Raising Children in Freedom

Why video games and food is your problem and not mine

2015-02-28T16:26:00.000-08:00

Since I embarked on this parenting adventure nearly nine years ago now, one of the things that have surprised me about the well-meaning people around us is that they expose my children to things that they consider bad for them and then expect me to say, 'No, they can't have that.' In other words, rather than interacting with the children, they seek their approval by giving them sweets or presents, sometimes lots of them. They're cool, and it is my job to spoil the fun. They expect me to be the controlling mother that I'm not. But when I fail to act as expected, they give me that look which says, 'Are you going to let them have all those lollies!?'

I must say, it is family and friends who do this! People who don't know us are more respectful, or better informed. Most people, if they want to give my kids sweets and they don't know me, they ask me first if that's okay. I always say it's okay to ask the children themselves. When they were very little and they didn't even know what a lolly was, I said no, thank you, no need. It was not me who introduced the children to sweets, ice cream and sodas. It was other people.

Most people find it shocking that I don't set limits to whatever my kids can eat. When I point out that it is them who are giving the bad stuff to my children, they say, well, yeah, that's what extended family and friends do, and it's the parents' job to control their children. I don't agree. In fact, I think it is rude to do this, because we parents have a lot of work and social pressure as it is. The rest of you could be more helpful by giving something you consider to be good rather than bad.

If I think alcohol is bad for you, I'm not going to buy you a bottle of booze for your birthday. But if I'm going to the shops and you ask me to buy you that bottle, I will. If you're an alcoholic, that's a symptom of deeper problems. I think all addictions hide unresolved issues from childhood. I don't think a person has an addictive nature just because. But that's just my opinion, of course.

With the children I do the same. I never offer to buy them sweets, ice cream, chips, sodas, packaged stuff and fast food. In fact, I only ever offer them fruit and veggies, free range chicken, our own eggs, sustainable kangaroo meat, some fish, and homemade meals prepared at home. The same stuff I eat. But because they have tried the food other people have given them and they say it's yummy, they ask for it when we go to the supermarket. Yesterday they asked for an ice cream. Not a box of them, just one each. Dave said he only wanted one because if we bought the box and he knew they were in our freezer, it would be too hard for him to control himself: he would want to have two or three in one go and then he would have a tummy ache. Dave and Alex are free to eat whatever we have in the house, and as much of it as they want, so he chose to set a limit for himself. Alex also decided not to buy a box. He then asked me why is it that people sell so much bad stuff in the supermarket, why do this to consumers, especially children who have trouble controlling themselves? Dave replied for me. He said, 'That's because they're only interested in making money, not in doing good to other people.'

Another example of Dave and Alex being able to control themselves without me ever having done so for them happened last Christmas. In previous years they had asked for an advent calendar and both of them ate all the chocolates in two or three days, incapable of having just one a day until Christmas Day. I laughed at this and remembered that I did the same as a kid. I never ever managed to have just the one per day. There was a lot of control in my life, at school, at home, but in this case, because I had freedom to eat all the chocolates at once, I did. Last year, however, both Dave and Alex decided totally of their own accord that they were going to do it properly. And they did. I don't think it was even a big effort. That to me proves, once again, that children can control themselves. They only need to be more trusted.

Video games and electronics is another aspect of modern parenting that is a problem for most people but not for me. It wasn't me who introduced the children to them. I don't watch television and I don't play video games. As a result, my kids didn't do it either until they were about three (a lot later in the case of video games). I am responsible for opening the world of books to them, only because I love reading, not because they're better or worse than the new technologies. When they did start, though, they caught up with their peers very quickly. I was quite amazed at this, but children are like that, aren't they: if they're really interested they pick it up straight away.

What amazes me now is the vast majority of parents who demonise video games, or accept them but only in small doses. Reading books is at present considered an effective way of learning. Playing video games or watching television isn't (my kids still don't watch television; they watch YouTube videos instead). I know from experience that this is simply not true. My kids learn from the books we read only if they're truly interested. They are learning a hell of a lot more from the video games they play. There are already lots of studies proving how good video games are for learning. A while ago I read one claiming that professionals who had played video games when growing up had become better doctors and engineers. But I don't need to read any studies. I can see the results every day at home. Alex is now learning to write with a game called Scribblenauts. It's not meant to be educational, just fun. Dave and Alex don't play games that are obviously meant to be educational. I dislike them too.

So why would I set limits when my children are learning so much from watching the videos they like and playing the games they like? I don't, of course not. Other parents do because 'it's bad for them' (really? Says who?) or because they have to do their meaningless time-wasting homework. Again, when the children are with me, they know that I'm not going to tell them to switch off their tablets and do something else. They do it themselves, when they've had enough or they get bored. Just like I do, when I've had enough of being at the computer doing one of the things I love, which is writing. They do plenty of other things, like playing outside and with other kids. The important thing is, they decide how to spend their time, they don't need an adult controlling how much time they've spent on each activity.

What it means to be a Natural Learner

2015-01-30T15:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I'll keep this blog for much longer, because I feel like I'm repeating myself, and I get tired. When people ask me what we do, I tell them. They seem to understand, but then, after a while, they ask again and sometimes they even say, 'But it looks like you don't do anything. The kids just play. We don't see you teaching them anything.'

Sigh. Well, I don't teach them anything. I just do. I do my own thing. I ask them if they want to participate in the activities that interest me (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't). I observe (or ask) what their interests are and let them do it, no matter what they are, it's their choice, not mine! In some I participate, and in others I don't. For example, I don't play Minecraft. I tried, but it's not my thing. I don't play video games, although I have nothing against them. I enjoy playing other games with them, and they have plenty other people they can play Minecraft with. I know that I and their father are the main influences in their lives, so I try to give a good example in everything I do, from dealing with people to eating to how I spend my time. I talk to them, I listen, and if I make a mistake, I apologise. I answer their questions, but I don't give them lectures or preach and I don't claim to know everything. I don't hurt them and then tell them it's for their own good. I don't lie to them. I trust them.

And when people tell me that the children just play, I say yes, and that's what they ought to be doing. If I were the minister of education, there would be no compulsory schooling. Education would be free for every child to take, not imposed. Children would play all day long. They would read and be read to, they would sing, they would dance, they would surf or do whatever sport they chose to do. They would spend all day doing maths or science experiments, if that's what they wanted to do. There would be no tests, no classrooms. They would be free to learn, like my children are.

But it's an imperfect world and most children are forced to learn. Well, just because most people are doing that to their children, I'm not going to do it, too. After all, we all do what we think is best for our kids, and I don't think compulsory schooling is good for them.

They are learning when they're playing. In fact, learning only occurs when the learner is interested in what he's supposed to be learning. That's why they learn so much through play. Some people realise this. Suddenly someone will say to me, 'Wow, Dave knows so much about the planets.' or 'Alex picked that up so quick!' They seem surprised, of course, because apparently, the kids spend their days learning nothing. As if that was possible.

This display of knowledge on the part of my children happens only when it's spontaneous. That is, when the adult was not testing them. When someone tries to test them, the children sense it straight away. They don't say anything but I can tell they don't like it. I've observed that if the person who wants to test them is someone they really care about, they answer their questions just to please them, which breaks my heart a little. But I get this sort of treatment sometimes as well, usually by people who think they are more intelligent than me. I dislike it so much that it makes me laugh. They ask me a question not because they really want to know the answer, but to check how much I know about a certain subject and judge if they can give me a lesson or better not. Recently someone told me, 'You know a lot, Carmen!' Well, of course I do: I don't read the daily newspaper, I search and research, and I listen to people I can learn from, not to charlatans and arrogant intellectuals. And if there is a subject I know little about, I shut my mouth and refrain from condemning or judging!

It seems that most people are not able to separate 'playing' from 'learning'. So it's okay for children to play, to be on holidays, as long as they also dedicate some time to learning. It's the same people who separate work from having fun. The thing is, I don't separate them. I have the freedom to love what I do. And I am lucky that I can give my children the freedom to learn because they are still naturally curious about lots of things, not because they have to.

Kids Acting Up

2014-11-30T19:51:00.000-08:00

When the boys were babies, a couple of times I dreamt they did things they were not supposed to do, because they were too young. One night I dreamt Dave was talking as a grown person when he was barely six months old. Another night I had visions of Alex walking when he was also too young to do so. I interpreted such dreams as a fear of mine for them to grow up too fast. I believe that some children are pushed too much too early to grow up or to do things they are naturally not ready to do.

I have always tried to let their nature guide me, rather than listen to what other people think we should be doing with our children. That's why they breastfed until they themselves said 'no more' (5 years in Alex's case), that's why we still co-sleep, and that's why I've never forced them to do anything they didn't want to do. In most cases, they've reached milestones a lot later than other kids their age. For example, Dave learned to swim at 7, but in only one year and no swimming lessons at all, he swims and dives just like any other kid his age. They never played with Nintendos DX or computers because they had no interest. I didn't buy them a tablet until they asked for one. They're pretty tech savvy now. They are excellent at games like Minecraft and Terraria. They've made lots of friends thanks to that. In fact, if they ever see a kid playing on his tablet, they waste no time in striking up a conversation, exchanging tips and useful information. They still don't read alone, but that doesn't worry me in the least, because they love books, while many kids their age have already learned to hate them. They have total autonomy over their own bodies and what they want to do with their lives. I ask permission to cut their hair, and if they say no, no it is. They decide when they want to have showers and what to wear, too.

When it comes to do things out in the world, I've always exposed them to lots of experiences. As they grow older I see they are more open to new things and they're even embracing some. A couple of months ago I came across a drama course for homeschoolers. I couldn't explain why, but I had the sudden intuition that Dave and Alex would love it. Nevertheless, I registered them as casuals on the first day and told the organiser that it would be up to the kids to commit for the whole course or not. That was fine, the kids were even free to attend without participating, and that was another thing I loved about it. Alex was a bit timid on the first day, as were some other kids, especially the girls. Dave, on the other hand, was out there from the moment go, raising his arm even when he didn't know what he would be asked to do. Mar also joined the class on that first day. The class lasted two and a half hours (with a break for lunch), and was carried out partly inside the performing arts centre and partly out in the yard. I asked them if they wanted to go back the following week. The boys said yes. Mar said she had enjoyed it but she didn't want to do it again because it embarrassed her to act in front of other people. So, from then on she sat with me while week after week we watched the boys perform little plays and games. They both loved it.

It has been an amazing experience for me too. On the second day they were asked to form groups of four and invent a play in which one was a monkey, another an old lady, another a boy, and the fourth a skunk. Alex played the role of the monkey. They acted on a stage in the open air. Some parents watched seated on benches. I sat or lay on the grass. I was blown away by Alex's performance. I was as impressed by the skill with which all those children who've never been to school worked together without much adult intervention, came up with a story, and played it out for everyone to see. I was flushed with pride for all of them. I guess that's what most parents feel every day when their children get good grades or win championships. That doesn't make me proud, but everyone's different. Because I don't test the children, because I'm not constantly checking what new knowledge they've acquired, it actually came as a surprise to me that they might have an acting streak in them. It was a pleasant surprise, similar to the one I get when I sit down to write and at the end I say to myself: I didn't even know I had all this in me.

Three or four weeks into the course, one day Dave said, 'I want to do gymnastics.' I was so surprised that I asked him if he was sure. Last time he asked me to register him for anything remotely structured was when he was 3 and he wanted to play soccer. He was not admitted for being too young. Since then he's only accepted free play. It's always been me who suggested basketball, tennis, soccer, piano lessons... anything they want. Mar has been doing gymnastics since she was 6, and when she came to Australia, she herself googled and found a place where she could continue her training. The boys and I took her every week. I told them they could join a class too. They didn't want to, but they loved going to the gym because they made a friend there, a boy their age who did do gymnastics. Somebody had recently told me, 'You should really push them to do soccer next year. Every kid starts crying, kicking and screaming for his mummy, but after a couple of sessions, they love it.' Once again, I said I won't do it. And I refuse to believe that there aren't more parents out there who, like me, think that the ends don't justify the means. Pushing is actually rude, if you ask me. My kids, at least, hate to be pushed. I do too, therefore I don't do it.

We went on a trip, so Dave couldn't start gymnastics straight away. Two weeks went by before he could join the class. During that time, we all asked him if he still wanted to do it. He said yes, in fact, he couldn't wait to start. When his first day finally arrived, I watched him, astonished. He couldn't do all the things the other boys did, but he didn't give up. For one whole hour he ran, did sit ups, abs, summersaults, flips, bars... and all sorts of exercises he hadn't done before. He had breaks to drink water and he told us, 'It's hard work, but I love it!' The following week he loved it quite as much or even more, as it happened with the drama class. He wants to continue next year, and I think he will be doing more activities like this. He is ready to now. Alex is still not ready. Funny enough, he has always seemed more athletic to all of us, but he still doesn't want to commit to anything.

I am so happy that I always listen to my children and not to other people, although I knew this would happen, and it's going to happen with everything else. There will continue to be no pressure from me for them to learn anything. They will learn whatever they have interest in learning, which will be pretty much everything precisely because there is no pressure.

It is so hard to please the adults

2014-10-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

When I had my first baby, Dave, I remember thinking how easy it was to please him. As long as I kept him close to my heart, he was always happy. I wore him day and night. When he started eating solids and crawling he was also 'easy'. Then Alex came along and, being my second time around as a mum, it was even easier. For a few years I was very busy with the two of them, but they were never difficult children; I never said, 'They're a handful,' a statement I heard a lot back then and which always shocked me a bit. I remember the day a friend told me, 'You still have about eighteen months ahead of you in which you won't be able to put your feet up.' At the time it sounded like such a long wait, but now it seems like yesterday and my boys are already six and eight, and before I know it, they'll be sixteen and eighteen.

I am not afraid of their adolescence. I remember my own only too well. It was hard. It is hard if you have so much to rebel against, and I did (I always thought I had a cause.) But I'm pretty confident my boys won't have a need to rebel against me because I accept them the way they are, and always have. This might sound like an unnecessary, obvious thing to say, but it's not. Everywhere around me I see parents who don't accept their children just the way they are. They don't see that the fault is in them, they're just trying to correct 'undesired behaviours.' So they say the baby is difficult because she won't sleep all night, or the toddler is a handful because he has a tantrum every single day, and for no apparent reason. I think tantrums are normal in toddlers, so I never tried to suppress them. Instead I hugged my kids and stayed by their side the whole time until their ordeal was over. If it is hard for a parent to put up with a tantrum, it is even harder for the child who's going through it. Adolescence is the same.

