I posted the link to the petition on a mainstream parenting board.  I also posted links to websites explaining ContactPoint.  There was only one reply from someone saying they signed it - the rest were all ‘I don’t see the problem’ or ‘I don’t know anything about it’!  Are HE parents the only ones who take the future and rights of their children seriously?  It’s just really hit home to me that it’s all the more important that those of us who *do* understand the issues make a fuss, if the vast majority of parents are willing to just be swept along and trust the government without question.  It also shows how important it is that we bring our children up to question authority - if no one questions it, that’s when it becomes totally corrupt.

I’ve signed this petition to the Prime Minister to abandon plans to create the Information Sharing Index, a national database of all children aged between birth and eighteen - please sign it too.

Last night, the Oxford Union debating society were protested against by students who were angry that the society had invited two men with appalling opinions to debate the issue of free speech.  The decision and resulting demonstrations have caused huge publicity for these men.  The demonstrators believe that David Irving (a historian who believes the holocaust didn’t happen - a criminal offence in some countries.  He’s actually spent time in prison for his beliefs) and Nick Griffin (leader of the BNP) should never be allowed a platform on which to air their horrific views. 

Max Hastings disagrees and I am finding myself coming down on his side in this issue.  Censorship carries many risks and one of them, I believe, is complacency.  I’ve known highly intelligent women who have lived through the Second World War, who have frequently reacted incredulously when I’ve explained various things to them.  Loving husbands have tried  to shield them from very unpleasant things.  But when we don’t know what unpleasant things are out there, we don’t know we have to fight them, and they can grow unchecked.  A bit like dry rot in a house - know it’s there and you can keep on top of it; if it remains hidden, then it can destroy your home.  It’s all too easy to think that the Holocaust could never happen again because Hitler was a one-off and he’s dead.  It’s all to easy to believe that everyone is a lovely person and there are only a handful of atrocious people around in the world.  Actually, labouring under this belief is dangerous.  We need to know who these people are and what they really believe so that we can keep on top of them.  Censoring them risks future generations not really understanding how dangerous these people really are and becoming compacent enough for them to gain power again.  All it needs is someone with a forceful personality, secretly winning enough people over, for power to grow - that’s what Hitler did.  The best way we can prevent it happening in our country is to hear what these people have to say in a controlled atmosphere why they can be debated with - that way any naive people will see why people like Irving and Griffin are so dangerous and there will be more people trying to stop them.

A really interesting discussion between some HE parents came to an abrupt end yesterday mid-debate due to children needing us.  We were talking about feeling guilty when children choose to watch tv - guilty that we’re not providing enough more stimulating stuff to tempt them away from it, and guilty when we make the most of them being occupied by the electronic babysitter to do housework or *gasp* have a minute or two to ourselves.  What I feel is that this is just real life.  Not all parents are able to be on hand for their children 24 hours a day without having a bit of time each day when they don’t have to be entertaining or educating their children.  The other thing I feel is that, when you home educate, the interactions you have outside of tv-watching time are so rich, and there are so many more opportunities to have those interactions that they will easily negate any possible negative effects of tv-watching (e.g. diminishing imagination, difficulty in concentrating on things etc.).  What you’re left with is all the positives of tv - ideas of new activities; new knowledge; a chance to just ‘chill’; opportunities for discussion etc.  In other words, lots of useful things you can use to inform some of the time you spend not watching tv. 

In truth, though, children won’t want to watch tv 24 hours a day every day - they’ll get bored of it, just like anyone gets bored of anything they’re doing the whole time.  When we make it clear we’re not happy with our children watching tv, they feel more drawn to it, as if they feel they need to watch as much as they can before we come and take it away from them.  On the other hand, when we express no feelings about it one way or the other, they’ll watch it for a certain amount of time; then Mopsy will get bored and start playing something, then Flopsy will go and turn the tv off and join her playing.  They turn it off at meal times because they enjoy eating together too.  Of course if I do make the effort to do some exciting activity, they’ll come and join me doing that too, but I’m really talking here about what children do with tv if adults did nothing at all.  They obviously don’t watch tv when we’re out.  But when we’re at home we’ll often have a day when they seem to watch loads of tv but, just as often, we’ll have a day when it doesn’t go on at all.  What I’m trying to say is that it all evens itself out - they self-regulate it just like they self-regulate everything else in their lives.

