Moving with kids is never easy. We have managed to do 2 International moves and a number of smaller moves in London since we become parents and it does not get easier, I never seem to get it right. But what the latest move taught me is that kids really do actually want to learn if only us parents would take the stress/ nagging out of it.
I decided that we would have a weeks break from our homeschooling while we moved but my Pink had other plans (that is her sitting at my desk surrounded by boxes doing some maths).
She loved joining in with packing the boxes and driving in the van with her dad to take them to the new house but what really surprised me was that once we got to the new house she very quickly got her “school stuff” out and was drawing pictures, writing notes and reading her readers. I was not expecting this. I often have to ask her more than once to do her writing or her readers but yet in the week that I took all the pressure off and was trying to get our new house sorted she did it all by herself. Makes one think that maybye half the battle is actually just us parents telling the kids what to do instead of letting them do it themselves when they are ready.
Everyday this week Pink has done something that I would consider school work and everyday this week it has been Pink getting it out and doing it, no asking from me, no direction from me, just Pink wanting to read or Pink wanting to write a letter to her dad, practice some maths or draw a picture etc etc.
In our homeschooling adventure I have tried to follow her lead and do activities based on what she is interested in (eg animals or our latest flower craze) but I have always insisted that we do some basic maths and phonics within these interests. So I suppose it is part child lead learning, part structured learning. We have days where she is excited to do her work and days where it is a battle to get her to sit down and do it. We have days where she seems to spend the whole day doing activity after activity followed by days of barely doing anything but I have always had a basic plan or idea in my head that we need to cover certain things within a certain time frame. But as we go further along our homeschooling journey I am adjusting the way that we do things and I am noticing that the biggest adjustment is actually the way in which I TRUST my KIDS. I am learning (I do backslide from time to time) that my kids respond to me trusting them as little people and respecting them and their wants (please do not get me wrong here I do still believe in letting the kids know when they have crossed a line).
From starting out not sure if we should homeschool I know am realising that I am actually the one learning the most, I am learning so much about my kids and the little people that they are already. I am learning that kids naturally want to learn and explore the world around them and that they will do it even without us adults nagging them.
Another exciting development our move brought was both kids moving into their children’s bedroom. In our old house we had a mommy and daddy room and a children’s room but both the kids always slept in the mommy and daddy room. I never made a big deal of it as I tried sleep training Pink once when she was 2 years old and both Pink and I ended up miserable. Pink is a very sensitive, gentle child who still needs lots of help from us to manage her SPD so we never wanted the sleeping arrangements to become an issue. She needs a good nights sleep to manage with her hyper-senses and for a long time that meant her being able to reach a hand out and know that mommy was there. The first 2 nights in the new house Pink and Blue slept in the new mommy and daddy room, but once they settled into the new house Pink informed us that she was sleeping in the childrens room and NO ADULTS ALLOWED. Very chuffed, once again my little girl is showing me that when we stop pushing and let them take the lead they actually get their by themselves when the time is right. Now if I only I can remember that more often !!!!
ofamily learning together 