Day ninteen a new group, and a fun day :)

A good day, well lived :)

L spent a long time today working on video editing - he's mastered a lot of interesting techniques, and is thoroughly enjoying it.  Best of all it's all autonomous :) Neither his father or I have any real knowledge about "modern" video editing, I wouldn't even know where to start looking for info to be honest, but L has found several sites that have resources and software, he's worked out how he needs to upgrade his PC, he's choosing when to research this, and how long to spend on it, and is basically just being very self motivated. 

On a similar note L has started working on his drawing skills - after talking through the negative impact nursery had on his desire to draw (and that was almost 12 years ago now!) L has been watching other people sketch on you-tube, and rebuilding his confidence.  He's asked for some specific supplies, and tells me he's feeling happier about drawing.  He also feels he is getting better at it, but isn't ready to share his work yet.   This is actually a BIG THING.  I cannot easily put in to words just how angry I am that pre-school workers destroyed L's confidence and that it has taken us more than a decade to rebuild what was a burning desire to draw.

A, J and M went to a new club this afternoon - it's a skills sharing / challenge club.  A and J really engaged with the idea of creating a club badge, and they co-operated with the other children well, drawing along side them, then working on combining all the pictures into one badge.  Both of them were happy and chilled all afternoon :)

M felt out of sorts - he has been off for a week now, not quite right just needing more "handling" than normal.  He struggled to engage, perhaps it was the new setting, a new group of people, an artistic challenge, or a hold-over from previous events at other places, but he was clinging to me and wanting a lot more reassurance than he generally does.  That said he wasn't naughty in any way, not disruptive or irritating to anyone other than me, so it was a manageable afternoon, even with his unease.

The children are all looking forward to the next meeting, and M is hoping to join in more.

When we got home there wasn't much time before we were due to go out again, there was some TV time (a growing rarity, even though we don't limit it, the children generally choose to play minecraft together rather than sit and watch the TV.)

Then it was off to Chess for M, a friends house for A and a church youth group for J.  L skyped friends and played on his Xbox in peace :)

When we got home Uncle N was skypeing the kids (he does that every week, which is awesome!) A went out to play until it was dark, then we ate and got the younger three to bed.

Apparently someone died in the Morpurgo book . . . not a surprise really, but there were tears :(

Then L, my husband and I played Lords of Waterdeep (a cool board game :) ) I won (again!)

We enjoy playing games once the younger three are in bed - it gives us a chance to play a bit more ruthlessly, to play more complex games, and it's a great way to spend the evening with L, making sure he gets his time with us not distracted by random demands from the little ones.

Sometimes it is hard balancing the needs of four very different children, but at the moment we're doing OK.

Have a happy weekend :)

Day eighteen

Another quiet day - I was tied up all day running an online game, so it was a day with Dad for the kids.

There was mine craft (as ever!) a few games, a walk to try and see the Vulcan fly over, L cooked something with eggs that smelt yummy, the dog was walked, L did some ICT.

In the evening A went to girls brigade, and they had a teddy bears picnic in a local park.

Kinda slow, but lots of relationship building from the kids.

I love hearing the younger three playing mine craft together - listening to them co-operate and build awesome structures together is great :) Their communication skills are improving and whereas at first there was lots of arguing, now they tend to play calmly with no need for adult intervention (or refereeing!)  A tends to build and furnish houses, J gathers resources and fights stuff, but also helps A with a farm, M builds grand structures and plays survival games. 

So, that was Thursday!

Day twelve - not a good day, if I'm honest

Today has been less than perfect.  To be truthful it has been rather hard and a little upsetting.

This morning M, J, A and I headed off to our "forest school."  No-one woke up naturally, no-one wanted to get ready, no-one wanted to rush.

We got out of the door at the desired time, and a lacklustre bunch of offspring were loaded into the car.

We got to the site earlier than normal (!) and the kids perked up fairly quickly, but with some children having left and others joining the dynamic of the group was very different.

M wasn't coping well, the first session after a break is usually harder on him anyway, but the changes made him uneasy and he was hunting for the familiar interactions just and not finding them.

The session itself went well - once I managed to get M to focus and calm himself a bit - the children built a hibernaculum / hibernarium / bug hotel.  They all worked well together, and a nice structure was built.  There was a reminder of rules and boundaries and some catching up too :)

We stayed for a picnic afterwards, and the change in dynamic made things interesting there too - on the whole that was fairly quickly resolved, but the situation required more vigilance and talking than normal, and I felt rather drained by the time we got home.  The children, on the other hand, say they had a great time.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Hopefully the next session will be easier, there is every reason to believe it will be, and our Fridays can be happy relaxing days again :)

When we got home L had had a nice quiet morning, and was both ready and willing to hit the books.  He looked at percentages in Maths - we were both relieved to find he remembered all the rules / methods, and the exercises were done in about 30 minutes, which isn't bad for 4 sides of A4 :)  In English we looked again at the poems from the other day, discussed and dissected them, looked logically at why they work and how, and all went well.  ICT is still in the very early "This is an input device . . ." stages.

A and I played a lovely game called Dobble, which always leaves us smiling, and was a good redirect for her.

J has gone to a church youth group, M skipped chess because he is still wound up from earlier events, A is in the bath and L is chatting to friends on Skype whilst they play online.

Last night we read about the Crimean war, the Great Exhibition and The Crystal Palace.  Tonight we have more from Queen Victoria's reign. 

All in all, today could have been worse, we got through it fairly well, but it has taken a toll on everyone's energy levels and mood.

Summer success and plans

Houston, we have a problem . . . Well, I do anyway!

Last time I blogged I had to change the account access, and now I can't remember the password! It's set up on Gmail, which isn't the main email I use, and I'm struggling to get a password reminder sent anywhere I can read it . . . for now I can access the blog via my tablet, but can't get into my gmail account at all.  So I'm typing on a *really* small screen.  The prospect of which has put me off blogging for a while.  But it's about time I bit that particular bullet, so here we go . . .

Life is full of ups  and downs, and one of the downs is CAMHs - so far they've been pretty decent with us, only one dodgy appointment and the record was set straight when we wrote to them.  We are so close to the end of M and J's diagnosis journey, I can almost see the finishing post.  So of course this has to be the time our local CAMHs have been told to find 25% budget savings!  We know some of the people the boys have seen have taken redundancy or early retirement, so changes in who they are seen by is inevitable.  I *think* that worked in our favour when J had his ADOS the other week, two fresh sets of eyes seem to have seen things a bit more clearly than those who thought they knew him.  But the down side of this is longer waiting times.

It's been almost five months since M had his ADOS, and we haven't had a follow up appointment.  So my husband called (again!) and asked how things were going . . .

Now, I do understand that losing a lot of staff creates problems, and by all accounts another member of staff is often off sick too, but my understanding has limits.  So it was better that my hubby call, he's far more patient than I am ;)

He was told about budget cuts, longer waits, staff off sick, and then as a concession the lady he was talking to said she would try and send us the raw reports, although they "don't normally do that." A couple of days later we got the reports.  They have more than a few grammatical errors, and it's clear they are meant for internal uses only, but now I can see what happened in the two ADOS assessments.  I feel a lot happier :)

The reports are at great pains to point out that they are part of a larger process, not a diagnosis in and of themselves, and so I'm not going to share the content, suffice to say that it made me happy, then sad, then relieved.

I have no idea when we will get to the next stage, we're waiting to see the Neuro-development clinic, and hopefully when we do we will have a formal diagnosis for each of the boys.

So, that's M and J . . . The next big news is L.

Back at the beginning of May L began a paddle sports course.  He was very nervous, unsure of going at all, it took a lot of talking on my part, and a lot more pressure than I was actually comfortable applying.  In the end he went, with the proviso that he try for two weeks and if he hated it he could stop  going.

He loved it!  As far as I can tell he is actually quite good at the various paddle sports, and has passed the course with flying colours.  This week he has gone to Devon with the group, for four days of paddling mayhem :) At 15 1/2 he is the youngest of the group, but he is happy with that, and has made some good friends.  He's thinking of joining a local club and earning more qualifications . . .

Lastly little miss A.  She is enjoying the school holidays.  She is "playing out" for pretty much all the time we are at home, she has lots of local friends.  For A socialising comes easy, she is a little bemused by all the "best friends" nonsense, and it has been a bit of a shock to her how unkind some of the kids are to each other, but on the whole she is happy and thriving.