I’m often asked what I would do if one of my children chose to watch tv or play on the computer all day long.  My answer is:  It’s so unlikely to happen that it’s not an issue, but if it did happen, I’d let them because I can be fairly certain that the next day they’d make up for it by watching none at all.  And if they did watch it all the next day too, at some point they’ll get fed up and it won’t get switched on for days.  I think this situation is probably different for children who aren’t granted full autonomy in their lives.  I believe that children who practice self-regulating get very good at it but that children who, for instance, are in school being told what to do and when to do it, can lose the skill of self-regulating.  They get high on the freedom of school holidays and go loopy and make their parents believe that this is what is normal for children and that they could never home educate if they had to live with their children day in and day out like that.  But the reality is that autonomous children aren’t manic like that - they spend their entire lives on a much more even keel.  They’re used to freedom so it doesn’t go to their heads in the same way.  So when you say to a child ‘ok - you’re in charge of your life’, if they’re not used to it, they’ll probably go a bit mad on it for a while (I’m guessing this is the phenomenon of deschooling - needing to watch loads of tv and do ‘nothing’ for weeks and weeks) but will eventually learn how to self-regulate and will practice the skill until they’re brilliant at it - and what a wonderful skill to take into adult life.  Maybe these children are less likely  to become addicts of one sort or another when they’re older (be that food, or alcohol, or work or whatever). 

I don’t know for a fact that that’s what happens, but that’s what I believe and it’s what I see in my own young children and in older autonomous children.

Some of you will already know we tend to all sleep in an 8ft bed (although Flopsy and Mopsy do have their own bed in their own room that Flopsy occassionally sleeps in).  When we woke this morning, after a few books and a bit of hiding under covers and tickling Flopsy suddenly exclaimed “hey!  There are a lot of legs in this bed!”.  I burst out laughing, and she decided to count them (using her fingers).  “Two legs on Mummy, two legs on Mopsy, two legs on Cotton-tail, two legs on Daddy, two legs on me - that’s eight” she said, looking at her hands.  Although her working out was perfect, she’d missed out adding on two more fingers when she got to Cotton-tail.  I suggested she do it again and that I’d do the fingers for her with my hands.  Together we counted on in twos:  “Mummy two; Mopsy four; Cotton-tail six; Daddy eight; Flopsy ten”.  “Ten!  Mummy - there are ten legs in this bed.  Five people have ten legs.”  Maths in bed - far more fun than maths in the classroom

Friday morning, eating breakfast

Flopsy:  *gasp*  Look, Mummy - the grass is all silver!

Mummy:  Yes, it’s called frost

Flopsy:  Can I go and have a look at it?

Mummy:  Yes - do you want to put your shoes on first - it’s very cold outside.

Flopsy puts her shoes on and goes outside.  After a minute or two the back door opens…

Flopsy:  Mummy, mummy!  It’s not frost, it’s ice - come and look!

I go out and she shows me how she’s run her fingers up a blade of grass to pull the frost off and that it does indeed look very like the ice from the freezer.  I explain how frost and ice are the same thing, but that we use the word frost to describe the ice that comes when the water on outside things freezes overnight.  I go back inside.  Then Flopsy comes in and asks for her coat and jumper as it’s really very cold.  After a minute or two Mopsy goes out to join her.  Flopsy is no longer interested in showing me her discoveries and wants to show Mopsy instead.  What I hear is…

Flopsy:  Mopsy look - if you hold it in your hands it melts

Mopsy:  Oh yeah! 

Flopsy:  Shall we dig for worms?

Mopsy:  Yes

Flopsy:  Actually, it’s too cold - shall we go in?

Mopsy:  Yes

I’d say not.  I think that most HEors who follow an autonomous route do so because, like us, they feel very strongly that it’s the best thing for their children and because, when they pay attention to their children, they realise that it really *is* the best thing for their children.  I think it would be pretty easy (and fun, for someone like me who loved playing ’schools’ as a child ) to have sit-down lessons in the morning; to know what was going on from one day to the next; to know exactly what you are trying to teach your child at each lesson. 

