Vision for Life

How did we get here?  I must admit as a first time parent in my mid 20s there was no way that I ever would have envisioned that my eldest child would have been home educated for all but a couple of years of school.

Damien and I started out parenthood with the idea that our family unit was important, and that being connected and supported in our relationship was important and that supporting each other and our child(ren) was our priority.  Our main priority for ourselves when we met, was happiness and to have a happy relationship.  This was our vision for our future, and this has been the motivator for many of our decisions.

We started home education, because it seemed convenient for relocating back to Australia.  We stopped home education because Willow needed more social contact.  We returned to home education because Willow's happiness and our own family harmony were more important to us than the schooling system. 

With Willow being in school (in Scotland), home educated in Scotland, France and Adelaide, and back in school (in Adelaide) it became clearer to Damien and I that some of our own problems as young adults were purely to do with school and its systemisation.  We could see some of this appearing in some of the kids in Willow's school in Adelaide, certain behaviours that the 7yr olds were developing to cope with being in the system, that parents explained away as a stage, and that Damien and I with our new perspective could see was the kids finding ways to cope with have too few adults to spend time with, be supported by and to model grown-up behaviour from.

Within a very short time of removing Willow from school the anti-social behaviours that she was displaying at home vanished, and when on further questioning on my part, about how much happier she seemed, 7yr old Willow declared, "I don't have to act any more Mummy."

So this formed the basis for our decisions around education, these transformative experiences, started us on this wonderful and at times challenging but always inspiring journey that has lead us towards a usually contented home life based around education and learning.  This has meant that only Willow attended school, and that Gabriel and Arden have never been, and that Irving is heading towards being registered for home education next year.  For the littler ones in particular this experience has been all encompassing and nurturing, being surrounded by their family that loves them almost all of the time, and having an understanding that learning is inspiring and interesting and exciting. 

When they go out into the world, they transition into being independant, and they are not rudely and sharply separated from their family, and the feeling of safety that that offers them.  The separation that happens does so gently over the years: time at classes with parents present, time at classes without parents present, time with friends, time at home alone, time walking to the shop,etc.  Each skill is built up gradually and gently and each separation is partly encouraged by Damien and I, and by our child.  In the early years, this can feel very slow, but in a larger family there are so many other activities happening that the later years of school travel past quite quickly and all of a sudden, home education is coming to an end, and new experiences past school are being planned and created.

One final note, in our family, one of the main occurrences during the years to keeping life happy and content, is to always resolve emotional disturbances and disharmonies on the spot.  Some days this has meant at home learning has gone out the window, as we sit and work out and sometimes have a good cry, about life and what has been going on.  But these times of disharmony, have always worked out in our favour, as we as a family, have learnt about emotions together and have language and skills to problem solve our feelings, and the problems that they can create.  For me pre-children this was the path that I was starting that lead us to this place, the path towards being able to find and create happiness, and be content most of the time.

So my question to anyone starting home education is...What is your goal for your family?

Some of our moments...
Coffee mornings with Damien have become a thing around here, after him missing us all in the mornings!  (We tend to be later risers) 

Hanging out at the playground with everyone...so nice to have teens that have fun with everyone, that like to chat with people, and to have a family of people that look out for each other.  (Little one has a way to go with this obviously!)

Things to do whilst waiting for your older siblings...."pop"...umbrella fun!

One of Arden's latest passions, photography.  Hot chocolate on a cold day!

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2025 

I had forgotten a few of the things I had referenced here- those illuminating moments when I realised what was going on for some children in their early years of education, as they become dulled and disillusioned and surrendered to the idea of being systemised.  I imagine now that more and more children are in childcare from almost birth, that this may be harder for modern parents to notice, and I am certainly glad to have had that experience of illumination.

As a family with 20 something children, a teen and a pre-teen we still have a lot of fun.  Willow lives out of home with her fiance, in the South- West of WA, and regularly comes to stay with us, and we get down to visit her too.

Our goal as a family has stayed consistent over the years; working out how to get along, and allow everyone to be themselves, and at times it has been easier to work this out than at other times.  Introducing regular computer usage brought  some challenges, and some of these boundaries are things we are still working out and exploring.