Over the summer we have a lot of activities booked with our local ASD support charity, we saw "How to train your dragon 2" with them on Monday, and are going swimming on Saturday.  It's shaping up to be a very fun few weeks :)maybe the start of the school term will give us a bit of a rest!

Up, down, and often round the bend

It's been a while since I wrote anything here, life has been a curious mix of crazy and not worth blogging about.

Often I get mental blocks - if something big is happening then I can't seem to plan things the other side of the big thing, and we've had some major things to get to the other side of!

The biggest reason for my silence has been L and his exams.  He took Edexcel Mathematics B IGCSE and Biology IGCSE.  We hit the books for some pretty major revision, and fitting "normal" life in around the edges wore me out.  L does not like exams, and despite being pretty good at both subjects his dyslexia may well get in the way of decent results, but now the exams are over all we can do is wait for mid August and results day. 

Revising has been awkward.  I generally prefer to follow the kids as they show me how they want and need to learn.  Thus far it's been a successful strategy, but revising for exams changed that.  Now we had a deadline, and a specified curriculum.  No more digging as deep as L wanted, no more skimming over the boring bits.  Together we had to do this in a much more structured way, and it really didn't suit either of us!  L wanted to look far more deeply at the cellular biology.  Ecology didn't interest him.  At times I was telling him to stop being interested, and at other times trying to help him remember things he felt no connection to.  Maths was a little easier - until L wanted to know WHY trigonometry works, and why Pythagoras was so fascinated by right angled triangles.  Still, at the end of the day we got through the material, he retained a lot of the information, and he went into the exam halls confident and with a good shot at things.

So that was one big thing.

Another has been a weekend away.  Not such a big deal?  Really?  We went away with the children's scout troop.  I am not particularly keen on quite a few of the leaders, and there have been . . . issues in the past with how the leaders cope with the boys differences.  Add to that the fact that this was our first camping adventure, and that L was going to be left at home for the weekend alone . . . so much potential for disaster!

L was fine.  He had a friend come over and stay for part of the time we were away, and together they managed to cook (pizzas and curry) sleep (at least a little) and feed the animals.  They didn't change the kittens litter tray, or walk the dog, or wash up (not convinced L washed himself let alone anything else!) When we got home the house was intact, and I guess since L is only 15 that's enough of a victory for me!

The camp was OK too.  The first night we had a thunder storm.  So now we know that the tent can cope with a lot of rain in a short space of time. 

There were lots of activities on the Saturday, and from those we learnt that A is awesome at climbing - she went across the traversing wall so easily, confidently and quickly!  She is also fab at monkey bars and other "dangling" sorts of things.  We really need to find a way to get her climbing more.

J really enjoyed the air rifle range - and he improved his shooting over the day too.  He wasn't so good at the climbing side of things, but he did persevere and improve.  One thing he excelled at was random conversation.  J has a small selection of topics of conversation, and if the other person is even vaguely positive about them J will natter for hours.  The other person, of course, rarely has to say anything, but J barely notices that!

M didn't find an activity that he excelled at, nor did he fixate on any one thing in particular, he did, however, have fun and try pretty much everything.

All three children were awarded badges and trophies at the AGM - they have all been recognised as working hard and trying their best.

J has had awards before from both Cubs and Beavers, A has from Girls Brigade, but M never has.  He was so sweet as the younger two got their awards - cheering for them and being very encouraging.  He clearly didn't think he would get anything, so when his name was called his reaction was lovely.  Lots of smiles all around :)

In other news, our local CAMHs are having a bit of a reshuffle, and this has dramatically increased waiting lists for things.  So whilst J finally has a date for his ADOS we still haven't had a follow up for M's ADOS which was on the 4th of March!  This process is taking forever!

So now that the exams, revision and camping are over and done with, I have lots of posts bubbling around in my mind.  It's amazing what climbing over those mental blocks can do for the subconscious :)

Sunshine, writing and being us :)

It's been a while . . . So much is going on here that it's hard to find a quiet moment to marshal my thoughts, and I'm exhausted, which makes it even more likely that I'll end up writing nonsense ;)

A week or so ago we had to fill in the paperwork for L's exam entry.  Somehow that made us realise how little time he has left to get his head around the syllabus, even though we all knew the dates and he's doing fine.  That has mean that he and I are spending more and more time ploughing through his books - and that really is a time sink!  For the most part it's going well, even though it's a long way from the maths I know and understand.  As much as anything I am learning with him, and I find that gives L more confidence if he gets stumped. A phrase that keeps cropping up is that "it's not a test", so if he needs to work things through with me it's not a big deal. 

For a long time L was a perfectionist.  If he did a page of maths and got 19/20 he'd be upset about the one that was wrong.  Finally we're overcoming that - because so much of the syllabus is new to us, or takes things we know further, L is at long last accepting that he can do well without a perfect score.  That said he's usually hitting well above 90%, so all is good :)

We have begun working through Write from the start - a sort of hand-writing program.  All four children are doing it, mostly happily.  The exercises are designed to improve hand eye co-ordination, pen control, to work with the proprioceptive system, to develop visual discrimination and generally to come at things from a neuro-developmental slant rather than just a repetitive one.  All four children had difficulties with the first exercise  - though different difficulties (as ever!) 

The task was to put a single dot inside a small circle.  The aim was to improve precision, develop and awareness of how hard to press the pen(cil) down, to work on hand movements and pen-grip. The circles were in columns, and got progressively closer together. L was fine to begin with, when there was a lot of space around the circles, but as they got closer together he found it increasingly hard to see clearly what he was doing.  I'm guessing this is a dyslexia thing, and hoping that by working on it we can help other reading issues.  M found it hard to get the dots to be dots rather than lines.  He struggled from the start, but improved as the exercise went on.  J was very disorganised in his filling things in - he found it hard to start at the top left and "read" across, and kept missing our circles.  A found her hand got sore half way through, but otherwise was fine.

I'm hoping that since each of them had quite specific issues, working through the program will help them improve - if they'd all whizzed through it without a pause it might feel like a waste of time / money. And since the issues were so clear, it should be easy to keep track of how things are going.  We're on the eighth exercise now, all of them are still fairly happy to keep going - I think it helps that the sheets only take about 5-10 mins to complete, and aren't particularly hard. So far we've had an improvement in the tasks themselves, but not in their writing.  I'm hopeful though :)

I like the program, it seems very gentle in its increasing difficulty and short tasks are easier to fit in.  I hope that it will work - I've read lots of positive things about it - I'll let you all know how things go :)

In other news . . . the weather!  Wow! It's been so lovely here we've been out enjoying it :)  We went to a local rec' and L flew his quadcopter - he's actually really good - the rest of us just hit each other with foam weapons.  Then L joined in the melee.  We have a large number of weapons - all of them are designed to look like fantasy weapons, for use as costume in Live Action Role Play (LARP), and they are all safe for LARP fighting.  Made from foam, with a solid core, then coated in either rubber or latex they do sting, but rarely hurt (every now and then a freak shot catches someone badly, but really that's unavoidable in this sort of playing)

We all really enjoy this sort of "fighting" :) It's a great way to burn off energy, and it is a big adrenalin rush.  The kids enjoy ganging up on my husband and I, and it is just a very "us" thing to do.  There are probably all sorts of "soft" skills being learnt too though - hand eye co-ordination, consideration for others, not to charge from too far away or you'll be exhausted by the time you get there . . .

So, here are a few pics . . .





A didn't get hurt BTW, J is very good at not *actually* making contact :)




Someone's gonna catch her biggest brother . . . .



General Melee

Just to prove M was there too :)

The National Space Centre, Leicester

Well, we managed it :) As an almost last minute decision we decided to go to the National Space Centre in Leicester, a few weeks ago we went to a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) event in Leicester and saw some signs.  We've often wondered about going, but it seemed a long way to go and an expensive place to get into.

But we've been at home for a long time - lots of tired people, ill people, bad weather and other things have meant we just haven't "gone out" for ages.  Besides all that J is doing a project about our solar system, so it even works as an educationally appropriate event :)

As I said, it looks like an expensive day out for six people, but it didn't work out that way :) L counts as a child, even though he is 15 and taller than me, and my husband and I were allowed to go in as "personal assistants" for M and J, meaning we got in free. 

