Guilty Musings

There are a lot of wonderful articles and blog posts out there already about guilt. It seems to come with the territory of being a parent. Or a child. Or, you know, any person out there. Guilt for going back to work. Guilt for not going back to work. Guilt for feeding your child freezer food two tea times in a row. Guilt for accidentally over-melting the face on your daughter's Hama Bead Queen Elsa (the last one was me today. Managed to salvage it. Phew!)

I'm not going to go into the causes or reasons we feel guilty, or a long diatribe against societal pressures and oppression (though there is lots of interesting food for thought in all of those areas.) What I've been thinking about today is how we deal with those feelings. How we make ourselves feel better. How we manage to pick ourselves up and carry on after whatever guilt-inducing incident or feeling has occurred and how that experience can actually be a healthy, positive one.

Elizabeth is in a dance show next weekend. The rehearsal schedule has been pretty intense; 7-8 hours for three Sundays in a row, plus the usual 1 ½ hours twice a week of classes. She loves doing it, we love that she loves it, and she is doing so, so well. Regardless of that, however, the strain is starting to show. Yesterday at the dress rehearsal, there were patches where I was Grumpy Mummy. I feel guilty about that. I feel guilty that I didn't speak to her as calmly or politely as I try to when it comes to interacting with my children. I feel guilty that she, in turn, will quite probably go on to use the same grumpy tone with her brother at some point in the future. I feel guilty that, for a few isolated moments, I didn't live up to the expectations and standards I have set for myself.

So what can I do?

One option is to ignore it. The feeling fades eventually or at least becomes manageable –in the meantime, its just a case of riding it out and then pretending it never happened. The problem then is that the feeling hasn't really been dealt with; it's been pushed to the side, buried, and has an annoying habit of popping up again when you least expect it. My worst time for that is in the early hours of the morning; there is nothing worse than waking up and just lying there, dwelling on the very thing I have been trying to forget.

Another option is to learn from it. When guilt comes from realising we've done something that, with hindsight, we shouldn't have/didn't want to, it can be a great spur to change things for the future. That can be a very healthy type of guilt, the sort that leads to positive action. I don't want to shout at my child. Therefore, I will try my hardest not to.

With that, however, comes the all-important caveat of being kind to oneself. It sounds trite, but can be remarkably hard to follow. Take the snapping at Elizabeth incident. I don't like to speak to my children like that. I don't want to do it again. But, at some point, I very probably will. I could beat myself up over it each time, let the guilt intensify and wallow. Or, I could think about how I would approach another person who came to me with the same situation. On a message board or Facebook group or with a friend in front of me – would I add to the guilt by pointing out how they had messed up, or would I give them a hug, tell them it's okay, and help them to move on? If, by realising I don't want to snap, I manage not to in five situations out of ten, that's five more times than before.

Another thing I find helpful is to write a list. For every one thing that you feel guilty about, think of two positive things. Yes, I snapped. But I kept calm at a lot of points where I didn't feel very calm at all, (buns. I hate buns. Even with the magic of a hot buns rolly thing. The only thing worse than having to do a bun is having to do a bun in a very short space of time.) I also managed to deal with the thousand costumes/accessories/shoes, get them all to the rehearsal and back again in one piece, and had a really nice chat with Elizabeth on the walk home from the bus where she told me each and every thing she loved about the day.

I was going to add lowering our expectations and standards to the list, but then reconsidered. There is nothing wrong with having a high bar – the trick is to not beat yourself up about it when we don't hit it every single time. When it comes to how I interact with the kids, I keep my standards high because I think they deserve the best I can give. That is what I aim for, because they are worth it. I have also come to accept the fact that I won't hit that every time. And, just as I'd forgive the children or a friend for that, I can also do the same with myself.

Finally, I'm a very visual person. Visual approaches also seem to work well with our children. When there is something that needs doing that the children don't particularly want to do, (running out of bread and needing to dash to the shops, bath before a big event, going somewhere that one sibling wants to go and the other doesn't) I've found something that helps is to draw a circle on a piece of paper to represent the day. Then I draw a very small circle or speck in that big circle to represent the thing that needs doing. The thing, in most cases, takes up a very, very small part of the whole. One, tiny little moment, with the whole rest of the day around it to be enjoyed. The same approach can be taken with guilt. I've realised that those little guilt-inducing moments that can take over our lives if we let them, are actually, in the grand scheme of things, very small. The same as those little specks of things we don't want to do, they leave the rest of each day free for living and enjoying.