Now that the boys are in school age, the amount of adults (sometimes parents, sometimes teachers) I see who are not happy with their kids' choices is even more notorious to me. Adults fret about everything, they are never happy! Unlike children, most adults are so hard to please. They are constantly projecting their fears on their children. If the kids spend all their spare time outside, playing in the streets, they worry. If one child won't go out and play with other kids and prefers to stay at home and read, they worry. It has always been like this; some people do it more than others. As a kid I was never scolded for reading too much, but a friend of mine was given limits on how much she could read every day (I find this so shocking, but I later learned it had happened to a lot of people in their young adult years). I also played video games and was never given a time to stop; I did when I got sick of the game or preferred to go out and play with my friends. I'm sure my parents worried about some things I did and that, in their opinion, I shouldn't be doing, because at least my father still does it (he doesn't agree with my choice to not send my children to school.) Everywhere in the world, parents are constantly telling their children that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing and they should be doing something else instead. This is control and fear. Apparently, if a child spends too many hours doing the same activity, that's bad.

I trust my children. I listen to what they say and take it seriously. So, when at two years of age, Dave said, 'I don't want to go to school,' I listened. At six, and eight, he still didn't want to go, and I'm still listening and respecting his and his brother's choice. More than once I've said, 'You've never been to school, so you don't know what it's like. Who knows, you might like it.' He says, 'Of all the kids I know, only one says he likes school. The rest all hate it. Did you like it?' I tell them the truth: I didn't like it, neither did their father. And to the people who keep telling them that they don't know what it's like, I say this: I have never been to prison, I don't even know a lot of people who have served a sentence (only one person that I can remember) but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it and I have no desire to find out if I would.

When, also at two, Dave said, 'I want to climb that tree,' I also listened, and then watched. I trusted him and I knew that if he felt confident enough to do it, he could do it. He's always loved climbing, but he's also always been a naturally cautious child. He climbed trees and whatever was climbable while other people around us screamed, 'You'll fall!' and I suppressed my urge to punch them. Have you ever heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Most parents do it to their children all the time, and then of course they say, 'I told you so.'

A couple of weeks ago we went on a little trip further south. We stopped in Pemberton to climb the famous Gloucester Tree, which is the world's second tallest fire-lookout tree. Only 20 percent of visitors make it up to the top of the tree, and I was curious to find out if the children would do it. Like in everything we do, there is never any pressure on my part. I don't push the kids to do anything they don't want to do, but I don't forbid them from doing what they want to do either (as long as it doesn't harm any living thing.) Mar and Dave looked up at the 72-meter-high tree and without a second's hesitation said, 'Yep, I'm going up!' Alex said, 'I'm not.' So the two oldest went up with Brad, and I waited at the bottom with Alex.

Mar and Dave climbing the Gloucester Tree

As we waited an old man appeared. He looked up at the ascending climbers, shook his head and said, 'There's no way I'm going up there. Are you?' I said I would as soon as the other three came down, so Alex wouldn't have to wait alone. Then he said, 'I grew up in London, during the war. We used to play in the streets. The Germans were dropping their bombs but we were not afraid, we never stopped being children. I used to drive my mother crazy with worry, though.' He laughed and I looked at him with big open eyes, hoping for more. 'We were daredevils, but we survived. Now we're old, and I'm too scared to climb a tree.'

I couldn't resist telling you about that little exchange. I find old people fascinating, almost as much as children, and I love listening to their old-time battles. The next day we all went for a walk around the rocky coast. The place was deserted, as all the beaches around here usually are, but then out of the blue a man of about seventy appeared. He was looking for someone and looked worried. He said to us, 'Have you seen a young girl, about my age, around here?' I smiled at his wit. Despite his obvious distress, he kept his good spirits and let us know, in so few words, that he was one of those young at heart. He looked very fit, too. Before he'd said 'about my age,' I had pictured a girl about Mar's age. Then he said, 'I tend to get lost, but I worry because she gets even loster.'

He found her ten minutes later and that was it. I often think of Australia as a country full of young people trapped in old bodies. There are so many of them: grey nomads touring the country. They travel in motorhomes, they do the walks, they even ask me for Spanish lessons because they want to do the Camino de Santiago, again. I always think: when I grow up I want to be like them. And then of course I remember I'm already grown and I'm already doing it: I don't have to wait until the children leave home, I can do it with them. And I don't have to wait to retire because I will never retire. I don't share other people's fear about my children's education and their future. They know what they want and I trust them. I believe most children reach adolescence not knowing who they are because all their lives other people have been telling them what is good and what is bad for them. But those are just opinions. Most parents think schools are good for their children. I think they're bad. Just my opinion. I think playing in the streets is good, and so is playing video games. And reading, of course. And climbing trees. There is a risk in everything we do, but I think it is bad to try to stop children from doing it because we're scared. You know what happens when we do that: they do it anyway, just when we're not looking, but then we're not there to catch them when they fall.

How we learn about languages, grammar and syntax

2014-09-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

When Alex turned 6 this year, I made the decision to get registered as a home educator, which I regret because it means that at least once a year someone from the department of education will try to convince me that my children need to be motivated by me to learn, otherwise they won't. Since I last saw our moderator, I have continued to follow my own way of teaching, which is mainly to let the children self-direct their learning. But the hours of conversation I had with her were enriching, even if only to acknowledge how different our views on how children learn to read and write are. She was dubious about my ideas but was open to listen and asked me questions about how I planned to proceed. I must admit I couldn't give a satisfactory answer to all of her questions because it is too soon to know, the kids are still little. I think the best way to do it is to play it by ear and learn as we go. After all, the world is constantly changing and the way we educate children should also be changing.

One of her questions was: 'How will they learn grammar and syntax?' It was prompted after I had stated that I'm not going to sit down at the desk with them and formally teach them to read the way they do in schools. Instead, I will continue to read aloud to them as I've been doing since before they were born. And I will answer all their questions or help them search for the answers that I don't know. They now know how to type, a need that has arisen from playing games on their tablets and the X-box.

'I haven't thought of that yet,' I said. She gave me a look as if to say, 'Well, you should.' I did and even worried about it for two minutes, because it so happens that grammar is important to me. In fact, I'm a grammar buff, and English in particular is one of my favourite languages along with Spanish and Catalan because they're the ones I know best. I cringe when I hear native speakers of English say something costed so many dollars (the past of 'cost' is 'cost', irregular, except when it means to set a price for something), or that they were bought up instead of brought up, or that it's between you and I (wrong, it's between you and me, because it's a prepositional phrase and 'me' functions as an object), or 'Me and my son play' ('My son and I play' and we are both the subject of the sentence). For a while, it seemed that everyone on Facebook was expecting a new edition to their family. Aggrr! Every time I read that I felt their morning sickness myself. I guess I am allergic to grammatical errors, like the guy in this comic strip. When I go to Spain it's even worse. Sometimes I wish I was deaf so I wouldn't have to hear so many people savaging the language day in and day out. But then of course I see it in writing...

I thought: If I don't open the textbooks now and teach my kids grammar and syntax, will they be like all those sloppy speakers and writers? But wait, those people went to school! If they don't know what an adjective or a pronoun is, it's because they had no interest in knowing when they were forced to learn those things. So, of course they didn't learn them.

Because Dave and Alex are growing up bilingual they talk a bit funny sometimes. They've reached the point where their English is now better than their Spanish because we live in Australia and for most of the year the only Spanish they hear comes from me. They construct sentences in Spanish which are carbon copies of English and simply don't work. As I've always done, I repeat the sentence in correct Spanish, but I've started to point out to them that Spanish syntax can be quite different from English and you can't finish a sentence with a preposition, as in 'This is the pencil I wrote the letter with.' Last night Dave said to me, 'Of course I can. I just did it.' (I love it!). I said, 'But it sounds funny because that's not how people say it in Spanish.'

Back in April when the moderator raised the 'grammar problem', I checked what they were teaching in school at years 1 and 3, which are the ones Dave and Alex would be in if they went to school, and again I considered most of it to be irrelevant and a waste of time. So I didn't give it a second thought.

As with everything, I have found out that I don't need to worry about how the kids will learn their grammar because they have naturally started to wonder why we speak the way we do. All children tend to regularise language, and that's why they say 'I buyed' and 'I sleeped' instead of 'I bought' and 'I slept'. In linguistics this is called analogy. Spanish verbs are a lot more irregular than English ones, so Dave and Alex make a lot of these common mistakes out of a natural attempt to regularise language. I am not constantly correcting them like I see other parents do (I find this very annoying, especially when the parents are sloppy speakers themselves). I am confident that they will one day speak proper Spanish just by following my example. But one day, not too long ago, Alex pointed out to me that I had said something which he believed to be incorrect. To illustrate it, it was something like this: 'You said 'loose' instead of 'lost'.' I said to him, 'That's correct. 'Loose' is an adjective and 'lost' is the past of 'lose' which is a verb.' And I thought: Eureka! This is how they will learn their grammar. How could I have thought, even for a second, that my very curious and self-motivated children wouldn't question the way we use language.

Since Mar has been with us --three months now-- our discussions about languages and grammar have become even more interesting. A few weeks ago we decided that the three of us would speak only English to her because it seemed that in school she wasn't learning English as fast as one would have expected. This proved to be an excellent idea. The three of them adjusted to the new plan willingly. Mar started asking questions that she had been too shy to raise in school. Every day she asks at least twenty questions about how things are said in English, and we all answer them. The boys sometimes say, 'That's just the way it is,' and I say, 'Because in Spanish the verb 'to be' has two forms, so there is only one word for 'boring' and 'bored'; the distinction is made by the verb, not the adjective like in English.' We used to laugh when she said she was boring, but she now says she's bored. She even gets my silly jokes when she says she's hungry and I say, 'Hello, Hungry.' And the three of them hear me talk about adjectives, verbs, nouns, past and present... Mar has difficulty with the verbs 'make' and 'do' which in Spanish and Catalan are expressed with only one word. Dave and Alex usually correct her about this. Alex will say, 'You use make when you actually build something, like making a cake, but you don't make a cartwheel because where is it? I can't touch it.' Dave says, 'Actually, you bake a cake.' And I chip in with, 'But you make a speech, which you can't touch either, but you can listen to.'

Mar also helps the boys with their Spanish, although she's got some typical native bad speaking habits of her own. She tells them about the things that are literal translations of English and don't work in Spanish. For example, in Spanish people are not years old, but have years. They are also now used to hearing Mar and me speaking Catalan (when we slip back to it). We know Dave understands everything we say because he usually butts in the conversation. Alex laughs at the new words he hears and says things like: 'Mummy you said 'plat'. Not 'plate' or 'plato' but 'plat!'

I'm doing the same as always: just answering their questions, still not using textbooks, and reading and writing for the love of it. And learning all the time. A few months ago I started teaching myself Italian and I can now hold a conversation and understand everything that is said to me in that language. The children hear me practicing and they laugh and even copy me. I think I might tackle Chinese next.

The Food Paradox

2014-08-31T04:54:00.000-07:00

I have three children in my care now: my two boys and my niece Mar, who's been with us for over two months already. Today I'm inclined to write about her food habits, something I am observing as if it were an experiment. I asked her permission to write about her, because in a way I feel like I am exposing her or judging the way she eats. I am not doing that, although I realise that I'm trying to undo eleven years of food conditioning. And honestly, I don't think that can be accomplished in just five months. It seems that every year around this time I must write a post about food. I still marvel at the importance food gets when raising children. I would have never thought.

Just one week before Mar was due to come here I asked my mum how she was going. Was she prepared to come? Was she sad about leaving? She said she was looking forward to coming, but last time she had seen her she'd been crying and in a power struggle with her parents because of food. I told my mum that while Mar was here she would have food freedom, just like my children. There would be no tears over food. Mum said, 'Yes, we know, we know.' Nevertheless, the three weeks she was with us, she worried about what Mar ate and didn't eat. She remarked that she ate better here than at home. She had fruit, carrots and tried kangaroo meat for the first time. She loves my home-made pizzas and pikelets (made with honey, no sugar). Soon she was making pizzas with me; she would have one nearly every day.

But I soon noticed that she only eats a few things: pizzas, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, bread and butter, pikelets with jam, and occasionally lamb chops. Also carrots, grapes, bananas and strawberries. No eggs, fish or chicken, and if we eat out, she'll only have chips, pizza and milkshakes. No veggies at all. I keep offering new things to her, but early on she told me, 'If it's a vegetable, don't even bother: I won't try it.' The only new thing she's tasted since she's been here is sushi, a tiny bite of nori roll. But if it's a cake or something sweet she's more than willing to try it.

I still don't buy junk food, but when I go shopping the kids are allowed to get whatever they want. Dave and Alex don't ask for much anymore, maybe ice cream or yoghurt. But one day, at the beginning of Mar being here, I took the three of them shopping. When Mar found out there was no restrictions on what they could get, she raided the supermarket, and Alex was happy to follow her. They filled the trolley with chocolate, biscuits, ice cream, chips, lollies... I was paralysed with shock. My first reaction was to say, 'No way. Put all that back.' Mar looked at me in surprise, of course, because I was contradicting myself. So, I said, 'Ok, you can have it.' She obviously thought she had to make the most of that opportunity because who knew when she would have another chance to have all the junk food she's usually not allowed to have. Luckily, she doesn't come shopping anymore; we go when she's at school.

Last week we went to Bali. It was Brad and I, Dave, Alex and Mar, and three of their cousins from Perth and their parents. We all noticed that Dave and Alex are the best eaters. We asked them, like we've always done, what they felt like eating. One day they said they wanted sushi, another chicken, or pasta. They still don't eat everything, but they're not as fussy as the other kids. The cousins were sometimes forced to eat something they might not want to eat because their parents were there to make sure of that. Mar had food freedom, so she ate waffles, pizza, hot-dogs, chips and milkshakes. One day she agreed to have a bit of chicken.

