Well, the 'new start' was more of a 'bit of a flop' to be honest, for me anyway. The children are all happy, we started learning about Boudicca, Jamie was interested, and we have great plans to visit places where Boudicca went and check out Iceni villages and museums and old Roman temples, also we were going to go to the snow centre in Hemel, and go swimming.....and then our van broke down :( and that has really put a big downer on me.
Getting out the house is proving to be really hard right now, the weather seems to be always horrible, and nobody wants to go out. Staying in isn't really bothering Alex and Jamie but me and Amelia are getting a bit of cabin fever. Alex really hates going out, it takes him out of his comfort zone and his anxieties start which cause my anxieties to start and its not all that pleasant really....and Jamie has always got some amazing thing she needs to do (like yesterday she found out about a mod for minecraft that you can put an actual screen up in the game and access the internet! in the actual game!!) so going out is one big inconvenience to her......but, I NEED to get out!!
Alex has found some friends to play with online, friends that he doesn't have to verbally communicate with, so he can intereact at a level that he feels comfortable, and he really loves it, but it's really frustrating for me because I have to be relaying messages back and forth as he refuses to type himself! I'm really going to have to stop doing it for him!
At the moment I am finding the constant barrage of voices and requests and everyone talking to me at once and the emotional roller coasters, the fact that I can't seem to follow one action, not even a simple one, completely from start to finish without being called over to see something or hear something or help with something,, I can't even finish a thought, even my mind is hijacked! I try to do things, read a sentence, listen to a conversation, do some housework, anything, but I just get interrupted all the time and I'm feeling like I'm just dangling around being pushed and pulled into whatever direction and I have no say in anything!
But this is all my fault. I'm letting it happen. I'm slipping back into that old groove again, but this time I know whats happening, this time, I can stop it.
I'm writing this post to show that it's not always plain sailing, this home
education lark. But I need to remind myself that I didn't go into home education because it was an easy
option, I'm doing this for my children, not for me. I'm doing it because
my children can be free to be totally themselves, follow their hearts
and become who they are supposed to be become. So while my children are
off following their passions, I have this time to find peace in my head.
I need to find my own life and the answers to my problems while
supporting my children. It's really hard being a parent of autistic children, not ever getting a break really takes its toll and I think I got so stressed out over Christmas and then got all geared up to get stuff happening in the new year, that I completely forgot to be kind to myself.
I think I need to get back on the case.....
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Monday, 30 December 2013
A New Start :)
It has been SOOOO long since I last blogged!!
Quite a lot has changed attitude-wise.
I have been home educating my children for 2 years now, and I have learnt so much, I've evolved loads. The first year I spent most of that time trying to figure Alex out, realising he has some form of Autismbut I spent a long time reading books, asking lots of questions, getting lots of advice and now I'm happy to just let him get on with it, and he is now quite a confident, happy boy.
I also spent a lot of time figuring out HOW to home educate. There are a few different styles - structured, following the national curriculum, semi structured, unstructured, and completely autonmous lifestyle. For a while a worried about where my family fitted into all of that, I got carried away with other peoples opinions, looking outwards for a way forward, but I wasn't looking at my own family! So I've dropped all the shoulds and shouldn'ts and the 'where do we fit in?' and I'm now just focusing on us.
And I've learnt that we are all introverts in our family! I was going against my introverted-ness and throwing myself and my children into all sorts of groups and meet-ups thinking that I MUST socialise my children! When in fact I was pushing my children into situations that didn't make them feel comfortable at all, and it's ok to not want to be around lots of people all the time! So now, we just have little meet-ups, with people we feel comfortable with, in situations we feel comfortable in, if it's not a pleasant experience then it's not worth doing it.
I have been allowing my children to follow their own path, not insisting that they learn anything in particular, I really don't see the benefit of trying to force information that doesn't have relevance to them, only for the information to not stick. So after Jamie had been out of school for a year and 4 months, she came to me and said she would like to start doing structured learning. She would like to study maths, English, science, history, cooking and art! She would also like to learn everything she can about chickens, because we have 6 rescue hens now and Jamie loves them to bits! I had a big chat with her about she wants to go about it, resisting the urge to become 'teacher' although she does want me to become teacher with the art, she is happy to do English and maths workbooks every morning (except weekends) do a couple of science experiments a week, happy to choose a topic for history - she has chosen to learn about prehistory, the continental drift and evolution. I also suggested that we carry on learning about the suffragettes and life in the victorian times as we were doing a few weeks ago and she is happy to learn about that too, so we've got lots of writing pads to fill up and documentaries to watch and places to visit in the new year, I'm really excited about it! She's also learning about computer science too as she has her own Minecraft server, can download and install mods and is learning a bit of code!
Alex is still really into Minecraft, I'm amazed at how much he is learning through it. He's even had a go playing online with other home educated children, he's not too sure about it and there is a bit of a communication problem as he can't handle hearing the other people talking in his ear when he wears the headphones so he refuses to wear them, but he still manages to be able to find other ways to communicate. He's really good at building design on Minecraft and said he would love to build a structure in real life and in the new year we will be visiting different types of buildings and taking photos so he can get some ideas to build things on Minecraft. He's also really good at building adventure maps on Minecraft, inventing different games for people to do, he's not quite built one on his online account yet though as its relatively new.
Amelia is 3 now and can also play Minecraft really well on the xbox! She just needs to learn how to craft things on survival mode and she'll have it sussed! She absolutely LOVES dinosaurs, turtles, tortoises, lizards, snakes, fish, parrots and owls so she's been learning lots about them by watching documentaries and reading books and visiting places. She's also really pleased with herself because she has just learnt all the words to 'The Prehistoric Animal Brigade' song!
