medicine, we proceeded to make cures for burns, cataracts and joint pain. I tried the burn one, with appropriate spell, on the burn on my hand but it hurt a lot worse than without the cure. Maybe it;s because the "hair of a ram" was in fact a white nylon wig and I have a suspicion that the "milk from a mother nursing a newborn boy" may have been the milk of a cow kept in a shed with no calf of either sex.
Finally, we heard a genuine Egyptian story, of which the end was missing from the papyrus so we heard two different possible endings. In both, though, the faithful dog drowned which made Hannah and me cry!
On Tuesday, we got the results of Hannah's guitar exam and she passed with distinction. She is immensely proud of herself and so she should be...she worked really hard.
We went to a brilliant workshop on Egyptian medicine on Monday. It started with a 7 metre long time line, where 1mm represented 1 year and key events in Egyptian history were marked out along it. It was a very clear visual of both how long ago the Egyptian civilisation flourished and how long it lasted, especially when put in context with the centimeter that represented Hannah's life!
The people running it are storytellers and presented themselves as Egyptian priests as physical cures were always accompanied by spells, which were, in effect, requests for the gods to help and not hinder the patient.
After hearing about Egyptian views on religion and medicine, we proceeded to make cures for burns, cataracts and joint pain. I tried the burn one, with appropriate spell, on the burn on my hand but it hurt a lot worse than without the cure. Maybe it;s because the "hair of a ram" was in fact a white nylon wig and I have a suspicion that the "milk from a mother nursing a newborn boy" may have been the milk of a cow kept in a shed with no calf of either sex.
Finally, we heard a genuine Egyptian story, of which the end was missing from the papyrus so we heard two different possible endings. In both, though, the faithful dog drowned which made Hannah and me cry!
On Tuesday, we got the results of Hannah's guitar exam and she passed with distinction. She is immensely proud of herself and so she should be...she worked really hard.
Monday, 11 March 2013
In which I catch up on the past week
Last Tuesday we went to the Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum, which was amazing. It drew parallels with more current artistic developments in a way that was really enlightening and although it was quite a wordy exhibition and we had to work hard to absorb all the info, we were both totally engrossed and neither of us was desperate to hit the shop before the end! We had some really interesting conversations off the back of it as well, especially about the way the female figures which are probably one of the most common form of paleolithic art, changed from the ones I always think of as typical, rounded, big-breasted, saggy-bellied earth mothers, to slender, pert-breasted, nubile young figures by about 14,000 years ago. Sexual objectification of women not a modern phenomenon then!
Afterwards, we got noodles from Wasabi and sat out in Bloomsbury Square to eat...on the grass, without coats! Today it is snowing.....the weather is weird!
Wednesday we went to Ireland to see a cousin I hadn't seen in 24 years. Not just Wednesday obviously...we went Weds am and came back Friday night! We had a fabulous time. We visited a wildlife park and the Cobh Heritage Centre where we learned about the famine of the 1840s, emmigration, transportation to Australia, the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania.Hannah also made 2 new friends and swapped addresses with one of them. This was one of those...."and they think home ed children don't socialise" moments as H asked if she could go out to explore the immediate area round my cousin's house, which is on a very quiet housing estate. Ten minutes later she was back with a new friend! I know it's impossible to say whether she would have regained the social confidence that school knocked out of her in those first (and only) two terms, but she's certainly not suffered from not being at school.
Saturday we were up at the crack of dawn to collect our friends and drive to Long Melford in Suffolk for the Kentwell open day. Yes, we have finally applied to do this. I am divided between excited anticipation and sheer terror! But the open day was largely fun and people were lovely and we should find out in a few weeks whether we are going to spend a week of the summer in 1559!
Sunday..not much
Today Hannah took her first guitar exam. We think it went okay, but was a positive experience anyway as she was very nervous going in but came out all smiles because the examiner was really nice! Okay, good....all caught up,,,,,BED
Afterwards, we got noodles from Wasabi and sat out in Bloomsbury Square to eat...on the grass, without coats! Today it is snowing.....the weather is weird!
Wednesday we went to Ireland to see a cousin I hadn't seen in 24 years. Not just Wednesday obviously...we went Weds am and came back Friday night! We had a fabulous time. We visited a wildlife park and the Cobh Heritage Centre where we learned about the famine of the 1840s, emmigration, transportation to Australia, the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania.Hannah also made 2 new friends and swapped addresses with one of them. This was one of those...."and they think home ed children don't socialise" moments as H asked if she could go out to explore the immediate area round my cousin's house, which is on a very quiet housing estate. Ten minutes later she was back with a new friend! I know it's impossible to say whether she would have regained the social confidence that school knocked out of her in those first (and only) two terms, but she's certainly not suffered from not being at school.
