You love; you learn

I really want to home educate Isaac again. He has been at the local school an entire term now. (This is his second ‘try’ at school, read about his first here).

Things I have noticed since he started:

Always super tired, quiet and ‘moody’.

No time/inclination now, even when at home, to play with brother or sister.

He has been having lots of sleep trouble. I have taken him for acupuncture, bought specific kids sleep meditation cds’s started giving him magnesium and then finally bought him a melatonin supplement spray. But these helpful aids are not helping the *cause* of why he can’t fall or stay asleep, the real reason is stress and anxiety. I feel like I have joined forces with the Suppress Symptom Industry (aka NHS). Now we are on holiday he is pretty much sleeping fine.

He seems to have a severe lack of self confidence. Newly installed. He doesn't feel he is good at much anymore. Compared to a mere couple of months ago when he saw himself on every page of the Guinness Book of World Records (every year, every issue, every event, there he was, winning, triumphant). I could do that! He’d say. Every five minutes.

Some shitty things happened to him in school which he only told me about later. Like the time he made papier-mâché pigs with some boy, went off and came back to find his smashed to bits and thrown in the bin. Because they were rubbish. He didn't even tell his teacher, because apparently he had told on someone earlier in the week and the other boys had not let him forget it. Horrible playground stuff too, being singled out, always ‘it’ even when he tags someone etc etc. The usual you’re-the-new-kid- so suffer routine. I remember it well.

Too much homework. The Man or I would say leave it, we’ll do it, or just don’t bother; we’ll speak to your teacher. And we did. And neither of us cared if it looked like an adult did it, because this is home time for fricks sake. The man stayed up late making replacement money box pigs (see above) and I filled in quizzes and painted acrylic on wood of a river for him. It was good, I hope he got a great mark, but really he didn’t care who did his homework, or even if he took any in until one day when he arrived home telling me he really *needed* to do his homework, because at school now they ‘named and shamed’ and the people who forget theirs had to stand up in assembly and be named. WTF? I kept him home that week to give him a break and let him sleep properly, for once. While I thought about it all.

I get the whole oh it takes a while but he’ll soon settle in bit from other adults; the ones with kids in school, or ones who’s kids went to school. Doesn’t seem to make anyone feel better though, that line. Suffer now, for some future good? Maybe. Maybe not though. Some kids don’t ‘settle’ in do they? Some are not left alone to settle in. What is it we want them to settle in to? To get used to the level of meanness so it doesn’t affect them? Get them used to doing boring, time wasting, and pointless activities? Until it becomes their norm? Yeah that sounds cool. Let’s pop out a load of adults from that friendly inspiring mold.

What I now realise I like about home education (in retrospect) was that yeah, sitting doing lessons never ever worked for us. It never ever, ever did! Phew, can I just say that? It made me the ogre and them the put-upon slaves of the workbook. The best way ever to home educate is just to do nothing. Seriously. Just leave them alone. That is it. You have to swallow your fear and anxiety and your own education and the whole popular mainstream thought about what a good education constitutes of, what you want for them even and you have to back the hell off. I see it all now! I see it with the perspective of standing back and having no Isaac at home. When you leave them alone, they are forced, forced to do stuff to amuse themselves. They claim their own selves intact from what they choose.

It takes, months, years maybe but then they find stuff that interests them (the whole while you are still doing your doing good stuff, like providing books, materials, outings, clubs etc) and in the end it’s from these self interests and passions that develop; eventually they discover the things they like doing best and they pursue them. And they get an education that way. It sounds so easy, and it is fabulously hard to allow to play out (for that is your only job in this arena; to help this happen).

Because we are told that as good (home educating) parents we have to be right there next to their elbow spoon feeding them maths an hour a day. But honestly, they just vomit it all back up. And the one it hits is you. The Mama Bear. Oh they might play along for a good few years, if they are biddable enough, if you have enough to bribe them with (or threaten like, I'll have to send you to school if you don't do this! Oh yeah, lots of home ed parents use that one, which is a bit twisted however you reason it out), in the end though they’ll stop. They will say no and then you will have to be the biggest ogre of all, not letting them play on their Xbox or whatever and then they will actually hate you. Maybe just for a second, but they will. Those seconds all add up. They do. Until when you reflect back, there are a whole bunch of them, adding up to a whole lot of time.

