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New to home education : Your first week.
A plan for your first week of home education. It’s back to school time around here. But for some families it’s the beginning of a whole new adventure. Their children won’t be going back to school, instead they’ve chosen to start home education. This week I met one of those families at a local home ed meet. They told me they were new to the group and new to home education. In fact it was their very first day. Full of enthusiasm and excitement, along with a healthy dose of apprehension and trepidation, they had many questions… What subjects should we concentrate on first? How do you teach maths? Where…
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Instead of resolutions : 5 ways to build better habits in 2019
The promise of a shiny new year brings so many possibilities. A time to reflect on our lives, consider our priorities and make plans for the future. There’s something special about opening up a new calendar, all that blank space calling out to be filled. Encouraging us to consider how we want our lives to look, to ponder our mission and contemplate our legacy. There are so many competing demands on our time and a myriad of distractions pulling us this way and that. We want to live an intentional life, to pursue our dreams and to spend our time wisely. But sometimes life sweeps us along and before we…
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Dealing with conflict at Christmas : taking a kinder path
Sometimes, some people can really rub us up the wrong way. And there are moments when, consumed with our own thoughts, we’re more prone to taking other people’s offhand comments way too personally. Some days calm and kind feels natural and easy. Other days our emotions are raw, our thinking chaotic and our temper easily triggered. Facing what feels like criticism or judgement, we’re easily drawn into arguments and negativity. Christmas is a time for giving, for sharing and for family. Images of idyllic days enveloped in the loving embrace of said family fill our hearts, our minds and our screens. Expectations soar, while our resources may plummet spectacularly low.…
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Enjoying Christmas without being good for Santa.
There’s so much to love about Christmas. The efforts we make to spend time with those we love and check in with those we’ve not seen for a while. Shining lights brighten short winter days, while familiar festive favourites round an open fire warm our bodies and our hearts. But Christmas is an emotional time too. The joy of family gatherings and catching up with our nearest and dearest tinged with sadness as we remember those no longer celebrating alongside us. The weight of expectations, to produce the perfect meal, host the perfect party and source the perfect present. And for children, an added burden and pressure, as the chimes…
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Why kindness is the ultimate superpower.
Kindness can be loud and proud, an exuberant gesture of extreme generosity that wows a crowd. Or quiet and gentle, an unseen act melting the hearts of a solitary someone touched by tenderness. Sometimes mistaken for a weakness or condemned as an empty gesture, kindness is no easy option. In the face of provocation it’s hard to resist the fleeting sense of satisfaction that can come from lashing out in retaliation and spite. Yet the stakes are high as we risk damaging our connection to others and scarring our very souls. Kindness can demand extraordinary courage and a strong resolve. But there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that big…
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You are enough (And why that’s so hard to believe)
This is my entry for the writing contest: You Are Enough, hosted by Positive Writer. http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-are-enough/ Do you ever feel like you’re not good enough? Worried any moment you’ll be exposed as a hopeless wannabe that can’t cut the mustard? Alone at our computer screens it’s easy to imagine everyone else has it all figured out. Yet we are far from alone. Wrestling with self-doubt is an occupational hazard. Agonising over every word, our insecurities looming, we’re easily ambushed by our negative thinking. Layers of anxiety and frustration, heaped upon doubt and despair threaten to keep us from writing at all. Yet this isn’t just a personal failing. It can affect any…
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Decided to home educate? 5 steps to get you on your way.
Deciding to home educate your children is exciting and wildly terrifying at the same time. There’s been soul-searching and sleepless nights. Worry and fear about what could go wrong if you leave school and if you don’t. You’ve spent a long time thinking about home education and now you’ve made the decision, you just want to get on with it. Here are my top five steps to get you started. Deregistration letter. If your child is registered at a school then you need to get their name removed from the school register. It’s important you do this in writing. For a useful template with the appropriate legal wording, visit this page and…
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Reminders to be kinder : 7 fun ways to help you exercise those kindness muscles every single day (and be calmer and more patient too )
Kindness is a gift. And like all the best gifts, it doesn’t matter if you’re giving or receiving, that warm fuzzy glow feels great. The benefits of kindness are huge. Yet some days, life just happens. We get busy, side-tracked and overwhelmed. And then we forget. On those days we could all use a reminder to be kinder. And today, just for you, I’ve got 7 of them. Some are physical reminders while others are habits we can build into our daily routines. All of them help to sew kindness right into the fabric of our day and help pull us back from the brink when we feel those…
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Supporting natural learning : A step by step guide.
Natural learning happens, well… naturally! As humans we’re meant to learn. It’s a lifelong process; an evolutionary design to give us the best chance of survival. We see this clearly in babies as they learn to walk and talk – they learn incredibly complex actions with no need for formal instruction, through a process that is highly efficient. But this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are many ways that we can support our children with natural learning and much that can get in its way. In the eight years that our family has been home educating I’ve seen many times how these positive and negative forces can play out.…
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Why I never tell my children off (or at least, I try not to…)
It’s rude and disrespectful. It’s not a nice way to speak to anyone. It won’t help them learn how to communicate well with others. It’s not an effective way to influence their behaviour. Most importantly though, I value my relationship with my children and I want them to feel safe and secure in their relationship with me. If they make a mistake I want them to talk to me. I want to support them when they need it and for them to feel confident that I’ll help them look for ways to make things better… from clearing up spilt milk to supporting them as adults. If we see our children, or…