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.

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. 

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!

If a cave-baby senses that his mother is no longer around, and neither are any other adults - can’t smell her, can’t hear her, can’t feel her skin next to his, isn’t latched onto the breast - his body puts him into a stress situation. His body instinctively knows that if he doesn’t get to another adult soon he may get eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger. Stress hormones race around his body and all his energies are focussed towards getting a human’s attention - he screams and screams and screams. If no adult comes, then he is more likely to survive if he shuts up and stops letting all the sabre-toothed tigers know where he is and that he’s alone so he stops crying. The stress hormones remain racing around his body until another adult human, preferably his mother, picks him up and holds him close. Even then he may need at least skin-to-skin contact or even to suckle at the breast in order for his body to truly believe that he’s now safe and to settle down on the stress hormones.

We are still giving birth to stone-age babies. They haven’t had enough time to evolve to live in our new world where they can be safe away from their parents and the stress hormones can do damage to their developing brains. As they get older and they learn about emotions - smiling, responding to other humans, a sense of humour, frustration - how these emotions are dealt with by the baby’s main care-givers can shape how they cope with emotions their entire life. Big feelings of dissapointment, frustration etc. are less likely to lead to uncontrollable rage if adults help them to dissipate the unpleasant hormones causing them ie. if adults don’t leave them screaming, saying ‘just ignore him, he’s just attention seeking’. He’s not seeking attention, he’s desperately seeking the help he needs to re-organise his feelings - he can’t do it on his own until he’s spent many years being helped to do so by a loving adult.

I don’t do very much in the way of journal-type blogging but suddenly feel an urge to, so here goes!

This morning we went to our NCT toddler group.  It’s held in a children’s centre and a lot of my non-HE friends go there with their children who our children get on very well with so we all look forward to it.  The first part of this morning was very hellish indeed, though.  I have this totally irrational need for the girls to both get dressed first thing in the morning.  It’s partly because leaving anywhere, including our home, with three young children is hard work, but having one or more to dress first as well just makes it a nightmare, so if they’re all dressed before we start the day, then that’s less stress for me when it comes time to leave the house.  Mopsy, however, has recently decided that she doesn’t want to get dressed in the mornings and that she would rather stay in her nightclothes all day.  This is really, really stressing me out.  It’s fine on the days that we have no morning appointments because we can just stay upstairs playing and find a way to make a game out of getting dressed.  Those mornings go very pleasantly.  But when we have morning plans and I don’t have enough time to faff around with creative ways of dressing stubborn toddlers everything just goes to pot.  And stubborn really is the best way to describe her.  When she decides she doesn’t want to do something, she just will not do it, and she’ll refuse to do everything else I suggest to boot, just because I’ve suggested it!  She really cuts off her nose to spite her face, suddenly deciding she doesn’t want to go to the toddler group or to do whatever else she’s been very excited about doing. 

What I *should* have done is just collected together Mopsy’s clothes and taken them with us in the car, in the hope she’ll at least get dressed when we get there and, if she didn’t, just gritted my teeth against any strange looks at my be-nightied toddler (which was DH’s sensible and rational suggestion when I rang him in hysterical tears).  However, what I did instead was to get crosser and crosser until I ended up physically forcing her into her clothes in an absolute rage that her stubbornness would mean that all of us would be late to, or even absent from, something that *all* of the rest of us wanted to go to (including her).  She was crying, I was crying and Flopsy was running around being all sweetness and light as siblings are wont to be when one of them is messing around.  Then Cotton-tail did a poo in her nice clean nappy and spilt chocolate milkshake all over her clean clothes.  And Mopsy kept defiantly taking her left sock off.  And I ended up lying on the floor wailing and despairing at her stubbornness and defiance but mostly at my own completely crap and shit and terrible handling of the situation so that it spiralled so out of control that I behaved in a way that I feel is one of the crappest way of parenting.  Bizarrely she was more than happy for me to put her shoes on, just not her clothes. 

We got out in the end and I drove to the group crying and wondering how on earth I was going to compose myself before I got there.  I managed to look not too blotchy-faced when we got in but one of my friends said ‘Hi Clare, how are you?’.  ‘Not very good this morning’ I replied and burst into tears.  My friends were wonderful and helpful, despite not really subscribing to the non-coercive way I *try* to parent so not really understanding why I was beating myself up so much.  One reminded me how I’d described how I’d had to get through a couple of weeks of non-stop tv when I first stopped limiting it, until they started to self-regulate it, and suggested I just let Mopsy wear what she wanted and grit my teeth about the irritation it causes in me in the hope she’ll get it out of her system.  I think I’m going to have to do this, and just keep my fingers crossed that I don’t get too many strange looks.  

What made me also furious, though, was myself.  The fact that I was putting social norms above the needs of my child.  I was being awful to my baby just to make her conform!  What is the matter with me???  I’m the queen of not-conforming!  Why do I have such a bloody block over this getting dressed thing!  What is the worst thing that will happen if she goes out in her nightie?  She’ll get odd looks, and she’ll get cold.  So I ignore the looks and feel proud of my self-assured little girl; and I take spare clothes and warm over-clothes for her to wear when she gets cold.  I *know* all this in my head, but I have such a problem putting it into practice.  I need to write myself some posters to put up round the house reminding me not to be such a control freak and to stop seriously not taking my children seriously!

Anyway, moving on from this rather miserable start, once I stopped crying at the toddler group, I really started to enjoy it and the girls were happy the minute I got them in the car to go there, so they were fine.  After the toddler group, we drove home and rang my very good (HE) friend (who we had planned to visit that afternoon) to ask if we had agreed to eat lunch with her and if not, to say we’d be late as we hadn’t yet eaten.  She said she’d happily feed us, so I gathered up wellies in case we went to the park, and we drove off again to her house.  Another good friend (also HE) was going to join us there too with her children.  The afternoon was lovely.  Sometimes when we visit this friend, our youngest three children rub eachother up the wrong way, but having the extra children there kind of diluted the atmosphere a bit so it was much calmer.  And the extra adult made a difference in terms of protecting Cotton-tail.  My friend reads this blog so I have to be nice about her.  Ha ha, only joking, K.  Honestly, we love meeting up with this friend, and happily our children mostly get on really well too.  It’s only that on occassion the younger ones clash because they haven’t yet gained the ability to not lash out when they lose their temper.  Myself and the other vistor took some of the children to the playground at one point, while our host made cakes with Mopsy and her two youngest - Flopsy watched the tv (very sociable!).  Then when we got back it was time to leave and we came home.

When we got in, I checked my emails while Flopsy and Mopsy played some very inventive game which involved making it all dark in the living room, and pretending to go to bed.  But they also had to jump of sofas, or something, and Mopsy hurt herself at one point.  Then Mopsy saw an empty tray similar to the ones we keep the playdough in and asked to get the playdough out.  I told her that Flopsy knew where it was and to ask her if she’d do it, which she was more than happy to do.  And DH came home to both girls playing happily with playdough, making ‘ice-cream’, and Cotton-tail crawling round the floor screeching as she is wont to do.  I’ve done an hour’s shift on the breastfeeding helpline, and we’ve had supper, and the girls are watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  I wonder when they’ll go to bed…

…in feeling an unpleasant lump come to my throat when I read or hear about how children have to be dragged screaming from their parents to be taken into nursery or school and then to have that described as normal and ‘for their own good’