How are plants and Stonehenge connected?

Matt has not been well the last few days, with a very sore throat, so we have not been studying. Yesterday he had improved so we made a start back. We are currently reading an extremely powerful and useful book - The Money Bible, by Stuart Wilde. Today in Chapter 6 we learnt about the Ego, and how it drives mankind, and how it can stop us from having what we want. Most importantly, and it was a message that hit home to me personally, is that life must not be taken too seriously. When we take life too seriously we lose the childlike part of ourselves, and thus our creativity, and ability to solve problems and get what we want. Too much concentration and focus and obsession about what we haven't got - doesn't get us what we want. It's almost as if we have to 'let go'. I described to Matt how it's like some couples who are told they cannot have children, and they try for years through IVF etc, and nothing happens, and it's the moment when they 'let go', and accept that they must move on and focus on something else in their lives, that they suddenly find themselves expecting a baby!

As well as the above, we concentrated on some more maths principles that I found Matt had not grasped at school - long multiplication and long division. Home educating means that I can mark his work with him, and he can correct his mistakes and learn from them. We were finding that at school the teacher would write in his books that he must complete his classwork, or correct his work, yet he wouldn't do so. But the teacher never followed up on this, so work was left incomplete and mistakes uncorrected - and thus any weaknesses remain!

We examined/dissected a large sunflower head that I'd taken from the garden, and discussed plants, what they need, and the process of photosynthesis. To illustrate how subjects are all connected, we discussed the necessity for sunlight for plants, and how people in history have worshipped the sun, because without the sun they realised that there would be absolutely no life on earth. This drew us on to look up Stonehenge on the internet, look at and discuss the photos and the possible reasons why it was built. Matt had not heard about Stonehenge.

It's been a good day, and I learnt quite a lot myself too!

Leaflets, Stock Market & Spelling

These last few days have been filled with a mixture of activities. I promote my husband's IT business by putting leaflets in doors, and my son has helped me recently. He gets a commission on any work my husband gets as a result. Matthew has learnt that the more effort he puts into leafleting, ie. the more leaflets we deliver, the more the chance of making money. He has had a couple of commissions as a result, which is positive - shows him there is a reward for effort - a big lesson for life.

I trade the stock market when I get the time, and Matthew was able to be there when some financial news about the Bank of England base rate came out, and the chart showed a massive move in price (+60 points) in less than two minutes! Fortunately I had bought five minutes earlier, so we were elated (thankfully it wasn't the other way!) Matthew was intrigued by this, and wrote about it in his Personal Journal.

I am gradually discovering holes in Matthew's maths skills, so we've been working on long multiplication and long division. He hates doing this, and would rather be outside, going out. I reinforce the message that a good base in maths and english is useful whatever you do in life. And personally, I hate seeing bad spelling - something that seems to abound this planet - grown people, who even write signs for pubs and shops and restaurants - unable to spell! Crikey, what's the world coming to? A sign of poor schooling?

Home Schooling

A lot has happened since I last added a post to this blog, so much so that I have decided to turn the blog into my experiences home educating my son. He is 15. He was attending High School, and half way through his GCSEs. His predicted grades for GCSEs were D, E and F. For him, he could not see the point in going to school. He did not want to be there, although he had lots of friends, always been popular and easy to get a long with. All through his time at school he has not found the academic side easy or rewarding in any way. His difficulty lies in his inability to record thoughts and information in his brain to a piece of paper. If you find this hard, then you'll struggle at school. No matter what they say about support and strategies to help kids with this, they don't exist, and if they do, they are ineffectual. Classes are too big to manage properly, and kids who need extra help get overlooked - that's a fact.

My son Matthew started truanting, the odd day here and there. Then it was every day. As parents we co-operated with the school in getting him there, and trying to encourage him, but when I was bothering to physically take him to the school gate, watching him walk through the front door only to later get a phone call to say he wasn't there - then I started questioning the point of making the effort, and all the pressure and family upset and arguments that were ensuing as a result. It was also worrying that all day, whilst not at school, we had no idea where he was or what he was doing.

We have been home educating him for several months so far, and my son Matthew has been very happy. His general attitude at home has changed, because he feels he is not being pushed into something he doesn't want to do, and because we don't focus on academic attainment.

Our first and foremost aim is that he regains his confidence by releasing the academic pressure, and allowing him to relax and regain his awareness of the world about him, to find and develop his interests, and find a direction in whatever way it may be he wishes to go.

Amongst many things we did today, I took him to see a very old lady (she is 97) who I visit through a charity. I visit her once or twice every week to give her company as she has no family. She is an extremely positive lady, despite being confined to bed and chair and living in one room. She has a love of life and a sparkle in her eye, despite being very frail. She and Matthew spoke for some time, and he shared his interests with her, which she enlarged upon and encouraged him in. What an education for him. He later remarked upon her interest in life and her amazing knowledge about everything. He learnt that elderly people are a great source of knowledge, and that they don't all moan, and that they are to be respected.