I thought by then she would have tired of having always the same, but that still hasn't happened. We had talked a few times about how much she loves everything sweet. I told her I thought she had too much sugar. The first time I said that she was defensive and said she didn't think so and, 'It is good to have sugar if you're athletic like I am.' I said I didn't agree. 'You could have rice or pasta instead, and that would be better.' But she doesn't eat that either, only bread. One night in Bali we talked about sugar again and she said, 'I'm having so much of it because my parents don't let me have it. You shouldn't let me have it either. You should control me.' I said, 'But you know I don't believe in any control but self-control. I wouldn't like you telling me how much sugar I can have, so I don't tell you. I will keep offering veggies to you, but I won't offer you any junk food full of sugar.' She said, 'Ok, from now on, that's it, I'm not going to have any more lollies or sugar, only healthy stuff.' 'So you're going to try a few vegetables, fish and chicken?' 'No, I won't eat any vegetables at all while I'm here because when I go back home I will be forced to eat them again.' I told her she was missing out because some veggies are really tasty. She's adamant that she's not going to try any, and I don't blame her. She's rebellious as she should be, and I would do exactly the same. She still has three months to go here and I'm curious to see what she's going to eat when she gets sick of having pizzas and toasted sandwiches. She's already decided to cut down on the sugar intake, so surely she will be soon trying something new...?

What does it mean to teach?

2014-07-31T05:53:00.000-07:00

According to most dictionaries, teaching means 'to impart knowledge' or 'to help someone learn something by example or experience'. Teaching doesn't involve keeping order in class, lecturing, quizzing, or giving grades. Something I have observed is that everyone loves teaching, even children. I've come to think that teaching is a human emotional need. We are all learning something new every day, and we have the urge to share it with someone else, to show them our truth or better way of doing things. This need must be specially strong in people who choose to teach as a career.

So teaching is a great thing, because sharing is loving, and teachers are sharing their knowledge and skill. Everyone is a teacher, but teaching is not easy. The best teacher is not the one with the most knowledge but the one with the ability to let learn. That is so difficult to do that even children, of whom I think are the best teachers, have sometimes trouble accomplishing. The best teacher of all is the one who knows when to back off.

We are all born natural explorers. Human beings are by nature very curious and eager to learn. Every child comes into the world with wonder, curiosity, awe, spontaneity, vitality, flexibility. These capacities are unfortunately stifled by many parents and educators, and at a very early age. It starts at home, as soon as the baby shows an interest in touching things or going 'off-limits'. I am amazed at the amount of times I've seen and heard a parent say 'no' to a baby who's put a pebble in his mouth, for instance. That is an example of bad teaching. A good teacher would instead describe the pebble and tell the child why it is dangerous to have it in her mouth. If for the first three years of everyone's life everyone around them was physically impeded from uttering the word 'no', the world would be a better place.

By the time most children go to school they have effectively learned something that is not true. It's something their parents tell them, and even though it's not true, it's not a lie either, because the parents believe it too. This untruth is that they need to go to school for someone to teach them something. Teachers are expected to motivate children, to instill in them the love of learning. In other words, it is the teachers' job to do something that children are already born with but are encouraged, often unconsciously, to suppress. What's more, teachers have to prove that they are successfully passing their knowledge and experience to the students, hence the need for students to regurgitate facts and demonstrate skills.

Testing is a big pet peeve of mine. I find it terribly judgemental and condescending. Yet most adults do it. It used to irritate me no end when one of my kids would ask an adult a question and the person would not just give an answer but then ask the child to repeat it. My children have never been to school so they quickly grew suspicious of people who did this. Most often it was well-meaning friends and family members who wanted to help me in teaching the kids. I used to tell them I don't teach the children, they teach me. How else do you explain that I don't need to check that they are listening to me? I trust my children, and I know they do listen, and if they don't, it's because I am boring them! Which I do sometimes, but they always let me know.

The truth is the teaching goes both ways. I don't like to use the word 'teaching' because it has lost its original meaning and most people associate it with children sitting at desks and an adult hovering over them. I don't do what most people think teachers do or are supposed to do. I am a teacher in the most authentic way and that is why most people get the impression that I do nothing, that the children are actually not learning anything from me. That's why I usually say I don't teach them, I guide them. Whatever you want to call it, we are always learning, all of us.

The problem with learning is that most people think that it ends, especially if you don't go to school. They seem to think that all those inspirational stories such as the one about the eighty-year-old grandma becoming a pilot or the author of Angela's Ashes learning to read at eleven are unique cases. It shocks me every time (and it happens a lot) I hear an adult say that there's only one thing they can do because they didn't study or train to do anything else. As if it were too late to learn a new trade, or to speak a foreign language or to play a musical instrument. It is never too late to learn anything, I firmly believe this. I am so confident in my ability to learn anything I want, that I know I could become a doctor if I really wanted to. All I need is the motivation to do so.

Many years ago, I was a traditional teacher. I also tutored kids who needed reinforcement. I enjoyed it, but those kids were different from my own. They expected me to teach them. So they just sat there and waited for me to spark their interest. Every day I had to think of ways to do that, and it was a lot of work. Now I'm a different teacher, and I only teach my own children and, for a few months, my eleven-year-old niece. I would never dare 'teach' other children, because I already know their parents wouldn't understand. I still get looks of surprise when I say I never taught the children any Spanish. All I did was talk and read to them in Spanish. The only important rule was sticking to it. I did and it was not hard at all.

It is so much easier with my kids because Dave and Alex are active learners, they have always been. They don't expect anyone to motivate them, they are self-motivated. And they learn whatever they want, not what anyone else wants them to learn. This is the reason why they still refuse to take lessons from anyone. When they need to know something, they ask and I tell them. If I don't know the answer, I say, 'Let's google it.' They also watch a lot of videos on Minecraft, which is their main passion at the moment. And they learn a lot from them.

My niece Mar is here to learn English. Her parents thought the best way for her to learn the language would be going to school here. I readily agreed. I thought she would learn more in a school environment, interacting with boys and girls her age who only speak English. At home we speak Spanish, Catalan and English, and if Mar stayed with us she wouldn't have to make an effort to speak English. She's been to school three days only and I'm already having doubts about this. During the month she's been here, we've watched a movie in English every day, read books in English together, and she's been studying on her own every day and totally of her own accord. I don't give her lessons or lectures, but answer all her questions. Now that she's going to school, there is no time for all that. We've gone out and interacted with people, but every time someone talked to her, she looked at me for help and seldom said a word. That's why I thought school would be good for her. If I or the boys are not there for her to do all the talking, she'll have no option but do it herself.

I sincerely hope this will happen, but Mar is more worried about this than I am. Last night she asked me, 'Do you think I will be able to learn English in two months at school?' She's so worried because if she doesn't show some progress in her speaking, she might be forced to go to school for another term. She says school is not as bad as she thought, and she's making friends, but she'd rather not go, because being with us is a lot more fun. In the one month here that she didn't go to school, she learned lots. Not only English but many other things we do at home and out and about. She comes from a competitive environment but has had no problem adapting to our way of doing things. I told her why 'I was first' has no value in our family and she loved it. She's here for five months and one has already gone. If I could have her for a year, I would send her back to Barcelona not only speaking fluent English but also with a broad knowledge about many things we talk and read about that she finds awesome, like the fact that Uluru is the biggest rock in the world.

How Democracy Works in our Home

2014-06-30T15:46:00.001-07:00

Even before I had children I was certain of at least one thing: I would not raise them to be obedient. In my experience, children who are expected to obey without question will grow up to become either dominant and controlling or overly submissive and obedient. I thought that in the twenty-first century most parents would agree with me that children should not be obedient. After all, if you ask them what they would like their children to be when they grow up, they all say 'happy', 'loving', 'responsible', 'self-reliant', 'intelligent'... Nobody says they would like their child to become an obedient adult. To me, hearing that a child should obey his parents is as shocking as hearing that a woman should obey her husband. Yet, I still hear the 'because I say so' of my own childhood, which I thought I would never hear again. On the other hand, people from older generations are saying that children today are given too much freedom.

I've always told my kids why there are things they can't do and things they must do. We have very few rules, as everybody who's met us knows. Some people would say we have no rules at all. I think we have at least one: 'Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you.' Dave and Alex don't like to be hit, called names, be shouted at, told when they should eat, have showers or go to bed, or what they should learn. I don't like that either, so that's why I don't tell anybody, and certainly not my children, to do something I wouldn't like other people to tell me to do. I give the children what I think is good for them, but I could be wrong. I don't think children are given enough credit to know for themselves what is good for them.

So it seems sometimes people have the perception that my children are 'controlling my life.' I don't think I'll be able to change these people's perception for years, even though it is not true. Nobody but myself is in control of my life, and I hope my children will learn by example that they shouldn't let anyone control their lives either. I have chosen the life I have, which in the present moment is to live with my two sons and make everything possible for them to become loving, resilient, independent, free-thinking men.

Even though we live in such a coercive society, I don't believe we are here to control anybody. It is possible to live in harmony without constantly telling other people how they should lead their lives. At least in our world it is possible. Dave, Alex and I have always discussed the things we do together. It's not what I want but what the three of us negotiate together. When it comes to meals and bed times there is never a struggle: we eat when we are hungry and go to bed when we're tired. But when we need to decide where to go and what to do sometimes we argue, we say things like 'it's not fair,' 'it's my turn now,' 'you chose yesterday.' In the end we come up with a solution that makes the three of us happy. They know that some things must be done even if we don't like them, like the shopping, and we have no arguments about that.

When they were very little Dave and Alex would fight over things, but they soon learned to negotiate. It took months and even a year, but eventually they would reach agreements totally on their own, without me as a moderator. They would find a common ground on the things they wanted or wanted to do. However, about a year ago I noticed that Dave was starting to adopt a more dominant role over Alex. Sometimes he would talk to him as an adult. He was not just being a responsible and protective older brother, but he was taking over the role of father when their father was not around. And the worse thing was that Alex would comply. When they didn't agree on something, Dave would always find a way to persuade Alex to do what he wanted (and sometimes Alex would be upset later when he realised he hadn't wanted that but had been talked into it).

I told Dave that it was not his job to tell Alex what to do. And Alex needn't do as Dave said. While it is up to the three of them to decide what sort of relationship they have with their dad, when it is us three I won't allow anyone to be dominant over anyone else. Dave and I also argued more, and I became tired of having to have a fifteen-minute discussion for every little decision we had to make together. That's when I suggested a new way of doing things: we would each have a day in which we would choose what to do and the other two would agree.

It went well from the very beginning. They both loved it. On my day I usually chose to go to the library or catch up with friends they might not have wanted to see. Sometimes I had to remind them that it was my day and when it was theirs I didn't whinge! Most of the time, however, there was no problem. Sometimes it was nobody's day because we did things that had to be done and were not only up to us to decide, for example when we had to drive to Perth to pick someone up. And for weeks and months we forgot about our special day because, like before, we easily reached agreements without an argument. Only when one of us was not happy, he would say, 'Isn't it my day today?, it hasn't been for a long time...' and we would establish the rule again. The times when we most needed it was when we had visitors, because the kids would initially resent that there was a fourth party in the equation.

We haven't had a 'My Day' for at least two months, one reason being that Dave and Alex have spent most of their time with their dad. I've continued to live with them and be there for them every day, but I've let them do their male bonding without any interference on my part. It seems Dad doesn't have the need for a 'My Day.' He gives them a lot of freedom, but when some things need to be done, Dave and Alex don't argue with him: they do them.

Now it's the three of us again, but also Mar, my eleven-year-old niece from Barcelona, who's come to live with us for five months. Daddy left two days ago and already there was a disagreement among the children: two wanted to watch a movie and one wanted to play with the X-box. We have two TV sets, but as it often happens, they would not split and go to different rooms; we like to be all together in the big open dining room. There followed half an hour of negotiations and in the end the matter was resolved, but we talked about what we're going to do in the coming days and there were more discussions with everyone wanting everyone else to follow their own wishes. So I said, 'We'll do what I want because it is My Day!' The boys told Mar about it and they all quickly picked a day and announced what we would do. On Monday we had to go to Mar's school for an interview, and after that we went to Busselton for her to buy a tablet. On his day, Dave said we would go to the Reptile Park. On Alex's day he wants to go to the Xcaspe fun park. On my day we'll go to the library and get more books, which we all love to read together snuggled up in bed. My mum has a day too; she's here with us for three weeks and wants to have a look at the Cape Naturaliste and the lighthouse, something the kids growled at because they've already done. And on top of all that there are certain things we have to squeeze in every day, like taking Alex to the hospital for his hand check-up, taking my car in for a service, going back to Mar's school for another interview, doing the grocery shopping...

We spend a lot of time and energy talking, and sometimes it is tiring. Sometimes it would be so much easier to say, 'Because I'm the parent, and that's that.' But I won't do it. At this stage, the kids wouldn't let me get away with it anyway, and for that I am grateful.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

2014-05-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

What do you want to be when you grow up? That is one question I have never asked my children.

When I was a kid I didn't mind adults asking me that, although it always seemed like one of those things they asked just to make conversation. I never knew what to answer. I wanted to be a writer. I decided that when I was eight years old, but that was something I wanted to be ideally before I grew up. I still want to be a writer before I grow up. I also wanted to be a mum some day when I was very old (about 30), but that was not considered a job, and the question really meant: What do you want to do for a living? So I always said something else, like teacher, nurse, lawyer, doctor... For a long time I said I wanted to be a potter and have my own wheel.

I never asked my kids that question because it seemed pointless to me. And there was something about it that didn't feel right. Living in the present is the best medicine for a happy life. Children don't need anyone telling them that: they know and do it naturally. For this reason, it surprises me how so many people insist on putting this pressure about the future on children without being aware of how detrimental it is, precisely, to their present and future happiness.

I've always focused on what they want to be or do now. Which is to play, of course, as it should be (learning comes hand-in-hand with playing). But as they grew older, Dave and Alex began to understand the concept of time, so once I told them about the distant future. I said that one day they would both be a lot taller than me, and they would leave home to see the world on their own, fall in love, and work on whatever their passion might be. 'How strange that the three of us will one day live separately, considering how inseparable we are now,' I said. They were terrified at this, and only then did I realise that they were probably too young for this kind of talk. They both said they never wanted to grow up, they wanted to be kids forever because being an adult is boring.

They've never even been too excited about having birthdays. Even now, I look at their reaction at all the fuss other people make, and I find it very amusing: they don't glow like other kids do. Why would they? They get plenty of attention every other day. At least from me. Their expressions seem to say: What's the big deal about growing up? And why do people get so happy for us if it's something we don't even want to do?

Dave is old enough to pick up all these social vibes and on my birthday two months ago he decided to put them into practice. He hugged and kissed me more than usual and basically spent all day doing things to please me. At night I asked him what I had done for him to treat me so nicely.

