The Children Missing Education Consultation

I have done my response. It is a right old muddle, but then the consultation itself is a right old muddle and so are the consultation questions, so I feel fully in unity with the style of the consultation as presented to me.

The consultation is here:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/conDetails.cfm?consultationId=1569

My response identifier was only 25, so the HE troops need to get their loins girded to respond! (I remember this from the last consultation, that many of us did last minute responses to it... let's hope that happens again this time).

Please feel free to take anything useful from my response and use it yourself.

The short version of the response, for those without the patience to read the whole darn document and respond to each question:

"This proposed guidance is discriminatory, internally contradictory and out of step with previous education-related legislation and guidance. It is unpublishable without extensive redrafting and consultation with stakeholders and lawyers".

1 Based on your experience of local authorities implementing this duty since it was introduced in 2007, does the guidance make clear the actions which local authorities are expected to take to help them comply with the duty?

NO


Before making any further comments, I should say that this guidance in its current form is so contradictory and muddled that it is hard to provide a coherent response to it.

It is not at all clear how LAs should comply with the Education Act 1996, s436A, and there seems to be a conflation of their duties under that section with their duties under S437, which adds to the confusion.

My local LA does not seem to be following the 2007 EHE guidelines at all. In this document: (deleted to maintain my incognito haha) we see several mentions of visits, either annually or more frequently, despite there being NO legal basis for this assumption; we also see undue emphasis on potential drawbacks of home education (the level of responsibility, the financial implications, possible social drawbacks).

There is an undercurrent in the draft guidance of suspicion of those who choose to discharge their legal responsibility to educate their children themselves rather than delegating it to a school.

2 Does the guidance make clear the role that implementation of this duty has in the wider programme of work led by local authorities to improve outcomes for children and young people, including promoting their safety and well-being?

NO

As the law stands, it is parents rather than LAs who are responsible for outcomes for children and young people. The safety and well-being of children and young people needs to be carefully disentangled in the guidance from their educational needs.

If LAs wish to take on responsibility for educational outcomes of children and young people, then of course the law can be changed to reflect that. Are they ready, however, to be held legally accountable for failures to provide education suitable to the age, ability and aptitude of every child in the country? The bill will be large.

There is nothing here about supporting and helping EHE families, simply suggestions of how they might be policed.

Why are HEed children being included in these "vulnerable" groups? It is massively offensive not only to home educating families, but also to so many minority communities! It might even border on discriminatory - you will want to have your lawyers check very very carefully before publishing such a list. (and you may recall that the references to traveller/gypsy/roma families were massively toned down before publication of the 2007 EHE guidelines)

3 Does the guidance accurately describe the range of circumstances that put children's safety at risk and puts them at risk of not receiving a suitable education?

No



Children are not at risk because they are home educated! It's clearly stated in the law (it's even in your draft at one point) that EHE is NOT a welfare issue. And yet, on every other page of the guidance, EHE so clearly IS being regarded as a welfare issue.

If you want to describe the range of circs which puts children at risk of not receiving a fulltime education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any SEN they may have (and please, what is this "suitable" which keeps cropping up? Who is defining "suitable"? You might have been able to come up with a more ambiguous term, but you would have had to work hard at it. Sticking to the law would be better), then you need to look at children in ALL educational settings: private schools, state schools, HE and alternative provision. Look for the failing schools, for the children being bullied, for the children whose SEN are not being adequately met. It is pretty offensive to those HEing families who have, with great financial and personal sacrifice, removed their children from state schools in which their safety was so clearly being put at risk and their educational needs so abjectly unmet, to start HEing, and now to discover that, in the eyes of the State, it is their children who are now particularly "vulnerable"!

EHE really does not belong in this list (a list which reflects the prejudices of the drafters) - surely State officials would be better concentrating on the needs of individual vulnerable children rather than resorting to this check box approach, particularly when several of those boxes are disriminatory.

4 Does the guidance show effectively what steps local authorities should take when children are living in difficult circumstances that put them at more risk of not receiving a suitable education?

No.

Firstly, how is being EHEed a "difficult circumstance"?! WHY are home educated children seen to be particularly vulnerable? Is there any reason to suppose that they are more at risk than schooled children of forced marriage or abuse? Why has forced marriage become integrated into this guidance? There are surely already powers in place to prevent forced marriages? What do they have to do with where children are educated? Similarly, Social Services already have powers to investigate suspected abuse and to take action to prevent it further occuring. What has suspected abuse to do with place of education?

Authorities get no clear guidance here about their statutory duties. If they follow this guidance, they will inevitably fall foul of the 2007 EHE guidlines. In fact, if they follow parts of this guidance they will, by definition, be contradicting other parts of it...

There is an invitation here to the LAs to practice high levels of intrusion into the private lives of lawfully EHEing families. Are we expected simply to surrender our right to privacy (European Convention on human rights Article 8) when there is NO reason for the State to believe that anything untoward is occuring in our homes except for the fact that we are educating our children ourselves rather than trusting the State to do it for us?


There is currently no duty or power for LAs to routinely monitor elective home educators. I am aware that many LA officials are unhappy about this. This guidance opens the door to abuses of their current powers - unless the intention is to change the law by an underhand route. But if changing the law is the intention - are LA officials aware of the responsibility they will hold if they become responsible (rather than the courts) for determining a child's educational needs? This would override the 1996 Education Act (section 9) and will inevitably make the State vulnerable to litigation when their assessment of a child's educational needs is mistaken.

5 What are the key challenges local authorities could face to implementing these guidelines effectively?

The fact that this guidance is in complete contradiction to the 2007 EHE guidelines, published after a full consultation process with over 900 responses is one massive problem.

The question of how ContactPoint works with CME, especially given that ContactPoint isn't even in operation yet.

The fact that this guidance apparently overrides the legal rights of parents to educate their children as they see fit, and indeed, overrides the legal responsibility of parents for ensuring that their children receive an education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any SEN, at school or otherwise.

6 Does the guidance make clear the duties and powers that local authorities have in relation to home educated children when parents are not providing them with a suitable education?

No


How can any authority follow both this guidance and the 2007 guidelines, which DID make clear the duties and powers of LAs (much to their chagrin, I understand).

Again, what is a "suitable" education? This guidance really should stick to the legally accepted terminology, however distasteful that is to the LA officials.

The guidance does not summarise clearly the law as it stands

7 Does the guidance contain all the 'signposts' to other relevant guidance; sources of support and advice for local authorities that will enable them to implement this duty effectively?

No

The guidance is not built on the current legislation and guidance, but is apparently an attempt to massively increase the duties and powers of LAs. The signposts to the 2007 EHE guidelines are particularly laughable since, as I have already mentioned, there is no way that an LA could be in harmony with both.

There are no signposts here to the experts in the area of EHE. The HE support and information organisations, for example.

There are also massive and under-considered data protection issues in this proposed bonanza of data sharing. They are going to need careful advice on that.

8 Beyond the publication of the guidance, what would be the most effective means of communicating the importance of implementing the new duty, and the processes that will help its implementation, to professionals working with children?

LA officials need training in EHE. They are mostly inexperienced and massively ignorant. As an absolute minimum, they should be expected to read the most recent research on UK-based EHE (Paula Rothermel, the recent Alan Thomas book "How Children Learn at Home", for example). They should be introduced to the different educational philosophies and learning styles of home educating families, and it should be absolutely impressed upon them that EHE is legally, educationally, socially and morally the equivalent of school-based education. They should approach their work with humility. Here, the experts and professionals are the families who home educate their children, and those experts and professionals should be treated with the respect they deserve, unless they give good reason to indicate that they are NOT educating their children.

The attention of LA officials should be particularly drawn to the research of Paula Rothermel which shows that educational outcomes for working class children are better at home than at school. There are discriminatory assumptions underlying so much of the proposed guidance which reflects the prejudices of LA staff.

In my opinion, the proposed guidance is completely unworkable in its current form, so that publication of the guidance would be a most ineffective means of communicating the importance of implementing any new duties. (when you say “new duties”, are we to understand that this does indeed constitute a change to the law?)

9 Have you any details of good practice that would be useful to include in the final version of the 'guidance'?

Yes Hey! A yes! Not entirely a negative response then!

LAs could try following the existing Education-related legislation, perhaps including the 2007 CME guidance and the non-statutory 2007 EHE guidelines? Perhaps the final version could summarise the law accurately rather than this hysterical conflating hodge-podge of educational and child-protection issues?

10 Did you find the draft guidance clear, unambiguous and easy to follow?

On the contrary, I found it contradictory, disorganised, ambiguous, discriminatory and bordering on ultra vires.

Truly, this needs to go back to the drawing board, and needs the eagle eye of a legal team before it goes anywhere near publication.

Full consultation with stakeholders is also essential before this goes to publication, and that means proper consultation with the ethnic minority groups, groups of immigrants, Home Education groups, religious minotiries, travellers, gypsy and roma communities and so on, who are seen as particularly "vulnerable". This certainly has not happened yet with the Home Education community.

11 a) We have developed standard data definitions at Appendix 1 of the guidance. These were developed in consultation with several local authorities. Do you agree with these definitions?

Disagree


Disciminatory against EHEed children. If the quality of education is to be part of the CME remit, then that must apply to all settings - state schools, private schools, EHE and alternative provision.

And where was the consultation with other stakeholders?

11 b) If not, what amendments would you suggest and why?

The CME team needs to have a field in its database which says

"place of education known/unknown".

If unknown, then they make enquiries about the location of the education.

If known, then the duty of the SME team is discharged.

Then the EHE team on the LA look at any children noted on the database as being educated at home, and follow the existing 2007 guidelines in any further action (which may well be none, if they have no reason to suspect that an education is not taking place)

Reluctant to read and write?

I feel so sorry for children where the school is "worried" about their progress in reading and writing, and sends them home with extra work books and flash cards and lord knows what else for the summer holidays. So the pressure never drops off.