From the outside it doesn't look particularly awesome.  Tucked away on a housing estate, looking a bit more like an industrial unit than a museum, our initial impression was that maybe we had wasted the journey.

We needn't have worried though - the inside bares no resemblance to the exterior, and the trip was well worth it :)

The ground floor is divided into various galleries, there are a lot of interactive exhibits, and lots that you don't need to read extensively to understand.  That last part was crucial as M and J scattered and A was able to be pretty self sufficient.  There is enough detail in the info panels that L was intrigued and interested, but not so much he had trouble with word density. 

M and J disappearing was a bit of an issue - there were lots of school parties around, and the number of bodies milling about made it hard to keep track of the more random members of the family.  Thankfully everything is open plan enough that there were only two or three times we properly lost track of the boys, and even those were mercifully short.

The galleries were well planned, and themed so that everything made sense, the first was about space travel, the second about observing the skies, the third about the effect of various things on Earth (though that might have been a subsection of the last gallery) and the final one was about the planets individually. 

A separate area followed the space race, with rockets and video clips, lost of time lines and ephemera to anchor the events in their time periods.  Once the school parties had left there was a lot of time spent exploring what happened when, and L was surprised to trace the history of rockets back through WWII to Germany.

We also watched a planetarium show - We are Aliens - which was very well produced and I was hoping would deal with a few long running "debates" we have . . . Sadly, all it did was make M join the debate! 

L has often complained that we are looking "out there" for life that resembles our own.  The fact that the search focuses on looking for water and oxygen, and assumes a carbon based life form, seems ridiculous to him.  He feels that different evolutionary pressures, a different atmosphere, a different beginning point could all lead to life that looks like nothing we've ever seen before.  To a great extent I agree, but I also see that if we are going to "look" then the scientists need to start somewhere.  So, the debate rumbles on.  And on.  I almost wish "we" would find carboniferous life out there just to stop the wittering!

So, in conclusion, we had fun :) with the exception of loosing a couple of children for brief spells, and a couple of meltdowns, the day worked very well.  Much better than it looks from the outside and worth the money :)

Assessments, letters, conversations, and more about pee :)

It's been a while . . . there are lots of reasons for that - life has been crazy, but yet there hasn't been much to say, I've not been well, we've dived head first into exam prep, you know how it is, Life just sort of happened and here we are weeks after I last wrote anything.

Of the things that have happened, most have been pretty straight forward :

J: After the appointment with the community paediatrician to discuss frequent "little leaks"  things have gone really well.  J has taken to peeing standing up pretty confidently and that, combined with increased "shaking" has pretty much stopped daytime wet spots.  He is also drinking more, and we are focusing on him drinking cranberry juice or water, and he is able to go for longer in between needing to go.  Biggest of all we are having virtually NO night time issues!  Previously he would have a small accident most nights, and a bigger one every few days.  He *did* have a few nights of proper bed soaking just after we saw the doctor, but within a week those had stopped, and in the month since we've had one night time accident.  Just one!  Yay! 

J also had an ultrasound on his kidneys and bladder, just to check that everything was fine, and it was.

So, *that* issue is pretty much sorted.

We had a response to the letter challenging the report of the last meeting we had at CAMHs (if you followed that!)  It was really just a place-holding letter, saying they would look at their notes and be in touch.  So that one is still on-going.

M: On the 4th of March M had an ADOS assessment.  ADOS stands for Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule.  He was nervous going in, we couldn't go in with him, but when he came out he was very VERY bouncy.  And really that's all I can tell you.  The two ladies who did the assessment said they'd be in touch, but couldn't give us any idea of when.  So now we wait some more.

L: Well, there are a few points for L.  Firstly he is doing very well with his exam prep, he is getting his head around tricky maths concepts, and remembering more names for Biology too.  He is working his way through the books, and we should be right on schedule for the exams.  What's not so great is that we have gone WAY past my own maths knowledge.  I got a C at school 20+ years ago.  This stuff is a lot harder than I remember and quite a bit of it is new to me.  Still, we're learning together I guess.

In a week and a bit L will be rejoining a local youth scheme that tries out various sports, they are kicking off with a roller disco, but last year they did canoeing, rock climbing and lazer tag (and a pile of other stuff before he joined.)  He's nervous but looking forward to it. It's interesting seeing his attitude to sport (that it's pretty pointless) given that he is probably the most physically able of the bunch. 

The most interesting point though was a random conversation.  L asked me when we first heard of home education.  I had to think quite hard, but remembered it was when I was having trouble nursing L.  For some reason home ed was mentioned on an old Usenet group, though as it was a US based group I suspect it was called home schooling.  So the conversation went on - when did we decide to try?  I explained that we had considered home ed before L went to nursery, but decided to give school a go first.  Things moved on and he wanted to know the reasons - that surprised me, I thought he knew, but he wasn't sure of the details.  He knew he wasn't happy at nursery but couldn't remember why - so we talked about those bits.

L didn't like nursery, he hadn't been keen since a week or so into things, but it just got worse and worse.  He didn't get stressed at being left, he just didn't want to be there at all.  He remembers doing "just enough" so they would let him go off, and that seems to relate to the fact that this particular pre-school nursery only recorded a child as being able to do something if the child did it when they were being assessed.  So once or twice a week they'd get each child to sit with their specific worker and do stuff.  L seems to have disliked performing (!) and so did as little as he could.  That will be why when he left - 8 months after starting - the nursery staff still thought he could only recognise the numbers   1 - 3, but at home he was working with 0-12 . . .

There were lots of other things, of course, specific incidents that stayed with me.  I mentioned one about drawing.  L - being about 3 - had done a drawing that was all scribble an enthusiasm, not so much actual drawing.  He'd shown it to one of the workers and she had said something along the lines of "Oh what a lovely XXX" - I never did find out what she thought it was.  Whatever she said though was NOT what L had drawn.  On the way home he ripped up the picture and threw it away.  He got very angry that he didn't draw what he had meant to draw.  And that was it.  No more drawing from L.  As we were talking I could see that he hadn't entirely remembered the incident, so I asked him what he did remember.  He said he remembers being told his drawing was rubbish, remembers enjoying drawing before that and not feeling confident enough to draw after.  He remembers trying to draw afterwards and just not being able to because he knew it would be wrong.  So he remembers the lingering emotional effects even now - 11 or more years later.  He feels that he would love to draw, but that he has lost years of practise and training muscles to do what he wants.  And it makes him sad.  Very sad.

We've talked it through, and he's going to try a handwriting program that is actually designed to train the hand, brain and proprioceptive system at the same time.  I hope it isn't too late, but I guess we'll see eventually :)

Lastly we have A.  She is bumbling along, mostly happily but every now and then extremely stroppily.  She has just learnt to ride her bike without stabilisers (still a bit wobbly though!)  She can read but is very reluctant to, she can write and is wanting to more and more, and she loves to draw and create.  Not much more to say really!

Maybe tomorrow I'll have a visit to tell you about - if all goes according to plan!

Projects abound!

Now we've been back for a while, life has resumed in full flow.

Of course that means barely a moment to sit and think, let alone write or plan . . .

Before we went away I tidied up a lot of our resources, and took a lot of books off our "downstairs bookshelf".  Mostly the books were pre-readers, or very early reading schemes - somehow we seem to have collected quite a few books from random reading schemes.  Sometimes I've actually bought them, a large chunk came from my mothers school, some were gifts from well meaning relatives.  Now I have four children who can read (!) we don't need the "A is for . . ." books.  So they all migrated to the loft.  They took with them a whole pile of board books, for very similar reasons.  That made space on some of the "upstairs bookshelves" for story books that had been downstairs.  That meant I had space on the shelves for some more of the educational resources I have collected - we have lots of project packs, work books, and reference books.  Until now most of the resources have been hidden away under the stairs.

As I got them out I reminded myself just how many enticing things we had, and as the younger three came and got in the way they all spotted things they wanted to explore.  I've decided that having these packs isn't enough, we actually need to *use* them! 

So I filled a shelf with books and packs that were about the right level for one or other of the younger three, and let them browse.