'It's your birthday,' he said matter-of-factly.

'Oh, is that it? Well, you should know that my birthdays always last for a whole week.' I couldn't help myself.

But he's not stupid, thank goodness: the next day our relationship went back to being authentic, which includes some growling and whinging when we don't agree on something.

Last summer in the Northern Hemisphere, nearly a year ago, my sister and I were watching Alex play with his tablet when, out of the blue, she asked him, 'Alex, what do you want to be when you grow up?'

Nobody had ever asked Dave or Alex the big question, at least not in my presence. I looked at him expectantly. It was a time when he was adamant that he wanted to be five forever; he has accepted that he is six now, but insists that he does not wish to grow any further. He was so surprised that he actually took his eyes off his tablet to look at my sister.

'I will be the same as I am now: just me,' he said.

My sister and I were speechless with admiration. Clearly, he still does not know what his mission in life is. Some people never know and go through life doing what other people expect them to do, not what they really want to do. But Alex is just Alex, not here to please anybody. He is true to himself.

I still don't ask them what they want to do in the future, but I try to nurture what they are passionate about now and also expose them to different things and people. A couple of months ago, Dave said, 'I want to be an architect.' He didn't say 'when I grow up', but I think that's what he meant. I want to remember this forever, because he'll be eight next Saturday and when I was eight I was also convinced about what I wanted to be. I've read about many other people saying that it was at the age of eight when they knew what they wanted to do, at least when it comes to creating something. Some people followed their dream, and some others forgot about it and moved on to do something else.

The Kindness of Strangers

2014-04-30T05:26:00.000-07:00

I have been a mother for nearly eight years now and I'm very comfortable in my role. I think I was born to be a mother, so I feel very fortunate to have children. It is, by far, the best thing that has ever or will ever happen to me. In fact, I must be one of those women who seem to have the words "I'M A MUM, SO YOU CAN CALL ME MUM" written on their foreheads. Or does it happen to all women with children that other people call them "mum"? Not other children, but other adults, usually people who don't know you and rather than asking your name, they call you mum because that's what you are: a mum. I always feel like saying, 'Carmen to you, thank you very much,' but I never do because I'm too polite (even if some people might think that I'm not because I don't make my kids apologise or say the magic word. If you want to know more about what I do instead, read My mum doesn't say I have to say sorry.)

While in Spain, if the kids are with me, I get the usted treatment. It is considered more polite, but I've always hated it because it makes me feel old, but more importantly because I think every human being should be treated with respect regardless of age or social status. In a way I think I should be thankful for people thinking that I deserve more respect for having such an enormous responsibility as raising kids. The problem is, I don't think that's it. What happens is that when you have kids you look older. Or when you don't have them you look younger. When they're not around, I'm the most relaxed person in the whole world, because it happens so rarely that I don't have to worry about anyone else but me. And so, people think I'm at least ten years younger than I really am. (When the kids are happy I'm also relaxed and a couple of people have actually asked me if Dave is the result of an adolescent slip. I love it!) In Spain I'm instantly downgraded to tú and everywhere else people are suddenly interested in knowing my name.

I love meeting new people for lots of good reasons. And I especially love talking to strangers, because most of the time it turns out to be an enriching experience. I have treasured memories involving strangers and difficult societal moments with the children. Maybe I value them so much because during my first years as a mum I was so disappointed in my immediate family members and their lack of involvement in my children's lives. Sure, my way of parenting was revolutionary and shocking to them, but I still expected more understanding than what I got. Never mind: it was their loss and I had support anyway. We all need a tribe and, as individualistic as I am, I eventually found mine. I've met people with a similar philosophy to mine when it comes to raise children and I don't feel as alone as I did the first few years. Back then I resented the fact that on top of educating children I had to educate the adults around me who acted in a certain way just because it had always been done that way and never stopped to question what was wrong about it.

One such memorable moment I treasure happened when Dave was only months old and we didn't have Alex yet. We were at a supermarket and out of the blue he started crying and screaming as if possessed. His dad couldn't stand it. He demanded to know what was wrong so that we could stop it. I said I didn't know but not to worry, it would pass. In the meantime I tried to soothe Dave, to no avail. So his dad asked me to leave the supermarket, it was too embarrassing and flustering; he would do the shopping alone. Of course as soon as we were outside, the baby was happy again. It took me longer to calm down because I had to get over the stress not the baby but the dad had given me. As I was breathing in and out, a middle-aged woman came out of the supermarket. She must have witnessed the scene, because she came up to me, gripped me by the shoulder and said, 'You're doing an amazing job. Hang in there.' I felt so grateful I was close to tears. At least somebody noticed.

Another time, also in a supermarket, I was by myself with the two little ones. It must have been when they were 1 and 2, close to 3, or a bit earlier. They were both screaming, and Dave was throwing a full-on tantrum. This time, though, I couldn't just leave: we had to do the shopping because we needed the food. So I went on, trying to ignore the judgemental looks from people who obviously didn't have children or it had been too long since they did. Despite all the screeching noises my kids were making, one brave young man came up to us, put a comforting hand on Dave's head, ruffled his hair, and smiled at him. Dave instantly stopped crying and so did Alex. It was like magic and again, I felt so grateful.

I've learned a lot from these little experiences, mainly to do the same myself. I must say that these two little episodes both happened in Australia. In other countries my children have been offered lollies in exchange for quietness and 'good behaviour'. Now that did not make me happy, so instead of a thank-you those people got a sigh from me and they were welcome to think I was an ungrateful cow, cos I was.

My kids don't scream at supermarkets anymore, now they fight. Out of the corner of my eye, I always see the looks from people who disapprove either because I let them punch each other while I get the job done or because I'm constantly hissing at them to stop it. But I ignore these people. I only pay attention to the nice ones because I am one myself. I'm one of those who understand and rather than give a nasty look because your child is disturbing my peace, I try to do a nice gesture to make things easier for everyone.

We are in the Philippines now. As we went through customs again, I was reminded of the last time we left Australia, only last month, to go to Singapore. We were protagonists of a scene that neither three of us will ever forget because I'm sure I'll tell Dave and Alex about it many times in the years to come (they always find this sort of stories hilarious). This particular time, Alex was crying his heart out as we were waiting in a very long line to go through immigration at the Perth airport. Everyone was silent as the situation required, except for my two angels: one crying and the other shouting at him to stop. Dave, like his dad, can't stand a child's cry, it drives him up the wall. Alex, like me, doesn't have a problem with it. But Dave can't just leave the scene, because he is, after all, a child himself. Instead, when his brother cries he shouts at him and hits him. For years I've tried to make him see that it only makes things worse because he's adding insult to injury, literally. If it happens when we're at home, Dave now shuts himself in another room until Alex lets it all out and is fine again. At the immigration cue, though, there was no escape. While rubbing Alex's shoulders, I was trying to shield him from Dave's kicks. People were staring at us and the immigration officials stamping passports were looking up and frowning. I was sweating and hoping one of them would gesture to me to jump the line, but that doesn't happen anymore. Only when your kids are babies it does, but when they're 6 and 7 you're expected to control them. I pleaded with Dave to stop hitting his brother because he was hurting him. He said Alex's cries were hurting his ears. The man just behind us was looking at us as if he wanted to kill one of my kids, but I couldn't figure out which one. If only that nice young man from years ago had been there and put a friendly hand on Dave's shoulder... I was so desperate that I actually hissed at Dave, 'What you're doing is child abuse, you know, and we're surrounded by police. If you don't stop it we're all going to end up in jail.' I'm not proud of it, and as soon as my words left my mouth I knew how wrong that was and vowed never to do it again. It didn't work anyway, but it had another effect: the man in front of me started laughing. 'Don't laugh!' I said but at that point I couldn't help the giggles myself. I was so stressed out that I became hysterical. It was just the two of us laughing, everyone else was pissed off. Alex kept on crying the whole time and Dave trying to get at him. But as soon as we crossed the line and officially left Australia, although still at the airport, both kids were happy again and talking to each other as if they were best friends. My heart still pounding fast, I knelt down and asked them what the hell was all that about. They both gave me innocent looks and asked what I meant. They were contented for the remaining of the journey. On the plane a woman who claimed to be a grandmother said to me, 'You have the best behaved children I have ever seen, honestly. How do you do it? Parents nowadays don't know how to handle children, but yours are absolute angels.' Lying doesn't come naturally to me so I told her they were not always like that. She insisted that they deserved the Nobel Prize for Best Children in the Whole Wide World and I should be so proud. So I thanked her and said I guessed I was lucky. Then I sighed and asked the boys what they thought about that. They shrugged their shoulders as if to say 'whatever'. 'I think it is pretty obvious that she wasn't at the immigration line when we were,' I said.

On Reading

2014-03-29T16:54:00.001-07:00

If you choose to educate your children outside of schools, the Australian government expects you to register as a home educator. I tried doing this two years ago, when Dave should have been starting Year 1, but something always happened: the office was closed, nobody answered the phone... I met the person in charge at the Busselton office just once, the day she was closing it down for good. She said I would have to go somewhere else, I don't remember where because at that point I thought, why register anyway? If you register, you are in the system, and the government wants to know what you are doing to educate your children. They send a monitor to your home (fortunately only once a year) to evaluate your work and the children's progress.(My aversion for the word 'evaluate' is almost as strong as for 'control' or 'judge'.)

Alex is turning 6 this Monday, and now the government considers it is time for me to get out there and find a proper job. That's because they still don't know that I'm a home educator. So I tried to register again. Things have changed in these two years and now it was all done without a hitch. I talked to our moderator on the phone and we arranged a date to meet. In the meantime, she sent off my certificate as a home educator and asked me to get online and study the Australian curriculum, because we'll have to follow that.

'What? You mean we're not free to keep learning the way we've been doing? My kids have to do the same stuff they're doing at schools? What's the point of home schooling then?' I was quite shocked. I didn't know then that this is a very recent change. She said the kids can still learn at their own pace, so if Dave hasn't mastered Year 1 Maths, for example, even though he's supposed to be in Year 3, that's fine, as long as he is progressing.

Ok, I thought, this will be interesting. Let's find out what they're teaching in conventional Australian schools. At this point, the Education Department wants us to focus on four main subjects: English, Maths, Science and History. I went through all of them up to Year 3. And I relaxed. When the moderator came for a visit I told her, 'We've covered all that and heaps more just by exploring our surroundings, talking about everything, reading books, surfing the internet, playing, and travelling.' I told her about Dave's passion: drawing and building. He makes things with wood blocks, Lego or out of carton. I'm still not sure what Alex's is, but he's really good at computers and video games. I explained to her how Dave and Alex learn about numbers: through play and every day living. We don't sit down to do sums and subtractions, but we play games (Monopoly is a favourite at the moment), sell our eggs, cook pikelets for which we need to know about measures, etc. However, before she was due to come I was a bit nervous because the curriculum seems to pay a lot of attention to solving math problems on paper. So I asked the kids to do some for me, just to keep the moderator happy. They had never done that before and although they said it was boring, they did. Easy.

To my surprise, she was not so concerned about maths. Apparently, that's more important later on. But what about reading and writing?

'They don't read alone,' I said. 'As for the writing, only Dave does, a little, and just what he wants, which is words like 'MINECRAFT' (all capitals) or 'TRASH PACK'.

'So they are pre-readers,' she said. I winced a little as I'm not used to labels. And then she added, 'Don't you think they should be reading by now?' and, 'Aren't you worried?'

It is a widespread misconception that if you're not constantly hovering over your kids and making sure they're learning, they will stop doing so. I can't stress hard enough how far from the truth this is. Yet, I see why it is difficult to understand, because we were all raised in times when coercive education was the norm. Children can learn how to walk, talk, dress themselves, eat by themselves and... yes, read by themselves naturally, without being forced. They have a natural desire and love for learning and this process is not stopped unless you take them to school. Unfortunately, for lots of kids the opposite is true. I would love to write a book about this, but somebody else wrote it already, thirty years ago. It's called Learning All The Time, by John Holt.

'I'm not worried about my kids. I'm worried about the kids who go to school. So many of them already hate reading because of the way they're being taught. My children love books, they always have. There is not one day when we don't read, the three of us together. I have always read to them, since before they were born,' I said.

'But they need to know their letters. They have to learn that the letter 'A' makes the sound 'aaah' and that there is upper case and lower case.' She went on to tell me some exercises I could do for the children to learn about phonetics and when to spell a word with an 'a' or an 'i'.

'But this is all so boring.' I couldn't help interrupting her. 'And what's the purpose of it anyway?' They already know that 'A' makes the sound 'aaa', except when it doesn't, right? That rule is only good for Spanish, not English. I reckon the best way to learn about how words are pronounced and spelled is by listening to me and looking at the words at the same time, which is what we've been doing for years.

She insisted that I should make them read and write on their own as soon as possible... before it is too late! There was an unspoken hint there: because... What if they never do?

I guess I would be worried like her and so many parents and teachers if I didn't have the enormous faith and trust I have in children (and very little in the education system). There was a time when I also thought being able to read by four or five is ideal, and everything else can come later. Once I read a book by a homeschooling mother who claimed one of her children did not read at all until he was ten. I remember thinking, Ten? That is going a bit too far. No way I'm going to be reading to my kids until they're ten. Now of course I think very differently and look forward to reading lots of young adult books together with my children. That mother reported that when her son did start reading alone, he read just about anything from comic books to Shakespeare.

I told the moderator this story and others. I have met a few unschooled children, now aged from eleven to seventeen, who learned how to read the same way Dave and Alex are, mainly by being read to. If you ask any of these children how they learned to read they all say, 'I just picked it up.'

'But these are unique cases,' she said. 'Otherwise, how do you explain the millions of people in the world who are illiterate?'

There followed an awkward silence. This has happened to me a lot. It's when I look at the other person and wonder if we are from different planets. Maybe she was thinking the same.

'Absolute illiterate people are not exposed to books and reading. They are deprived of an education. Which is not the case of natural learners in Australia. These are not unique cases. Or do you know of any unschooled child, whose parents have a similar philosophy to mine, who is now twenty and can't read?' She had to admit that she didn't. I don't think there is any.