The parents feel under pressure because their 5/6/7/whatever year old is not at the same stage in literacy as the rest of the class. First assumption: We Have Done Something Wrong As Parents. Second assumption: There is Something Wrong With Our Child (whether that is disciplinary or developmental or what). I wish more would jump to a third assumption: Our Child is Fine. He/She is Just Not on Exactly The Same Tram Tracks as the National Average.

But that's a hard business, backing off, when schools are, by definition, places in which reading and writing are so central to the daily functioning of the institution from a really early stage.

Here's what I wrote somewhere else:



Reading and writing are the most glorious human tools. I mean, really. They make so much possible in terms of knowledge creation and storage. And we can access beautiful language and stories by people who aren't living in the same place and time as us.

But different children are ready to embrace that tool at different times. Some are ready at 4. Some are ready at 5 (they are the lucky ones, because that's when the UK schools are assuming they are up for it too) and some aren't ready till 7 or 8 or 10 or even later. Nothing to do with intelligence, just to do with being ready to begin using this particular tool of human communication.

We can force our children to learn to read and write before they are ready, we can even try to persuade them that it's a marvellous tool, but until they themselves are wanting to read a particular story THEMSELF or access a certain type of information INDEPENDENTLY, or communicate in writing to someone THEMSELF, then it's all just a rather pointless circus trick really, isn't it?

The old Unschooler's 5-step method of teaching a child to read is:

1. read to them
2. read to them
3. read to them
4. read to them
5. read to them

and it sounds like you're doing that. So I'd back off, take off the pressure, try to persuade school to take off the pressure, and let your child take it at their own pace. when she's ready, you won't see her for dust.

[climbs off soap box and puts it into backpack]

The Sandra Dodd page on reading begins: "You can't make her read or write. But you can make her not want to"

Don't let your child eat too much

... or they'll get taken into care.

Times article here

I become more and more persuaded that the State in the UK sees itself as responsible for the well being of all the children within its borders, with parents only allowed to play a role in the children's upbringing as long as they do not step out of the State Approved line.

I'm not saying that serious childhood obesity is a good thing. But removing children from their families as the solution???

Linkage

I just posted links to all sorts of UK Home Education groups/information sites/ campaigning organisations, because I am sick and tired of forgetting what is out there.

Are there others I should know about?

Moving away from being the constant presence

This was a messageboard conversation. A mother of a 16 month old who co-sleeps and still breastfeeds a lot is feeling the classic attachment mama burnout.

Without judging whether she was right or wrong to get into the position of being burned-out AP mother, what advice would you give her? (I'm sure at least one of my regular commenters will have something to say!!!)


This is what I said so far (criticism welcome)

If you want a longer gap between day-time feeds, and less of an assumption that breastfeeding is the default I'm-bored activity, try pushing the envelope so you are away a little longer than 3-4 hours in the daytime but the child isn't distressed. Beginn to find more interesting things to do than breastfeeding a lot in the day time - it might take a lot of some favourite food to be more attractive than the breast (chocolate mini milks?! Lots of good calcium in there!)

And then for the night time, if you are wanting to escape from being the only parent who will do at night time, I would think first in terms of giving a huge feed about an hour before bed time, and then disappearing to a cafe around the corner with a book so that your Dh can help your child go to bed. I'd recommend him lying down with the baby, and reading lots of favourite stories and then singing lots and lots of lullabies, giving as many cuddles as needed. No pressure on the little one to fall asleep, but just Daddy being there to help. And if it goes wrong, you can be called home to help, and try it another day! It would be a lot of work for your Dh to start with, but needn't be distressing for your child.

Same with the mornings - do whatever normal feeding happens at night and then any morning when you wake before your child, you just slip away, leaving water and biscuits or something even nicer to eat, and Daddy snuggled next to the baby, and see how Daddy does. Are there any foods which your child would take in preference to milk? Chocolate buttons? (this is at breakfast time, after all, you can always clean their teeth afterwards) And something to help them get out of dozy dozy mode really fast (a favourite DVD on a portable DVD player, maybe?)

All of this requires a lot of creativity on your husband's part. It might be that daytime naps would be a better place for him to start learning how to help your child to sleep rather than the night - get together with your husband and brainstorm like mad about things which are really comforting which aren't your breasts.

And Attachment Mama burn-out is really really classic. The big thing is to learn how to absent yourself so the Daddy can learn how to do some comforting and soothing.


I think the I-am-the-only-parent-who-can-comfort trap is particularly dangerous for SAHMs with WOHDs, because the breasts become the be-all and end-all so easily. It's much easier for those of us whose circumstances have meant that other care givers (the father, or a grandmother, or whoever) have been an accepted part of the comfort-giving landscape from the start.

Does anyone have any other wisdom about ways in which other care-givers learned to offer comfort without the magic breasts (while I still think that breastfeeding is the best possible start for a child, and that it should continue as long as both the mother and child are happy, I do think it's important to develop those other comfort options, and it can be harder for the wearer of the magic breasts to think of those options, since the magic breasts are always there in times of stress)

Here we are - linkage about opting out of EYFS

Spread the word among those with concerns...

nursery/preschool settings and childminders can apply for a temporary exemption (not sure what kind of timescale)

Parents can apply for an exemption on grounds of religious or philosophical conflict

the government site where you can get details

the EYFS lot, who are somewhat unimpressed


I think that concerned parents of children who are going to be affected by this need to start deluging Beverly Hughes and her Whitehall mandarins with requests for exemption...

An important Youtube from OpenEYE

here

The only bit I didn't like was when they wheeled out wossname Sigman to tell us that TV, DVDs and computer use are harmful for small children and stop them being able to concentrate for extended periods of time (has he never watched small children playing video games?)

But it's a professionally made film.

People in the mainstream seem to be just now waking up to the threat of EYFS, which is the new compulsory curriculum for under-5s in the UK, which must be followed by all nurseries, childminders and pre-schools. Montessori, Steiner/Waldorf and other "alternative" pre-schools are completely up in arms about it, of course, and there is growing discontent about the compulsory nature of EYFS among childminders and early years practitioners (I think they call themselves) more widely.

By the age of 5, did you know, British children should be writing simple sentences using punctuation.

Sheesh.

Recent encounters with "potty training"

I recently encountered two stories.

1. Child, aged almost 4 I think, is "potty trained" and has been out of nappies for 6 months. But pees themself, every single day, several times a day, and the mother was wanting to get ideas about getting the smell of old urine out of the child's nice shoes. Mother did not want to go back into nappies because the child's pre-school setting is not supportive of children of this age not being "potty trained"

2. Child, aged 4 and a bit, I think it was, is also "potty trained" and has been for a long time, but every day hides themself in a corner of the house/pre-school in order to do a poo in their underpants. Fine to use the toilet for peeing, but not for pooing. Mother wanted advice about stopping it happening.


My apologies if these stories are somewhat TMI. I was horrified to encounter them. What would either of these children have to do to persuade their parents and carers that they are not in fact ready to use the toilet? The competitive agenda which seems among some parents to begin at birth (oh, what did (s)he weigh? Our little Jimmy was 8.8lb!!!) moves on, in matters like elimination, to extreme coercion and presumably humiliation for the children who just aren't ready at the "average" age, or the "competitive mum's moment of thinking it's time" age. Or maybe these are parents who are overwhelmed by What Will People Think.

It seems to me that having pull-ups either full time or to put on when needing to pee/poo would be a much more respectful solution. And taking the whole process at the child's pace rather than rushing them, since these particular children clearly aren't doing brilliantly well with the rushed approach.

It also struck me as very interesting that when people say confidently "ah yes, little Billy was completely potty trained at 18 months", they might not mean by that what I think they mean. I always thought that "completely potty trained" meant that a child knew when they needed the toilet, and would take themselves off to the toilet/potty, and then would shout for loo paper assistance if necessary. But actually, it is becoming clear to me now that a mainstream "potty trained" child is simply one whose parents have removed their nappies. Some of them are indeed "completely potty trained" in my sense of the word, and others are absolutely not. *deep shuddering sigh*

"Shouldn't (s)he be weaned by now?"

I hear of people having this conversation with mothers of nursing 3 month olds, let alone mothers of nursing three year olds.

I've recently worked out a potentially wonderful response which I am calling the Mona Lisa response.

When people say challenging things about breastfeeding, I think it is worth quietly continuing to breastfeed, and breathe calmly, and just feel the tension. Because the person challenging you is the one with issues, and they are trying to tranfer their anxieties to you. So take time just to feel their tension, not to act on it, but being aware and conscious and fully present in the moment. It's not your tension, it's just crackling around in the atmosphere of the room. You don't have to engage with it in any way.

And when they have finished their rant, smile, like the Mona Lisa, and say "ah well, horses for courses, it's what suits us for now" in the tone of voice which signals clearly that the conversation is now over.

A messagebaord post of which I am feeling proud

I'm not sure it's ok to say

"HEing is fine but you are HEing for reason X, and I don't think X is a valid reason for HEing"

because in conversation one has to simplify, and reason X might just be the thing which is uppermost in one's mind at this precise moment

and

because reason X might just have been the thing which incensed the person in their conversation with grumpy old Life is Tough git

and

because you don't HAVE to have a "valid reason" to HE any more than you have to have a valid reason to send your child to school. They are equal before the law in the UK

No-one gets to decide about whether or not a family should or should not be home educating their children except for, ultimately, a court of law. Not me. Not you. Not even an LEA. They can put a case in court if they have good reason to believe that a particular family is failing to educate a child, but it's still up to the court to decide.

"Life is tough and children need to learn how to deal with it"

I really really hate that sentiment. It's not even so much the "Life is tough" bit because, indeed, life does throw challenges at people and those challenges are sometimes difficult. It's the "Children need to learn" sentiment which has my hackles rising.

Because behind "they have to learn" is an implied "and it's going to hurt them" and somehow the speaker is just RELISHING the fact that they are going to suffer, and that suffering is Good For Them. Whenever I have encountered it, there is an edge to the tone of voice, an entire world view which believes that That Which Does Not Destroy Us Makes Us Stronger, and You Have To Suffer To Be Beautiful. The person saying it subscribes that well known magazine The School of Hard Knocks Weekly.