A decided that she liked the look of a pack I'd sent off for in 2003 from the Cats Protection League, and we're three or four sessions into it.  We have another from Battersea Dog and Cat home, sent off for years ago, which we may or may not move onto, depending on how enthusiastic she is.

J wants to finish off his Solar System lap book, then move onto a Mini beasts pack we got from our local scrap store.  He was fascinated to see how much his writing has improved since we began the lap book in November. 

M has started the First class project pack from iChild - down loadable here, though we have a hard copy.  This one is a bit odd - it doesn't go into enough detail for M, so he's asked to learn about several things as a result - notably the British Empire, the second World War, and the Industrial revolution.  I'm pretty sure we have several books that cover those, so I guess that we're lining up future projects there :)

I'm torn now though - is this Autonomy?  I think so, because all three asked to do their respective projects, I didn't suggest them, or even ask them to choose one.  I guess it's not unschooling though, because all of these packs are designed to be used in a classroom setting, so it's very much a case of "Introduce, discuss, activity, conclude."  For M that's not enough information, he wants to go off at a tangent, to follow his interests and talk about *everything* - in that he reminds me of L - for A the structure is novel, she is focusing on stories, and whilst her writing is still emerging, she is enthusiastic to get her thoughts down on paper - much more so than any of the boys at her age.  J likes the structure, sticks to the facts and the task at hand, wants to do it, and get it done well, but there is no distracting, no related conversation, no tangents.  He is very much about getting down to business and then getting out of the kitchen.  I was a bit surprised that he wanted to do a project, but he did, he does, and we'll see if it gets completed.

There are lots more books and packs under the stairs, lots more on the shelf.  Will this be a one off?  Or is it a bit like strewing - a Montesorian principle involving providing interesting / intriguing activities and leaving them to be discovered rather than imposing on or inviting in the child.  I know strewing works with J and A, especially with art supplies, but it has never worked for L or M.  With both of them if I want to interest them I either need to say "hey, look at this . . . " or start doing it myself, where they can see and then be prepared to work along side them.

So, at the moment we're being bookish.  I wonder if that is in reaction to a cold wet winter, outside looks so foreboding, and forbidding, and even ASD kids can only spend so long buried in Minecraft before they long for something more.

I wasn't sure this day would come

Wins come in all shapes and sizes.

Last night we had a huge victory - might not seem like much to the outside world, but to me it was enormous!

L is very dyslexic - the lady who assessed him last year said his was the worst case she has seen in 25 years of assessing kids.

It took him a long time to learn to read, longer to become confident, and even longer to actually read spontaneously.

Now he's 15, he reads a couple of science magazines - both aimed at an adult market - he reads bits of role playing rules books, but never ever fiction.

Both my husband and I devour books.  Our house is full of novels, factual books, role playing books and any other sort of book you can think of.  To have a child who hated reading just felt odd.  Wrong.

Over Christmas L, his father and I listened to an audio-play, a new version of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. L likes science fiction, in terms of films / TV programs / games, but Neverwhere isn't *quite* Sci-fi.  I wasn't sure how he would take to it.  But Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, so *I* wanted to listen to it, even if he didn't.  It took a while for L to get into it, but by the end he was thoroughly enjoying it.

We decided a few more audio plays might be a good way to introduce high quality story telling, so we've been looking for some more to listen to.

A few days ago I read "Fortunately the milk" to the younger three - it's a truly fantastic book.  It's a children's book, but well written and full of good humour.  Suffice to say it's also by Mr Gaiman, and L was in his room, sneakily listening.  After all he's far too old to be read to any more.

Last night we watched Coraline after dinner.  Another Gaiman story . . . L declared it "awesome."  I pointed out we'd seen another Gaiman film (Stardust) a while ago.

This morning L told me that Neil Gaiman was his favourite author, and that maybe he (L) might like to read some of his shorter stories . . .

And so, there we have it. A victory :) L not only has a favourite author, but also has some books he might like to read. 

You might think it a small win, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I'll take the smiles where I can find them thanks.

As a happy addendum, L today hit the books with renewed enthusiasm.  He feels he's getting somewhere with IGCSE biology, and has hit a patch of his IGCSE Maths that is deceptively simple.  For Mr L, right now, life is good :)

Home again, home again, Jiggety jig

Well, we're back :) Time to get life back on track and re-embrace our "normal".

Last week we were at one of our favourite places - ConCeption, a gaming convention on the south coast.  It was awesome :)  As with everything in our lives, this particular chunk of awesomness was coloured by the children's quirks and additional needs, but not always in a negative way.

When we go away M and J feel a need to plan.  That's pretty normal, but M in particular takes normal and magnifies it about 100X.  M's planning started back in October, and he has been telling friends about what would happen for a very long time.  In order to try and get this under control at the very start of January we wrote lists - what they both wanted to pack, what they wanted to play, even (in J's case) what they would wear on the way down.  Since there was some writing involved A decided to hop onto the band waggon - although her list was much shorter, and didn't actually get looked at once she had written it.

When it came to the time we wanted to pack, this was the easiest year yet.  We have now fully embraced M's sensory issues, so most of his clothes are ones he is happy to wear (this does change depending on his stress levels, but now we never buy something for him without his trying it on and approving it.)  So I was able to say things like "six pairs of trousers! Go!" and they did!  It was a bit chaotic, lots of clothes everywhere, I had to go through and fold things, quietly checking for holes in knees of trousers as I went, but all four children managed to sort things themselves.

The biggest issue we had was space - with six of us, a weeks clothing, and *lots* of games, the car felt far too small.  There was quite a bit of negotiating about which games would be taken, which could fit into the same box and how we could keep them from getting damaged en route.  In the end we took far more games than we played, but far less than M wanted to.

For the first time in years not only Uncle N, but also Uncle M were there.  Uncle N always comes, staying in the same lodge as us, but having another adult about really changed the dynamic, and made for an almost stress free week :)

This is the perfect convention for us - for the first half there are very few children older than about 3 around, and those that are there we have known all their lives.  We often have the pool to ourselves, and the soft play is similarly exclusive.  That means that M, J and A get to relax when it's not at all busy, they get to do things without having to wait or take turns, they get to be in control.  From the Friday night onwards more children arrive - again mostly ones we have known forever - and the kids play well in groups, having already explored and done most of the things they wanted to do.  It's very interesting to see that all four of the offspring slot back into the social groups naturally, they know the other children well enough despite only spending one week of the year together, there is a tolerance of each others differences and very rarely any upsets at all.  We had no tears / complaints / grumps this year, not from our guys or any of the other children.  It really is a very relaxing place to be.

J and A played their first convention games that were not run by one of "us" this year - they played the Pathfinder Kids Track - and they both loved it.  There were two games, each lasted four hours, but had several breaks.  The guys running it were well prepared, very enthusiastic, and there were three of them to the two kids :)  It was great to see both of the littlies really getting into things, and one way or another they both played every day we were there :)

M and L played standard Pathfinder games with their dad and Uncle N.  They both cope fairly well at a table with random adults, and had a blast.

For M gaming like this is perfect - there are rules, which give his socialisation shape and form, he knows his character well, which makes him relax and feel able to contribute, and he is actually a very good tactician, which makes him an asset to the table.  L is shyer, finds it harder to speak up to strangers, but once he relaxes he shines.  Playing games like this helps both boys with reading / maths / writing, because there is a need to do all of those things quickly and independently.  It's good practise, even though neither of them are learning anything new.

L sometimes finds M too much (he's not alone there, TBH) so we organised a game with Uncle M running, and L, Uncle N, My husband and I playing.  L came out of his shell, and really enjoyed himself.  It helps that Uncle M is a really good GM, and that we were all having fun too.  One of those games where everyone hits the perfect notes and it just takes off.

On the Saturday morning M played a solo game with uncle N, using the Savage Worlds rules set, then in the afternoon I ran a game called "Little Wizards" aimed at children, and it was chaotic!  I'll write up the story and post it later.  J and A both played, as did 6 other children. 

On the Sunday I ran an interactive game (again for children.  Do you see a pattern!)  These games are generally called LRP's, and instead of saying "my character will do XX" you go and do it.  Mostly they are based around "talky" situations, and it is a great opportunity to get into a character and have fun.  Again J and A played this whilst the other two played Pathfinder with their dad and uncle.