I firmly believe this is the best way to learn how to read. No matter how long it takes, when they finally start reading they will really be able to. Reading doesn't mean knowing your letters or how to pronounce a word;
it means comprehending the meaning of those words and overall story or text. By this definition, Dave and Alex are already great readers. Many school children, on the other hand, are not reading anymore. They're just parroting. And nobody is reading to them because they're expected to do it alone.

I'm afraid lots of adults don't really know how to read, or spell either. Last year (or the year before) it was reported that more than 47% of the Australian adult population is functionally illiterate. That means they can't read instructions on a medicine bottle, they can't read a map, or they can't read a recipe. And these people went to school! Most of them are very clever at hiding their literacy problems, of course, because they are ashamed. They've been carrying their shame since their school days when they were put down because they weren't keeping up, or they were being lazy, or they weren't paying attention... Illiteracy in western developed countries is a tragedy that starts at schools.

You may have noticed that English is not my native language. I started learning it when I was fifteen, of my own accord. Nobody forced me and I learned mostly on my own, although I did ask my parents to pay for lessons because I was also brought up to believe that was the only way I would learn. I didn't read a whole unabridged book in English until I was nineteen. I remember it was Wilt by Tom Sharpe. I got the gist of it, but it was really hard. Nevertheless, I persisted until I finished it, never looking any words up. I had less trouble with the second English book I read. The third seemed even easier. Since then I have read hundreds of books in English, more than in my native language. I never learned how to spell but I don't usually use the spell check because I don't need to. I can also write in English and I like to think I'm not too bad at it. At least I know the difference between "it's" and "its". I can do this mainly because I read. And if I learned to read English when I was already a young adult and can do it this well, how can anybody even suggest that unless my children (who are native speakers of English and a lot more intelligent than I am) are encouraged to read alone now they might end up being illiterate?

Conscious Parenting Conference

2014-02-28T05:01:00.000-08:00

Dave, Alex and I just came back from spending a week on the east coast. The reason for the trip was a conference I wanted to attend in Byron Bay. It was something I wanted to do for myself, but thought would be good for the kids as well. Since it was something new, that we hadn't done before and therefore, the kids could not relate to, I started talking to them about it a few weeks in advance. I went through what we would do and what it might be like. The first day involved two hours driving, spending the night at their cousins', more driving the next day to the airport, then a five-hour flight to Brisbane, and finally hiring a car and spending the first night at a hotel. Up to then it had all been quite familiar and special and it all went smoothly. As they're getting older I notice it is easier for them to accept change. When we finally got to the hotel though, Alex burst out crying. I comforted him right away, but before I could even ask what the matter was, Dave said, 'He's crying because we don't want to be here. We want to be home.'

That's what I've come to think of as 'the first night blues.' I've experienced it myself many times before, especially when I travel alone. It's homesickness on the first night. The first time I travelled overseas on my own, when I was fifteen and had to stay with a family I didn't know, I cried. Dave and Alex have been doing it every time we travel and stay at a hotel or strange place. This trip was the first time that Dave didn't cry. Alex did it only for a couple of minutes. I acknowledged his sadness, like I always do, and I'm sure he felt instantly better because next thing he was excitedly jumping on the bed.

The next day we went to the famous Australia zoo, which they loved. And the day after, a Friday, I took them to Dreamworld. The conference started on Saturday and went on for four days. The night before I reminded them about it and told them being there was something 'for me' and I would be listening to the speakers. In the meantime, they would have a good time too because they could play with other kids or join in the programmed kids' activities. Dave said, 'So it will be like going to school but cool?' Exactly. In spite of this, I didn't know how they were going to react once we got there, a strange place where we didn't know anyone. I didn't tell them, but I was prepared to spend all day playing with them and miss the conference in case they didn't feel comfortable there: I have never left the kids in the care of anyone else unless they (the kids) wanted to.

The conference took place in the same caravan park where we were staying, under marquees. It was all very casual and I loved the fact that the first speaker, a psychologist and psychotherapist whose work I admire very much (Robin Grille), was giving his talk barefoot. Dave and Alex sat with me for two minutes before they noticed some kids running around. Like I've seen Dave do before, he approached them and said, 'What are you playing? Can we play too?' and that was it, they were both gone. How I wish I had been this confident when I was his age!

So, for four days, I listened to the experts and took part in the chats, while Dave and Alex ran around, and played. They also painted, drew, made stuff with clay, and other similar crafts in the kids' tent. Sometimes they came to see me, especially Alex, who sat with me for short periods of time.

The purpose of the conference was to explore conscious parenting and natural learning, which happens to be my philosophy on how to raise children in order to really connect with them from the moment they're born. This approach favours natural births, breastfeeding on demand and for as long as the child and mother are comfortable with, baby-wearing, co-sleeping, empathic and compassionate parenting as opposed to punishing and rewarding, homeschooling and unschooling... All the things that I believe in and have been doing for seven and a half years now just by following my heart. I knew some of the speakers were renown psychologists and child advocates both in Australia and the United States, and I was curious to hear what they had to say. I have decided to write a book about my own experience and the things I have learned and keep learning from children, but to make it more reliable I am now turning to the experts, to back me up with their extensive research that proves, for example, that children who are praised or rewarded turn out to be less efficient and motivated to do whatever task they were rewarded for. (This I learned from Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards, among many other books.)

It was a fantastic four days. I didn't learn a whole lot of new stuff from the speakers, which was in a way a tiny bit disappointing but in another way it was great because it made me feel like after all these years of doing my own research I am a bit of an expert myself, at least when it comes to my own children, who are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. I already knew all the theory (putting it into practice is the hard part, especially when our own conditioned upbringing steps in) and have checked numerous times how well children respond when they are treated compassionately always, even when they're being aggressive or behaving in harmful ways to others. (This is not to say that violent behaviour should be condoned, but I strongly believe it shouldn't be punished or shamed either. Instead, I choose to investigate the cause of the behaviour and try to understand it.)

The best part of being there, actually, was the people I met, other parents with similar ideas to mine. There was a surprising big amount of dads. It is surprising to me because over the years I've noticed that natural parenting is mainly the work of women. Ironically enough, most of the speakers, the experts who have written the books, were men. I soon found out though, that most of the dads were there because their women had dragged them along, of course. These men, who were brought up in a time when breastfeeding was discouraged and boys were told not to cry and toughen up! feel quite lost when they become dads and their partners give the new baby the unconditional love they didn't get. According to John Travis, they suffer from Male Postpartum Abandonment Syndrom (MPAS). As described in his and Mery Callander's book Why Dads Leave, men who were not properly connected with their mothers as babies and small children spend all their lives searching for a sort of surrogate mother, then marry her, and when the first baby comes along, feeling abandoned again, leave, either physically, emotionally or both.

Talking to some of the dads was very interesting for me. My heart goes out to them because I understand how hard it must be to embrace this new parenting mode when as children most of them were brought up by an authoritarian father who maintained the exclusive rights to their mothers' breast and bed.

But with whom I really connected were the women, especially a couple of them. And it is funny how the one I really clicked with and was laughing out loud with after only five minutes of meeting had some slightly different ideas to mine when it comes to education. This happens to me all the time, and I think I tend to like people with different world views because if I didn't then we wouldn't have anything to talk about!

The absolute best thing about the conference, something that I couldn't quite put my finger on at the start, was that the whole time I was there I felt peace of mind. The children were out there playing, interacting with many other kids, and I knew that if Dave had a problem with another child he would find the way to solve it in a peaceful way. Alex still comes to me, and he did, a few times. I actively listened to his woes
and then he was off again. Above all, I knew that no adult would tell them off for what some call 'misbehaving' and it's really just 'being a kid,' at least the conference organisers wouldn't. A couple of months ago, a woman we didn't know at all told Dave not to leave the playground (he was leading Alex and two other kids under my care to the adjacent playing fields). He said, 'We're not with you,' and the lady came to me complaining that my son had answered her back, at which I laughed, and of course I got in trouble too. This was still fresh in my mind while we were at the conference, but I felt relaxed knowing that it could just not happen there.

My children have no limits!

2014-01-31T05:04:00.000-08:00

My children have no limits on any of the things they do. They've never had any. When they were babies, they were free to breastfeed as much, as long and as often as they wanted. When they started crawling and touching things, they were free to explore. They were allowed in the kitchen and everywhere. I never put a child-proof fence as a barrier to the pantry or locked the cupboards. Nothing at all was off-limits. Which was a lot of work for me, of course, because I had to be always there, watching them and describing the surroundings to them. In case they decided to take a knife out of a drawer, for example, I would show them how to handle it and let them feel the blade so they knew what knifes are for and that they can hurt.

Although I had practically no life of my own when they were so little, I'm immensely happy to have followed this approach from the beginning. I can proudly say that my boys continue to be curious explorers, and that is the basis of their learning. When Dave was 2 he was climbing trees (to all the other present mums and some dads' horror) and I would just stand under the tree, ready to catch him in case he fell but making sure not to show him any worry. He never fell and he didn't go from there to climbing mountains. In fact, he's always been very cautious. He knows his own limitations and, if there's something he's not confident in doing, he doesn't do it; I don't push him either.

I am not a super mum, though, as much as I keep trying, and when Alex was just over one year old, I found out the hard way how different he is from his brother. I told Dave once about fire and what it does and that was enough to keep him away from the fireplace. I told Alex a hundred times: every time he got near it. But still, one day he decided to test for himself what I meant by 'really really hot.' The one second it took me to turn and mind Dave, who was not yet 3, Alex sneaked behind me and put his hands on the fireplace. (What happened next is the most painful episode of my life as a mother, but he survived, phew!)

I don't watch television. I'm not against it. I simply don't watch it because I get bored. So, because it's something I don't do, Dave and Alex were not curious about it until they were around 3 or 4 and saw other people getting hypnotised in front of a box with moving images and voices. That's when they started asking me to turn the telly on. It was never really television, but DVDs, and to this day, they still only watch television (the cartoon network on cable TV) when we go to my parents' once a year. I have never offered to turn the television on for them as a way of keeping them entertained, busy or babysat while I'm doing something else. I do offer to read books with them, because I love reading and it's something we do together. Or I'll ask them to go out for a walk with me. Or any other activity I enjoy doing. I never offer TV because I don't like it myself. But if they ask for it, which they do, every day, I always say yes, of course. There are no limits on how many DVDs they can watch on the telly or YouTube videos on the computer.

The same goes for computer games. When all the kids their age were playing with the Nintendo DS, Ipads and their parents' mobile phones, Dave and Alex were still happy with blocks and puzzles. Dave, especially, had no curiosity about the Nintendo DS and I never had to buy one. We used to play Lego games together on the computer. They never wanted to play alone, and sometimes we spent hours on them, until I got sick of it! It's only been for the last six to eight months that both Dave and Alex have started playing games on the mobile and tablet without my help. They spend a lot of time on them, and again, I don't set any limits. I don't play video games myself, but I don't think they're bad at all, on the contrary.

I don't know any other mums around here (only through the internet I do, but they live too far from us, sadly) who give children complete freedom like this. I am aware of the limits other mums set and I respect them, of course. Their kids go to school, they have schedules, meal times and bed times. They have a 'no TV during the week' policy and only one hour a day at the computer. We, on the other hand, have so much time that we can spend as much of it as we want doing whatever we want. And guess what, Dave and Alex don't spend all day watching telly and playing video games! They still want to read, draw, jump in the trampoline, go to playgrounds and play with other children, ride their bikes, help me in the veggie patch (sometimes), play with their Lego and blocks, etc. Because they have no routines or time limits they don't get anxious about how much time they have left.

A friend of mine banned television and video games altogether because her kids would get all wound up and aggressive when playing games or totally passive for hours on end in front of the idiot box. She said it was a scary sight, as if their brains had been sucked out of their skulls. My kids have never done that. I guess they have a short attention span, like me. After the ban, when they came to my house, the first thing those kids would ask was permission to watch DVDs or play video games, which is the last thing my kids want to do when they have friends over. But I said no, sorry. If you come to my house is to play with your friends, not to ignore them. What did you think? I'm only my own children's cool mum and they're not going to pay for what other mums do.

If my children ask me to buy them an ice cream, I buy it. It doesn't matter what time it is. I've never said anything like 'It will spoil your dinner.' So when a few days ago they saw the ice cream van and asked me to walk with them to buy them one, I did. Two of their friends came along while their mum stayed behind. When we got to the van, I asked the other children, out of politeness, if they wanted one. They said they did. It was nearly five in the afternoon and, knowing how strict their mum is with meal times, I asked the oldest, who is nearly 9, whether they were allowed to have ice cream. He said yes, so I bought them one each. They both said, 'thank you.' Very polite children, but it turned out they were not allowed to have it, as I found out when their mum said, 'That was not the plan.'

I didn't think even for a second that the kids could be lying to me. I tend to be very trusting of children because I spend all day with two kids who don't lie (they don't have a reason to). I've been witnessing for years how children with so many rules and restrictions get away with doing what they want anyway, just when they think you're not looking. The same kid who came to my house asking for permission to watch TV used to steal biscuits from his mother because he wasn't allowed to have any before dinner. I saw him doing it one day at the beach. I chuckled to myself and said nothing, of course. Dave was puzzled and asked him what he was doing. His friend asked him to keep quiet, and Dave thought it was a game, bless his innocence. I've known this boy since he was 2 and have seen him doing many other things like this, totally harmless. I've never told his mother because she believes in punishment, and I don't. I have talked to him, though, and his answer is the same I get from all children: 'But mum is not here now, so it's ok.'

As you can see, I'm a bad influence on other children. My friend has already noticed and she doesn't want me minding her son anymore. I also had my doubts when my kids witnessed how she smacked her kids and used time-out as a way of teaching them a lesson. But I don't see the point in hiding reality from my children. So I talked to them and told them I don't agree with that and I feel very sorry for children who are hit, shamed or manipulated by their own parents.

My children haven't had the need to lie or hide things from me yet. I hope they never do. I'll let you know how we go when they're teenagers, but I'm pretty confident it won't be as hard as everyone insists on saying it is.

No need for solomonic decisions

2013-12-30T20:03:00.002-08:00

Whenever I bump into someone I haven't seen for a long time, one of the questions I get asked is whether I am still homeschooling. Other questions are: Are you good at it? Do you enjoy it? Don't the children want to go to school? What are they learning now?

For clarity's sake, I've stopped saying we don't really homeschool, but rather unschool. I only go into some depth if the other person has time for a long chat, which is not usually the case because she has to rush and pick the kids up from school or some other thing.