* A necessary edit - the above is after debriefing with  anyone else involved (in this case Elizabeth) - we had a very frank conversation in the toilet where I explained why I was being grumpy and apologised. She forgave me, no one else had noticed - it's forgiving yourself  that can be the hardest part. 

Goopy-Goo!

We had a grumpy, tired and fed up day last week. (Read about it here) It wasn't all bad though; we decided to do an experiment that's been on the "to do" list for a while now - making goopy-goo. Alfred was immediately on board as it sounded like something from a Dr Seuss book, and Elizabeth just likes any excuse to get her hands dirty. So, we gathered together our equipment and off we went.

First, we measured out two cups of cornflour into our bowl.

Then we did the same with a cup of water.

Then came the really fun part.

Mixing it together.

The book suggested using your hands, but Alfred decided a spoon was a better idea for his turn. So between us we mixed it all together until we had goo.

 This wasn't just any old goo though. This goo acted as both a solid and a liquid. I admit I wasn't actually expecting it to work or be quite as exciting as it was. 

Roll the mixture together between your hands and you get a ball. 

The moment you stop rolling? It's liquid again! Hours of fun!

The science behind it? Cornflour particles are long, stringy, and don't dissolve in water. Instead, they spread out – applying pressure to the mixture joins the particles so it feels solid, take away the pressure and the particles can slide over each other again and appears as liquid!

It was a great, hands on experiment that the kids could pretty much do by themselves, which of course met with their approval. And Alfred even dipped his finger in at the end. 

One Of Those Days

I love my children. I love the fact that we home educate. But some days? Some days, I really, honest to goodness, cannot be bothered. With anything. Sometimes that works fine and the kids are happy to take themselves off and play and amuse themselves. Others, like today, they are also feeling in a funk and then it's a whole different ball game. It's been a manic couple of weeks; birthdays, visitors, other people's birthdays, dance rehearsals etc etc. It's all been fab, but today we are all exhausted and grumpy and counting down the hours until bed time.

This doesn't mean that home educating is bad, or that we've made the wrong decision, or that we're raising a pair of monsters. (though by goodness, there may have been times today when the thought has crossed my mind!) It just means we're having one of those days that everyone has, where you just have to work together, get through it as best you can and pat yourselves on the back when you all get to the end of it in one piece.

So what helps in those times when your kids want constant interaction and you don't? As the adult of the piece, it falls to me to get us through this with as few tears as possible, however much I feel like curling up in bed and leaving them to it.

The first thing I have to resign myself to is that the day will be one of doing the bare minimum. Housework for a start has been abandoned. I got some washing out on the line, and I washed the breakfast dishes up. But that's it. I could try getting the hoover out or dusting the dining room, but that would be a certain recipe for kids arguing, me shouting and everyone ending up more grumpy than we started.

Leaving the house (always something of a battle at the best of times due to everything being so Shiny and Pretty and Distracting) is also off the cards. Yes, it's a brilliantly sunny and beautiful day, but that won't matter a jot if we're too busy arguing with each other to enjoy it.

Realising that there are only a finite number of hours in the day and that chances are tomorrow we'll all be back to normal again is a huge bonus. Days like this are the exception rather than the norm, and just knowing that is that little extra push to keep on going.

Staying calm. Being shouted at by an irate six year old for the fiftieth time because I couldn't read her mind can be intensely frustrating at the best of times, and is, quite frankly, annoying as hell when you're tired and grumpy yourself. Hugging rather than shouting back seems to be doing the trick,; she stomps off, I leave her to it, and she comes back a short while later for a cuddle and we start again. Rinse and repeat. Today is about coping, back to basics.

With lowered/non-existent expectations, , it's actually turned out to be an okay day. We've done bubbles in the garden (courtesy of some fab little bubble packets from a party bag yesterday), played Planes, Space Race and Pirates of the Caribbean Top Trumps, (great for getting to grips with numbers and good reading practice) experimented with pavement chalks, (writing and art all in one!) played noughts and crosses (drawing and writing and strategy rolled into one) and hangman (writing, spelling and reading). Oh and we made really cool goop with cornflour and water that is both solid and liquid, but that will be another post on its own.

They are now running around upstairs shrieking and coming up with ways to torment Rapunzel. She's a doll, it's okay, and much better than tormenting each other. And I'm taking a moment to have a drink and a sit and write this blog post. Later, I might even get to do a Zumba DVD workout while the kids have some tablet time, but I'm not going to count on it. We'll have tea, read, books, they'll go to bed, and Mummy will have a glass of wine and recharge ready for whatever comes tomorrow.

