I’m not sure if it’s just a spring thing or what, but half the kids and myself have felt HORRIBLE for almost 2 weeks now. Been to the doctor and the infections have cleared up, but we’re still feeling really under the weather. Blechy. So that’s why I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been spending most of my time horizontal.
We have Rue Kream’s book floating around the house and though I’ve read it cover to cover several times I always seem to find little nuggets of “Oooooh!!!” when I pick it up. This is the one I read last night. Lately I’ve felt inundated with people testing their kids and diagnosing kids and finding things “wrong” with their kids when for the most part, it’s just not that child’s time yet. It’s been bothering me more and more and it’s one of those things that get under my skin. I find I have to immerse myself in reading things from other radical unschoolers when it gets like this since there’s none IRL to talk with to work through those feelings of ick.
And then I picked up the book and just opened it and found this (page 129, Parenting a Free Child; emphasis mine):
The idea that all children should be able to read by a certain age is one of the things that causes the most problems for children in school. Pushing reading onto a child before she is ready and interested is of no benefit to her and, in fact, can be very detrimental. Why then is the idea that it is necessary so pervasive?
For one thing, our society places a huge importance on reading. Not many activities are considered as valuable, much to the disservice of people more interested in mechanics or art or any number of other things. Secondly, a classroom full of children who know how to read is much easier for a teacher to manage than a classroom in which some know how and some don’t.
Just as families’ lives are scheduled around what is convenient for the school system rather than what is best for the family, the idea that childrne’t must learn to read by a certain age has much more to do with the school’s operation than it does with what is actually in the best interest of the children. This system of education has led to childrne’s being labeled and drugged when they do not learn to read at the age that schools’ administrators feel is ideal. It has led to children who feel shame and frustration instead of excitement at learning something new.
Unschooled children show every day that, given a nurturing environment with someone available to answer questions and read stories as well as to provide interesting things to read and to look at, each child WILL come to reading in her own time.
I usually get these flashes of smartness around 4:30 in the morning when I’m sick and sleeping lousy. Yesterday it was about where I could put a swing-set and a sandbox in the yard. This morning it was about the kids. I realized that Sophia’s the age Azura was when Max was born. I had been trying to remember what Azura was like at 4 1/2 last night and I guess it stuck in my brain, because when I woke up and tried to get back to sleep, I realized she was 4 1/2 when Max was born. So we had 3 kids 4 1/2 and younger. And Sophia’s that age, and we have no 3 year old and no newborn with that 4 1/2 year old. It’s weird. Every year past 2 1/2 has been strange and a new experience since both boys are 3 years apart from each other and Sophia’s three years younger than Max. So by 2 1/2 I was pregnant with the next one. Now she’s 4 1/2 and I honestly can’t imagine if we had three her age and younger. How the hell did we do it??LOL Of course we were 8 years younger so that might have been some of it.
Seriously though, it was such a neat/weird thing to realize this morning. Sophia would make an AMAZING older sister, and by this age Azura was times two. But it’s also really really REALLY nice to be able to just go and do with the four of them. Andrew and I were actually talking about the fact that within the next year or two or by the time Sophia’s the age Max is, the dynamic in the house will be 100% different than it is now and different from any other stage we’ve been through so far. By then we’ll have 2 teenagers, a preteen and a 7 year old. YIKES!!LOL Still, it’s experiencing something totally new because we’ve never had a 4 1/2 year old without a new baby in the house as well!LOL It’s all new for us!!
We were down at the bank opening some accounts for Azura late last week, and it was late in the evening and at one point she asked Azura how old she was. Azura said almost 12 and the lady said, “Oh, do you go to George St or Albert St?” (the two middle schools in town). I said “Neither; we homeschool”. And she raved how great that was and that she wished she had done it and that the schools here are horrible.
A couple minutes later the weather was brought up and she said, “they’re cancelling school tomorrow but I guess you don’t have to worry about that, oh, do you get a snow day too??” I replied, “no, we don’t”. The look on her face was pretty funny. You could totally tell she thought, OMG those poor kids. I said, “every day’s a snow day for us” but I don’t think she got it. I’m sure she’s still thinking about how rough our kids have it that they don’t even get a snow day!!!!
The funny thing is, we LOVE snow days here!! That means that the school kids are free to play with, the playground at the school can be used before 3:30 and there’s special swimming at the pool!!! So we LOVE snow days for those reasons…but every day’s a snow day in our house in reality!
But I still have to laugh at what she probably has been thinking since then!!!
And she wants Winter to stop being such a drama queen and take BACK HER STUPID WEATHER!!! LMAO
Yes, we’re under ANOTHER heavy snowfall/winter storm watch….so if I disappear again, someone send in the Saint Bernards and some rum!!!