I'm really looking forward to the new year, this year has been a huge year for me. I've really looked into myself and I'm clearing away lots of things from my past that have been holding me back, I feel like I have changed a lot and I think I'm feeling much better about myself, more confident about being myself and it must be better as I'm not anywhere near as stressed out as I was a few months ago, I have a much more peaceful and loving relationship with my children, but I still have a bit to work on myself, I'm getting there though!
I'm going to try and start doing this blog more often again, I think it'll be good to help keep my head on the right track and have fewer wobbles! :)
Quite a lot has changed attitude-wise.
I have been home educating my children for 2 years now, and I have learnt so much, I've evolved loads. The first year I spent most of that time trying to figure Alex out, realising he has some form of Autismbut I spent a long time reading books, asking lots of questions, getting lots of advice and now I'm happy to just let him get on with it, and he is now quite a confident, happy boy.
I also spent a lot of time figuring out HOW to home educate. There are a few different styles - structured, following the national curriculum, semi structured, unstructured, and completely autonmous lifestyle. For a while a worried about where my family fitted into all of that, I got carried away with other peoples opinions, looking outwards for a way forward, but I wasn't looking at my own family! So I've dropped all the shoulds and shouldn'ts and the 'where do we fit in?' and I'm now just focusing on us.
And I've learnt that we are all introverts in our family! I was going against my introverted-ness and throwing myself and my children into all sorts of groups and meet-ups thinking that I MUST socialise my children! When in fact I was pushing my children into situations that didn't make them feel comfortable at all, and it's ok to not want to be around lots of people all the time! So now, we just have little meet-ups, with people we feel comfortable with, in situations we feel comfortable in, if it's not a pleasant experience then it's not worth doing it.
I have been allowing my children to follow their own path, not insisting that they learn anything in particular, I really don't see the benefit of trying to force information that doesn't have relevance to them, only for the information to not stick. So after Jamie had been out of school for a year and 4 months, she came to me and said she would like to start doing structured learning. She would like to study maths, English, science, history, cooking and art! She would also like to learn everything she can about chickens, because we have 6 rescue hens now and Jamie loves them to bits! I had a big chat with her about she wants to go about it, resisting the urge to become 'teacher' although she does want me to become teacher with the art, she is happy to do English and maths workbooks every morning (except weekends) do a couple of science experiments a week, happy to choose a topic for history - she has chosen to learn about prehistory, the continental drift and evolution. I also suggested that we carry on learning about the suffragettes and life in the victorian times as we were doing a few weeks ago and she is happy to learn about that too, so we've got lots of writing pads to fill up and documentaries to watch and places to visit in the new year, I'm really excited about it! She's also learning about computer science too as she has her own Minecraft server, can download and install mods and is learning a bit of code!
Alex is still really into Minecraft, I'm amazed at how much he is learning through it. He's even had a go playing online with other home educated children, he's not too sure about it and there is a bit of a communication problem as he can't handle hearing the other people talking in his ear when he wears the headphones so he refuses to wear them, but he still manages to be able to find other ways to communicate. He's really good at building design on Minecraft and said he would love to build a structure in real life and in the new year we will be visiting different types of buildings and taking photos so he can get some ideas to build things on Minecraft. He's also really good at building adventure maps on Minecraft, inventing different games for people to do, he's not quite built one on his online account yet though as its relatively new.
Amelia is 3 now and can also play Minecraft really well on the xbox! She just needs to learn how to craft things on survival mode and she'll have it sussed! She absolutely LOVES dinosaurs, turtles, tortoises, lizards, snakes, fish, parrots and owls so she's been learning lots about them by watching documentaries and reading books and visiting places. She's also really pleased with herself because she has just learnt all the words to 'The Prehistoric Animal Brigade' song!
I'm really looking forward to the new year, this year has been a huge year for me. I've really looked into myself and I'm clearing away lots of things from my past that have been holding me back, I feel like I have changed a lot and I think I'm feeling much better about myself, more confident about being myself and it must be better as I'm not anywhere near as stressed out as I was a few months ago, I have a much more peaceful and loving relationship with my children, but I still have a bit to work on myself, I'm getting there though!
I'm going to try and start doing this blog more often again, I think it'll be good to help keep my head on the right track and have fewer wobbles! :)
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
It's a montage!!! add music of your choice....
Hiya,blog at last! We've really busy, going all over the place, also spending a lot of time at home while Alex (and everyone else!) plays Minecraft, but here are a few things we've done inbetween building cobblestone fortesses and being blown up by creepers -
There's been a bit of art:
Some karoke:
Some baking:
(Amelia disappeared off and I found her with the bag of sugar in the bathroom....)
Some sight-seeing : St. Pancreas Hotel
Russell Square gardens (A statue of the Duke of Bedford)
The British Museum!!
Real Gold!!!
Lots and lots of Egyptian statues and carvings.....
American totem poles (I loved them!)
Easter Island statue...
I can't remember what this is but I love it!
Reading a braile book....
This was the only thing Alex found interesting in the whole museum -
The walk back to the station, St Pancreas Hotel again- cool building.
Stockwood Discovery Centre : Old carriages....
Kings Cross again!
A big old steam roller....
Playing outside....
In the Bee House.....
Watch out behind you!!!
Jamie being an archeologist and scraping away to find the fossils (this made SO much mess)
Amelia playing with porridge on the kitchin floor....
My new tablet is loved by all....
Jamie her own laptop......
KIDS at Aldernham......
Amelia playing with different nuts, with a very interested Kiba...
Jamie and her money she saved up for charity to help animals in need......
Learning about the world.......
and Amelia learning too....
Alex messing around with Google Earth....
and Amelia too!
We're getting chickens soon, so we had a look at some.....
and some Rheas....
Sandy RSPB Nature Reserve, they have pylons there too ;p
The Newt Pond....
Counting rabbit holes....
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