Sunday afternoon J played a very old game called Star Wars D6, based in the Star Wars universe, with a very simple rules mechanic, I played with him as uncle N ran the game.  It took him a little while to settle, but he had a blast.

At some point M bought a new game - Cosmic patrol - and read most of the rule book in the down time between games.  As with most RPG rule books this one was pretty long - novel sized - and needed to be concentrated on.  M was his usual dedicated (obsessive?) self, and determined to read it before we left, I don't think I could have convinced him to read that much, even with the best novels we have here.

Monday morning came around too soon, and we had to say goodbye not only to the uncles, but also to the holiday park.  Both M and J cried, but that was to be expected, they hate leaving places / people.

On the way home we stopped at Marwel Zoo, but that is another post (with pictures!)

There is so much more to say, but I'll have to cogitate on it a bit longer, however -

we are back. 

Life resumes. 

J is off to the hospital tomorrow for an outpatients appointment . . .

Autonomy, Unschooling, trust, critical thinking and ranting teenagers

Take this as fair warning - this post may well turn into a wee bit of a rant. 

If you are on many home ed Facebook groups then I doubt that you can have missed the Daily Mail article about unschooling that has just been published.

It's not a bad article, in the main, but the concept of unschooling is never going to be an easy one to convey to a hostile journalist.  I felt that, really, if you already know about unschooling then the article reaffirms it as a good choice, if you don't like the idea or have never heard of unschooling it looks like lazy or neglectful parenting and no brief piece of writing can really fix that.

The unschooling approach is, after all, basically, counter to all we are told by the mainstream of society. 

For most people children are viewed as a canvas for their parents and school to paint on.  From the time babies are born we are told they need to be "trained" - how many of us have been told that unless we start sleep training, feeding on a schedule, imposing OUR will then the little ones will be running the show?  We have shelves full of baby training and toddler taming manuals, and the whole of a child's life - if the "normal" route is followed - is run by others, for the convenience of others, and those others are *always* the adults.

Unschooling, on the other hand, is about trust.  Trusting a child to find their way, and supporting them as they grow.  In the UK I think the terms "Autonomous learning" and "Unschooling" are almost interchangeable.  The idea is that learning is best done when a child is intrinsically motivated, not manipulated or cajoled, and from my experience that seems to be true.

Where autonomy and unschooling diverge is that a child may autonomously choose to do "schooly" things - like workbooks - but I don't think that would happen in an Unschooling household.

Now, in our house we have learnt in many different ways - we have times when we are very bookish, and A in particular loves workbooks, and other times where we are very autonomous.  I am unconvinced that unschooling could work for several of our children - M is very keen to avoid challenging himself, possibly due to his high anxiety levels, and L found reading so hard work due to his dyslexia I don't know if he would have persevered without encouragement - but J has shown me that it works well for him - he has so much mathematical knowledge that hasn't come from the work we have done together, and he often asks about things at random times and shows me he is thinking about a lot more than I realise.  So I think this is a case of different strokes for different folks, and on the whole I trust parents to do their best for their children.

But to get back to the article, in many ways it annoyed me - but more than anything else the quotes from "experts" rankled.

To start with, the two experts quoted - Dr Kevin Stannard, of the Girls’ Day School Trust and Julia Harrington, headmistress of Queen Anne's School in Caversham - are clearly what would be termed "hostile witnesses". They are both representatives of school based education, and as such the system they are "experts" on is based on a huge lack of trust - both of parents and of their children. Within the school system the voice of parents is ignored, and the idea of allowing a child to choose what they learn is anathema.  If these two "experts" had given positive reactions, they would have been acknowledging that the school system is not the only way, and ultimately their livelihoods depend on parents not thinking too hard about whether school works or not.  It is rather like asking a butcher or a pig farmer if (s)he thinks vegetarianism is a good idea . . .

Dr Stannard said (amongst other things)
"Part of a rounded education, for example, is the ability to develop ‘critical thinking’ and to question assumptions you have grown up with, which can only truly happen outside of the home environment."


This I *really* take issue with.  I think it goes straight back to this whole idea that society seems to have, that as a parent my job is to mould my children like lumps of clay - turn them into just what society wants and nothing else.  In our house this couldn't be further from the truth!  From the outset I have encouraged my children to think about things - I don't want blind obedience from them, because I know I am fallible and may not have thought about something that occurs to them.  When my children are asked to do something, if they refuse and explain why we talk it through (unless it's an urgent thing and there just isn't time.) I don't always agree with their point of view, but I do try to listen to it and think about it.  We do a lot of learning by talking - probably because that is the way L learns best - so we often talk about an idea and discuss each others opinions of things.

In none of the children is this more evident than L - my very own ranting teen :) - For example whereas I go to Church, he is a staunch atheist.  We have talked through both my beliefs and those of other religions - with no intention of convincing or converting him - and both of us understand the others point of view, and respect our differences.  L has a lot of strong views on things - from the conflicts in Syria, Egypt and Palestine / Israel - to space exploration, medical science, poverty and politics.  Not all of his views are logical, most of them are very different to my views, or those of his father, some are very emotional responses to news reports, others rather ill-informed knee jerk reactions to headlines, but we talk them through, I point him towards more information if he needs it, and quite often he does the same for me.

He may be only 14 (and a big bit) but he is very capable of critical thought and discussion, without ever having been to school . . .

Dr Stannard also said
'It is also much easier to learn skills like ‘collaboration’ when you are actually working alongside a group of classmates each day.'

Which gives lie to his impression of home education, or unschooling, as a solitary pursuit.  So many of the people invited to comment on the lives of home educators have no idea that there is a community out there waiting.  Fully formed, welcoming, and actively socialising.  Collaboration comes when you have a group of people working towards a common goal - and that is easy to do when you move outside the prescriptive, restrictive cage of school and into the wide expanse of freedom in the real world.  If Dr Stannard has no idea how home educated children socialise then how can his views on any other aspect of home education be trusted?

The other "expert" Julia Harrington, a Headmistress, said
'Research shows that a teenager’s brain demands interaction with other teenagers and will seek it out if it is not there.  In the age of information overload, young people need to know how to filter and show discernment in their processing of information, and it is very difficult to develop this sort of mind-set in a vacuum.'

Again showing the same misunderstanding.  Home education of any sort does not mean social isolation, or growing up in a vacuum!

I wish that the journalist had sought out some experts on education as a whole, not just teachers - someone from the Institute of Education, or one of the various researchers that have published work comparing family based education and school based education, or even some of the hundreds of former teachers who now home educate their own children . . .

More on support

So, one of the reasons that half term was crazy was because we met up with a lovely local ASD support group.

The first session was at a local(ish!) soft play palace.  The group had exclusive use, and it was an evening session, with all height / age restrictions removed.

I have no idea how many children were there, but we took M, J and A.  It is one of the few times we've been somewhere like this and not had issues with other children, or complaints about ours.

The feeling of acceptance was overwhelming, I was able to relax and not worry.  My husband and I had a coffee / hot choc and a natter.  It was lovely :)

The kids had fun too - they all made friends, and there was a mass game of freeze tag going on up in the netting.

We met the same group at the end of the week too - to go bowling.  Again it was an exclusive use, which helped a lot!

Bowling is awkward for us - there is such a spread of ages - 14 down to 6 - and abilities that the scores are always well spread.  Seeing them all up on the screen it is very hard to encourage J and M not to compare and compete. 

We often have upsets because one feels useless compared to the others, or someone decides to try and beat their Dad's score . . . and this session was no different really.

Because we are mad (!) we went from the bowling alley to do a very quick bit of shopping (two things!!) and then on to a home ed Roller Skating session.  A made a new friend there, which was lovely, but M caused a bit of an issue :(

Often when we've been before the main lights are off and disco lights are on.  This time the hall was lit by the main lights, so once he had his skates on M went to ask the leisure centre staff to switch the lights off.  I hadn't noticed that he had gone, because I was still helping A get her skates sorted.  Suddenly the hall went dark - the disco lights weren't on, and now neither were the main lights . . .

There were already people skating, and now it was very *very* dark.