But I believe that they are wrong. People learn least well through suffering because the brain does not function as well under stress. The things people learn in stressful situations are not necessarily at all what those trying to teach them (parents, teachers, peers, whoever) are trying to teach.

Not all people who send their children to school are "Life is Tough and you have to learn to deal" people, and not all HEers are the opposite. Although the quote was brought to my attention by a HEer being criticised for her family's choice because "Life is Tough blah blah", I don't actually think the quote got anything particularly to do with school vs. HE at all.

The kind of person who says "You have to send your child to school because life is tough blah blah" is just as likely IMO to say "you have to leave your child to scream themself to sleep because life is tough blah blah" or "the rot set in when they stopped national service because life is tough blah blah" or whatever they happen to think you are being too "soft" with your child about. In the context of this original quote it happened to be school/HE. If the child in question was going to school, the criticism would be of helping the child make their sandwiches which was not teaching them that "Life is tough", or allowing them to wear a coat on a chilly day even if the clocks have already changed. The problem is with the Life is Tougher, not with whether anyone's children go to school or not.

By the way, I think that if school is horribly stressful for a child, they'll be better off out of it educationally and socially, long and short term, rather than self-harming or committing suicide or anorexic or waiting to see if the last lot of bruises heals before the next lot arrives or weeping every Sunday night as the new week begins.

Going all political - a letter to my MP

Dear XXX,

I note that you have signed Early Day Motion 1886 about
Breastfeeding in Public.

While I applaud your support for mothers feeding their infants, I feel
very strongly that this proposed law does not go far enough.

As I am sure you know, the WHO recommends breastfeeding exclusively
until 6 months, and then mixed breastfeeding and solid foods until at
least two years old. What precisely is proposed in this Early Day
Motion for babies and small children over the 6 month limit?
Putting the age limit on tends to lend validity to the prurience with
which women's breasts being used for their naturally intended purpose
is viewed in this country. Women whose breastfeeding children are over
six months, or appear to be, will be at increased risk of being
challenged, bullied, and asked to leave public places, since the law,
if it passes, will clearly state that breastfeeding in public is only
alright up to this magic limit.

Before you contribute to the house of commons debate on this matter, I
would urge you to get in touch with breastfeeding women in your
constituency - La Leche League or NCT coffee mornings are the most
obvious place - and consult breastfeeding women about this. I believe
you will find that they would prefer no law to a law with an age limit,
and that they would prefer a law with no age limit to no law at all
[Parliament could always just lift the Scottish wording...]. Further,
just because weaning begins at 6 months doesn't mean that babies show
very much interest in solid food for a long time after that;
exclusively breastfed babies will often have absolutely NOTHING to do
with a bottle either of expressed breast milk or of formula; and few
mothers find it preferable to deny a screaming baby or child breastmilk
just because they are not safely behind closed doors.

As it stands, this early day motion really isn't going to do any
favours to the people for whose benefit it seems to have been drafted.

Yours sincerely,





Inspired by this petition http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/breastfedright/

Sharing (that old chestnut)

Child screams if other children tries to play with her toys. Holds as many as she can.


I might actually try it the other way around. Pass her lots of toys if she wants toys. As many as she can hold. Make it a game. Balance one on her head. Make it so there are so many toys floating around that there is room for someone else to use one without her even noticing.

Having doubles of favourites can be a good ploy - not expensive things, just soft toys or cars or whatever ("there's one for you to play with and one for Freddie.")

Suggest that visitors bring toys with them, to act as collateral, or as things for them to play with if she'd prefer not to share hers.

Make sure that her favourite toys are put carefully out of sight when people are visiting - of course she can ask for them if she wants them, but it means the visitors don't even know those toys exist and avoids the conflict.

Make activities for visiting children which don't involve sharing against anyone's will. Bubbles. Paddling pool. Lots of balloons to blow up and bat around. A mattress or cushions to jump on.

Remember - the toys at your house are her toys. You don't lend books unless you feel like lending them. She shouldn't have to lend her toys. I think respecting our children's property is an important starting point, personally.

It will pass, but it is so so so much easier to talk about lending and the concept of X playing with a toy and then they'll give it back and in general the concept of ownership when her language is more developed - around 2.5 or 3 I guess. I'd be finding ways of managing things as they are at her developmental stage just now rather than trying to get sharing to be ok (it's like this magic word isn't it? the adults say "share share share" and the children hear "give away your toys, give away your toys". They just don't understand it as an ok thing at this age. We have to wait for them to be ready)

My parents always sent me to bed at 9pm, whether I liked it or not, and I turned out fine.

I think this idea can be summarised as "Adults know better than children what is best for them"? That message is completely counter to TCS philosophy.

I assume instead that children will work out how best to live in society, with parents offering guidance where tolerated. What are the alternatives? That a child is incapable of learning how to interact successfully with the world around him unless someone forces them to? Or that a child must be forced to comply with societal norms because they won't see them as worth while in their own right. Child as stupid? Child as wrong headed? Child as insufficiently provided with information? (then provide the information for them to make their own reasoned decisions, don't keep making the decisions on their behalf!!)

One cannot assume that all children of certain ages need the same amount of sleep. Or even that the same child will always need the same amount of sleep - it's going to depend on what sort of day they've had. In fact, the only person with sufficient information to know that a child needs to go to sleep is that child themself, and the very best gift their parents can give them is to read their own cues of tiredness. And you don't do that by overriding those cues and sending someone to bed at your own parental convenience.

The lucky children have parents who have let them sleep whenever they want from a very young age. When tired, they lie down and go to sleep. Those parents who have forced bedtimes over the years have to step back at some point in order for their children to learn for themselves what their cues are. And parents can do that stepping back when their children leave home, perhaps to go to college. That's the classic where students stay up really late and miss classes, not because they don't want to be at the classes ,but because this, aged 19, is the first time in their entire life when the only thing telling them to go to bed is their own cues of tiredness, and they are having to learn to read those cues. The bedtime imposing parents have done a pretty rubbish preparation for life course for their children there, wouldn't you say?

The "you have to go to bed because you have to get up for school" argument doesn't wash. If one's own activities at home in the evening are much more interesting and engrossing than school, then it should be a question of finding ways not to have to go to school, or not to have to go to school full time, rather than curtailing those activities. It is quite common, I believe, for children of TCS families not to go to school - because so much learning on someone else's agenda is simply not effective or efficient. And there is no freedom of association in a school. If there are better things to do tonight than go to school tomorrow, then the problem to solve is how to get your parents to allow you to be home educated, not how to motivate yourself to get into bed and shut your eyes.

"I turned out fine" boils down to "I was coerced and it never did me any harm", which is the same in spirit, though of course not in seriousness, as "my father beat me with a belt strap every Friday night and I turned out ok". It's not a question of "how much can we coerce our children and still have them turn out ok?". It's a question of "what is the morally right way to interact with our children?". Respecting their wishes about when to go to bed, and taking them as seriously as our own, is a good starting point.

It all comes down to parental limits, with bed time as one of the classic boundaries not-to-be-pushed. But parental "limits" are parental blind spots, where there is no acknowledgement of parental fallibility, and are thus inimical to consentual family living.

How exciting

One of the wisest women I know

Ask Nawny

The Independence Agenda

The ideal: for children to take independence rather than to be pushed into it

#1 challenge: the aspects of life that the parent has baggage about with independence. For one parent it might be wanting child to be in own bed asap, for another it might be wanting child to start using toilet asap, for another it might be wanting to stop breastfeeding asap or send child to school asap etc etc. How to step back from the irrationality of one's response to a particular area of offspring dependence? Advice please.

#2 challenge: advice wanted for when an area in #1 correlates with an area that friends or relatives are concerned about. Not only is a parent anxious about child not doing X yet, but others are communicating their anxiety about it too. What to do? Easy to deflect such anxiety in others when it is in an area about which the parent is not anxious for independence asap themselves.

#3 challenge: how to balance making opportunities avaiable to a child versus pushing them into something before they are ready. If a child never sees a bike, they'll never know they might want to ride one. But if parent tries to push them onto a bike before they feel happy to try it, they'll put the process back by days/weeks/months. This is not about bicycles, they are a silly hypothetical. How to judge the difference between making something available and pressuring someone? How to find ways of making something (which has been a pressure point in the past) available without pressure?

Just another ordinary day

I just read this short story

here

Go read - it's just a story about an ordinary school day...

Hairdressing without tantrums. Or at Tantrum. Or something.

Nice video here

I just wish they hadn't called the shop "Tantrum" since the whole point, surely, is that this is a place one can take a child to have a haircut which they will really enjoy.

The revolving door of school exclusion

this article caught my eye.


The solutions I see to this problem are certainly too out there for our society.

Stop having schools being compulsory (to all intents and purposes) to the majority of children.

Stop having state funded schools. If people want to run schools, and children want to attend them, let them reach their own arrangements as to the financial recompense and the code of behaviour to be accepted by all parties concerned.

what did you do today?

I enjoy reading examples of things HE families do. Sometimes it is presented as "what subjects did we cover today?" (I'm thinking of a Mumsnet thread, where this is crossposted)


But there are a couple of things which bother me, so I thought I'd put them out there to be gunned down or mulled over.

There might be a danger in cataloguing the "subjects" our children cover that we buy into the mythology that activities have to be cataloguable in terms of school subjects to be worth doing, to be educational. For school-at-home HE, it's kind of easy and obvious: "well, we did 30 minutes of our reading scheme and then 30 minutes of maths worksheets, a bit of our history project and then off to the HE science group after lunch" (I am oversimplifying just to make the point).

But for autonomous home educators, the activities of our children may well not at all look like school subject-specific activities.

1) there is the danger of focusing on, emphasising, noticing the activities which fit the boxes. Of breathing a sigh of relief when a child does something which we can present to the in-laws as educational and within the realm of what they'll recognise as such. Of interacting with the expectations of wider schooled society on their terms rather than ours.

