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

Timetables part 2

In our first year of home education we were using a pack from a Queensland Steiner school.  From what I understand it was their year 1 curriculum packaged up for use at home.  For my first year of home education this was great, as I was quite of the mindset that I needed someone else to teach my child and that I didn't know how.

Early days- exploring Regent Gardens in London.

Buying a pack that told me how to gave me confidence and guidance for finding a place to start.  I was already interested in Steiner education, from my experience working in natural skin care, and coming across Dr Haushka and learning about biodynamics and eventually coming across Rudolf Steiner.  The pack gave me somewhere to start;guidance with music, circle time, main lesson and craft.  Willow was 6 and Gabriel, 4, we did a lot of it together with Gabriel joining in the best he could. We had a lot of fun, and  very much did school at home, except in a more relaxed playful way.

When home educating became a permanent decision, on return to Adelaide, my first thought was to return to a kit.  However with a bit of searching I started finding resources and then I came across Shining Star school and their Waldorf Home Educators page.  Mrs M (who manages the page) shared so many wonderful resources that I felt that I could use her information and pull a plan together, and so for grade 2, that is what I did.

Exploring the parklands in Adelaide

In the early days I was quite regimented about sticking to her plan, I felt quite impatient to do everything!  However as time progressed, I started to relax as I came to realise that there was a time,place and season for everything and that we could fit in different work in different years.  (We also largely hung out with unschoolers in Adelaide, who frequently went on about "doing nothing" at that time and I share my feelings on unschooling here- for me my attitude to this has not changed over the years, though I am more relaxed now).  I also came to realise that I could create my own lesson plans, and that sometimes new opportunities that I had been wondering about quietly fell into place as we lived life.

Afternoon tea stall by Willow at our friend's garage sale- early foray into how to make some money. 

For the remainder of our second year home educating we followed a very similar rhythm to our first year- circle time, main lesson, craft.  Thursday was our outing day whilst we were settling into home education becoming a lifestyle decision.  Our third year was much more chaotic- Arden was born- and we did things as we could manage them.  There was a time early on when we were at home more, and we followed what I now refer to as baby rhythm.  We worked to Arden's needs and we fitted around him.  As he grew our need to structure the day around him became less and less, and we settled back into a rhythm closer to our early days.

One of our favourite places in Adelaide- Botanic Park- and particularly the Moreton Bay Fig trees

Hanging out with Alice in Rymill Park

Much of our work took place around the kitchen table, or in the garden, or at the coffee table.  We, as many home educators will tell you, became educate in pyjamas sorts of people (except for me).  I still joke that we really need to buy more pyjamas than clothes.

Kindy in the kitchen-learning to count eggs

When we moved to Perth, we started doing more classes, and this changed our daily rhythm a bit.  By this time Arden was getting bigger, so there was more time for me again, and some time for quiet each morning which was lovely.  By the time Arden was 4 3/4 I was pregnant again.  At this stage Willow was 13 and we were heading towards more self-directed learning.  We spent a couple of  years doing subjects when it suited everyone, and we gave up circle time (as Arden was not very enthusiastic for it) and with baby rhythm back in place with Irving's birth I found it easier for me to manage if we were all at least doing more or less the same work.  (I was starting to feel a little crazy jumping from craft to baby to english to baby to maths to baby,etc, etc) and so we came up with the plan of start the day with music, maths, lunch, main lesson, and craft.  This helped me feel much more grounded and centred and so made life calmer for everyone.

Arden was very pleased to discover Arden St near our home in East Perth.

Our first connection with the Swing music and dance scene in Perth- heading out for dinner and we found a great Swing band and live dancing!

That said this experience was brief for everyone and at the beginning of this year,  Willow and I sat down and came up with a plan for her to meet the requirements of the national curriculum and to cover all the musical work that she needed to do to get up to an adequate level to do further musical study.  We created some guidelines and divided up her work over the year, and on the whole I have acted as manager whilst she has got on with managing where she needs to be during the week and what she needs to do when.  It has been a very positive experience in learning how to manage time and projects to achieve goals whilst balancing free time and other interests.