Tea, thoughts and the things in between

 So i spend a lot of time answering questions about ‘curriculum levels’ in relation to HE. People are obsessed with whether one child is meeting the same levels and standards as another when the truth is they’ll all get there as and when they are meant to.  My eldest child likes to read and was never pushed always encouraged My youngest child likes to be read too. Theres been lots of conversation around why he doesn't like to read himself and to be honest i think its two fold - one he is the youngest so theres always someone to do it for him. Two he likes the comfort of being read too. HE enjoys being close to someone and snuggling in for a good story.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Recently though theres been a bit of outside shoving about him reading independently and its been quite hard to stay strong and just say he will when he is ready. It was spot on!  This week we were preparing to go out and i was finishing breakfast. He was sat at the table and th...

  Well Mother’s Day was lovely.  I was awoken early by my tiny people jumping on my head shouting happy Mother’s Day. I was presented with so beautiful if slightly unusual gifts and then they demanded we watched gladiators in my bed…!!  Following gladiators they announced that my choice of cereals (literally more than Morrisons cereal aisle) was unacceptable to them and so they wanted to go to Nannies for breakfast. Oh and they were not planning on getting dressed either as it was a ‘pj day’.  Upon arrival at nannies the tiny people caused havoc in minutes that started with a game og gladiators style ‘unleashed’ against two insane dogs! Pretty safe to say the dogs caught them in seconds.  Both boys then decimated mums gift box and started unwrapping things before she had chance to look in it. I cant say it was anything amazing but still a quick peek would have been nice.  once the kids were fed and watered they settled in for a Minecraft marathon whist i ...

  So ‘ home education ’ is one of those scary words that people hear and it draws a range of emotions and questions.   Why would you do that?  Are you allowed to do that? How will they socialise? What will they study? Are you a teacher? Is there something wrong with them? Why would you want to be with your kids all day? Will you stop work? These are just a few we've been asked.  You often get the people who look at you and you can see that they’ve thought about what you've said and they think you've lost the plot but are also incredibly brave. Then you get the parent who are fascinated by it and ask a million questions but would never actually consider it as an option… There’s so many responses it’s amazing. Not all of them are positive though. Not everyone ends up here the same way. Our story is not an unusual one in many ways but in others is.  We were offered our first place primary school for our eldest in the September he was due to start school. A fan...

So this will likely be the first “published” post from this set.  I received the following as part of a long text message a while ago and I suppose it struck me that people, despite all efforts, don’t always understand others.   “You know what, this is always going to be made to be about you, how you feel, how you were ill etc yes I get that but we all have issues to deal with too!” Let’s take just part of that statement first “issues to deal with too!” I can’t give you an example of these “issues but dictionary definitions suggest “problems” something that requires attention to “fix”.  Let’s be clear my illness wasn’t an “issue” it was a serious impact of a chronic condition ( a persistent, long-lasting health issue that generally cannot be cured but can be managed through treatment).  So I pondered my options here, because let’s face it there are many ways to handle this kind of comment. As such I took my time and decided that maybe if the person had listened then...