2) we don't know when our children are learning or in what form. Someone recently said something about their children spending all day playing computer games. And it's accepted generally in society that that would Not Be Educational. But there is a stage in a person's life when they first learn to use a mouse alone. In what universe is that not a major thing to have learned? There is a stage when they first learn to navigate icons to their favourite games and activities. Again, how are they not, gloriously, learning? And the learning continues; computers are just a medium like any other, which can be educational depending on what is going on inside someone's head.

It might be in the "down-time" computer games that our children learn the most in a day. Or in the building of a large lego structure. Or in who knows what - it needn't look like school, it needn't be good LEA-report fodder, and maybe we as parents will never know what our children learned from colouring in 47 pictures of the Teletubbies one day aged 2 (that's a hypothetical).

There's a wonderful HE video on Youtube called "Learning all the time" which portrays some of that - that you can even make a video of unschooled children doing their thing, and there are glimpses of all sorts of wondrous learning going on, but it still can't be grasped and quantified. Poor old OFSTED, maybe that's why they tried so hard to shut down Summerhill.

Does (s)he sleep through the night yet?

I have always thought this a very odd question.

I do not sleep through the night myself. Sometimes I wake to go to the loo, or I wake because I am thirsty or need to blow my nose. Sometimes a particularly vivid dream will wake me, and I have to waken enough to realise it was only a dream before I can sleep again. I am aware that some people are deeply, log-like, unconscious right through the night, but most are not (just about any men over about the age of 50, for example, with their prostate-related need to pee)

So really the question is

"Does your child still disturb you when they wake in the night?", with the implication that being independent at night time is something to strive for as quickly as possible, with sleep training manuals to assist one in achieving the glorious goal of not being disturbed by one's offspring for a solid 11 hours every night.

And my response to this would be: at what times of day is it acceptable to ignore a child's needs and desires? If they want comfort or company or nourishment or help, is there a time after which a parent should be thinking "nope, that's your lot till 8 a.m."?

I would always help a child in the night if they needed help. In that help, I would be hoping gradually to give them the skills, knowledge and confidence to manage whatever the thing is - going to the loo, having a drink, whatever - on their own. But that would occur when they were ready, not when I suddenly decided on their first birthday that that's it, no more broken nights thank you. As I have said before, being a parent is a 24-hour job.


And just to put this in context. I have several recurring dreams, which I generally get if under stress for some reason. They might occur several times a year, or may disappear for two years at a time. When I awake from these dreams - which are frightening, involving precipices or poisonous snakes or similar - I continue to hallucinate. It can take up to an hour for the hallucinations to subside entirely, and it is very much helped if someone is with me, holding me, comforting me, turning the light on, reassuring me that I am not actually on the edge of a cliff.

When we refuse to help our children if they cry at night, how can we be sure that their dreams are not as vivid and terrifying as mine?

THe old "I don't home educate but I know exactly how it should be done" conversation

A child I know who is HE educated is 10 and has the unformed writing of a 5
yr old, he is a bright boy,he simply doesn't have the practise because he hardly
ever writes!

How important is beautiful handwriting in adult life? How often do any of us write nowadays?

And if the answer is yes, it's important, then a person will want to learn when it is important.

My handwriting was terrible as a child, but one year I decided to enter a Post Office handwriting competition (back of a cereal packet or something) and learned calligraphy and GOT A CERTIFICATE. Nothing to do with school.

And if handwriting becomes important in adult life? You learn to write beautifully then.

He had finally learned to read, but he has missed hours of joy with all the
books that he has outgrown and missed because he couldn't access the code
earlier.He had to have someone read to him or a story tape which is not the
same.

I know children who can read but prefer to be read to, children who don't yet read and are exploring it, running their fingers along the words as a parent reads, children who can't yet read but tell themselves the story, word perfectly, because they know it so well.

I am gloriously happy when I see a child learn to read, but I am also weirdly sad - because they can never see a picture with caption through just their own eyes again, because they will never again truly appreciate the shape qua shape of an A or an H - because interpreting it as a signifier always intervenes. I'm not saying I would stop a child reading, but saying it has to be done fast and young for the best value childhood is an unsubstantiated assertion.

I am also much much happier when I see a late-reading HE child than a late-reading schooled one. The schooled one has been a failure since the age of 5. School is a literate culture. HE needn't be.

There is just so much of oral-culture value that we lose when we become literate aged 5, whether ready or not, on the conveyor belt of broiler eduation. (some children are ready at 5 or earlier. fine. But don't assume it's right for everyone)

Maths needs to be every day, unless you are mathematically gifted, purely
for the practise in dealing with numbers.

formal sit down maths? pffft. Numeracy is a way of life, and it needn't involve pens, pencils, paper, workbooks or lesson plans. I actually find it hard to believe that any parent gets through a whole day with their children without doing heaps of age-appropriate maths aloud or through gesture or by using objects. But legislating for it?

And if there's a day when noone happens to have mentioned anything to do with maths, that would be a disaster?!

IMO the 3rd most important thing to give a child ( after love and security)is a
good education.

I agree entirely. THat's why I have no intention of devolving my responsibility to educate my family onto overworked, underpaid teachers who are bullied and browbeaten by politicians and their cronies and who can never give a child the one-to-one personalised education their parent can.

Things need to be taught

Actually, you are wrong. Read some John Holt or other autonomous eduation literature and we'll talk again.

People are not buckets. Knowledge cannot be poured into them, however diligent the learner and however enthused and enthusing the pourer.

How is a child challenged?

define "challenge". a 2 year old learning to jump is challenged. They are frustrated. They might ask for help. they learn to jump, you don't teach them.

Skills like scan reading and note taking need to be taught.

Nonsense. The idea of teaching them in schools is relatively recent. anyone my age taught themself, when they needed the skills.

What do you do with the lazy child who doesn't want to make an effort?

Define "lazy".

And... if a child is in charge of their own mind, their own learning, their own life, then they make an effort at what matters to them (and however mcuh you try to force children to learn, they'll only remember and understand and retain that which is important to them at that time).

Are you thinking that these naughty HE children will just lie around all the time?

Or is this the protestant work ethic/the devil makes work for idle hands meme?

Life is hard-everyone has to do things they don't want to

You only have to do things you don't want to if you accept other people trying to force you to do things you don't want to.

Really - I'd much rather raise children who DON'T think it's normal and acceptable to do something they hate, or to do something just because an authority figure has told them to. I'd much rather raise children who will pursue their happiness whole heartedly and never settle for doing things which make them unhappy because "life is hard".

Yuck.I hate that philosophy. It is so Dementor.

the real world is tough

Oh - that's ok. I beat my children every day just to prepare them for when they get mugged. (er... not really...)

No. The real world is what you make it.

The whole point about HE is that you can sidestep that whole schooling culture, that whole Doing To thing of the educational establishment, you can essentially bypass your way to the intellectual freedom most people only gain in adulthood and, weirdly enough, children revel in it, are happy, interested, motivated, self-directed.

this is maybe coming across quite aggressive, but I'm sharing the frustration of other posters, that someone who has no idea what HE is about either practically or philosophically is quite so sure of how it should be done.

Mothers and ancient child birth memes

I've been thinking about Candlemas. This is because the Mexican mother-in-law of a friend of mine made an epiphany cake, and I got the little plastic baby Jesus in my slice, and the forfeit is that I have to bake it in to my Candlemas cake. Ah yes, the Candlemas cake which I make every year (except not.)

Candlemas is of course the celebration of Mary taking Jesus to the Temple for her ritual cleansing after the impurifying act of childbirth. And it's when Simeon says the Nunc Dimittis, because now he's seen the Messiah he can die in peace. Oh, and Baby Jesus meets Baby John the Baptist. (Not that I'm buying into the narrative, but that's the story)

Anyway. So I was thinking about this ritual purifying of women after childbirth, 40 days after a son; 80 days after a daughter.

My immediate response was the knee jerk feminist "how dare They have decided that childbirth makes women impure?" but I've been thinking a bit more.


The period before the purifying was called the "gander" month, and the husband was responsible for everything domestic until the ritual purifying. It was a way of making sure women were able to rest and focus on bonding with the baby in the first 6 weeks.

They wouldn't be expected to go out in public - again, a way of ritualising the babymoon (and does anyone else get really distressed at seeing a tiny tiny baby still furled up but out in noisy surroundings?)

And then the practical things: postpartum bleeding takes about 6 weeks to stop, so it would be just about over when the purification ceremony would take place - and that post partum bleeding does take it out of you, and you don't want to be too far from home.

And 6 weeks is just about when milk supply calms down, so again, women stop being likely to spray milk all over everyone (I could hit people on the other side of the room if I wasn't careful in those first weeks). And they'll have got latch sorted.

There used to be the old adage about not having sex for 6 weeks after childbirth - is that still in operation? I can't remember - so it might also have been a way of getting men to leave their women alone for those first weeks.

And actually, there are still resonances. Statutory maternity leave in this country is 8 weeks. Even if you're only on the State maternity pay (200 pounds a week or something) you aren't allowed to go back to work until 8 weeks post partum, whether you want to or not. So there's an interesting secularisation of the same thing.

Yet again, it's one of those things which at first glance is patriarchal and despicable, but beneath the surface are subtle and woman-centred machinations.

Impatient

When you got pregnant, did you sign a contract with the universe guaranteeing you unbroken nights' sleep when the child hit 6 months/1 year/ 3 weeks (delete as appropriate)?

If no, then stop considering leaving your poor child to scream alone and BE THE PARENT. It's a 24 hour job.

Thank you.

That is all.

on authority and fallibility

Here were the poster's options when a child was ignoring, back-chatting or refusing to do what she told him to:

"1. Ignore even though this means you don't get what you want done.
2. Physically make him - by picking up etc, not by smacking.
3. Keep repeating until they eventually do do as you have asked."

All of these options assume that what the parent wants is what is going to happen and what should happen.