Oh and of course we got a heavy snowfall warning…since the snow JUST finished clearing off the front yard…LOL
Oh well…..I figure we’ll be in shorts at least some point in 2007. Sooner or later it’s gotta be shorts weather, no?? 
I don’t think I’ve done one of these in a while, and while I was going to do one last night, I decided to wait until today so I had 24 hours to write about 
Not that it matters much I suppose.
Yesterday was a pretty typical day for us, with the exception that Andrew didn’t have work-work to do, but did have a freelance contract to work on, but he wasn’t tied to work hours. So he was a little more available yesterday. Working from home has pluses, but we don’t always see them So, let’s see. The older two kids woke up before Andrew went to bed and got breakfast for themselves. I got up and Andrew went to bed and I stumbled around the kitchen getting coffee on. Sophia was still asleep so I took advantage of the quiet to drink the coffee and check email. The other kids came up to watch a taped Pokemon, which we’re all loving at the moment, because it’s based on the Pokemon games we’ve all been playing and that *I* just beat on Sunday!!! I finally beat a game FIRST!!LOL But the show we’ve been watching is based around the games we have so it’s really neat to watch and say, hey I have that one and that one and mom you have that one and…..
I started getting concerned that Sophia wasn’t up yet. She’s one of those kids that literally is dead asleep one second and WIDE awake the next, which really really sucked when she was a baby and a toddler and woke up at 4am!!! But, she was still asleep, sprawled across her bed. I was more worried because she hadn’t woken up at all that night OR come into my room. Which, when ti happens, I have that worried reaction. She of course, woke up about 10 minutes later.
Brandon and Azura decided they wanted pancakes, but they didn’t want plain ones. So they dug through the spice racks and the cupboards and made chocolate-cinnamon-xylitol pancakes. Brandon made them, measured them and prepared them; Azura cooked them. YUM! The house smelled like hot chocolate for a good hour after.
They all watched Jungle Run while they were eating (Sophia and Max were eating waffles by then) and they all talked about the different puzzles and how they’d do it differently. There was an adult team of Olympic Winners on it last week and we were all stunned by just how amazingly good they were. Now the kids just don’t compare.
The kids ran off to play pretend Pokemon. They each play a Pokemon and they make these intricate mazes of boxes and blankets and they played that for quite a while. Until Azura’s best friend called and decided to come over (it’s a holiday here on Easter Monday). So when she got here, Azura and her played in Azura’s room for a while. Sophia helped me make lunch (we made pizza) and Max and Brandon were playing xbox.
We had lunch, Max making cheese and crackers in the microwave since he doesn’t like pizza and the girls asked if they could take the boys to the park down the road. I said sure. So they walked down to the park and played there for an hour or so. We were going to go swimming, but we forgot…LOL. Sophia and I read a bunch of books and talked to Andrew when he got up while they were gone since one kid at home is way quieter than 4! They called for a ride home and I ran down and got them and we ran to the donut store and gas station on the way home. We figured that Monday at 5pm is the BEST time to buy donuts there, since every single one we had was still WARM and gooey and there was so much icing on each one!
We got home, and enjoyed the donuts. The older girls played Sims for a bit, using a game that has no businesses etc to run a restaurant Then I had to run Azura’s best friend home and so Sophia and Azura and I ran out to do that, and the boys stayed home with Andrew. We dropped her off, then went to the library.
And came home And on the way home realized why there were so many Vets downtown and RCMP’s with their dress uniforms on…it was the 90th anniversary of Vimy. So we talked about that for a bit.
Andrew and I were going to take the kids out to eat at DQ for supper and then go to the mall, but forgot we had thawed pork chops…LOL so we decided to eat here. Which was good, since friends came over while we were making supper. Azura’s really into helping cook supper now that she’s big enough etc so while I was outside BBQing, she was inside doing the veggies and mashed potatoes.
Andrew left and almost simultaneously three of the four kids had a meltdown. And all at the same time..LOL One lost a toy fish down the drain while she was washing her hands, one’s toy got broken by accident when the other one stepped on it by accident. So that was fun to mediate and get everyone calmed down and fed. That doesn’t happen much anymore but it’s always interesting when it does!
We had ice cream and watched some TV then they all went to bed early since they all were really tired and they were barely dragging themselves off to bed!
All that and that doesn’t include the millions of questions answered or things looked up or discussions about a multitude of things. And, that was a slow day for us. We didn’t have plans or activities to go to or things to do because of the holiday. And double what we did and you’ll get a typical summer day!!LOL It doesn’t even begin to show the family togetherness, the companionship, the fun, the teasing, the laughs, the tears, the constant conversations, the million books read, the pictures drawn. You know those really busy weekend days people who work 9-5 M-F and have kids in school have? Those are our every-days more often than not. We tend to hibernate some in the winter, but spring always brings an explosion of activity.
