Oranges growing on apple trees

Oranges growing on apple trees

Growing kids who are different

Even the best of us sometimes slip into the ideas of what our children "should" be. Yet the greatest gift a parent can give is let the child be what they are. Whether they are a scientist, or a poet, a dancer perhaps or a builder.
Maybe they don't know what they are yet. That's fine too.
Sometimes we resist how the child is because we know that different is hard and difficult. We want to make our orange an apple, or an apple an orange.
We want our children to be better than us and in so doing we make a gap between what is and what we want and it creates a distance. A divide. It terrifies me how often I see parents plan their children's whole lives, even after University.
These are the subjects you will study. These are the qualifications you will have. This is where you will go to University. This is the career you will have.

It normally goes one of two ways either the child is constant disappointment, totally unable to achieve the level or skill they want them to have, feeling they are less and less worthy. The second is that they constantly achieve yet never feel truly happy where they are. There is a distance, a shadow in the self, the person they are covered in the person they have to be in order to be "right" and "good".
The child loses all right to be themselves. All right to express their needs and desires. It erases them from their own life, making them apathetic (why they couldn't possibly get it right on their own) or angry (everything is pointless).
It is a version of the "stage-mom". The one who primps and pimps, one who pushes and pushes.

The more I explore my Home Education journey the more I feel it is an exercise in lovingly letting go. Hug, cuddle, cwtch, talk, laugh but let go of the out come. Trust the process. Any time I try and "make" something work, or push too hard it gets all snagged up.
The best moments come when I relax and just be. Be there, listen, don't take over and don't give up.

If it isn't fun, don't do it.

Or if it isn't fun, make it. It is easy to get bogged down with the "stuff" of life and not appreciate how wonderful it all is. It is important that you as an adult do things that you enjoy and that make you happy. You can do it alone or with your children. All that matters is that you do. Having fun and enjoying your life is important. That doesn't mean you don't have to scrub the loo's, it mean you might sing or promise yourself some "you time" afterwards. Allow yourself your failures and your bad days, and let it go.

Allow yourself that child-like wonder and let your kids grow.

Home education is far too important to be taken seriously.