1. Is it possible that what the parent wants is simply wrong?

2. Is it possible that there is an alternative course of action for parent and child which everyone will prefer to their original preference and be genuinely happy with?

3. What do children learn from being ignored/physically made to do things/having someone repeating instructions at them ad nauseam? That Mum is boss, right? What is that authority based on and how long is it going to last? If the power struggles are bad with 6 year olds or 3 year olds, the teen years are going to be nuclear meltdown. We can't control our children for ever, and the sooner we establish a relationship of mutual respect and trust, the better.

Me, I'd always try to negotiate something everyone is happy with rather than setting myself up as the authority figure.stop asking them to do things they don't want to do.


Positive alternatives:

1) suggest things with actions not words (e.g. not "put your coat on!!" but just get the coat ready to put on if they want it). It's like those Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where what the parents say is just blah blah blah.

2) acknowlege that you might be wrong (maybe they just aren't cold)

3) be ready to save the day later (by tucking the coat in your rucksack).

4) think of something even better for everyone, the more playful the better

No need for conflict :-)

Astonishingly, these ideas were flamed only by the original poster, and two other commenters on the thread were supportive. That must be a less-mainstream mainstream message board...

contact point questions

questions to those who aren't signing the petition:

Do you think your children have the same right to privacy as you do? (I am assuming that most of you are as furious as me at the State bureaucracy posting your bank details to gawd knows where)

Are you anxious about the potential for violent ex's to trace their ex-families through such a database? (I am assuming that security will not be fail safe. There are simply too many people who will have access to the database for it to be secure)

If this database was applied to adults (full name, DoB, address, work place, previous employment, salary, any contact with any state agencies, including health care, counselling, maybe arrests (whether or not charges were brought), social services), would you feel comfortable?

You may be happy with your 6 year old being monitored in this way. How do you think your 18-year old is going to feel? Any differently from a 19-year old who is supposedly beyond the age to be included? And yet, do you think the government will simply delete them from the database when they reach 19? How would you feel about being on such a government database as an adult?

ContactPoint database

The internetz are full of British outrage about the loss of personal information in the child tax credit data loss scandal. how dare they? thunder all the Mumsnet and NetMums mums. The Conservative opposition is opening up a hiiiiuge lead in the opinion polls.

But the ContactPoint database, delayed rather than cancelled by the government in the light of the data loss scandal, isn't getting half the outrage. This petition still has less than a thousand signatures.

So many personal details will be on this database (name, DoB, address, school, GP, health visitor, any other professionals having contact with them)

I finally worked out why so few parents mind the prospect of their children having their information shared in this way. It is because people don't think of children as having a right to privacy. Those Netmums and Mumsnet sites are full of anecdotes about children, in extruciating personal detail, and that's why.

I would be interested to ask them, however: you may be happy with your 6 year old being monitored in this way. How is your 18-year old going to feel? And do you think the government will simply delete them from the database when they reach adulthood? How would you feel about being on a massive government database as an adult?

was school necessary or conducive to my learning?

(from a post over at the frog pond)

not necessary.

one set of important things to me was languages, and i learned more by visiting friends in those countries and by being penpals between visits than I did in school. i finally have an understanding of grammar having taught myself Latin in adulthood (don't ask why. It was important to me as part of a creative project)

other important thing: maths. school maths sucked. I had private tuition with a friend of my parents, leading to a qualification beyond what school offered.

most important thing: music. school music was always a joke. I went to a private music centre on saturdays where i got both practical and theoretical training to a very high standard (i could have gone to a conservatoire at 18 if I'd chosen that route)

the sport i love(d) is/was swimming, and my school to 16 didn't even have a pool, so I had to flail around with hockey sticks rather than doing what i actually enjoyed. the closest i have got to a hockey stick since leaving school is playing ice hockey on frozen ponds using ice axes as sticks and a terry's chocolate orange as a puck. but i digress.

so... school was peripheral.

school friends - i am in good contact with two people from school. we have shared interests which have nothing to do with school. several of my closest childhood friends were not at school with me, including my very oldest friends who i have knwn since babyhood and was never at school with.

it was just such a waste of TIME, and the really exciting learning was happening elsewhere

How bad just normal can be

On the bus today there were three mums with their children, all "nice middle class white well spoken". You get the picture - neat haircuts every one of them, and smart clothes.

Mums in the middle of the bus, chatting; two children at the front, the rest at the back.

Mum number 1 only engaged with her children when one told tales on another "Mum, Ben is standing up" "BEN!!!" (in warning tones, turns round and finds child is sitting down - tale bearer laughs a lot, and who can blame her. Mum is a fool).

Mum number 2 kept turning round and telling child (at other end of the bus) not to take things out of her bag because "they'll get left behind if we have to get off the bus in a hurry." Child said "I'm not taking them out, I've just opened the bag to look at them". Mum said "If they fall out, you aren't allowed to cry". Only other interaction of this mum and children was her telling them repeatedly not to use more than one crayon at a time, and then to put it away before getting the next one out. All at 90 decibels across acres of bus.

Mum number 3 was being horrible to her daughter. Daughter cried, mum didn't go to her. Daughter eventually went to mum. Daughter then headed back towards the back of the bus, bus started moving, mum caught daughter to sit her down - fair enough since the bus was lurching. The next exchange was weird. The mum kind of grimaced at daughter, daughter grimaced back, and then the mum gave her a right going over for looking at her in a disrespectful way. The child burst into floods of tears. It struck me as an interaction where the child is desperate for love and affection, but has no idea what it is she is supposed to be in order to earn it. And the parent is inconsistent and just plain unkind.

Mum number 4 (me) got off the bus many stops before she had intended, and waited for the next bus, musing on the glories of the teenage years these women have ahead of them, and on the likelihood of them being invited to play an active role as grandparents in due course.

learning all the time

Has everyone seen this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ToSYQSrUVM&eurl=http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=98210&p=3&topicID=14175616

Public transport musings

I was on a train recently, and the child in the seat in front was sitting with her aunt (the mother was sitting with the baby further up the carriage). The aunt started listening to her iPod and reading a book. Nothing for child to do - aged 3 or 4.

I started passing objects through the gap between the seats, and she started passing them back. When that palled, I passed over a sheet of stickers and a colouring book with a couple of pencils. The aunt looked really surprised. the child coloured and stuck happily for about 20 minutes. I couldn't understand why child was expected just to sit quietly for a long journey.

In such a situation, I often wouldn't make any contact with the adult at all, just invite the child to join in with our play, or offer little objects which are age appropriate, if I have any. I can't bear the way people expect their children to go into neutral in those in-betweeny times on buses and trains.

For myself, and for any children travelling with me, I always have activities in my bag. If I am taking children for several hours in a constricted public space, it is my responsibility to make that a pleasant experience for my own family and for us not to make everyone around us unhappy, as far as possible.

What about the mothers who try to stop their bored children kicking off their shoes or making finger drawings on misted windows? I usually try to exchange conspiratorial glances with the beleagured child - I hate the way that all adults are assumed to be part of the adult conspiracy by default. But I find it very difficult to find cheerful liberating things to say to the mother - mostly leading by example, I guess, in trying to keep travelling children occupied and happy with whatever objects are available. I love seeing a family on one of those 4-seater tables on a train with all their books and colouring and games and snacks spread across the surface, obviously settled in all the way to Glasgow.

Happy Endings

Me I much prefer a story with a happy ending. I'll take As You Like It over Hamlet any day of the week.

I have always preferred children's books, into adult life, and a considerable part of the reason is that they (together with the best heroic fantasy) have a moral clarity. Good and evil, while often complex, can be differentiated, and good wins in the end. Actually, I think this is, in the end, true to life. In the end, evil fails on its own terms.

I knew Harry Potter 7 would come out right - because I trusted that JK Rowling would not have forgotten her target demographic demands closure and a morally satisfactory outcome.

But mounting a campaign http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/News/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=enonline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED04%20Oct%202007%2011%3A05%3A44%3A830 against unhappy endings? I really don't think that's necessary. Make it clear to children that the endings aren't happy (or even make it clear it's not a very good book - at least, I hated the first and haven't bothered with any more) but BURNING BAD BOOKS? wtf?

The consequences of being openly judgmental

Because when people feel criticised they won’t hear the good ideas anyway.

Most people don’t like to be criticised, especially if they feel an element of guilt about their actions.

I’ve been on the receiving end of it. One shuts down, emotionally and mentally, and just tries to get the criticiser to shut up, however right they are.

There is an art in offering advice/criticism/suggestions - and it often involves saying nothing at all when one judges that it will not be well received. If people want one's advice, they'll ask for it (and even then the best response might be to say nothing at all)






So many people mistreat their children. They complain about them, they send them to school against their wills. They leave them crying in the night. They complain that they cannot sufficiently control them, as if they were radio cars, not autonomous humans.

But what they want to hear is not “apologise, pick yourself up, strive to do better by yourself and by your child.” Instead they want to hear “you’re doing your best, girl. It’s a really hard thing being a Mum. You have to be cruel to be kind. They’ve got to learn. They all go through it. (S)he'll be fine soon, tears all forgotten”

There’s a part of me screaming “those children have to have someone advocating for them” but maybe it does more harm than good – maybe it sets the mothers on a self-defensive path of following the consistency principle. It certainly gets one seriously flamed. And being flamed is good for getting the adrenilin flowing, but less good at stomach-ulcer-avoidance.



I wish I’d read this:

“To so many parents, stopping a child crying by cuddling it will spoil them and
no research will persuade them otherwise unless they repeatedly see
real-life examples. I wish I could package up all that I’ve been lucky
enough to learn and experience and hand it to other parents, but I
can’t. All parents have to make their journey themselves and I have
to just hope that the small exposure they may have to how we do things, and
to how our children turn out, might add to any other exposure they have to
similar families and might, just might, give them the confidence to trust their
children.”

before setting off on yet another doomed crusade on the mainstream boards. It’s right. Small steps, Ellie, small steps. Just live your life, and treat the children you meet yourself as fully human, and let the ripples spread in their own time.