Someone hurried off to find out what was going on, and M came back.  We were then told that the main lights take at least TEN minutes to warm up and come on.  The disco lights came on, but they weren't very bright and a lot of the bulbs seem to have been blown.  So for the next eternity (or so it seemed) the kids skated in semi-darkness.  Eventually the lights came on, slowly, but how daft!

It's nice to know that M feels confident enough to go and ask random adults to do things, not so sure about the staff switching all the lights off without checking . . .

The craziness continued, as when we got home L had a friend visit, then M went out to chess club, J to a social club and A to visit some friends . . .

Pretty indicative of our terribly isolated (!) children's lives really.

Some days

Some days I want to call in sick, let the rest of the team pick up the slack, and just *stop*.

Today is one of those days.  But there isn't anyone to call, the team would be my family - Hubby and the kids - and whilst I know they would do their best, unless I was somewhere else I wouldn't really get much of a rest.

So it's time to grit my teeth and get on with it all.

Last night M had four night terrors - the worst he has been for a very long time - and I didn't get much sleep.

He has a cold, and I think that disturbed his rest, with the screaming and panic that the night terrors cause in him, M was finding it very hard to breathe.  That caused more panic.  It was actually quite frightening to see my son pacing and gasping for breath, but there was nothing I could do.

Yesterday was an odd day too.

We were due to go to a local fire station with a lovely group of home edders.  J didn't want to go - after an upset on Monday and a cold.  I knew L wouldn't want to go.  So in the end instead of five of us, there were three.  We had a great time, and came home happy.

Then Hubby and I took M out to look at potential Christmas presents, with barely a pause between the two.  That was okish - though M had so many questions and anxieties along the way that it got frustrating.

Then a fifteen min break and kittens out to the vets . . . they are doing well, just need to get rid of their watery eyes and they will be discharged.

A bit of a longer break, and then a dog walk, trip to the doctors / pharmacy to pick up more medication for me, and then time to get A ready for Beavers and J for Cubs.

J couldn't find shoes he was happy with.  There was some shouting and stress on all sides.

Then the Tuesday night yo-yo for hubby - 6 pm drop off for A, 6:15 for J, 7 pick up for A, 7:30 drop off M pick up J, and finally 9:15 pick up M.  Not enough time to relax between journeys, but too spread out to stay out.

At some point Ruby, our Jack Russell had a hedgehog.  She managed to corner it, and when she was brought in there was quite a lot of blood on her face.  We brought the hedgie in, but couldn't find any injuries, and once we put it back out it seems to have wandered off eventually.  Ruby has some cuts in her mouth, but nothing major.  You'd think the daft pup would realise that the snuffle pigs have spikes!

So, today.  Tired.  Dealing with snotty monsters who didn't have enough sleep.  And it's a short day for us too - Hubby, L and M will be going out at four to their games club.  Not sure I can fit much in to the space in between now and then, especially as none of us are dressed . . .

Sleep . . .

Sleep is an issue for lots of parents.  I had hoped that now our youngest is almost 7 it wouldn't be a problem for us.  I was wrong.

Right from the beginning L had no real issues with sleep - as a baby he liked nursing to sleep, later he liked to be cuddled, but beyond that he developed good sleeping habits pretty easily.  Now, at 14 1/2, his sleep patterns are changing, but he is responsible enough to be handling that pretty well.

He stays up once the younger three have gone to bed, and the three of us (His father, L and I) watch a couple of TV programs, often including the news, then he goes to his room.  Watching the news with L is great - I can almost see his world view expanding before me, and we have some very interesting conversations.  I love that our relationship is a happy one and we can talk through the controversial stuff.  I love seeing him form his own views and work out how to put them across.  Sometimes we disagree and I love that too - he is very much his own man, I could no more make him think as I do than I could make him shrink to shorter than me.  Once he has gone up to his room he plays on his PC for a bit then goes to sleep.  I trust him to do that in a sensible way.  I'm not actually worried about what he accesses online - I don't think he'd go looking for anything dodgy, and he relishes the freedom to learn about things on his own terms.  There have been a few mornings when he has found it hard to get up, but generally our lives can accommodate that.  He is now moderating himself, because he hates "loosing the morning".  If we have an early start I tend to remind him of that before I go to bed, but I don't police his bedtimes.  So far it's all working well :)

M has always been a different kettle of fish.  He would sleep anywhere if he was tired.  And he had a pre-programmed bedtime - 8 pm.  Until he was about 3 1/2 he would fall asleep wherever he was, whatever he was doing, at about 8.  Often on the floor playing, or on the sofa watching TV.  That faded, but he has always been easy to get to bed.  A story, drink, kiss and tuck in.  The trouble starts after this.

M has night terrors - they have always been there, to one degree or another, and I suspect they always will be.  A night-terror differs from a nightmare in several ways - with a nightmare once the person is awake they might be scared, but they are pretty easy to soothe, and mostly lucid.  A couple of words and a hug and the person is back to sleep.  With M's night terrors it is never that simple.  When he wakes he is not really awake.  He is usually shouting, distressed, and still trapped in whatever is going on inside his head.  There is no reasoning with him, we can't touch him because that often upsets him more, we can't play along, all we can do is watch and try to keep him safe. 

For about three months earlier this year  we had a night terror every night - most nights we had two.  He'd be screaming, pacing around the dinner table for about 30 - 45 minutes.  We tried a whole host of suggestions - waking him just before the night terror usually happened, talking it through in the day time, providing funny endings to typical dreams, more physical activity, less activity, no TV, no computer, general "are you happy" conversations - nothing had any effect.  Eventually I read about "deep pressure therapy" and that struck a chord - M likes to be well wrapped, likes shoes done up too tight, likes to be under pillows - so I looked into buying a weighted blanket.

 Unfortunately at £100+ it wasn't an option.  So I made one :)  It worked - from the first night we had a dramatic improvement. Now, don't get me wrong, M still has night terrors, but it is once a week, or one every two weeks, not two a night.

J has issues too.  He always found it harder to fall asleep, and for a long time he would "yo-yo" - I'd get him to bed, and within minutes he'd be up for one reason or another.  In the last year that has (finally) disappeared :)  But he has issues with "little accidents" at night.  I have no idea how to counter that one - he doesn't drink much, doesn't have a night time drink, goes to the loo last thing before bed . . .

Lastly is little A.  Where we used to live we only had two bedrooms, so until she was 3 there was no choice but for her to share our room.  When we moved it took us a while to get things sorted, and she didn't go to her own room until she was four.  For the next year she was on the middle floor of the house with us - and the living room.  She loved to stay up and watch TV, and if we put her to bed she would also yo-yo, so we'd let her stay up for a bit then get her back to bed. 

The trouble was she didn't want to go to bed . . . for a long time she would stay up, happily singing, playing, chatting until midnight.  I have a video of her making up dance routines at 00:15 one night.  It took some getting organised, but by moving her bedroom to the top floor and by repeatedly shooing her back to bed we've managed what seemed impossible :)

Bedtime for A, J and M is now a couple of chapters of a book - currently Redwall - then discussion about what we are doing the next day, then toilet for M and J, then tuck in and lights out.  Most nights they go straight to sleep :)

Then we wait.  If M is going to have a night terror it is almost always before midnight.  If we get to that point it is "safe" to go to bed :)

Why is all this on my mind?  Well, to start with M had a bad night last night, but to follow up I saw this on Facebook : Go to Bed- it's an article discussing research linking irregular bedtimes and behaviour issues.

I know that when I am very tired I find it harder to cope with life's craziness.  I see no reason to think that my children are any different.  But I feel there are problems with the article - there are lots of confounding factors that haven't been taken into account.  The first, biggest, question is WHY.  Why the irregular bedtimes - does the child resist sleep (lots of SEN children do), is the home a chaotic environment (already known to affect behaviour), do the parents have difficulties that are preventing more organisation (parental difficulties are known to affect behaviour), is the family over programed (ie doing too many evening activities.)

The article states that regularising bedtimes improved behaviour - but what else has changed as well as bedtime? If the family time more organised, less activities, are the parents being supported and helped?

Looking at my own children I can see a couple of things -

reducing M's night terrors hasn't improved daytime behaviour.

J is no calmer when he has a full nights sleep.

A is happier now she gets a good nights sleep.

L is a grumpy teen ;) regardless of amounts of sleep.

I think, therefore, that for an NT child, getting enough sleep matters.  For a child with additional needs getting more sleep won't "fix them." 