I think it’s not so easy to not know from one day to the next what your child is going to ask you to do.  It’s not so easy to be ready for anything.  It’s not so easy to be constantly resourceful so you can work out ways of doing things and finding out things at the time it’s important for your child to do or to find out something.  It’s not so easy to stay up late because your child has decided that’s when she wants to read with you.  It’s not so easy to make random food at random times of the day.  It’s not so easy to answer one child’s questions while you’re trying to read to another and change another one’s nappy.  There is no way a truly lazy parent could allow their children to do autonomous learning.  It’s fun and wonderful and exciting but it is not, not, not the easy option IMHO. 

I am also in  no way criticising HEors who choose a more structured approach - I feel very strongly that all families should do what works for them without fear of criticism from anyone (so long as no one is harmed of course!).  I’m just stating the point that I am actually pretty naffed off that either I or one or all of my friends have been labelled as lazy for doing something that has been written about by so many experienced people.  I hope the person in question can learn enough from his family and others that will help him change his mind and his perception. 

I’m low on motivation to blog and low on motivation to do lots of good things with my children at home.  We’re very busy most days, but our at home on our own days are getting more and more boring and frustrating (and also more frequent and longer due to Dh’s changing working hours coming up to Christmas).  Maybe I’m suffering from SAD.  Some friends and I have set up our own HE group and we have our third session on Wednesday, which I’m looking forward to.  We were out this morning, but a friend who had planned to come this afternoon can’t anymore as her son is still unwell so we are trying to amuse ourselves.  We sometimes go to collect Dh from work as that shortens our day a bit.  Yesterday (yes, my Dh works all weekend sometimes ), we watched loads of tv but also did quite a lot of other small things - some experiments of the week; pouring water; pouring rice; tracing letters in a tray of rice; playing with the train track (quickly while Cotton-tail was asleep!); pushing eachother around in boxes - but none of them really took up very much time at all and before long they were clamouring for the tv to go on again.  I don’t mind them watching tv, except that I find it soooooooo boring myself!  And Mopsy gets frustrated when she watches a lot of it - she starts fidgeting and hitting Flopsy. 

After we came home from our toddler group, we had lunch while the tv was on.  Then they watched Doodle Do which reminded them of the tissue-paper watercolours they do sometimes (which they learnt about from a different episode of Doodle Do than the one they watched today).  So we did the tissue paper water colours but unfortunately I gave them tissue paper which, for some reason, doesn’t bleed its ink, so that didn’t work as well as it has done in the past.  It didn’t seem to bother them - they just enjoyed the process.  While they did that, I painted some papier-mache heads they made ages ago with Dh while I was laid up in bed with a bad back.  They’ve been sitting on the table annoying me for nearly two weeks now, so I felt I had to do something with them!  When the pink paint’s dry (they’re going to look rather sunburnt), I’ll see if they want to draw faces on them and stick on some wool hair. 

Then they decided they wanted to go outside.  Flopsy put her shoes on but Mopsy had previously removed her tights so decided to go oustide barefoot despite the freezing cold!  They wanted to hunt for worms with spades but were too scared (?) to go inside their play house to get spades.  I was too grumpy to help them but reluctantly agreed to go and pick out some from the rain-filled sand-pit for them and then came back inside.  Apparently these weren’t good enough and Flopsy stomped back in again, followed by Mopsy a bit later on. 

Flopsy watched me play a Kakuro puzzle online while Mopsy washed her hands, and now they’re playing some imaginative game.  I can hear them in the room next door and they’re playing really nicely (I wonder how long that will last?).  Someone’s called Flip-flop and the game involves pretend beds - a common theme in their games.  I can occassionally hear a shriek of frustration from Cotton-tail who is at an age already where she wants to be able to do everything and is very annoyed she can’t.  She spent an age trying to hold two pens in one hand earlier on - I remember Flopsy and Mopsy wanting to learn that too at some point.

I’m feeling desperately tired for some reason.  I slept well last night so I really don’t know why I’m so exhausted.  Must be suffering from SAD!  I know I’m not pregnant for many reasons but the most chief of those is that I don’t feel sick - there’s no way I’d manage to be pregnant and not at least feel sick, if not actually be puking! 

I’m a bit fed up that we don’t live in the country-side with a big garden with place to explore.

Ok, I can hear the play has turned  a little sour.  They’re over-involving little Cotton-tail - Mopsy seems to think she can play horses with her.  Must go and save her. 