Better to look to learn rather than to convince or teach. Whether others are doing the same or not is their responsibility. If there are spaces where one learns little of value, avoid them. There is an arrogance in going to those of different beliefs and values and saying "here, try mine, they are much better". One will always be convinced of the moral superiority of one's own position, or one wouldn't hold that position, but that does not mean that it is infallibly better, and nor does it mean that explaining it to someone else is going to be helpful to them. Much better to find spaces in which one can challenge and refine one's own ideas than to attempt to teach others.

'Sfunny, I've taken to the idea of unschooling as the ideal for children like a duck to water, but have had this big blind spot in my dealings with other adults...

Reasons to Consider Home Education #10

I merely mentioned the story of the guy who is prison because someone else
suggested that 'all' HE adults were well adjusted individuals, which is not
true. ALso, on that topic, someone also said that most people in prison would
have been sent to schools - but that is another point which is hardly worth
mentioning, since most people go to school. Therefore, you cant compare it. Its
not about where they were educated that makes them a criminal or not.

Absolutely. Now I see why you mentioned the story it makes more sense.

I think we should all be concentrating on what our children want and need to be happy and fulfilled now, and equally what we ourselves need to be happy and fulfilled now. Put our creative problem solving into that rather than worrying about whether this particular educational path will stop our child becoming a rocket scientist one day or whether either HEing or schooling our children is more likely to make them heroin addicts - it's going to be much more complex than that, but being unhappy is a good indicator of future self harm one way or another...

I'm not saying anyone else isn't concentrating on happiness of all members of their families, it's just a little unrequested homily for you.

Did I ever tell you the story of my childhood friend who read English at university, then swopped to theology, then went off to become a monk, then decided not to do that yet, then did 3 science A levels in a year aged about 25, then did a medicine BA, then changed his mind about becoming a missionary doctor in south america, then went into a Dominican seminary, and eventually became a priest?

That's what life is all about - doing what is right for right now, and finding ways to chase your dreams wherever they take you, and even if the road is not straight.

If a child will be happier not going to school today, send them tomorrow, or next week, or next term, or next year, or in 5 years - send them when it makes them happy.

I just feel that I dont want to deprice my child of any of the skills she
will need to cope in the real world, and I think the classroom is the
safest place to expose them to situations that will teach them these skills. Its
not foolproof, of course people get bullied and so on. But you gotta do what you
think is best, and I think that as a parent my first option will be to send my
child to school, and if that doesn't work out, then I will consider other
options. HE being on the list, but definitely not the only other
option.

I think the real world is the best place to learn skills you need to cope in the real world. It's all the real world, but the subsection of it within the classroom is an artificial and arbitrary environment with codes of behaviour completely different from those one encounters in society at large. What you get good at in school is learning how to be good at being at school. A glib answer, but a heartfelt one.

Maybe its about independence? Is that part of the subtext here? That children are going out and coping alone without Mummy/Daddy's apron strings to hold on to? Again - I have an unusual philosophy on this one. I was brought up to believe that independence is something you take, for yourself, as and when you are ready. This is one of the reasons I have no idea when I left home. I gradually spent less time there, I gradually moved beloved objects to my other place of residence. My mother says she remembers vaguely a time when I said "oh, feel free to chuck them out, I'll never wear any of the clothes in that wardrobe again" and that for her was the moment when she thought "Oh, I guess her actual home is where all her clothes she actually wears are, now!" but I'll have been in my mid-20s by then and largely living independently for 5 or 6 years already. I have never regretted leaving home, there was no wrench, and I know it's still there whenever and if ever I need a place of refuge. That's unconditional parenting, that is. And, from the inside, let me tell you that there is nothing like the confidence engendered by choosing for yourself how and when to take steps towards independence, small and large.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #9

I don't think HE is the best option for every child or every family. Nor do I think it is the only option. But it is a legal option, and I think far more of us should at least consider it seriously with our children, get ourselves informed and think about the pros and cons.

At school-choosing time, it'd be "this CofE primary, or the one round the corner which we are in the catchment for, or do we feel like a Steiner-WAldorf, or are we going to be sending our children to a very posh prep school or can we get into this RC primary, or shall we home educate?" Just one on the list.

it simply isn't seen as an option by many families, and they don't offer it as a possibility to their children even if their children are clearly unhappy about starting/continuing school. I think they should, because happy children learn better and live better than unhappy ones.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #8

I became a mother before my working life had barely started, therefore I haven't
experienced that spectrum of my life. Just because you have no ambition to
pursue anything else, does not mean its wrong for mothers who do wish to pursue
something. Im a very good mother, always there for my child and will still be
there for her when she goes to school. I feel for me, its very important to
maintain an identity which is seperate from my children, but which doesn't harm
them and if possible, which can help them to become better people. Me going to
university sets an example to my children, and especially to my daughter that
woman can do and be what they want and should not be bound by the confines of
motherhood and homemaker.

I support your actions and goals 100%, both in carving your own path and setting an example. If your children were suicidally unhappy at school, you'd be able to find a way to achieve your own goals AND to HE your children. I'm not hoping for that, obviously, and indeed school may well be the best solution for ll of you. But there is choice, there is always choice, given optimism and imagination.

Its no good the parents teaching the child that bullying is wrong, that's as
good as saying 'Dont touch the stove, it will burn you.' The only way a child
will find out these things is if he experiences them for himself.

I don't believe that direct personal suffering is the only way to learn. Think about the implications of that possibility for a moment... there are children who kill themselves in this country every year as as result of school bullying. It still exists, and it can be life threatening. No one at any age should get used to bullying. In school you have to deal with it day in day out with the same bullies for years. You'd leave a workplace where that was the case. Zero tolerance is the way forward, like I said before. I think a HE child would encounter bullying, but they would never have to live with it - there would always be an escape. "I don't like the way you are acting towards me. Goodbye". Child learns a lesson in power and self respect. Bully learns a lesson too.

To answer your question about having ever met a HE'd adult. I have. He's
currently serving time in prison for possesion of herion. Guess he was never put
in a situation as child where he was put under pressure to do something and had
to learn to say no

urgh. What an awful story. Thing is, of course, that most of the drug-use jailbirds most people come across went to school... so it can't really be used as an argument against one or the other, can it?

Reasons to Consider Home Education #7

HE children might only be exposed to activities which interest their parents

Yes, an HE familiy would need to be careful to expose children to a wide range of activities and opportunities. It would certainly be possible to live in something of a bubble, and HE families should guard against that so child can discover their own interests.

I want my children to learn to compete against other children

I'd rather parents taught their children to compete against themselves than against other people. To strive to do their best, and to achieve all they are capable of rather than to beat Sally on a test.

There are HE children out there achieving the most astonishing things, which anyone competitive minded would regard as "winning", but they weren't necessarily competing against anyone else to get there. Maisie, Angus and Travers MacNeice spring to mind (published a best-selling biography called "The Lion Children" about their life on an African research station before they'd all hit teen-dom).

And there's nothing stopping a HE child engaging in competitive sports, and engaging seriously in them, if that's their thing. I know lots of parents do want their children to compete against other children, those just aren't my values.

You need to go to school to learn about teamwork

Heh - I think a half hour visit to HESFES or to any of the weekly home ed meets would explode that myth and the big difference is that HE children learnto cooperate with children of all ages, to help the little ones and accept help from the big ones, not everyone the same age. Much more what they'll find in adult life.

I want to reclaim my own life, which I can start to do when the kids go to
school

[what I didn't say in a public forum: so you thought having a child was a 5 year commitment????? Or 3 year, if you're starting with pre-school????? I know a mum who always says with that hint of self sacrifice under-ridden with deep pride at continuing to be useful that "being a parent is a life sentence"]

Yes, I can see that too. But I have to say that I see mums come to the end of maternity leave and go back to work with a sigh of relief just as their child starts to communicate, to have interests, to grow slowly into independence - just as things start to get a bit more interesting.

And similarly, children at 3 going off to preschool, or at 5 going off to school at just the age where they don't need the parents' undivided attention 24/7, but happily get on with their own thing for periods of time. The age where they just begin not to need constant supervision when playing with other children - it gets more and more fun to be around children as they grow, IMO, but most of us miss out lots of the god stuff.

It's seriously hard to complete a degree with a tiny baby in tow (I know people who've done it) but with a 5 year old or a 7 year old, you'd be able to do your coursework while they are busy colouring or writing stories or whatever, and you could probably even take them to the library with you as they got older (now what an educational experience that would be!) I know many lecturers who wouldn't mind having a child in their lectures in the slightest, so long as they weren't disruptive, and in fact I know a woman (single mum) in the unenlightened 1970s who used to take her toddler to lectures when the child care fell through, and have the little one doing colouring in a corner. The mum was the lecturer!

Also worth asking: why should it be the mum who is at home full time (when there are 2 parents). Many men LEAP at the chance to go part time or stay at home entirely for a few years, jumping out of the rat race with a great sigh of relief.

It's all just a question of finding ways to maximise a family's happiness, and if that involves school, then wahoo. But it needn't necessarily.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #6

There is a lot more to say about this mixing-with-all-strata-of-society-at-school issue.

This country is about as non-socially-mobile as it has ever been. The situation was probably better in the late middle ages, when a bright boy could become a priest (which is how Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, son of a butcher, became the most powerful man in England,apart from the king).

Things were much more mobile even 30 years ago - talent could rise academically and economically. What made that possible within the education system? Grammar schools (almost all gone in the last 30 years), the assisted places scheme, whereby bright children could go to the best private schools on government assisted scholarships (now abolished), a well-paid, intellectually-independent and socially honoured teaching profession mostly staffed by graduates of good universities who helped their brightest pupils aspire high, whether they were from leafy Berkshire or a sink estate in Newcastle.