I just read that Caitlin Moran was home educated. When she or her siblings were asked if they had ‘lessons’ they all fall abut laughing. They played with Sindy, they watched TV, they invented magazines and competitions amongst themselves... then when they were in their teens they shaped what they liked into appropriate GCSE subjects, and then sat them. That was it. They got interested, when the time came and their motivation to leave home and do something was enough. That actually is more than the average teen in the UK today. If your kids even get that far they are bettering the stats. I hear this story a lot. It’s often coined ‘unschooling’. That is even has a name I wonder is probably so that there’s this whole ‘thing-you-are-doing’ as a home ed. parent. That you can claim this as your ‘approach’ (when other ‘methods’ fail? Or like me, now as a lifeboat?) .

I actually started out, with Isaac a newborn, John Holt by my bedside, that this was to be my ‘method’ from the start. I lie lots, and tell people that I just fell-into home schooling. That I had this bouncy little boy who didn’t seem like he would suit lots of indoor time (true anyway) and that I thought I’d hold off for a bit.. then shrug, smile.. Here’s where we are! Socially an easier an explanation than declaring you think school is a shit way to spend a day. And here’s where we are: You live, you learn. You love, you learn. You cry, you learn. (Pretend I didn’t just copy Alanis Morisette’s lyrics). Here’s where I am at anyway. I feel like I have fucked up a lot. Those times I *made* him sit and do workbooks. Those times I threatened him with not doing X or Y until he’d finished that page on Syllables. I did that! I really did. I am such a shit sometimes. What did it get me? Worse than school, really. Not often, but there were times... And here I am, with some pointless guilt. But perspective too, that’s my lifeboat.

You lose, you learn. He a funny sort of boy and he makes me laugh, I told him this and he said, yeah well I say the same stuff at school and no one there laughs. Well they do laugh at me... but in a different way. Yeah. I know what he means. Little shit heads. The Man is as anxious as I am about Isaac’s unhappy, constant anxiety and inability to laugh and play like he used to, he’s just withdrawn and tired looking. Walking down the stairs at 11pm, crying that he can’t sleep. Being on holiday makes me see the contrast to what he was.

I always thought, at its best, home educating was like a constant summer holiday, with UK weather changes. Mostly it really was. There was a always a lying in, eating pancakes feel to our days with huge gladiatorial battle scenes set up with playmobil men to carefully navigate your life around. Trips out, friend visits, sport clubs... But there were always times when Isaac would be bored. And that was when I panicked. I imagined this meant he needed more ‘educational stimulation’ that I was able/willing to provide by ‘doing nothing’. After all he didn’t seem to know how to spell, didn’t know his times tables. Bring on the workbooks. Which he royally resisted. And now school. He knows now. The times tables, the spelling. But so what? Any fool can learn those things. Any fool. More fool me. He is the kindest most patient person that I have ever ever met. You cry; you learn.

He wants to go back in September. Wants to. You scream; you learn. Not sure of this is a reflection on me (the workbooks) and home or if he is just the incredible hopeful person he has always been. I said this time we'd do no workbooks, he could go to the home ed science and English lessons, do his after school stuff... his dad could do the maths bits he likes.

Wear it out, melt it down.

Will he be intact, whole if he does go back?

I keep wondering how long it will take for it to crush him.

I wonder if it’s my time to step in and say well you are not going back. Like I stepped in and told him to sit and get work-booking. I have the ability to tell him to do things. You bleed; you learn. And might he hate me again, for just a second if I do? Do kids hate you any which way, anyway? My friend said she wished to raise a child who didn’t need to get over their childhood. Swallow it down, the jagged little pill.

I am the bearer of unconditional things.

I recommend biting off more than you can chew, to anyone. Because here I am, here we are. On another threshold. And we will survive and I will make sure that we are intact. I will lash us boat-less, and keep floating. It’s what mothers do. Even when they don’t know what it is they should do. They get on and do it.

You love; you learn.