That's all fine and dandy, but so far three people have pointed this article out to me as a way to help my kids.  Because that is what they have read into it - get your children in bed at a sensible time and all their issues will melt away.

That just leaves me feeling a bit like shouting "if it was as simple as putting them to bed on time I'd have done that years ago!"

Learning when to push

Tuesday was another interesting day here.

Last week I heard that a local youth group had spaces - L has been asking me to help him find new ways to meet people, so I asked him if he fancied it.

He did, so I asked if he could fill the space.  The youth worker confirmed the details, and he was all set to join them this Tuesday for Kayaking.

But then the worries set in.  Being a big brother L has not been many places on his own - usually either his father or I are there, or his younger brothers, or more recently other people he already knows.  This was a first for him - a new group with no one he knew, no ice breakers or brothers to be with, just him.

For the whole week we had grumblings.  On Thursday L managed to get a friction burn / graze on his forearm which was pretty bad and was weeping a lot.  He felt that was a good reason not to go.  We gave it time, and by Tuesday whilst it hadn't healed completely it was coverable and much smaller. He still wasn't happy though.  We had some pretty deep discussions, and "unpacked" his insecurities a bit. 

It was actually refreshing to be able to discuss it rationally with him - L is level headed and calm about a lot of things. I tried to deal with things by running through why I felt this was a good thing, and why at 14 1/2 he was ready to branch out a bit.  He was still not happy about going, so I listened and empathised, without agreeing to him not going.  I had to push him fairly hard, and he outright told me he wasn't going, he thought I was bullying him, he felt I was being controlling.

We set out together to the place the group was going to pick him up from, and he was resigned and grumpy.  He went though.

When I got a call from him later to go and meet him at the same spot he was happy.  He'd had fun, felt able to mix with the others, chatted to one of the youth workers about dyslexia, and met another home educated lad.  He'd also found he wasn't bad at kayaking :)

Chatting later, he was glad I pushed him to go, but hated that I had at the same time.  He's looking forward to next Tuesday, and I think we have a success :)

At the same time M bought home a task from Scouts last Tuesday - find a famous historical figure from our town, learn about them and present the information to the group this week.  I had reminded him three times in the intervening week that he needed to do the leg work, but unsurprisingly we found ourselves with two hours to go before he had to go out manically trying to pull the info together. 

Should I have pushed him earlier?  Perhaps.  But he resisted every reminder and suggestion that we do it together.  He needed to feel it was urgent before he was ready to begin. Should I then have just left it? I don't think so because he would have been miserable if he hadn't done it, and the piece of writing he produced was pretty good.

There are lots of people who advocate being totally child-led, in both the above cases that would have meant I just left the boys to it, L wouldn't have broadened his horizons, and M would have felt stressed that he wouldn't get the badge. I don't think either of those would have been ideal, so encouraging them was the better choice.

It's a fine line to walk, but I think that sometimes supporting these kids means pushing them to step beyond the comfortable. 

Tired!

We had a rather busy weekend, and it's starting to show . . .

On Saturday we played another session of the Pathfinder role-playing game.  The scenario is called Reign of Winter, and we are about 10 game sessions in - J has a dwarven fighter called Thorin, M a human cleric called Palin, L an elven ranger called Heredir and I am a human sorcerer called Pirri.

The game came about because we wanted to play together more, because J wants to go to the games club but needs more practise at playing and because M and L don't get to role-play much in a lot of the games they play due to time constraints.

We start each session with a question for each of us to answer about our character - to build up the back story and help them become more than a sheet of numbers.

J has a lot to learn - just now he is seeing all the cool things the other player characters (PC's) do and wishing his character could do them.  He isn't realising that each character has different things to bring to the game, he wishes he could do EVERYTHING. 

M and L need to learn to relax together - they are both very good at "advising" the other on what to do. 

So, Saturday afternoon we spent three hours playing, whilst A played out front with her local friends.

Sunday morning I took part in "Messy Harvest" at our church and did a craft activity (one of six on offer) with the children there. A came with me, J was meant to but chose not to in the end.  M went to his rugby club, and L stayed home with J playing minecraft.

Later A and M went to a bag-pack for their scout troop.  That is when they are in uniform standing at the tills in a supermarket offering to pack bags of shopping for donations.  I was dreading it! A is helpful and polite, I knew she would be fine, but M is a bit prone to clumsiness and dropping stuff . . . I also worried that he would be bored and cause mischief.  As it turns out the group look like they raised a fair amount of money, A and M both behaved, and all went well.

Today was roller-skating at multi sports, which they all loved.  Again, all was happy and chilled.

Lastly we went to a local soft play place - it's new, and pretty huge.  It was one of the children's friends birthday, so off we went to play for the afternoon with some other local home educators.

It was nice to see the new place, I don't think I'd like it outside of school time though - it was loud enough today with not so many people in there.

Most of the afternoon was great - in spite of lots of spilled drinks (not by my guys though!) - and we only had one problem when J clashed with an older boy.  I talked to him, to the other child's mother, and she talked to her so and all was sorted quickly and efficiently.

So a good weekend, a good Monday, and now I need to make sure we all have enough down time to relax and keep things going in the right direction.

Maths makes my head hurt!

Today I am very proud of L.  Well, I have been all week really, but today especially so.

Over the summer we spent a long time talking about which IGCSE's he felt able to tackle, which he was interested in, which would be useful, which I felt he needed, and finally which he felt he needed for his future plans.

We settled on a retake of Biology, and doing ICT and Maths this year, with more to follow.  He feels ICT looks "easy", so we may add another once we see how we go with these three.  One of the benefits of being an external candidate is that we don't actually need to decide which exams to enter him for until February next year, which gives us plenty of time to sus out how it is going, and tweak our plans accordingly.

Earlier this year (January-ish) we focused on ploughing through his biology text book.  We did do some maths - looking at handling data and recording results etc - but mostly it was biology all the way to prepare for the exams in May.

When L decided to tackle maths I was more than a little scared.  Maths is not something I am very good at - I just about scraped a C 21 years ago, and I was *very* glad to leave the frightening looking stuff behind!

We picked up a workbook from CGP that covers Edexcel's IGCSE maths.  I looked at the first page and panicked. It is straight into complex stuff!

11 x (77 / 7) + 121 - 2 x(10+1)2    (< read that 2 as squared, I can't work out how to do superscript!)

and that's one of the easier ones, because I can't find most of the symbols on this keyboard!

So, as I said, I panicked.  Then I had a long think - the options were either I pass on my illogical attitude (that I *just can't do it*) or I learn with L.  It seemed a simple choice really. I found some good videos on the Khan Academy website, prepared ahead of time, found a page on Facebook for home ed maths, gritted my teeth and got him started.  I also  know a lovely home edder who is a maths tutor - if it all went (or still manages to go) wrong I plan to smile sweetly at her and beg for help :)

We watched the first video (about BODMAS and the order of operations), talked it through, and off he went.  He didn't exactly whizz through them, but he worked steadily through the first set of ten sums, and got them all right - with the exception of needing to be shown that a squaring was outside a set of brackets, but that was a dyslexic moment rather than a not-understanding moment.  With just a little preparation both he and I now understand it :)

Today he is looking at roots as well as order of operations.  I hunted out a good explanation, we looked at it together, and now he is off working independently again - so far (4/5 of the way through the set) he is doing perfectly.

So, I am proud of L - he is grasping concepts I find tricky, he is hitting the ground running and getting his head around it all really well, he is listening to the explanations and isn't afraid to say "Hang on, I don't get that bit."  His attitude to this has really impressed me, and I'm so glad he is seeing the sense of how this stuff works.  At this rate I can't see any clouds on the horizon.

All in all, a very good start to the year from Mr L :)

Not just fun and games . . . .

When I was a child, playing a family board game meant playing Monopoly.  The thought filled me with dread, and if we did eventually play my big sister would always cheat. 

Now, with children of my own, playing games is an integral part of our lives.  We have all learnt a lot from playing games together, more than most people realise is possible.

There are games out there that set out to be educational – we tend to avoid those because a lot of times the fun gets pushed out as the “education” gets squeezed in, but pretty much all games are educational if you know what you’re looking at.