That has been progressively undermined by the working conditions of the last 20 years (centralised government deciding syllabus and teaching styles, centralised testing every five minutes, mountains of paperwork, abusive treatment at the hands of pupils and parents... I know lots of bright and inspiring and subject-passionate people who go into teaching. Some of them have even done a year beyond the NQT year before they've had enough and go to private schools or leave the profession altogether. Those who are left are those with a real vocation, but their job is damn tough. They have my undivided admiration, but I still think the majority of parents can do better for their children than the teachers can manage given their working conditions).

The abolition of the university grant and introduction of student fees didn't help either.

The truth is that we live in a class-ridden society and perhaps the best way to opt out of its prejudicial structures is to opt out of some of its institutions - like schools, for example.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #5

I WANT my child to have to deal with different and complex relationships
everyday, and not just people that i choose to socialise her with. I mean, lets
be honest, an HE parent gets to choose which kids their child mixes with -
rather than letting their child come across many different people from many
different cultures and classes, and choose their own friends.

An honourable HE parent supports their child in exploring their own interests, and within that the child will meet children of all sorts of backgrounds, with the same interests (e.g. football or swimming lessons or whatever).

It is worth thinking about the degree of social mobility within schools - not really an issue in primary school, but by secondary school, children pretty much sort themselves according to socio-economic status (I have a reference for that - it's in John Holt I think or maybe in "School is Not Compulsory"). And how much does socio-economic status affect parental school choice? When middle class parents say "Billy's got a place at a good school" they aren't just talking about OFSTED reports, they are talking about people Like Us on the PTA and at the school gate.

Sending children to private schools or faith schools accentuates the ghettoising even more.

I don't see the challenge of social mixing as being peculiar to HE, or even a particularly big deal, because HE families come from all sorts of backgrounds and from rich to poor, and because there are fewer of them, children will tend to get to know most of the ones in their area, either well or casually, so there's plenty of social mix going on.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #4

Socialisation is the thing which ALWAYS gets thrown at HEers as the reason not to do it.

HE parents do not keep their children locked in cupboards. At least, none that I know. Like I said before, there are active HE groups almost everywhere in the country. Take a random local area: perhaps an under-7s learning group once a week, an under-7 playgroup once a month and under-5 meet-ups in people's houses once a week, an all ages social get together at an adventure playground once a week, ice skating once a week, swimming once a week, climbing wall once a week, and once a week a whole bunch get together for foreign language classes. Pottery, needlework... it's all happening.

That's before you take into consideration the families who post on the local list that they are going on a nature walk at X on tuesday, and everyone is welcome to join, or that they have set up a tudor day at a local museum cost £5, only 25 places available. And of course families have informal get togethers all the time which no-one knows about because they aren't posted on a list anywhere.

Did I mention the summer camps? As far as I can see, half the HEers in the country spend most of June and July camping in fields at HE festivals (HESFES is the famous one) which are a big mix of social and learning and having a blast.

It's a whole glorious subculture, and it's growing FAST.

HE children still make friends at the park or at cubs or swimming or sunday school or wherever.

The difference for HE kids is that if they don't get on with someone, they don't have to spend 6 hours a day with them 5 days a week...

So, what precisely is it about the social milieu for HEers which bothers you? It's different, for sure, because it's not being in that bizarre and artificial environment of being in a room full of 30 people the same age (name a single situation in adult life where that would happen). But rich and varied and as social as the child wants - yeah baby.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #3

I think HE is a good idea as long as the people doing it are educated
themselves enough to be able to teach, and self disciplined enough to ensure
their children learn sufficient life skills for their adult life.

Actually, I think it is a lot more important that parents should be prepared to FACILITATE than TEACH. People are not buckets - knowledge cannot be poured into them - people learn what they are interested in learning, whatever the best intentions of the teachers and the National Curriculum devisers.

Parents do not need to know everything about the life cycle of a newt themselves, but they need to be prepared to find out with their child, or help their child find out, if their child needs/wants to know (and I'm thinking: library for books on newts, a 10 second google fest, visit the zoo and meet the newt keeper, ditto at local nature reserve...)

Life skills for adult life - absolutely - that is the parents' responsibility, for HE parents just as for parents who send their children to school. (In fact, you could say that HE parents are taking that responsibility even more seriously, since they don't entrust it for 6 hours a day to a school teacher looking after a room full of children all at once)

I also feel that some children can be pushed into doing it when they would love
to be at school and as and when that happens, the childrens needs should come
first and they should be allowed to attend.

I agree 100%. If a child wants to go to school, they should certainly be allowed to try it (and to stop it if the whole asking-permission-to-go-to-the-toilet and waiting-for-teacher-to-spot-your-hand-is-up-before-you-talk behaviour code is too much to handle)

Also i know some dont allow/teach their children along the same lines of schools
and their children do not take gcse's etc, and i feel that is wrong as those
exams are vitally important for a good education/grounding for college/uni etc
and its all well and good the parents saying that qualifications dont mean that
much/are not necessary, but again they are making that decision for their child,
instead of giving them informed choices..

Teaching along the same lines as schools would be a pretty poor second to what is possible. I mean, truly, so much of what is done in schools is make work (like doing pages and pages of maths problems when you understood the principle 2 hours ago). And there's so much time wasting while little Dennis the Menace tears the classroom to bits and the teacher can't tell the other children what to get on with because (s)he's too busy dodging flying chair legs.

HE can be truly responsive to the child in a way that schooling cannot be. There can be a much more holistic approach, a much more flexible approach. Learning can take place anywhere, in all sorts of mediums.

GCSEs - how important? Honestly? School qualifications are not the be all and end all, partly because of grade inflation (25% get As at A level now. It just doesn't differentiate between the brightest students so the better universities pretty much assume anyone applying to them will have at least BBB at A level). And GCSEs are completely irrelevant as long as you've got A levels under your belt.That's for the university aspiring types.

For others - employers want maths and english GCSEs and really aren't that bothered about exactly what else.But it's not just GCSes and A levels is it? It's SATS every five minutes from the age of 7. Any of you with school age children know how stressful those are for children (and do they help them learn? No. They measure what they have learned, within a very narrow range. So naturally, the teachers teach them to be as good at possible at that narrow range of things, leaving little time for other learning in the classroom. They have to, to look after the school's position in the league tables). It's like pulling up potato plants every 2 days to see if they've grown potatoes yet. Doesn't give the plant much change to get its roots down and actually grow some blo*dy potatoes.

Reasons to Consider Home Education #2

All fine and dandy but how can you HE AND go out and work to pay the bills?

two part time jobs?

One parent working from home? (or both?)

One parent working, the other not?

Reasons to consider home education rather than schooling #1

Child can learn at own pace. They never get left behind. I know SO MANY PEOPLE who didn't understand some concept in maths aged 6 or 7, and never ever got the hang of it after that it just wouldn't happen to a HE child. There are so many people who come out of school functionally illiterate. They weren't ready to learn in year 1 or 2, and after that it gets more and more difficult to keep up with everything, because so many instructions are given in writing, and so much of the educational product is expected in writing. This wouldn't happen with an HE child - learning can happen perfectly well through conversation and image until child is ready to learn to read, but you can't do that with a room full of 30 kids.

Similarly, HE children never have to wait. I have vivid memories of a teacher taking me aside and giving me a right royal telling off because of my "attitude" problem in a particular subject, when actually what happened was that he'd spend half an hour every lesson going through the homework ALL OF WHICH I HAD GOT RIGHT. Of course I was bored rigid. What was the point in listening to him? I'd understood this stuff, and he knew it because he'd marked the homework. That never happens to a HE child.

HE families don't have to follow the national curriculum. They can follow the interests of the child. If it's all about dinosaurs this month, it can be all about dinosaurs, and that can come into maths and writing and art and science and history and old uncle tom cobbley and all. You can catch the questions of your child when they happen, whereas a physics teacher faced with "why do clouds stay up?" will have to say "er... actually today we are doing ticker tape timers" and the moment is lost.

HE families do not have to cope with bullying. They can truly have a zero tolerance attitude. In adult life, if someone bullies you, you get out of the situation. HE children similarly have freedom of association, a basic human right denied to all school children who, by definition, have to mingle with a given group of people whether they like them all or not.

HE children have true socialisation. Instead of being with a group of people whose birthdays all fall within the same school year (think about it - how many good friends did you have at school outside your year?) they have a much wider cross section of ages and abilities and classes and experiences to be friends with. Just like adults have, in fact (because, let's face it, not all my friends are within a year of me in age, and neither are yours). They are out there in society, mixing with check out ladies and bank clerks and other children and the gas meter man and bus drivers and that old man who walks his dog round the block everymorning at 1043 precisely, at one mile an hour, and everyone else who makes up local society.

HE children make friends with other HE children of all sorts of ages. A 15 year old has so much to offer a 12 year old. A 6 year old has so much to learn from an 8 year old. And that's normal, natural, accepted in the HE community.

HE children do not have to live on an externally imposed timetable (unless their parents mimic the school day). They choose their commitments and they learn to keep them (brownies or football or recorder group or whatever it is). They are well prepared for the independence of adult life.

HE children get to go to all the cool places when they are not jam-packed in the school holidays Not only museums and zoos and parks and swimming pools, but also cheap holidays in June or September - because HE families don't have to follow school terms

HE children go to true experts when they get passionately interested in something. Where a schooled child is pretty much reliant on Mrs Bloggs the Teacher, a HE parent faced with something beyond their ability or knowledge will either get knowledgeable (everyone is learning in HE) or use their networks of friends and family to find someone with real expertise who can help. I know HE children whose parents knew some who knew someone who knew a really famous scientist, who was delighted to spend an afternoon discussing evolution or astrophysics or whatever it was.

HE children get to socialise just as much as they want. In most local areas there are active HE groups, and truly, if you went along to all of the joint learning and social occasions, you'd never spend any time at home at all.

You can stop whenever you want. If your child wants to go to school at 6 or 8 or 13 or 16, that's fine. Quite a lot of HE teens go to 6th form colleges for A levels or other higher qualifications. A LOT do Open University courses in their teens. There's nothing holding them back, you see.