Preferably for this blog…LMAO but, if not, there’s loads of other really neat ones, AND, there’s other categories that are fun to read through if you’ve got a hankering for some reading!!
You can vote for this blog in the unschooling/eclectic category here:
Click me to vote for the Unschooling Category!
I have nothing against those that do the TV-free week, you know, to each their own, but I can’t imagine removing such an essential tool from our lives for a week for no reason. I mean sure, if the TV blew up or what have you, fine, but just to do it? I’ve never understood that. TV gets such a bad rap, you wouldn’t see any support or press or anything of the sort for a “Book-Free Week”. So why TV? I guess because of the thoughts that it sucks your brain cells, makes you a zombie or couch potatoes, it’s the boob tube and so on, but I just don’t get it.
Here’s some quotes from the site www.tvturnoff.org
Our programs are not for everyone…but if you care about your children…you’re going to listen to what we have to say.
National TV-Turnoff Week is the first nationwide effort which targets the medium of television and asks that people reassess the role TV plays in their daily lives as entertainer, pacifier, babysitter, time filler and background noise.
Television is generally a passive “non-activity” which often detracts from more healthy, interpersonal, productive, rewarding and community-oriented activities.
National TV-Turnoff Week is about having more fun and turning “on” your life. It’s an opportunity to rediscover the wide range of activities that exist when one unplugs from the sedentary, image-based, simplistic and commercial world of television.
“Is all TV bad? What about the Discovery Channel or PBS?”
All TV is passive, sedentary and non-experiential. Most viewers tend to watch show after show–not individual programs. Instead of watching a documentary about birds, go out (with binoculars if you have them) and see how many real birds you can identify in your neighborhood. The purpose of National TV-Turnoff Week is to leave behind judgements about the quality of television and focus instead on creating, discovering, building, participating and doing.
Talk about being a little too focused on the bad. I could say the EXACT same things about books and literature and reading. Seriously. Replace “TV/Television” with “books/reading”.
National Book-Down Week is the first nationwide effort which targets the medium of books and asks that people reassess the role TV plays in their daily lives as entertainer, pacifier, babysitter, time filler and background noise.
Reading is generally a passive “non-activity” which often detracts from more healthy, interpersonal, productive, rewarding and community-oriented activities.
National Book-Down Week is about having more fun and turning “on” your life. It’s an opportunity to rediscover the wide range of activities that exist when one unplugs from the sedentary, image-based, simplistic and commercial world of books.
“Is all reading bad? What about Shakespeare or the Bible?”
All reading is passive, sedentary and non-experiential. Most readers tend to read chapter after chapter–not individual chapters. Instead of reading a book about birds, go out (with binoculars if you have them) and see how many real birds you can identify in your neighborhood. The purpose of National Book-Down Week is to leave behind judgements about the quality of reading and focus instead on creating, discovering, building, participating and doing.
See? Maybe we should have a book-free week I mean it’s obviously a problem that needs addressing!!
In our lives, TV is just like any other tool. We laugh, learn, see, feel, experience things with the TV that we couldn’t without it in our lives. I may never get to the top of Mt. Everest, but I can see what it looks like and what the climb was like with the kids. I can’t go to the bottom of the ocean, but I can see it through the eyes of those that did, in full, living colour! And that’s more than a silly old paper-paged book can do.
*disclaimer, I’m a book-aholic and I mean none of the things I said bad about books!!LOL Just in case my books decide to revolt for my anti-book attitude! I promise, I don’t have one!
For some, I’m sure the TV-Free week is a great idea and maybe even needed, but in our house, we’ll be keeping it on and enjoying every minute of it
> I really do get annoyed with other people trying to parent my child for me.
>I think they feel like the reinforcements, like presenting a giant adult united front (The People’s Front of Adultea…)
I read this little exchange on an unschooling list and it gave me such a visual image and made me giggle. I can’t exactly remember the entire exchange, but if I remember right it was between a mom and a clerk at a grocery store who wouldn’t hand over a treat to the kid that the mom paid for until the kid promised to eat their veggies. That’s one of the things that annoys me to no end as well. When people try to “parent” our kids, though with possibly good intentions, but they’re so opposite from how we treat our kids. Like we don’t say things like “you can have a chocolate bar when you finish your veggies” so when those “well-meaning” people at the stores say something like “make sure you eat your veggies and then you can have this” or something similar, it’s sort of like…hm, ok? The kids usually give them a really weird look.
But the phrase “The People’s Front of Adultea” cracked me up, because that’s exactly what it seems like. Like all parents must form a united front or else these little monsters will figure out all the adult secrets and be totally uncontrollable. And yes, I’m painting with a large brush stroke and parents who don’t think that may be caught in it, but it’s something we see fairly often in day to day living.
I just never had a witty phrase for it before
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