There are obvious points – games with dice encourage quick maths, games with cards mean quick reading, taking turns is essential, and winning or loosing gracefully is a serious life skill. 

There are less obvious points though . . .

We have children with specific difficulties, and for them playing games is an essential part of learning to be.  J has ASD, and with that comes a lot of impatience, and a lack of understanding of others.  The last two points in my list above – taking turns and winning or loosing gracefully – are vital skills for life.  They have also been hard lessons for him to learn.  For the past four years we have worked through a series of stages with him.  At first he was not interested in the games we played.  Then he would come and watch for a bit.  A few months later he would declare he was on someone’s team and playing with them.  Quite often he’d stay with the game for a couple of turns then drift away.  It took years to move from playing with another person to playing by himself, but now he manages to stick with games that last a couple of hours.  Slowly and gently he has stretched his attention span, expanded the length of time he can be around other people, and at the same time practised taking turns and giving others time “in the spot light” (ie not being annoying and attention seeking when it is another persons turn.)  Along side this we have had to help him work on managing his emotions when he looses.  As a family of six, with frequent visitors, J doesn’t win every time – or even anything close to half the time – and showing him that he could have fun playing a game without that time being wasted if he didn’t win has helped us in lots of other situations.

A key point is that the skills J is learning whilst playing games and having fun are directly transferable to “real life”.  Taking turns?  That one is obvious.  Being gracious in defeat is less so – often as adults we debate something, and the decision made by a group is not what we wanted.  As a child seeing the upside of not getting your own way helps in a wide range of situations – from choosing which game to play, which film to watch, whose turn it is first on the computer, which park we go to, down to decisions about food, who sits where in the car, who holds the dogs lead.  Getting used to not “winning” but still being able to be happy really counts for a lot.

L (our eldest) is dyslexic.  So reading has always been a chore for him.  So many games we play have small amounts of reading – sometimes just a few words, at most a sentence or two– and when he was resisting any form of reading he would still read to play games.  As a teenager L can often struggle both with having younger siblings, and with his brothers differences.  Playing games together helps to build tolerance and understanding. 

M (too many letters to list here!) has lots of difficulties.  He finds social interaction can go wrong quite quickly and he has no idea why. Games give him a structure to his interactions, and that lets him relax because he knows the rules, and he knows how to function in the situation.  Like J games have stretched M’s attention span, taught him to take turns, and to be relaxed about the outcome of a game.   He has also learnt to think ahead, to plan before acting, to look for consequences of any particular move or play.  Games have also taught him to budget his pocket money, and take care of his possessions.

 
As a family, we find that we can spend time together over a game with all the kids taking part – from the 14 year old down to the 6 year old.  Games give us so much more than I remember as a child . . . and the children don't even realise :)

In the next post I'll look at some of our favourite games, how they play and why we like them.

Social butterflies . . .

I thought I'd tackle one of the most common questions about home educating -

Do they have friends?

Do they socialise? 

Aren't they isolated?

It doesn't matter how the question is asked, the worry behind it is always the same - without the framework of daily interaction how will children form connections with other human beings. 

It's a bit of a daft question, really.  If a child wants to find friends, they will - be that at the shops, over the fence, at the park, at group meetings, or at clubs.

My children are so different from one another that I've had the luxury (again) of seeing things with a little more perspective than most - also as we've been home educating for more than ten years now I've had time to see just how things developed for each of them.

A is a very sociable child - at six she is accomplished at most sorts of socialising.  She can deal with family gatherings - nattering with adults she barely knows, playing with children she sees at most three times a year.  She loves the park, and will find a playmate more or less every time we go - whether that is someone we went to the park with, or to meet, or just a random child.  She has an understanding that if she plays with a random child they are friends for that moment, not friends for life and she's fine with that.  At the groups she does - Beavers, Girls Brigade and Junior Church - she has formed firm friendships with other children, and relationships with the leaders.  This summer she went to a friends house to play for the day without any of the rest of the family.  Right now she is out playing with a Lithuanian lad who lives two doors away.  When it comes to making connections, there's no holding her back.  Within the family, too, she is happy to play with any of her brothers with only a small amount of bickering.

J, on the other hand, is an unsettling mix of sociable and isolationist.  He likes new people, new places, new groups.  When we first moved here he was chattering away to our new neighbours happily within days.  He has no reticence about approaching strangers, or telling them *everything*.  When we go to parks he will find a random child and play happily for a while.  Often he breaks the ice then M joins in and they play together - less often M breaks the ice and J joins in.  It's a different story when we go places with other people though.  J has friends - but sometimes we can be in the same place and he will totally ignore them.  Other times they will play together for a while then J will drift off for some "alone time" as he calls it.  If we go to organised events J can (now) cope with the structure and activities - but for years he'd be OK for a short time then need to get some space. In the past five or so years he has stretched the time he is OK within a group from 5 minutes to maybe an hour if he is enjoying the activity.  After activities he can cope with one or two children being with him now, as long as there is space.  J goes to Cubs, a church youth club, and a multi sports group.  It is hard to work out if he is happy because often just before a group he will start to resist going. He has just stopped going to a weekly rugby session because he just wasn't joining in or enjoying it.  With J we feel that we need to prod him a little to get him to go to regular groups - if he really isn't enjoying it then we are happy to let him stop, if we left him to his own devices he would stay at home all the time, yet once we get him out of the house he generally enjoys being out and seeing people.  J very rarely ever asks to see particular children, or even to go out.  Family gatherings can be difficult.  J gets bored, doesn't like talking to people he knows but doesn't see a lot, and is often hard work. That causes tension, which makes J worse. There is one particular uncle who is an exception to this - the uncle comes on holiday with us, comes up to stay, Skypes the kids once a week *every* week, and has an awesome relationship with them.  If he is about the J (and M) will be glued to his side and everything will stay calm :)

M, yet again, is another kettle of fish altogether.  M loves regular, structured activities.  He goes to a weekly chess club, a weekly games club, rugby, Scouts, multi sports - he'd go to the church youth group too if it didn't clash with chess . . .  M loves to see other people, when we go to parks he will recruit as many other children as he can for a long rambling game where he is in charge. If he meets a random child, they are (in his mind) instantly friends, and M wants me to exchange contact details with the other parent so they can keep in touch.  Part of the trouble comes from M being . . . persistent.  He isn't happy when someone wants to end a game, or an activity stops - he will try everything he can to extend it, even though it's not appropriate to do so.  He often carries games just a step too far, is just a bit too directive (bossy!), only wants his ideas in the game etc.  As with J family gatherings can be hard work - boredom, lack of understanding, and some peoples unwillingness to engage with him mean M is hard work.  If there's stuff to do he is usually fine and self contained.  If the favourite uncle is about they will sit for hours talking and playing games. 

L . . . Hmmmm, well L is a teenager now - both in actual age and in attitude too.  He has a small but select group of friends, and is really unwilling to move beyond that.  As an individual L is perfectly capable in most social settings - though he's not very talkative until he is comfortable - he can cope well with family gatherings (but he gets embarrassed by M and J ), he tends to get bored in parks unless there is someone there he knows and likes, but if we go to an activity (that is suitable for his age) he'll engage with it and the others there.  He goes to a friends house once a week for role playing, goes to a weekly games club, and is looking for a sport to take part in.  Other than that his meet ups are much more ad hoc - going to a friends house, or them coming over.

Each of the children have had the same opportunities, but they have all reacted in different ways.  They all approach making friends differently but seem happy with the level of interaction they get.

We're at the stage now that we don't actively seek out activities based on "will the children meet new friends" - although we have done that in the past.  Now friends are a happy side effect of going places, not the reason at all.

So, to answer the dreaded S question - there is no magic number of friends that is "enough", no amount of time spent socialising that is "the right amount", all you should really be concerned with are two questions:

Is my child happy with the amount of friends they have?

Are they happy with the amount of time we spend with those friends?

As home educating parents if the answer to either of those is no, we have a bit of work to do - new opportunities to find, more facilitating to do - but then as a child in school I felt isolated - I didn't see most my friends outside of school and holidays were so long!

Really though I feel that all a parent can do is offer opportunities - opportunities to go out, to have fun, to learn and experience new things.  If you do that, your child will make friends along the way - in their own way, at their own pace, and those friendships will be stronger for it.