Do I enjoy it? Yes, in fact, I love it. I enjoy being in Dave and Alex's company. To this day, having children is the best thing that it has ever happened to me. That doesn't mean we don't interact with other people; they do mainly with other children after school hours. During the day there are lots of times when they do their own thing and I do mine. They basically play all the time; that's how they learn. And we read a lot because the three of us love it; it's not a chore, it's a pleasure. They are learning all the time. (I know I will have to keep saying this.)

Dave will be 8 next year, and of course, some people think it might be time to get a bit more serious with his schooling. A friend asked me whether my kids are ahead academically of other kids their age. I don't know the answer to that because I don't consider it that important. They know a lot of stuff because they're interested. They are fluent in two of the most widely spoken languages in the world, have been to a handful of countries, and can distinguish Korean from Japanese writing, although they still don't read alone, or write. They know the names of the planets and the fact that the sun is a star, and they ask themselves questions like: if all stars are suns, does that mean there are lots of earths revolving around the stars? They know how babies are made and that humans are linked to apes by descend. They live in a rich country but they have seen the effects of war and disease in countries where amputated beggars are a common sight on the streets. They're pretty knowledgeable about animals too, because they love them. They experiment with nature (Dave recently learned how to make fire like a caveman). And many other things. But honestly, I don't keep a journal, test them or anything like that. I don't check what kids their age are doing at school in order to keep up with them because I'm not interested in competing with anybody. I just hope my kids remain enthusiastic learners forever, without comparing themselves to others.

One day, after they had been at a friend's house for a couple of hours, Dave said to me, 'Kai's mum asked if we want to go to school. You won't believe this: She thought we do and you won't let us.' Seriously? I was so surprised, I laughed. My kids have been asking their friends for years now what school is like and all of them say it's boring and they don't like it. Most say the only thing they like about it is recess, when they get to play with their friends. I've told Dave and Alex they're free to go to school if that's what they want. They don't. Dave said so to Kai's mum and Kai said, 'I don't want to go either.' She said, 'Well, you have to. There's no other option for you.' Dave asked her why. She said, 'Because you must go to school to learn.' Dave said, 'We don't go to school and we're still learning.' She said, 'But if you go to school you learn faster.'

Do you really? Maybe... You learn fast to get ready for the rat race. But I don't want that for my kids. I hope they're happy and have inner peace now and always, and that means being passionate about what they do all the time. Kids who go to school in order to get an education, to make money, to buy things are being deprived of living in the present moment. And there are lots of kids who are not happy at school. Two mums recently told me they were considering homeschooling because their son was so depressed about school. Another one told me her son, in year one, is already saying he hates school. She told him to be quiet about it and suck it up because it's going to get worse.

I think emotional education is a lot more important than academics. The latter is so easy to learn (and forget) and you can do it at any time. But communicating, expressing your true feelings and emotions (both positive and negative) and being empathic are social skills Dave and Alex are very good at. I realise how other kids may not be so good when an adult asks me something like: Won't they fight if they don't have the same?

No, they don't usually fight to have the same thing, although this, which was never a problem, is becoming one due to other adults' influence. They are different. They don't ask for the same things. If Dave wants me to buy him a toy, I can do so. That doesn't mean I have to buy Alex one too. When they were littler, Dave would never say, 'If Alex has this, then I must have it too,' but now he does! I always ask him why, if he didn't want it in the first place. We have one tablet, one phone, one computer, and one ebook reader to share between the three of us. Before I bought the tablet they asked me to get them one each, so they wouldn't fight. Again, I knew they were repeating what they had heard some other adult say. I asked them why would they fight for the tablet, when up until then they had been able to share everything, take turns and negotiate without me having to intervene. Of course, I've seen many adults act as judges when two kids fight over the same thing. The simplest and quickest solution is to take the toy away, so neither one of the kids can play with it. The outcome is two unhappy children. To witness this breaks my heart every time. But when the victims of this solomonic solution are my own kids, something in me dies: years of hard work gone out the window.

I taught them to negotiate at a very early age, as young as two or three. I had read in a book it was possible for kids this age to learn this skill, and I was totally blown away when I found out it was true. At first it was me who suggested solutions, like 'How about you have it for five minutes and then he has it for another five? Or how about you have this instead, or you have it today and he has it tomorrow?' Sometimes it took a long time to reach an agreement, but it was always worth it, because in the end, I had two happy children. Soon it was Dave who started coming up with solutions. Now they hardly ever ask me to step in and help them solve their own problems.

So, yes, I love 'homeschooling.' It is becoming more challenging, but not because the kids need to know more stuff (that's easy, and we are regular library goers and Google searchers) but because of the mainstream external pressure. I knew it would happen and I'm ready for it, but for the record: my children are truly free individuals. That means they have the right to choose.

Truth or dare to lie? Santa does not exist!

2013-11-30T03:29:00.001-08:00

Christmas is just around the corner once again, and Dave and Alex, like all children, are very excited. As soon as the shops started showing their Christmas decorations, they asked to take the Christmas tree out. It's been up since the beginning of November at our house. Every day they want to know how many days left to Christmas Day. I showed them on the wall calendar, hoping that they will go there and figure it out themselves; Dave has marked it with a big red sun. They talk about what they would like to get, and last week the three of us went shopping for their cousins' presents. Dave and Alex picked the toys they know better than me that their cousins will like. They insisted in wrapping them up (I helped), and Dave wrote each of his five (on this side of the planet) cousins' names on the packages. It was endearing to see how happy they were at doing all this.

They are excited, yet they don't believe in Father Christmas, or Santa Claus. The first time Dave saw a Santa he was barely seven months old and he was terrified and cried. A couple of years later, aged two and a half, he said, 'That's not Santa Claus, his beard is not real. It's a man in a costume!'

Children ask questions mainly to gain some knowledge. I've always tried to answer them honestly with what I know. Sometimes I don't know the answer, so I suggest that we look it up in a book or google it. This happens a lot when they ask about what a certain animal likes to eat. Other times I tell them that it's not always easy to know 'the truth'. Some people believe this and some others believe that. I tell them what I believe and ask their opinion about it. This comes up a lot when we talk about aliens, the universe and what will happen when we die.

The only times I didn't give them straight answers was when they doubted Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I didn't indulge in the same stories most other parents tell their children about these fictional characters, but I didn't deny them either. For a while that was because I wasn't sure how to proceed. I had read that it is good for children to believe in fairy tales and the like, even that it is something necessary for their healthy development, sort of to preserve their innocence. But I couldn't bring myself to lie to the kids. And, out of respect for other parents, I didn't want Dave and Alex to tell other children that it was all a lie. So, for the first years I said nothing and stepped aside as I watched other people telling my own children that they had to be good in order to get presents. (I really had to bite my tongue at this point.) They soon smelled a rat because I have never played that trick on them. The inevitable question came from Dave, when he was around five.

'Mummy, do you think there really is a Santa Claus?'

I thought I would break his heart if I said no. Instead I asked him what his thoughts were.

'I don't know,' he said, 'but we'll find out. This is what we'll do: On Christmas Day, don't you put any presents under the tree. When we get up, if there's nothing, that means there's no Santa and he's just a man in disguise. In that case, we'll go back to bed, pretend to be asleep, and you'll get up and put the presents under the tree.'

They reached their own conclusions regarding all the other stories too. In the Easter Bunny they didn't believe for even a second. Dave shocked his nana by saying, 'I know it's you who goes around hiding the chocolate eggs.' He still loves doing the treasure hunt, even though he doesn't like chocolate all that much.

When Alex had to have a tooth removed, Dave suggested we put it under the pillow to find out if there really is a tooth fairy. When they were both asleep, I hesitated before replacing the tooth with some money. In the morning they were beside themselves with excitement.

'It worked!' Dave exclaimed. 'There is a tooth fairy, I can't believe it!'

They were exuberant, but I felt horrible. It was the first time I had deceived my children and it didn't feel right at all. What's more, I felt as if I had interfered in their scientific experiment. So I confessed straightaway.

'That's no problem,' said Dave nonchalantly, 'we'll try again tonight. But this time don't do anything, ok, mummy?'

The next day there was no money, only the tooth, and they were both happy with the discovery.

'So now we know it's just another story,' Alex concluded.

From these experiences I learned that they can still enjoy the magic and excitement of Christmas, Easter and everything else without me having to lie to them, something that I don't feel comfortable with. I don't agree with people who say it is good for children to believe in this magical world that doesn't really exist. My kids enjoy reading stories and watching movies like everyone else, but they know what is real and what is not and their imagination goes wild all the same. I was told all those fibs when I was a child, and I vividly remember the summer day when my brother told me the truth. I was utterly disappointed at being lied to by my own parents. I would have preferred never to have known.

A couple of weeks ago I told Dave and Alex we were going to see some quokkas, the small half rat half kangaroo marsupials we had read about, which can be found only on Rottnest Island. Dave surprised me by saying that he didn't believe they really exist. I assured him that they do, I had seen them before, 'and you can even pat them; they're not afraid of humans, they get really close and even get into restaurants and shops, although they're not allowed.' He kept saying it was not true. I'm not sure why he didn't believe me. Maybe it's because he's been setting up pranks a lot lately, like placing a giant toy spider near me and yelling 'Spider!' to give me a fright and make me believe it's real (I pretend to fall for it, but we all know I'm just playing along.) So, I added, 'This is no joke. And have I ever lied to you before?'

I haven't, and I hope I never have to. The moment I start lying, they will start lying to me and that's when trust and positive communication break down.

Pushing kids into sports, yes or no?

2013-10-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Back from the European summer I asked Dave and Alex again if they wanted to play soccer. They both said no, even though some of their friends are doing it and enjoying it. So I said, 'What about basketball then?' Dave said ok, he'd give it a try. Alex said no, but since Dave was doing it he would go along.

Knowing my children, I talked to one of the coaches first and asked whether it would be possible to go to the first session rather than pay for the full term upfront. He said that was no problem, but really it was unnecessary because the kids would love it, that was guaranteed.

'Well, I don't know about my kids,' I said. I decided not to tell him that we are not like most people. 'They might love it from the start or they might not want to have anything to do with it. And they're not really keen on ball sports.'

'You have to push them, then. Lots of kids don't want to play and the mums have to push them hard at first, but then the kids are really grateful. Ball skills are very important and necessary in life, and they must learn them at this age. Like math skills. You have to tell them like this, hey, I don't like maths, maths is boring, but you have to have math skills to function in life. Same with ball skills.'

I listened and nodded to everything he said, but something already didn't agree with me. I don't think maths is boring. I love maths! I love numbers so much that I want my kids to share the love and fun of it. That's why I don't make them do maths as in let's sit down and write down some sums. Instead, we talk about numbers and money when we deal with it in real life situations, like selling our free range eggs, for example, a little job they have started doing. So, if they must play basketball mainly because they must have ball skills, I'm not interested anymore. I just thought of it as a way for them to have fun and make new friends.

We went to the first session anyway. I made sure we were there early so it was not too overwhelming. But it was all the same. There were lots of kids and Dave and Alex, together with a couple of others, refused to participate and just watched. I have exposed them to many different sports and activities over the years, and sometimes, after watching for a bit, either Dave, Alex or both will join in, so I waited. But this time they were both adamant that they didn't want to try it. So that was that. No big deal. I thanked the coach and said, 'Maybe next year.'

A few days later I was at a friend's house and told her about it. She told me the same the coach had said, 'You have to push them. Especially because they don't go to school, it is important that they are in a team and learn team skills.' She went on to tell me the story of a seven-year-old who cries and throws a tantrum every time he has to go to soccer training. He does it right in front of all the other parents and children while his mum stays inflexible until he finally gives in. Apparently this has been going on for a year or two, and the boy has actually become an excellent soccer player. 'He's the best in his team,' my friend said. 'And he still cries every time?' I asked. 'Yes, every single time he cries and yells that he doesn't want to play, but then he loves it! Some kids are like that, they need to be pushed.'

It's funny because the more people tell me that I have to push the kids into sports the more my inner voice tells me that I don't. I don't understand why a seven-year-old who has become the best player still cries every time he has to play. It is a success story because he is the best! But so what? I don't care if my kids are the best or the worst. To me, this sounds too much like babies who are left to cry until they fall asleep. They scream and cry, but when they finally fall asleep they're the best sleepers in the world. And what about the stress and anxiety they have to go through? It might go unnoticed by the parents but not by the brain of the developing child.

I think children are people too and, as always, I try to treat them with respect and not do to them what I wouldn't like done to me. And I don't like to be pushed. The times I have been pushed into doing something that I didn't want to do, both as a child and as an adult, all I was left with was resentment for the people who pushed me. Most parents seem to think it is necessary to enroll their children into sports and after school activities and have them do as many things as possible rather than focus on something they're really passionate about. Well, I don't.

I was encouraged to learn how to swim at a very young age. For some reason, that was important to my parents, but that's about it. Apart from that, I played. On the streets, at playgrounds. No lessons, just free unstructured play. When I was eleven, my sister wanted to do ballet, so my mum enrolled us both in the same class without asking me first. I was furious! I didn't want to dance, but she had already paid for the term. So I went, reluctantly, and thought that since I had to do it I might as well try and excel at it. My sister hated it and quit after just one term. I did too, mainly because I was a tomboy who had never before worn pink and was still upset about not having been asked first. At fourteen I started playing ping-pong and tennis of my own accord, without anybody pushing me into it. I became good at both and asked my parents to pay for tennis lessons, which they gladly did.

I use my own experience and intuition to guide me, and I still believe that every child has the right to develop at its own pace and they don't need to be pushed, only exposed to the myriad of possibilities. It is never too late to learn a skill, and I don't see the benefits of starting them on tennis lessons at five, for example, unless they really want to do it or the parents want them to become tennis pros.

As for the team skills that my friend was referring to, while it would be nice to see the kids playing in a team (maybe some day, there is no rush), I don't think you have to play a team sport to develop them. We already are a team at home. We make decisions together, we negotiate. I'm neither an authoritative parent nor a permissive one, like some people might be inclined to think. They don't always do what they want. That is impossible when you live in society. Sometimes they have to yield to my wishes, like I do to theirs. Or to their friends', or to the person who is looking after them when I go to work. It's all about compromising and negotiating (not bribing).

Bullying is not a Rite of Passage

2013-09-30T04:14:00.000-07:00

About nine years ago I worked as a temp at a day care centre. I didn't have children then, but after that brief work experience I vowed that when I had them I would never ever put them in day care.