Saturday we were up at the crack of dawn to collect our friends and drive to Long Melford in Suffolk for the Kentwell open day. Yes, we have finally applied to do this. I am divided between excited anticipation and sheer terror! But the open day was largely fun and people were lovely and we should find out in a few weeks whether we are going to spend a week of the summer in 1559!
Sunday..not much
Today Hannah took her first guitar exam. We think it went okay, but was a positive experience anyway as she was very nervous going in but came out all smiles because the examiner was really nice! Okay, good....all caught up,,,,,BED
Monday, 4 March 2013
In which we plan a Sylvanian town
Hannah really likes Sylvanians so it seemed like a fun way to do some geography, to create an ideal Sylvanian town using images from catalogues and magazines and thinking about what a town would need to contain.
First she thought about that and made a list which looked like this:
"What facilities?
Theatre
Sports
Schools
Shops
Transport
Businesses
Parks
Houses
Halls
Town Centre
Church
Library
Hospital
Doctor's surgery
Museum
Police station
Bus stops
Train station
Roads
Town Hall
Swimming Pool
Gym
Hairdressers
Hotels
Beach
Camping facilities
We then got all her Sylvanian magazines and picked up lots of catalogues from the Sylvanian shop, then came cutting out all the images she could find to fit the list, although not all were possible to find. So we did the best we could and cut out every small house, some larger ones and as many of the things on the above list as we could. I stuck 2 sheets of A1 paper together and asked Hannah to pencil in the roads. She created a market square and roads connecting the market and surrounding streets to residential areas, one of smaller terraces on one side of town and larger, detached ones on the other. She made decisions about which buildings to put where.
Right outside the town, she painted a river and we added a towpath and a bridge to allow access to the water and across it to the farms and golf course that made up about 1/3 of the paper. It took ages and I did a fair amount of the painting just because it was fun to work together and also it was occupying the whole of my dining table for about 2 weeks as it was. Gradually we filled in all the details:gardens for the houses; open spaces for play/dog walking; bus stops; car parks; trees and other plants and finally, with Hannah's agreement, I made an open public space with tubs of flowers and a war memorial. When we finally finished this morning it looked like this.
First she thought about that and made a list which looked like this:
"What facilities?
Theatre
Sports
Schools
Shops
Transport
Businesses
Parks
Houses
Halls
Town Centre
Church
Library
Hospital
Doctor's surgery
Museum
Police station
Bus stops
Train station
Roads
Town Hall
Swimming Pool
Gym
Hairdressers
Hotels
Beach
Camping facilities
We then got all her Sylvanian magazines and picked up lots of catalogues from the Sylvanian shop, then came cutting out all the images she could find to fit the list, although not all were possible to find. So we did the best we could and cut out every small house, some larger ones and as many of the things on the above list as we could. I stuck 2 sheets of A1 paper together and asked Hannah to pencil in the roads. She created a market square and roads connecting the market and surrounding streets to residential areas, one of smaller terraces on one side of town and larger, detached ones on the other. She made decisions about which buildings to put where.
Right outside the town, she painted a river and we added a towpath and a bridge to allow access to the water and across it to the farms and golf course that made up about 1/3 of the paper. It took ages and I did a fair amount of the painting just because it was fun to work together and also it was occupying the whole of my dining table for about 2 weeks as it was. Gradually we filled in all the details:gardens for the houses; open spaces for play/dog walking; bus stops; car parks; trees and other plants and finally, with Hannah's agreement, I made an open public space with tubs of flowers and a war memorial. When we finally finished this morning it looked like this.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
In which I attempt to declutter some outgrown learning resources
Sorry, this is a sales post. Feel free to ignore. Hannah has outgrown some things and I need to raise a bit of cash for Christmas. Please comment below if you want anything...or email me:afzaulandsarah@virginmedia.com
£5.00 inc postage. The burp mechanism in the gorilla does not work, but we've always had great fun making our own sound effects!
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| PLEASE NOTE: the book I have for sale is the same series but AGE 7-8. £1.50 inc postage |
Letts Active Readers: £4.00 inc postage. Books 1,3 and 9 are missing. Book 2 has one page written on
£2.00 inc postage
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