(I've also learnt that even on Days That Need To End there is room for fun – when you can spend ten minutes with your six year old nearly wetting themselves laughing because they've guessed “Butterxly” (say it out loud) as a word in Hangman, it can't be all bad.)

(That one was MONKEY - it was BUTTERFLY that caused the giggles!)

Turning Points

Today was one of those turning points, those defining moments in our parenting journey. We all have them, at different times and over different things, depending on our individual child and place along the parenting road. I was going to blog about something else entirely, but this felt far more important.

This morning, Alfred (four next week!) joined in an hour long PE session. With about fifteen other children, from four to nine years old, he listened to the instructor, joined in with a variety of running-based games, learnt how to play with a parachute, and proudly went to collect a lollipop with the rest of the group at the end of it. He didn't push anyone, he didn't run off, he didn't shout. The only time I spoke to him at all was in response to his excitedly pausing to tell me how much fun he was having. He was one of the group, had a thoroughly red face and fabulous time, and is desperate to go back next week to do it all again.

Why all the big fuss? For a lot of children it wouldn't register as much at all – Elizabeth, for instance, was happy with that sort of session from the moment she could toddle, and, as you do when you have only one child who conveniently fits with your ideas and approaches, at the time, I just assumed that was how things were. Life isn't just a learning curve for the kids though. From the start, Alfred has been very very different to his sister, and the things she liked and thrived on (people her own age, groups, company, organised games and activities) were things that caused him huge amounts of stress and anxiety. As a result, we re-assessed our thinking on a whole load of things, and quickly made the decision that, as with Elizabeth, we would follow at his pace and take his lead for what he wanted to do and not force him into situations that we knew he would find uncomfortable.

I've mentioned before that children (and dogs, and anything else that moves quickly for that matter) his own size or smaller have been a huge issue for Alfred. Large groups, lots of noise, and too much stimulation in general are also really hard for him to handle. If, six months go, anyone had suggested trying him at a group like we went to today, I'd have laughed them out of the room.

Why does he find it all so stressful? In recent months he's been able to finally articulate his fears. “I'm scared, Mummy, they going to hurt me,” he has said on several occasions. Now, I don't think for one moment that every other kid is out to get him. But if that's how he feels, his anxieties need to be taken as seriously as anyone else's, and that is, I hope, what we have managed to do over the last few years.

I am glad beyond words that we have gone at his pace, kept him close when he needed it, protected him when he felt vulnerable, helped him through difficult situations rather than shouting and punishing and insisting that he “Just has to learn.” Yes, there have been a fair share of moments when I just haven't been able to intervene, (and trust me, there is nothing worse than spotting that look from across the room and know you have no hope in hell of getting there before someone else's kid goes flying,) but I am certain now that we have taken the right approach for him.

Because, today, was a massive achievement for our little boy. I was so very proud of him, and, more importantly, he was proud of himself. And he got there without being forced or shamed or pushed to do something before he was ready to do it.

Moments like this are what it is all about :) 

One exhausted and very happy little boy eating his lunch on the bus home!

And, because I didn't get any pictures of the session itself, a couple more of Alfred coming into his own lately:

Let It Go!

(Don't worry, I'm not about to write a post about Frozen, although I have been humming that song all day. That's what you get when your six year old gets the DVD for her birthday and you end up downloading the song and playing it on repeat. As a general rule I go for “If you can't beat them, join them.”)

There are days when you have ideas. Plans. Nothing major, because that way lies madness, but just an idea of how the day might go. Like today. It's lovely and sunny for the first time all week, our original plans were cancelled due to friends' illness, and lots of lovely hours to fill with fun. Perfect day, thought I, for a walk to the shops for some salad bits for tea, a play in the garden with the water tray and trampoline and maybe even some bubbles, before meeting with friends in the park after lunch. With that fixed in my mind, I figured it would be as simple as a case of us getting dressed, having breakfast, and then we'd be on our way.

Only it doesn't always work like that. Those wonderful little people who we are allowing to develop at their own pace, and nurturing to be independent, strong-minded individuals? They decided they weren't having any of it.

What is wrong with them? They like going to the shops (especially as sweets can happen) the garden is fun, they've been asking for the water tray all week, and they love going to see friends. From the reaction I received, you'd think I'd suggested throwing all their toys away or eating dog poo.

It's fine, I thought after the first refusal. We can work through this! Accordingly, I rephrased my plans, thinking perhaps they hadn't understood what I was suggesting.

Nope.

Same response from the kids, only this time delivered somewhat more emphatically and leaving me in no doubt as to how they felt about the idea.