Home Loving

Over the years of home education, one of the things that I value most in our lives now, that was very much lacking prior our brief stint in Steiner schools, is rhythm.  When Willow started kindy in Scotland in 2004, a lot of discussion revolved around the importance of rhythm.  Part of the rhythm in the kindy, was that each day, had a particular activity dedicated to it, generally these were the sorts of activities most kids of that age would find interesting-painting, baking, drawing, modelling.  However the last one caught my fancy and has been part of our life since, home loving.

Prior to our Steiner school experience, we had always had a house work day.  The kids didn't do a lot of it, and I was rather begrudging about it, but it was a necessity that I participated in very ungraciously.  On learning about Home loving in my daughter's school, and just the fact that it could be about love, rather than work, my attitude to it started to shift.  My attitude towards my children's involvement in it also started to shift. 

At the stage that Willow started kindy, she was very much a pre-schooler, 4 and a half,  Gabriel was only 2 1/2.  Neither were at the stage of being able to do too much in terms of help clean.  But this shift in loving my home, enabled me to encourage them to love their home too.  Initially it was just simple things; such as you are finished with one toy, it needs to be packed away to get a new toy.  Later it progressed to cleaning bedrooms, cleaning walls and now we are at the stage where Willow (16years) and Gabriel (14years) both cook dinner once a week, largely manage the kitchen themselves, and are involved in general other housekeeping duties as required.  Arden (8yrs) is at the stage of graduating towards a dinner night; currently he does dinner with the support of Dad once a week.

For our family the hardest thing about this, was creating a pattern.  Damien and I had not had a home loving attitude modelled to us, so for us to model it to the kids took time, practise and developing our own rhythm.  When a new baby has arrived it has gone out the window a bit (though with Irving's arrival it was much easier, as Willow and Gabriel were older and continued with their roles).  Arden and Irving were born into our family having a rhythm, and so they have both requested jobs, and 3rd and 4th time around I have found it much easier, as I know what is reasonable to expect them to be able to do.  (We also own many less toys than when Willow and Gabriel were very small).

For me, now as a long term home educator, this has made our experience much more relaxed and pleasant.  Living together and focusing on being co-operative together, far surpasses the benefits of home education from a purely academic point of view.  That said, our home probably does look quite chaotic by some people's standards, as we have quite a diverse range of interests and activities taking place.  We always try to keep a balance between tidy, clean, and lived in. 

Home in North Adelaide.

Settling into our appartment in East Perth.

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2025

I have found somewhat, in the late teens, that most of the kids at various points have been more or less resistant to  helping out.  The general home loving day is rarely an issue, but the more children one has the more constant day in day out work there is to be done.  Currently our routine is, whoever cooks dinner doesn't have to help with dinner time clean up.  Arden is on daily rubbish removal, Gabriel empties the dish rack and dish washer, and Irving vacuums.

Gabriel and Irving have recently switched jobs, because we got a fancy Dyson vacuum, and Irving has been very excited learning how it works.  He's particularly keen on the fact that it measures dust particles! (Anyone out there with a child that wants to understand how things work- this may be the vacuum for your child!!:*D).

2016 was also the point where I was at my busiest as a home educating parent, and in the next few years I had a bunch of health issues as I learnt about the soil deficiencies in Perth.  We ceased focusing on local food and I started on learning about supplements via reading about Orthomolecular Nutrition (anything by Abram Hoffer is worth reading).  The first main supplement I started on was iodine, which quite quickly cleared up the sleep apnoea that I had developed.  From there I discovered selenium is low, zinc, magnesium (this means B1 is bio-unavailable, and B1 being unavailable messes with the other Bs) and most recently I discovered manganese (this regulates ovulation, and supplementing this in levels as suggested by Abram Hoffer in his co-authored book, "Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone" was life changing for my menstrual health.

In recent years, as my health has improved again, and I have been less busy, it has been much easier for us to find a regular smooth schedule for having everyone help out in maintaining our home.  Everyone was still doing it in these other times, but I was starting to become aware of just how much management I was doing, and being unwell, how tiring this was.  I've made it a goal to try to transition the children into being more responsible in helping to manage, so that when I need a day's rest, our home does not end up a chaotic mess.

Connectivity

Recently I came across this interesting article about Danish families on the topic of "Hygge"  and fascinatingly in the process of reading I realised that the Danish essentially practise something that we have come to create as our core family values; something that we now refer to as connectivity.