A job well done for today.

I've seen it all now

I never thought it would happen, but here it is. Over the Summer holidays CCTV has been installed in schools for kids age 8 to 16. The reason given is "to enhance our school security". From now on our kids will be filmed everywhere but in the loo. I might sound a little whingeing, but there's a big issue here. We have Big Brother all over the place now, in the streets, on trains, in public buildings. Walk around town and watch the cameras following you. Now, this is for our own protection we are told. But it doesn't prevent crime, and I'm not so sure it helps in catching criminals either. Most of them disguise themselves knowing they're being watched. They'll do their deeds whether there's a camera or not.

My daughter actually equated 'being naughty' to why they have cameras in her school. "There are lots of naughty kids in our school" she said when she mentioned the cameras and saw the shock on my face.

The message being put out by the media and government is that the world isn't safe, that we need protecting, we could be burgled, stabbed, shot at any time. I don't want that fear put on my children. And it is a total fabrication. It is no more a dangerous world than it was in the past. If anything bad happens it just gets broadcasted quicker and further. And often, as one famous News Editor said, most of what is in the papers is made up.

And CCTV cameras in schools (when they haven't been there for hundreds of years) is just another example, and a seriously expensive example too. Still, what else would they spend Taxpayers' money on?

A Shocking Insight

We are 99% towards the end of the assessment process to become foster parents, and it is an exciting time for us. It has certainly been a long (since February) and fascinating time. The people we have met and the training we have had has opened our eyes to the experiences and suffering of fostered children.

During a recent visit from the fostering agency, it hit me how the way we deal with our children can have such a dramatic effect on how they see themselves, and everything they do throughout their lives. Of course, with fostered children, their experiences can be so extreme, but even with our own children I realised the impact we can have upon them. One child who had been through various fostering placements actually believed that, because he had been severely beaten as a baby, he must have deserved it, and why - because he was bad and naughty. Once a child has this self-image it will affect how he is and what he does throughout his life, until you can get it through to him, that he is not bad, but that those who beat him were wrong. But it can be difficult, because once a person has this opinion of himself (ie. I'm bad or no good), he will fulfil this prophecy. He will be bad or no good at anything, thus reinforcing it not only to others, but more importantly, to himself. And so the vicious circle continues.

It reminded me how important it is when dealing with our kids not to be condemnatory, nor to label them, not to instil negative thoughts or fear into them, and to always look for the best in them.

A New Approach To Health With Startling Results

Have you ever wondered, when your child is ill, actually WHY he is ill? There is always a root cause to many illnesses. The conventional way to remedy is to go to the Doctor and get a prescription for a medicine that will treat the symptom (not the cause) of the problem. For example, a person who suffers from psoriasis (a skin disorder) may go to their Doctor and be prescribed a cream to apply, which will keep the problem under control, may make it go away, but they find it returns later. The root cause of the problem hasn't been identified and dealt with, only the symptom has been treated, thus, there is no cure.

About 5 months ago my 11 year old daughter started having severe migraines. We didn't identify the attacks as migraines because we had never had this problem before. She was repeatedly being sent home from school, vomiting and having blurred vision. The school started wondering if it was a maths phobia! On one occasion it affected her exam result because she had blurred vision during a reading test. We chose to go to a Kinesiologist (http://www.kinesiology.co.uk/info.htm) and have her tested. The kinesiologist identified that her body was undergoing many changes (puberty) and that it had become intolerant to wheat and dairy products in her diet. Much that it was very difficult to eliminate wheat and dairy in her diet, we did so, and she has not had one migraine attack since! In addition, her whole wellbeing has improved, and she is happier. A true testimony to how diet can affect us, and to how we can look after ourselves by identifying the cause to illness rather than just treating the symptom.

From Buzzing To Bored - One Child and a Computer

To any 'experts' who think that computers and internet games are good for our children, then I have a few real experiences to share. My daughter, age 8, heard about an internet game called Runescape through her brother, who is 14, and likes to play it. It's a fantasy world where you create your character and move around, fighting battles, trading etc to make 'money'. When she discovered this, clearly addictive, game, she went from being a outgoing, happy, inquisitive child to being dissinterested in anything going on in the outside, real world. She lost interest in her friends because they suddenly became 'boring', and did not want to go out. What she DID want to do was play all day every day on the internet. When told to leave it she would go into a rage. Luckily, now we have the summer sunshine, she is happy to go out with me to the beach, and to play outside games, so the lure of the dark computer room is no longer a pull. She suddenly wants to invite her friends round, and to draw and make things. To me, a real experience of what these internet games can do.

My son once said to me "Mum, Runescape is good for you because you get to learn about orienteering". So, will we have a generation of kids who are great orienteers, but don't get off their butts and go outside and do it?!!!