Deep breaths time. I could still make this work. But those often helpful techniques of getting down to their level, empathising and trying to talk things through did bugger all. Then I cajoled, begged, insisted, all to no avail. The eldest promptly declared she wasn't going anywhere or doing anything, and hasn't stirred from her bed where she retired with her tablet at 8am this morning. Alfred's response was to dog me with constant requests to build this or that train track, help him with Hama beads, turn his tablet on, and yelling his head off every time I dared leave the room. If I were actually tearing my hair out every time I have felt like doing so today, I would be completely bald by now.

Then, in the midst of all of this, I had one of those Parenting Epiphany Moments. If I were in a cartoon, a great big light bulb or a bubble with “Duh!” inside would be floating above my head. Why on earth was I trying to dictate what happened on a day when we didn't actually have to do anything? There are times when things can't be avoided. Appointments that need to be kept, work and family commitments that can't always be juggled, but today just wasn't one of them. It was, in fact, a lovely blank canvas that could be filled with all sorts of possibilities, if I could only just let go enough to allow them to happen.

What then was more important – forcing everyone to conform to a set of plans just because I thought they might be a good idea, or the three of us working out what would actually work for all of us? With a grumpy, belligerent nearly four year old sat on my lap, I realised that it was the latter.

Post Epiphany Train Track

Why is it so hard to abandon plans when they clearly aren't going to work? So often I grumble about the kids being rigid in their thinking and attitudes, but really I am just as guilty. I love to go to the cinema. And read. And do Zumba. But I don't want to do them all the time. Why then should my children automatically want to do something they've enjoyed in the past, just because I've decided it might be a nice idea now? I'd feel pretty peed off if, for instance, when I really wanted to finish the latest True Blood book I've just got out of the library, someone came along and insisted I go and watch a film instead, even if it was a film I have always enjoyed. Why then would it be any different with the children?

Now it's coming up for lunch time, Elizabeth is stirring, (I can hear her talking to her barbies and singing the aforementioned song under her breath – I can no longer tell who is enabling who in this family!) and Alfred and I are spending a companionable half hour or so snuggled up on the sofa with our respective electronic devices and chatting about crabs. None of us are any the worse for it – in fact, I would argue that we're all a lot happier – the kids for being listened to, and me for not continuing to bang my head against a brick wall.

Did the morning go as I envisaged? Not in the slightest. The plan is still to go to the park to meet friends once we've eaten, and every one is happy with that. The difference is, we'll all go in a good mood, rather than grumpy and resentful after hours of bickering and feeling disconnected beforehand.

And, because of that, I might even end up getting those salad bits on the way home after all.

"Anna and Elsa", By Elizabeth

A Marshmallows and Spaghetti Kinda Day

Today we did Science!

A long while ago when we first started on our HE journey, I bought a book of science experiments in the certain knowledge that science was one of the things we would do. My eldest flicked through it and shrugged, and my youngest played with the lovely chunky spiral binding and then threw it at his sister. The book has, therefore, sat on a book shelf for the best part of a year and a half, with only a change of scene when we moved.

Then, last week, our very-nearly four year old little guy came bouncing into the kitchen. “Look, Mummy, look!” he exclaimed, “My want to do THIS!” He was holding the long-forgotten book of science experiments in his hand, and quivering with excitement at the prospect of building structures out of spaghetti and mini marshmallows. We agreed we would buy the necessary items as soon as possible, and so the next morning and one trip to Tesco later, we were ready to go.

This is what we got up to:

The first stage was to make a cube - we soon discovered though that the shape just isn't stable enough to stand up on its own, and that spaghetti snaps really easily. (Also, when you have a whole bowl full of mini marshmallows, you might just end up "accidentally" eating one. Or three.)

While Elizabeth experimented on her own, Alfred and I did some tests with adding in some diagonals - and guess what? It not only stood up, but took the weight of a toy camper van, much to his excitement.

Elizabeth's perseverance with the "stupid" spaghetti paid off - after some trial and error and a lot of peering at the book, she managed this very respectable pyramid.

And just because she could - "Look, Mummy, I've made an 'E' for Elizabeth!"

We had a great time, and those marshmallows are, it must be said, very yummy indeed and make a lovely mid-morning snack!

Alfred then decided he wanted a structure that was strong enough to actually play with, so we went out and bought cocktail sticks, BBQ skewers and some blue tac – I'll no doubt post again soon on our progress in that department!

Just in case anyone is interested, the book we used was this lovely little tome.