There was nothing wrong with the centre, don't get me wrong. The staff did their job, some with more enthusiasm than others. There were babies and small children, so it was all about playing, singing songs, colouring in, playdough, and story time. There was a time for everything, especially meals, when they all had to sit at their tiny tables and eat whatever they were served, except for the babies, who were fed from their bottles. After that they all had to lie down and nap. There was one kid who could never sleep and I would read stories to him instead.

I love children but I didn't enjoy that job. The whole time I was there I had a nagging feeling of something being just not right. And it was this: The children were taken well care of, but they were not getting any love. There were no hugs, no one-on-one time. I was put in charge of changing nappies, which was also done at a certain time and in successive order. I remember a boy, about two years old, who turned his head when I changed him, avoiding eye contact. I felt a pang of shame on his behalf and a need to apologise to him (which I did). It felt totally wrong for me, a stranger, to invade his privacy like that. Then there was a three-year-old girl who clung to me from the moment she saw me. She would not leave my side for a second and kept asking for hugs and kisses; she also said she loved me even though we had just met. She was needy to an alarming extreme, but I had to pay attention to many other children and she was told by another carer to leave me alone and go play with the other children.

Ever since then I've been convinced that day care centres are not good for children. They are convenient for parents, especially if they work and have no other help with the kids. Besides, the Australian government provides families with child care benefits and rebates, so it actually works out cheaper to have someone else (a team of professional carers) to mind the children. And some parents and experts will argue that it is actually good for the kids to be at these centres, because they get to interact with other children and socialise.

I don't agree with that, of course. From birth to three years old children do not need to socialise. They need the unconditional love, care and undivided attention of their parents or some other adult who acts as such.

It is no wonder that children who go to day care get ill so often. They were not exclusively breastfed for long, so their immune system is not as strong as it could be. They're not carried or hugged enough. They spend way too much time on their own, surrounded by many others like them but not actually interacting. And they all share their viruses. One kid gets sick and they all get sick. They're too little and vulnerable to fight illness, and there's nothing anybody can do except for sucking it up.

Schools are much like day care centres in the sense that children are put there under the pretence of giving them an education and social life with their peers. The virus that some kids take from home to school is bullying. It spreads and gets out of proportion and again, teachers can't do anything to control it because there's just not enough of them. It gets more complicated when teachers bully as well and some are not even conscious of it.

Bullies are victims themselves. They are bullied either by their parents or their teachers. And they have followers because, like a virus, bullying is extremely contagious. Children bully if they're bullied and if they see others do it, because that's how they best learn: by example. Even though there is more awareness now than there used to be, most children don't have the resources to stand up to bullies, so they're asked to report them. But kids who are bullied by their own parents or teachers have it very tough.

My oldest son is seven and he doesn't put up with anybody's shit. If an adult does wrong by him, he will answer back or say, 'You are stupid!' (He did this one time an adult called him stupid; there were no other adults present, but another kid who witnessed it told me the story.) I don't have the answers to everything and I don't consider what Dave does right or wrong, but I don't like name-calling or aggression of any kind, and Dave knows that if somebody called me stupid I would choose to leave rather than confront the person. Likewise, if somebody tried to attack me physically, I would try to escape rather than hit back.

Dave and Alex don't do that. They fight. So they fight each other. They haven't been in a physical fight with other boys yet (just verbal), but not long ago Dave hit an adult who was making fun of him. I saw it and was shocked. The adult was outraged and told me that if Dave went to school and got hit a few times by other kids he would see how he'd like it and wouldn't do it again. 'You were teasing him. He told you to stop, and you wouldn't. He lost control and hit you,' I told him a bit later, not in the heat of the moment, because I didn't want him to think I was defending what Dave had done, just trying to understand it. He didn't agree, and that's fine, because a lot of people don't see things my way and I'm used to it. I talked to Dave afterwards and he said the man had made him mad and he hadn't been able to control himself.

Now that I'm thinking of it again, I reckon it was a good thing because it shows that Dave feels strong enough to stand up to anyone, even a grown man. He's also aware that he needs to control himself, it was a misunderstanding after all. The best thing is that he hasn't learned this by being bullied at home or school. On the contrary, children whose parents truly love and respect them (that means no name-calling, smacking, punishing, etc) feel valued and loved and expect everybody to treat them that way. Love and respect make them confident and resilient, bullying doesn't.

But there are bullies everywhere, and Dave and Alex are part of the big world, so they encounter them more often than not. Only last week they were playing with some boys at a playground while I was reading a book. They seemed to be having fun, but on the way back home in the car, Dave said, 'I'm tired of making new friends. Every time we meet somebody new they have to say something nasty to us. Those kids called us stupid.' 'Oh, yeah, why would they call you that?' I asked. 'Because I said we don't go to school,' Alex chimed in.

I knew this would happen and it's going to happen again. I can live with it, but I want to make sure the kids can too. So I said, 'Would you rather go to school so other kids won't say you're stupid?' 'No, I don't want to go to school,' Dave said. 'I wouldn't want to do the same every day. One of the boys said school was boring. There was only one boy who said he liked school, and that's the one who called us stupid.'

So we're good then. It's still no school for us. I feel bad for the kid who called my children stupid, because he was just repeating what he's heard an adult say: If you don't go to school, you'll end up stupid. Nothing further from the truth.

How do Unschooled Children Socialise?

2013-08-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

If you homeschool or unschool your children, the whole world worries that they are not getting properly socialised. I did too (very briefly) in the beginning. But I soon realised there was nothing to worry about. All I had to do was carry on as I usually did. So we went shopping when we had to, and out to playgrounds, the library or the beach. There I met other mums and dads (lots of dads on the dole in Spain) and the kids would play and make new friends easily.

Now that they're older (5 and 7), playgrounds are not so much fun, so we do other things we all enjoy, and wherever we go, we interact with other people all the time. During school holidays, we pass among the population as 'normal' people. It's only when all the other kids are at school, that people start raising eyebrows and asking questions.

We just spent two months in Spain, during the summer school holidays, so nobody noticed we were different. My family and friends already know, of course, and they call me (affectionately) 'freaky', a very popular term in Spain. The day we went to the drawing competition though, one of the organisers, to make conversation with the kids, asked them which school they went to.

'I don't go to school,' said Dave.

'Well, not now because you're on holidays. But of course you go to school!'

'No, I don't,' Dave insisted. 'I've never been to school and never will.'

'You're lying to me!' she exclaimed in a teasing tone.

Dave looked up at her as if to say 'why would I do that?' I was trying hard not to laugh, but I had to intervene before the lady suggested that it's not right to tell lies. I told her that indeed, my kids don't go to school, I'm a home educator (I say this sometimes for clarity's sake, although more often than not, the kids educate me.) Some of the conversations around us started to dwindle. The lady asked me whether there was some sort of impediment for us that I couldn't take the kids to school.

'No, it's by choice,' I said nonchalantly.

Now I had successfully managed to get everyone's attention. This always makes me a bit uneasy, so I was quick to add that we live in Australia, where homeschooling is widely accepted. In retrospect, I shouldn't have said that. It was an easy way out and everyone around seemed to breathe out as if to say, 'oh, okay, you're almost a foreigner, so we'll let you get away with it.' They all started asking me curious questions, like whether we lived in a remote place, and soon enough the inevitable: What about socialisation?

Before answering the question I cast a meaningful look at the kids. Dave, Alex and Mar (my niece) had brought along their own crayons and markers. Before attending the competition the four of us together had read the rules (yes, we know what rules are!); one of them was: Bring your own material, except for paper, which will be provided. Apparently, some of the other participants hadn't read the rules, so they came empty-handed. One of the parents, no doubt thinking that the crayons were for everyone to share, said to Alex, 'Can you please place the crayons in the middle so all the kids can have access to them?' Alex looked up at her in surprise, because the crayons were his so it was up to him to want to share them or not (the only times I ask the kids to share their things is when they have playdates at home, and whatever they don't want to share they must put away so it's out of sight.) But she had been nice enough, so Alex did as he was asked. Later the mum realised her mistake and said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know they were yours. Can my son borrow them? We didn't bring any.' Neither Dave, Alex or Mar went as far as to say, 'But of course you can all have our crayons!' but they did share them gladly and whenever they needed a certain colour that another kid was using, they waited patiently for their turn.

This is just one example of socialisation that they didn't learn at school. I don't know why some people still get this idea that because they don't go to school and I work from home (mostly), we don't socialise or have social skills. I guess it's because an alarming great amount of people only socialise when they're at work. Also, I see a lot of people with very confused ideas about what it means to be sociable. Being an extrovert doesn't mean being sociable. In fact, I have met more than one extroverted psycopath in my life. And being an introvert doesn't mean you are unsociable. I hear a lot of adults who say 'I'm unsociable.' I always laugh when I hear this. It's their way of saying, 'Look, I'm not going to go around trying to get along with everyone, ok? I'm an adult now, so I don't have to do it.' Yet, this is what is expected of children and even forced on them.

I also don't feel like being sociable all the time and with everyone, even people I might not like. I think that is being fake. But I am sociable (and also an introvert.) I have good quality friendships, some lasting decades, and I make new friends easily. So do the kids. The most important thing is: we choose who we want to socialise with. We are not stuck in an office or a classroom where we have to put up with bullies. I did, both as a child and as an adult, and I can say (I speak for myself) that being bullied didn't make me a stronger person, or more humble or anything, except maybe withdrawn and wanting to escape.

It amazes me that some people actually think that some amount of bullying both at school and at home is good for children. I reckon it must be the same people who disrespect their children. Yes, I think bullying starts at home. We all do it, often unconsciously, some more than others, and the kids take that to school and are left there with the teachers to deal with it. And then they take it back home and the vicious cycle goes on and on.

And that is another aspect of socialisation that I'll talk about next time because this post is already getting too long!

Drawing for the Love of it

2013-07-31T01:17:00.002-07:00

Dave and Alex are not even half as competitive as I used to be when I was their age. Some of my friends say I still am. It's something I've been trying to correct for many years. But it's not easy: growing up I was encouraged to always be the best at sports and school. Always competing against others, never as a way to better myself.

In the small town where I used to spend the summers as a kid there was a festival in which swimming and bicycle races were held, and a drawing competition. I was very good at swimming and came in first year after year, collecting trophies which one day, many years later, I had the sanity to look at as what they really were: junk.

Thirty years ago there were loads of kids at the games and races. In the drawing competition there were dozens. I used to love drawing too, but I never won anything, not even third prize. I tried very hard to draw what was expected of me, but it was never good enough. I remember listening for the announcement of the winners in great anticipation and then, suddenly, the disappointment at not being one of them.

Urged by their cousin, Dave and Alex asked me a couple of weeks ago to take them to the drawing competition. Dave has always loved drawing. Alex is not so keen on it, but my niece promised him he would be given lollies as a prize, so they were both persuaded, and we went.

At least two decades had gone by since I was there last, and it felt strange. Everything looked so much smaller than I remembered it. Some of the organisers of the games were still the same, and they recognised me, after all these years and all the kids there used to be. Nowadays, there are not as many. For the drawing competition, there wasn't even a dozen.

As I expected, Alex did his drawing in less than ten minutes. A three-year old finished his in a record time of five minutes, and as soon as that happened, he was given a bag of lollies. That's when Alex announced he was done too. But Dave and Mar, who also loves drawing, took a long time. Mar gets first prize in her age category every single year, and this year did again, as I'm sure she knew she would. While watching Dave I wondered what his motive was to keep drawing as intently as he was. He had already seen there would be lollies for everyone. Was he thinking about winning like Mar was? I could not believe it. He has never cared much about winning or losing. He's the sort of kid who lets his younger brother win at card games so that he won't get upset. No, I soon realised Dave was drawing for the mere pleasure of drawing, totally engrossed in what he was doing. He didn't look at other kids' drawings like I would have done to make sure mine was better.

Mar and Dave were two of the last kids to finish. Dave handed his drawing to me and before I gave it to the organisers, I asked him questions about it, like I always do, refraining from evaluating it as good or bad. He told me about it. It was full of colour and animals, there was an eagle and a monkey, a volcano with lava and a waterfall. Needless to say, I loved it. It showed so much imagination and creativity. I have always wondered where it comes from.

I never told Dave how to draw, or write, for that matter. It just happened. When he was very young, like 2 or 3, he used to ask me to draw to him all the time. And so had done my niece Mar. Alex did as well but not as much. So for a few years I drew lots of perfect moons and suns, which were what they used to ask for more. But I never told them how to do it. Dave in particular watched what I did and then one day started drawing and blowing my mind away.

The results of the competition were given in the evening of the same day. As I expected, neither Dave or Alex couldn't care less about being winners or not. Alex had already eaten all his lollies and Dave had already enjoyed drawing. They didn't get what all the excitement was about. So I told them what was going to happen: the lady with the microphone would call their names and they would have to go up the steps to the platform and pick up their prize. They both shied away at the thought of going up there alone and with all those people watching. They asked me to go with them and I did.

Alex was given third prize in his age category. Mar made a big fuss over it. Alex didn't even look at his diploma. He didn't proudly show it to his grandparents when we got home. That piece of paper had absolutely no meaning to him. Neither to me, I must say. I should also say that there were exactly three participants in his age group.

Dave was given second prize in his age group. Again Mar congratulated him profusely and he looked at her in bewilderment. The number of participants in his group was two.

I looked at the two drawings and my first thought was, are you kidding me? The other drawing belonged to a boy who had dutifully written his name and age (6) in perfect cursive over a perfectly drawn house. What is so special about this drawing?, I wanted to ask the judges. It's just like thousands of other boring houses children are told to draw every day! I felt a pang of hurt on my son's behalf, a familiar feeling coming back from my childhood. But I didn't show it, of course, I'm not that sort of mum! It was my competitive little demon poking out his head again.

Dave was not fazed at all. Mar made it sound as if he had won second prize from among hundreds of kids. He just shrugged his shoulders. When we got home I asked him what he wanted to do with his certificate. He said, 'It's just a stupid piece of paper, not a drawing.' I couldn't agree more. It wasn't even beautiful, but I must say it was ironically funny: the judges signed their names as Picasso, Velázquez and Van Gogh.

I must admit, I'm proud of myself. When things like this happen I feel like I'm doing something right, I'm breaking a cycle. My son draws because he loves it. Not to please the teacher. Not to please me. Not to get any prize. Just because he LOVES it.

