Read it and weep:  http://www.extrahandproducts2.com/

So depressing I can’t even bring myself to comment about it

Lowrie Turner really showed herself up yesterday during a tv debate on HE.  There was a very eloquent and mature 14 year old HE child on there with her father.  They seemed to get on very well and she made a good ‘advertisement’ for HE’d children…well that’s what most people would have thought.  Not Lowrie Turner.  She decided that it was in fact very unhealthy that a teenager should get on so well with her father, dress in grown up clothes and be so sensible and mature.  She’d been in too close contact with her parents, according to Lowrie, and appeared more like her father’s wife than his daughter!  Apparently it’s very important that teenagers rebel and how could they do that if they are with their parents the whole time?

Ok, consider this, Lowrie:

Maybe, just maybe, our view of ‘normal’ teenagers is actually just what teenagers turn out like when they’re schooled for 10+ years.  When they have had few rights and little respect their entire lives.  When they’ve been told what to do and when to do it.  Maybe rebelling is not a normal part of teenage life, but something that oppressed people instinctively do as soon as they get the chance.  Maybe what is in fact normal, if you allow a child to grow up on their own terms, being respected and taken seriously, is teenagers who are sensible, can hold their own in a debate with an adult (even one who is extremely rude and insulting, Lowrie!), get on well with their parents and other adults and enjoy their company, just as much as they enjoy the company of people around their own age.  Maybe there is no natural need to rebel.  

Yesterday we were at the swings and there was a group of about 8 older teenagers (in fact, they could actually have been early-20s - students) really messing around.  It wasn’t a large playground, but, although there were about 5 young children playing there, the students hogged the whole place.  They had upturned a huge tub of ice-cream and were throwing it at eachother and getting it all over the play equipment.  They even asked one of the children to get off the roundabout so they could play on it!  Does Lowrie think that this is a good thing?  That teenagers behave so anti-socially?  Lowrie - THIS IS NOT NORMAL OR NECESSARY!!!!  It’s people like the playground teenagers who give ‘youths’ a bad name and Lowrie wants them all to be like that!

I can’t rant enough about that woman!  But also can’t praise the HE’d child (Simone, I think her name was) and her father enough.  They were polite, articulate and simply wonderful.  Well done!     

Yesterday we went to a wedding show to see Dh who was working there.  The girls enjoyed running around the empty chairs that were surrounding the catwalk for the fashion show.  There was some confetti left over from the last very cheesy fashion show (where two of the models actually pretend to be getting married and the ‘bridesmaids’ throw confetti when they kiss.  The confetti was just rectangles, rather than fancy stuff.  Flopsy noticed that two of the rectangles had fallen in the shape of a ‘T’ and proceeded to consolidate her familiarity with the letter by making about ten of her own   See…everything’s educational in some way

There are some days when I have no motivation at all and the girls behave like horrors and I get very shouty and fed up and dispairing.  Someone said to me, in response to me moaning about these sorts of days: “do they make you rethink your plans to HE?”.  The answer is ‘no’.  It’s not the school-aged child who makes me shout - it’s the toddler!  Toddlers are so hard work.  I just had to stop myself smacking Mopsy for throwing a large brick at Cotton-tail :-(  I said I wanted to give her away to someone else and Flopsy leapt to her defence :-)  Just spoken to Dh.  Flopsy wanted a pyjama day today, but I think that might be the root of the lack of motivation.  Dh suggested getting into bed and starting over again, and, as I can hear Mopsy has yet again expressed her frustration by hurting Cotton-tail in one way or another, I think it’s a very good idea and I’m off to do it right now.