Trusting that my child/ren getting all that they need? 12.04.11
Hi I am in state of flux re: sending my child to ‘school’ for a 3yo; he is wanting to go to school, and I am wondering if what he is wanting to do is to learn from older children/have more stimulus than I/we have been offering… Is this the best solution or should I be saying no and trail other things first…
My husband has PTS and is at home and I have taken the drive ‘to get us somewhere’ via taking up full time study. This on top of this general state of life we are in a move which has caused a lot of practical use of time. This has taken away the focus I usually would have on my children; up until now my 3yo has been happy with just having a 1yo and the playgroups, play dates, different trips to here and there.
I am feeling also a little isolated via situation and lack of family support/influences for myself and children thus am tempted to take Jacob to day care and let him have a taste of this for the remainder of the Uni semester. Is there to many changes at the moment? And have I successfully set him up with the skills for him to feel safe and able to accept this in his stride? (I suppose this is all apart of the trust aspect to unschooling… and parenting.)
I have always had issues leaving my children with anybody and if there wasn’t an older female whom I felt comfortable with I generally feel even less comfortable as I am aware of how many kids from high school go straight into childcare without a clue past this being their first real job.
I know that if I keep it centred to what Jacob wants I am keeping in sync with what I am want for the learning experiences of my family; unschooling. Though I am wondering about the big jumps in comfort zone that I am about to let my 3yo embark on. He is getting to a stage where he doesn’t want to talk about things as much and just do; is this a bad thing for a 3yo as we are very language based within my family or has some of you experienced different jumps in different learning areas and consider this to be normal.
(I am feeling a little self conscious as I am noting that I am feeling a little disconnected from my family as I am trying to complete 4 subjects this semester). This though in itself (not as positive for the 1yo but still not negative either) is a overall good thing as it is allowing my husband to be Dad and not the parent that is Trumpt by Mum all the time. My 3yo is ready for understanding of his father more and is doing lots of ‘Boys’ stuff’ with him. Oh and my 1yo fits well into the scheme of things though is learning a lot differently to our 1st child and I am still getting my head around this… any help with this though…. What sort of things do the following children miss out on a little bit more than the first? Where do they advance (well this is pretty obvious)
I’m feeling as though I am happy to send him to school with his Dad and brother in tow to settle him in and only have this (at this point until the Uni semester is over and I am freer to look at the HS and US and AP networks around Toowoomba).
I am beginning to acknowledge that this is the path that we are going to take and that within our family thus far we do tend to go through growth spurts of massive change and then what feels like nothing for quite a while; so the change isn’t scaring me that much. Nor is the potential long term affects of being sent to day care ( as I remember that I was quite a shy child who hated day care and wasn’t very trusting) as I hope that he will want to come out by the time the Uni semester is over.
Though in the interim; has anyone else been in the same situation, how long did this want to go last for and what where some of the issues that came up?
What strategies have people used to assist with this change that my child wants to embark on?
Thanks for your time and consideration; this internet is great for connection and feeling supported.
13.04.11
I am acknowledging that today I am aware of just how I have situated myself through my experiences and the internal work I need to do to make this above possible and not live in fear and thus teach my children to live in fear. As a sensitive child who’s needs weren’t picked up on I have adapted coping strategies that are like many of our coping strategies less than effective, though very effective for the short term. Q: How is it that we teach our children more holistic ways of dealing with conflicts within our lives when they will see a strategy that they thought is/was used effectively and take it on board; A: through acknowledgment and consistency with talking about how that made us feel in the long run. Did it make us feel safe and secure? Did you feel as though you can trust this person to have your best interests at heart? As if someone has your best interest at heart then we consider them to be our friend. We don’t like thinking that people will hurt one another though we don’t consider that people are learning different things at different rates and have different values. Overall we have the same need but we go about getting them met in different ways.
Assertiveness is something someone needs to be developmentally ready to do? Talking things through or just letting them know that it is all aright that the other person that did you an injustice/hurt your feelings/made you scared was learning something and learning is all alright. Though if you don’t feel safe whilst they are learning something then that is when we need to place up our personal barrier and this is always going to be pushed either by our understanding or that of others trying to figure out what is classed acceptable behaviour with one person will not be with another.
Creating the feel safe bubble is so hard to do as lots of things scare different people and usually it is things that have been passed down from the family. I don’t want my children to be living in fear of anything even change; I want them to acknowledge that they are uncomfortable though that this brings with it an opportunity to grow and experience new things or become resentful for not being grateful or even for not being happy as they haven’t acknowledge that they need to grieve over the passing of time and the past becoming the past. Change happens and it is not able to be prevented, for me change comes in waves; lots of it at times and then none for a while. I am acknowledging that it is how I live within the times of little change that will best situate how I deal with oncoming change and let me feel happy and grateful for the ‘rest’ periods between the change.
I acknowledge that all of these questions come from my experiences of pain/conflict that I didn’t feel as though I was skilled enough to handle thus they have become fears that I don’t want my children to… I don’t want them to become a barrier that we need to get past thus I am
I want to thank some great influence of mine. There are a lot of people who I do this for in my head though I am now wanting to publish them to celebrate my growing understandings of life and our connectedness to one another; thus overall celebrating life; ‘Great’ is up for interpretation here and the one that I am suggesting is that these ladies have provided me with a few different understandings over time short moments of time for me are worth more than all the money in the world to me.
Julie Curtis Maths teacher Earnshaw State College 2004; Thank you for your time answering my questions surrounding maths and being honest about not knowing how to overcome being scared off by not feeling empowered/ capable of handling a mathematical equation. Your honesty even though couldn’t stop my pain then nor even now it has taken me further to find lots of little parts to the puzzle that was my question. I acknowledge now that you need time to become comfortable with new things/understandings/mathematical concepts, maths being one of them, you need to celebrate new understandings and be creative with them to really apply them into your knowledge bank through the use of real situations. And finally when you don’t know how to tackle a new situation and you have been shown then you need to break it all down into things that you do know and build your confidence by doing the above sentence again and again until you are happy to know you will understand it one day or finally understand it now. This I find is the one area that learning for me could only be true learning.
Mrs Armstrong Music teacher ; Your support of my joy that I found in music to do more of it was exactly what I most craved within my life inside and outside of my schooling, that little attention through feedback inspired me to do well in what it is that I liked. I am particularly grateful for the understanding that even if your folder doesn’t come back in the same condition that you lent it to someone in that it isn’t a big deal and it is up to me to say something if it bothered me… I was surprised though thankful that it came back the way it did… food for thought was always something that I was in need for and it isn’t until recent that I have been able to acknowledge various needs being met in busy lives that will account for little things like this being overlooked, and how I was protecting my relations with you in not saying anything (this I have found out recently is something most teens; thus an age and stage development). I will never want an apology as this did me more favours as in providing understandings that means more to me than that folder and thus I am saying thankyou for the experience it provided.
With all of these understanding provided another area that I keep circling on is; Where is the line for getting in and preventing learning for our children (by maybe doing something for them too much), Is there a valid part that one person can actively play in someone’s learning such as that of a teacher… ( this is more if the learner is not ready for that learning),
There are balances and I am yet to define them clearly for my understanding.
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