If you follow the idea of autonomous learning right through to it’s logical end, then surely no toy is ‘educational’ to a child?  The reason I’m thinking about this is because I decided not to get Flopsy something I know she wanted for Christmas because I felt that it wasn’t really much fun getting an ‘educational’ toy for a present and that educational things should just be bought throughout the year.  This is totally irrational.  It’s not ‘educational’ to Flopsy because it’s something she enjoys doing!  I’m bonkers!  Don’t worry, we’ve still got her something she really wants, it’s my method of choosing that I’m bemoaning. 

I remember being on holiday with my parents a couple of years ago, and for my ‘holiday reading’ I’d brought books to do with my course.  My Dad said “don’t you ever give yourself a break from studying?”.  I remember feeling a bit miffed at the time, but realised that what he didn’t understand was that I wasn’t studying because I had to, I had chosen to train to be a Breastfeeding Counsellor because I am passionate about empowering mothers and supporting women who want to breastfeed.  Therefore, the material I needed to read was of great interest to me.  I *loved* every essay I wrote and miss them now that I don’t have any to write.  My essay’s were interesting to write and the reading was interesting.  I was studying not to gain a certificate, but to learn about a subject that means a lot to me.  So my holiday reading wasn’t in the same vein as GCSE revision - if I’d been reading the books but not training to be a BFC, my Dad probaby wouldn’t have made that comment. 

And this is the essence of autonomous learning - doing it for yourself, not for anyone else and not for a certificate (unless you want one, of course!).  It’s not distinguishing learning from life.  It’s allowing children to spend their time the way they want to and if that means spending hours doing workbooks and playing with cuisenaire rods then that’s fine!  I’m imposing my own cultural conditioning on my children to even make a distinction between toys meant to subconsiously teach children and toys that are ‘just for fun’.  What a wally!

For some women breastfeeding is really hampered from the start by apalling care from health care professionals.  Sometimes women who have always assumed their babies would be breastfed, who have worked tirelessly before birth to secure the support they’ll need, who’s family are helpful, who really do not want their babies to have formula milk, sometimes these women do not succeed :-(  It’s not because they’re one of the magic 2% who actually can’t do it, but because something hasn’t clicked into place in the early days.  Here’s an example situation:

1. Mum has her baby, birth goes well

2. Baby isn’t interested in feeding for a few hours

3. Baby isn’t kept skin-to-skin which would make feeding more likely

4. Inflexible hospital policies mean that midwives get twitchy about the baby not feeding

5. Twitchy midwives who don’t understand how breastfeeding works decide that the baby needs forcing to feed

6. Midwives grab mum’s breast, and baby’s head and ram them together

7. Touching the back of baby’s head makes him pull his tongue in, rather than out where it needs to be to latch on well

8. Baby manages to get some milk so midwives are satisfied

9. The experience is upsetting and traumatic for baby and mother, and is also painful for the mother as the poor latch means that the nipples get damaged

10. Mum and baby leave the hospital - mum with damaged nipples, baby with bad breastfeeding technique and possibly even a phobia of breastfeeding (situation is even worse if baby has also been bottle-fed formula milk and/or if mum has been told to use nipple shields to help her nipples heal)

11. Mum is desperate to undo the mess created by the immediate post-natal care and gathers support around her again

12. Breast feeding continues to be agony.  Poor latch and nipple shields means baby feeds all the time as feeding is so inefficient and ineffective milk-removal causes mum to get severe mastitis on day 14.

13. Only way to clear mastitis is to express milk and nipples are so damaged that mum decides to bottle-feed expressed milk until her nipples are healed enough to try feeding at the breast again

14. Mum tries extra skin-to-skin contact and ‘co-bathing’

15. Mum is spending so much time expressing so she doesn’t get mastitis, crying because everything hurts and worrying that her baby’s not getting enough milk and that she may never be able to get breastfeeding working, that she has spent no positive time whatsoever with her two-week old baby

These mums *cannot* bond with their babies with all these negative hormones racing around their bodies.  Sometimes switching to formula milk is the only way for women and babies to relax enough to get to know one another.  How do mothers weigh up the physical benefits of recieving breastmilk with the emotional benefits of enjoying the early weeks of parenthood and getting to know your baby?  It breaks my heart.  I’m so angry and furious that crap care means that women have to choose!  They should be able to do both.  Everyone should be able to do both!  This is so wrong.  Midwives need more time, more money and, above all, more bloody training!