Over the years as we became a family and grew in size and moved about the world, we saw different ways of being a family and interacting as a family.  On the whole we came to view the Australian way of family life as rather negative-children constantly competing, boys against girls, men against women.  Somewhere along the way (I think this started in Glasgow, when Damien and I only had each other for support) we started discussing co-operating, working together, supporting each other.    As Willow and Gabriel got bigger we discussed their roles in supporting, how able they were to help, and how we appreciated their help.  Initially this was simple things such as housework, and figuring out how to get along together, and eventually it progressed into looking out for the smaller people in the family, and offering support to them.

Day in day out we focus on co-operation.  How as a unit of 6 do we get along?  How do we share our space and still be ourselves? How can I be me whilst still being part of the "we" of our family? "I" am important and "we" are important. What things are non-negotiable for our unit? We focus on acceptance, understanding, co-operation, support. We also focus on individuals feelings and needs in relation to the family.

We like to live at hope in a space of safeness, everybody has the right at home to be themselves and comfortable with themselves at all times without ridicule or judgement.  Our home is our haven, a place where we can nurture and support ourselves, where we can be in pain and be joyous without judgement but with the knowledge that anyone here can help, from the smallest to the tallest, even if that help is just a hug.  The smallest people can always help in caring ways, and sometimes that's just a pat on the head, and sometimes that's enough to help return a smile to a sad person.

As a continuation we have the right to be interested and involved in what appeals to us without fear; without the possibility of ridicule or insult.  We have a wide variety of interests in our home, and we always work towards acceptance and understanding towards peoples different desires, motivations and goals. 

When one lives in a competitive community and family it seems to me that it becomes dangerous to express one's inner self, inner beauty and interests, so we aim to avoid competing at home unless the children are emotionally able to cope with the competing.  Many board games here have been turned into co-operative games until various children have had the emotional skills to cope with losing the game.  When everyone works together to win or lose, there is no emotional distress associated with failure for the child, and it is much easier for them to cope with the game.  It is of course useful to discuss playing competitively and encourage children like this to see that it could be fun to compete, but introducing competition before the child is ready creates fear of failing and can be very unhelpful for certain personality types.

Australian culture is generally competitive so by keeping competition out of our home we create a haven where one can be oneself, and where the challenge is to improve oneself, rather than to create hollow comparisons that leave a child and young person feeling emotionally vulnerable and inclined to hide their true nature and personality.  Home needs to be the place where the child can reveal all of themselves, and be safe from judgement.

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2025 

As we have had children emerge into adulthood (at this time Willow is 25, moved out of home, Gabriel is 23,  Arden 17 and Irving, 12)  the outside culture has seeped in somewhat and adjusted how we do things.  We had times of being too busy, and some of us being unwell- me in particular, as I discovered just how deficient Perth soils were.  We have had some ups and downs in continuing to be true to this philosophy, but on the whole it has retained its place in our family focus and we always look back to resolution, and forgiveness, and problem solving  situations so that people can enjoy living in a family environment where they are understood and appreciated.

I realised too, that with Arden's enthusiasm for know everything!  I was allowing him to fill all the space that the older two had filled in my home education sort of schedule, and I was gradually realising that although, I got time to myself regularly each week, I was not getting it daily, in the same way, as when I only started out with two children.  I have had to coax myself out of the serving role, and to remind myself that now that I have only Irving to home educate and that he is 12 ( although I started this habit last year when he was still 11) that I can take more down time for me, and that I need to step back from my managerial role somewhat, and let Arden and Gabriel step into that role.

I've also picked up a book on Socratic Dialogue, to get us all back into the habit of that style of discussion.  It really is a very helpful method of having conversations within a family, particularly when people have different styles of talking.  It also seems to me, to be somewhat natural for young people to discuss in a more rhetorical style and this can lead to regular bickering and opinionated debates.  By moving into a Socratic Dialogue for those sorts of conversations it can solve a lot of problems.  Only recently I intervened in a conversation between Gabriel and Arden, where I reminded them that part of the process is to define terms, and to do this.  ( The defining terms enables people to understand if they are meaning and thinking about the same thing).  In this case it turned out that they had different definitions of a word, and that that was part of the reason the conversation had become complicated!

This is the book that we are using.
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09M7BQS2N?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title