Watch What You Eat

The UK government is introducing food grants for pregnant women to try to get them to eat healthily. No kidding, this is real.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KRLQTTMJLI2C1QFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/09/09/npreg109.xml

It seems to me that it is a somewhat short step from such a grant to a system where all pregnant women are required by law to eat 2 meals a day in government-registered cafeterias, where their food intake is carefully monitored by nutritionists and the number of spoonfuls is counted by new public sector employees.

Oh yes, tax me a little more please in order to pay for such madness.

My child won't finish her dinner

Not my child: someone on a parenting forum was worrying that her child wouldn't finish her dinner.


I would back right off.

It's such an anxiety, isn't it, when we don't think our children are eating enough? But by trying to force our children to eat we risk them losing any understanding themselves of when they are full, when they are hungry, what foods they do and don't like (and when we stop understanding that we are full or hungry, we open the door to being overweight later in life, or being unhealthily thin). One of the most important things your child can learn is how to self-regulate their food intake and, by definition, you can't make it happen, you have to LET it happen. (there was something about this in the papers just a couple of days ago - about parents trying to get their children to eat another spoonful and how harmful it can be in the long run)

Reassurance: no 4-year old is going to starve themself, as long as you provide food they like.

1) some people are grazers, not big meal eaters. You could try just letting go of the expectation of big meals, and providing healthy snacks for child to eat during the day.

2) I would mix up the family meal time for a bit - it can be such a big deal, yk? My feeling is that once adult meal time conversation is interesting to a child, they'll come and take part - there's no need to "train them" up to it. Have carpet picnics, TV dinners, breakfast in bed - just let go of that whole everyone-sitting-together-and talking-and-eating-together thing, because sometimes it's much easier to eat when there aren't two or more adults watching your every move.

3) can child say what she wants to eat? Go with it. You'll find it's beans on toast 3 times a day for a week, and then suddenly there'll be a day when it's all about apples or all about bananas, or it's chips with everything until suddenly rice is flavour of the month. Or maybe it'll be just chocolate for one day (I don't know many people who'd do that for more than one day, but you have to do it once to realise how icky you feel at the end of it. No lecture needed, just offer something bland like yoghurt to help the poor tummy recover!!!) Left to themselves, people don't eat a balanced diet every day, but when you work it out over a week or a month, actually all the right stuff is going in.

The more you worry, the more you will communicate your tension to your child, and the more she'll pick up that food is something to be anxious about. So you really have to chill out, if you possibly can, and then food will become more fun for everyone for many years to come!

Oh - and where did we get this thing about finishing our plateful? It's so arbitrary! My parents' generation will have picked it up in the days of rationing, and passed it on to us with new justifications. When I was little it was all about the starving children in Africa (well send them my ruddy left-over mashed potato then, I'm FULL UP!!!!)

It's taken me a long time to learn to stop eating when I'm full. Sometimes my eyes are bigger than my tummy. Sometimes the eyes of the person serving up for me are bigger than my tummy (if that makes any sense).

If you don't want to put leftover food in the bin, then
1) put it in the fridge for your own breakfast
2) only have a tiny helping yourself and then clear anyone else's plate
3) yes, tiny portions. Or maybe the meat in one little bowl and the rice in another, so if child only eats one sort of food, the rest can pop in the fridge.
4) get chickens or pigs to eat the scraps
5) start composting, and think about all that goodness going to grow next year's peas

Sibling rivalry

I wonder why and how siblings develop a competitive edge? Many many of them do.

Perhaps it goes right back to mama soothing the baby when older child also needs attention and touch?

Rivalry can spill over into the rest of life.

Some people I encounter only know they want sometihng when they hear that someone else wants it or is having it. Some people will happily have a small piece of cake until they realise someone else is having a larger one. Some people prefer to be the fastest swimmer in their lane. Some people want to read the book I just started rather than any of the other 20 lying around the room.

I have no idea how one combats it or engages with it with small children, except perhaps to encourage them to find happiness and fulfillment through their own actions rather than by comparison with the actions of others (this is a place where only children have a real advantage over siblings, I think - I rarely encounter onlies minding other people playing with their toys, or comparing helping sizes or whatever; I see it all the time among those with siblings).

- have toys and spaces which are really one person's, and if they say "leave" or "let go", their wishes are respected, in the same way that if the shopkeeper says "I'm closing now, please finish up, pay and go" you have to respect and adhere to that.

- having more parallel play going on, where one is baking cakes and the other is painting or something, so that the comparisons are irrelevant?

...and mothers are people too

One of the big factors in women stopping breastfeeding seems to be blocked ducts, and then often mastitis.

A friend just had a bout of full-blown antibiotic-requiring mastitis, so I emailed her all the advice I could think of which I had ever encountered. I think if women were given good advice about blocked ducts, lots of them would feed for much longer than they do.

Please add further anti-blockage ideas in the comments...

Sometimes one can clear the blockage by pushing the milk through with a hand while baby is suckling (pushing from the armpit past the place where it hurts all the way to the nipple, or from the torso all the way, if it's a blockage right on the front. They often seem to be in the armpit though).

Avoid wearing a tight bra, or anything else which constricts the flesh on or around the breasts. A tight t-shirt can be enough to induce a blocked duct for some women.

It often helps to have the bottom of the baby's mouth (the bit which does the real sucking) on the same side of the breast as the blockage. Prepare for some odd contortions...

It might help to lie the baby on their back, and have mama go on hands and knees over baby while breastfeeding to clear the block. It looks very odd but the gravity helps. Mooing is optional.

If your breast is hurting, the moment important thing you have to do on that day is to clear that blockage. Hot towels, cabbage leaves, lots of nursing on that side, maybe try a breastpump - whatever it takes. If you go to sleep with it still blocked, you risk infection and fever.

The most outrageous advice I have heard (but also, anecdotally, the most effective) is: your baby is not the only person in the house with a mouth. I've often heard of people enlisting the help of their nursing toddlers to clear a baby-induced blockage - they suck so hard that it takes seconds. And if there aren't any of those available, a co-parent is also an option. They'll save you 5 days of illness for a few moments of cultural dissonance, in the complete privacy of their own home. And remember, they can always spit not swallow if the whole idea is utterly revolting to them (though the breastmilk would probably do their immune system the world of good ;-b )

Bad reasons not to have children

There was an article in the Times by a woman who has two children who appears to regret it rather bitterly. There's a nice fisking at: http://seeingwithneweyes.homeschooljournal.net/2007/08/22/20-reasons-not-to-have-children-by-a-mother-of-two/#comment-28

I think I know why this woman is so bitter. It is because she thinks that motherhood entails sacrificing all sorts of important aspects of ones autonomy - physical (childbirth, breastfeeding, children climbing all over one), intellectual (as expressed in having a career, and childless-adult-dinner-party kind of conversation), and emotional (tension in the new nexus of relationships between the two couples and their children).

I think people - both men and women - should embark on parenting with as much seriousness as they would embark on any other creative project. I don't mean that children are a project (urgh), I mean that being the best parent one can be, and having the most possible fun in the process, is the way to approach it. A woman wants intellectual stimulation beyond the interests and needs of her 6 year old? Fine. Find a way to get that stimulation, don't blame the 6 year old for existing, or for their supposed limiting of opportunity. It boils down to optimism. Er... and TCS, I guess.

The self-sacrifice memes are at the root of that woman's book and article. She does not know that one can have, or at least approach, an autonomy-respecting relationship with one's children. I'm not surprised - self-sacrifice is deeply engrained in most women - we learned it at our own mothers' knees - and I think that learning to express what one actually wants oneself is one of the biggest hurdles to happy motherhood (it's certainly my biggest hurdle).

Why I don't share details about members of my family

My own personal details shouldn't bother people. If I want to tell you all about my two heads, or my ingrown toenail surgery, then you might think "oh gawd there goes that boring me me me person again" because actually my personal details are not quite as thrilling as I think they are, but I'm just a bore, I'm not doing something morally wrong.

But once I start sharing with you all the details of my aunt's hysterectomy and the dreadful mess the surgeon made of it and the infections she had Down There, and exactly what impact it had on her failing sex life, you might start thinking "wtf? Does this aunt mind having these revolting details shared with complete strangers? What if I am one day introduced to her? However am I going to treat her with the respect and courtesy this poor woman deserves instead of going into howls of laughter any time someone mentions having Something Else Removed?" [by the way, I don't know whether any of my real aunts have had hysterectomies, this was a completely invented story]

It's EXACTLY the same when we talk about our children in public, but on a less extreme level. If I have told my parents all about my (fictional) 10 year old son's intense interest in airplanes, then the chances are that they will act on that. When we next visit, they'll strike up a conversation about airplanes. They'll already have arranged to take him to an airshow. Dad will have got out all his (fictional) aviation magazines.
No harm done?

- My fictional son had no chance to tell grandpa himself about his interest, to watch the delight in a shared theme blossom on grandpa's face, to go to the attic together to find the aviation magazines.
- My fictional son had no chance to see posters for the airshow and ask the grandparents themselves if they'd like to go.
- My fictional son also had no chance for this interest actually to fill only one wet Thursday afternoon. Because my telling stories about him concretised a personality trait, it will take quite some doing (and some considerable disappointment for grandpa) for him to move from airplanes on to car engines. Perhaps he'd really prefer not to go to the airshow, but to visit a car showroom, but that'll really disappoint the grandparents.

That's why it bothers me - because our children become essentialised outside the home or online - oh - her child is the one who wets the bed; her child is the one who had the huge tantum in Asda. People become defined by anecdotes told about them, rather than by being themselves.

This post was written for a public messageboard. I think that there has to be a place for an adult to say "we went to the swimming pool today" because their own story is intertwined with that of their child. Rather than a public forum, perhaps one is best to use a private messageboard, an email, a PM, a passworded blog. Or telephone or AIM for conversations which are not recorded (or in person of course).

There are limits to the kind of information one should share in any context - I am still working out what I think those limits ought to be - perhaps they vary somewhat from person to person.