Food Freedom for Children

2013-06-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

When I had children and knew I would be rearing them in a very different way to the one I was brought up, I would have never thought that food would be the main point of disagreement between me and other people. Even though I have made myself clear about my philosophy on food, I still have to witness how other people try to control my children about what they eat, at what times and how much of it.

Before starting this new post, I reread the one I wrote last year about food, The Food Obsession, at the start of our two-month stay in Spain. We are now again at home with my parents, and it has also been just one week, but food has already been a problem. I've never thought of Dave and Alex as being fussy eaters, but in the eyes of other people, they are. My parents complain that they don't eat what they're given.

'Neither do you,' I said to my dad. 'Or I, for that matter. And by the way, thank you for letting me use your kitchen to prepare whatever I feel like.'

'But children should eat everything without question. We cannot be preparing different meals for everyone. With the thousands of children who die every day of starvation and malnutrition, they should be grateful for what they're given.'

This is what he used to say to me when I was little, and he still doesn't see the harm in it. I used to cry for those poor children, while forcing the food down my throat and failing to see how that was going to save them. Now I tell him my children are not to blame for that. On the contrary, we adults in developed countries are the ones who should eat less, buy less and waste less food and find the way to channel all that excess food to poor countries where it is really needed.

My mum still puts too much on the children's plates and encourages them to finish it all. She talks about 'lunch time' and if either one of the kids asks for a snack, urges them to wait, so as not to spoil their appetite. If the kids refuse to eat, she can't help but say, 'If you don't eat, you won't grow up fit and strong.' She claims that when I'm not around, they do eat whatever they're given and 'behave themselves beautifully'. She coerces them gently to try everything. My dad is not so gentle and one day he yelled at Dave, 'You either eat what's on your plate or you don't eat at all!' Dave had never been told this before and left the table in tears. Alex followed him and sat next to him on the floor, crying as well, in brotherly sympathy. Dave said he wouldn't sit at the table with his grandfather again until he apologised for talking to him that way. My dad doesn't believe in apologising to children. Dave has kept his word, and I'm immensely proud of him for doing this.

So after less than a week here, we do what we always do when visiting my parents. The adults eat whatever they like, and I, knowing what the kids like, prepare the food for them. They don't eat a huge variety of things, but that has never been a worry to me. It is still a balanced diet and I actually don't understand why most people make such a fuss over children not trying absolutely everything.

With Dave and Alex's dad there is also disagreement over food, but in a different way. He buys them junk food, but because it's not really good for them, he tells them how much of it they can have. When we visited him recently in Korea, he would go to work while I stayed at his apartment with the kids knowing there were lollies and junk food hidden in the cupboards. At home, I don't hide food. Whatever we have in the fridge or the pantry is for the three of us to have whenever we please and how much of it we want. So while staying at their dad's this was a problem. He told me off for not putting a restraint on the amount of chupa-chups they had, and I said he shouldn't have bought a chupa-chup jar in the first place. He warned the children that if they couldn't stop themselves from having all the lollies, he wouldn't buy any more. We all said that would be a good idea. I don't eat any junk food myself, so I'm never inclined to buy any. When we go grocery shopping, though, I let them buy whatever they want. They usually get an ice cream and a packet of biscuits. It is up to them to get more stuff, but they don't.

I'm the one who seems to give them the most food freedom, although I realise that I still have a lot of conditioned parenting to get rid of. For example, I still struggle with their sugar intake. I think they have too much of it, and in the past I've made a point of telling them how bad certain foods are. It was my new friend Alice, whom I met on Gili Air, who made me see that projecting that negativity on junk food was actually worse than the food itself. Since then, I have refrained from saying anything bad about the lollies they eat or the many ice creams a day they would have when we were on the island. Looking back, I can't believe how negative I was sometimes about junk food. I always try to talk about positive stuff with the children, ignoring the negative so as not to focus attention on it, but I haven't always done that with food. I still talk about food (because I love it) and its nutritious content, but I now tend to ignore junk food like I do negative criticism or judgement. If they want it, they can still have it, but I don't talk about it anymore. To my enormous surprise, since I don't get so worked up about it, they've been less prone to eat badly.

I hear a lot of people talking about obese children nowadays. They blame TV, electronic tablets and junk food. In my experience, though, if you give children freedom to eat whatever they want, play for as long as they want, and watch TV as much as they want, they don't do so much of it. It is when there are restrictions or limits when they tend to overindulge. I set a good example by eating healthy, and I'm convinced that is the best way to educate them to have a healthy relationship with food. I want them to listen to their own bodies. They eat when they're hungry, and whatever they want. I don't think this is spoiling them. Adults also eat whatever they want. Children are people too and just because they're too little to fend for themselves is no reason for them to be deprived of certain stuff or forced into eating certain things they don't want.

Island Adventure

2013-05-31T01:08:00.000-07:00

It's been ten days since we left Gili Air, an island off Lombok, Indonesia with the shape of an inverted heart. Dave, Alex and I spent three weeks there lazing around at the beach, swimming in the pool, eating ice cream, watching the daily 6 pm movie at the Beach Club and socialising a bit.

The reason why we went on this 'holiday' was to meet other homeschooling and unschooling families. It was not really a holiday then, because I kept working on my writing every day and at every chance I got. And the children kept playing and interacting with the world like they do when we're in Dunsborough or elsewhere on the planet. It was through Facebook that I got the invitation to join the group, and even though I didn't know any of the others, I jumped at the opportunity to meet people with a similar philosophy and way of life to ours.

Although it is a small island, we didn't bump into any of the other families straightaway. The first few days we kept to ourselves, and I was glad we had that time alone to settle in. To my surprise, I realised I was a bit apprehensive about meeting the others, most of them radical unschoolers, like I consider us to be, although I hate labels and actually prefer to think of ourselves as autodidacts.

I was really curious about the children, all of them older than Dave and Alex. What would they be like? A friend asked me that same question in an email. 'They seem pretty normal,' I replied. As the days went by I discovered they were literate, math savvy, happy and sociable like most kids, and the relationship they had with their parents was not at all different from the one all children and parents have when they are on holidays. The main difference is that for these kids work and play go together and it's all fun, and there is never the need to say, 'You must do your homework now' or 'Time for bed. There's school tomorrow'.

There was only one kid who puzzled me at first, the one both his mum and I had hoped would be friends with Dave and Alex, because he was the same age. If I hadn't known he was unschooled I would have sworn he was in fact schooled and tagged by teachers or school psychologists as a problem child. It was not until a few days later that I found out he had in fact been at preschool and had hated it from the first day to the last. He was one of those rebellious children you come across sometimes, so highly misunderstood and disliked by adults who try to discipline and control them, and fail. His mum said he's always been aggressive, or at least since he was one. I soon saw he was very sensitive and felt attacked and laughed at when Dave and Alex teased him like they do each other. I tried to explain this to my kids and asked them not to tease him. I also tried to tell this boy that the other kids were just playing. But they just didn't click. They fought most of the time and became rivals over another boy's loyalty.

But I had no worries about the children, really. They are so transparent and sincere, really easy to get to if you know how to listen. It was of the adults that I was wary. How weird would they be? As it turned out, we ended up being only women, most single mothers with interesting and some disturbing personal stories of child neglect and marital abuse. At least one of them had a male partner, but knowing that it would be mostly women on the island, he preferred to stay in Australia. I hadn't known this and was actually looking forward to meeting some fathers. I have a strong suspicion that all this natural learning is mainly the work of women.

At first I couldn't understand why I was feeling nervous about meeting people with similar ideas to mine. After seven years of rearing my children in a truly loving and trusting way and being confronted by people who misinterpret this approach as permissive, I should have been exultant at the prospect of not being judged. After some introspection, I knew what was nagging me: I'm not used to being around people who are or think like me. Some of my best friends are still mums who raise their children in a very different way. I don't agree with it, and they don't agree with mine, but I cherish their friendship for who they are, not for how they parent. I only shy away from people who openly put me down for what I do. It is possible to live in harmony with different people. Acceptance is the key and I love Difference. I don't know how it happens that I click with some people and with others I don't, even if they're more similar to me, but that's the way it is.

Funny enough, the first person I met on the island was not an unschooler. She was there with her two younger children because her daughter was friends with one of the unschooled kids and had begged her to come along on this holiday. 'My kids go to school. I'm the freak,' she said when I asked her how she managed to work out of the house. I liked her instantly. She made me laugh, but I said, 'No, no, we are the freaks. You are normal.' Later she said, 'My social skills are terrible. I'm better at making friends with the locals than the other mums.' That's when I loved her. On successive days we kept congratulating ourselves for being anti-social and staying out of trouble. I didn't connect with all the other mums either. I did like them, but when the very first week I heard two or more of the mums fell out over the children's squabbles, I lost a bit of faith and interest in becoming part of a community where we had all hoped to live in peace and harmony.

I connected with another mum, the one who had the 'problem' child. She is relatively new to the world of unschooling, but has embraced it with a lot more enthusiasm than I have. (I insist on being an autodidact, since my kids never went to school, so there's no school to undo.) What I loved about her was that there was no judgement passed between us. Our children, all three of them strong willed, were constantly clashing. Yet, we managed to keep calm because we both knew we were on the same wavelength. I had never before felt such at ease with another parent when our children were hitting and calling each other names. I listened to her talk about how she's learnt to brush off all negativity coming from others in form of criticism, disapproval and judgement for the sake of authenticity to her child. As for the child, I was happy and relieved in my certainty that despite some damage that has been done to him, he will be saved, not by discipline, simply by the love, trust, patience and understanding of his mother.

All in all it was a great learning experience. On a personal level, I am glad to have found out that I'm not going to connect with all the hippy unschoolers of the world just because I might be one too, in the same way that I don't connect with all Spanish people living in Australia for the mere fact that we were born and raised in the same country. I'm also very happy to have made friends with people who are like me in some ways and I look forward to more meetings like this in the near future.

You are an Adult and You don't Know What Two Plus Two is?

2013-04-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Curiosity has always been one of my main traits, so, naturally, when I was little I always asked a lot of questions. I still do, but of course now that I'm an adult I know when it's best to keep my mouth shut. Instead, I research and read a lot. When I do ask, I still do it mainly for one reason: because I'm genuinely interested in the information I'm asking for. Never to find out whether the other person knows something that I already know. I wouldn't like it if people were constantly checking on what I know and don't know. I think it's condescending, so I don't do it.

And because children are people too, I don't do it to them either. In other words, I don't test them. So, in general, I don't know how much they are learning every day, even though I have no doubt whatsoever that they are constantly learning. They let me know without me asking. Only yesterday Alex was telling me about the sleeping habits of wolves. 'Where did you get that from? How do you know?' This is the sort of question that I've been posing a lot in the last couple of years. It amazes me that they are able to gather so much information when they can't even read, or so they say. 'That's because we've seen them at the zoo,' Dave chipped in.

A few days ago we were reading a new book, which was meant to be educational but turned out to be pretty crap, in my opinion. It was about a boy who didn't want to go to school and his mum said, 'If you don't pay attention, you won't learn anything.' The boy said he didn't care and, just as his mother had predicted, he didn't learn anything. He was not interested in his classmates and his mum said, 'If you don't make friends, nobody will love you or care about you.' And that's what happened. He didn't want to play sports twice a week like the rest of his classmates and his mum said, 'If you don't do exercise, you will get fat and ill and all the other kids will laugh at you.' He said he didn't care and that's exactly what happened.

'I don't like this book,' Dave interrupted. 'You don't have to push anyone to learn. Look at us, we play all day, but are still learning.'

'That's right!' I exclaimed, amazed. He'd probably heard me say that to someone else, but I couldn't remember.

'We learn slowly,' contributed Alex.

'We can't learn everything at once!' Dave went on.

I was gobsmacked. This is how I find out what all of us know: they are sponges, they take it all in, especially when it's not shoved into them. They are even aware of their own cognitive process! And there is no need to check if it's in those precious little brains. It's a lot more fun, pressure-free and illuminating when the feedback comes out spontaneously, like this.

That book was horrible but I was curious to find out what the moral of it was. This is what happened: the boy grew up to be a fat, friendless and jobless bastard. Nevertheless, a good-hearted and very beautiful girl fell in love with him. He rejected her and his parents told him, 'If you don't marry this girl, you will always be alone. Nobody will love you. And you won't have any children, so you will miss out on one of the most wonderful things life has to offer. And when you're old nobody will take care of you.' And so the man never experienced what it is to raise children and enjoy life with them, and he remained alone and nobody took care of him. He was put in a nursing home, but he was nasty to the other inmates, so he was thrown out and died on the street.

The message is clear: if you want people to love you, you must do as you're told. It is pretty shocking that books like this keep coming out, but they give us an opportunity to discuss and try to understand other ways of parenting and why different people do it differently.

With regard to testing, I see other parents do it to their kids all the time, and of course it's what's done at schools as well, to make sure they're all keeping up. For example, a friend of mine is constantly asking her son to read the signs on the streets to check if he knows his letters. I must admit that on these occasions I'm tempted to ask Dave whether he knows what the signs read. But I refrain myself because I don't want to put him on the spot, and especially not in front of his friends. Besides, I know what the sign reads. What I do is read them out loud myself, for example, the 'push' and 'pull' ones on doors. Dave and Alex look at the signs, hear what I'm saying and process the information, much in the same way as they do when I read books to them.

Other family members and friends who want to 'help' with Dave and Alex's 'schooling', as they keep on calling it, totally shocked by my unschooling approach, have tried testing their knowledge.

'What is two plus two?' asks the well-meaning adult. Dave or Alex give him a puzzled look. They're thinking, 'You're an adult and you still don't know what two plus two is?' But they say nothing, maybe it's a trick question. The adult thinks, 'Gee, they don't even know what two plus two is... My God, this mum, what the hell is she doing!' I try not to chuckle. Sometimes I pretend I can't hear, or leave the place so I can't really hear. Other times, after a long silence, I say, 'Four.' The adult looks at me as if to say, 'I knew that!' I shrug my shoulders and give him an innocent why-did-you-ask-then-I-thought-you-didn't-know look.

I have observed that Dave and Alex never answer this sort of questions. They are puzzled by them. And if they do, they play stupid. They laugh and say 'Five!' They really think it must be a game in which roles are reversed and the adult is pretending not to know the math question as if he were the kid.

I realise that due to this lack of exposure to testing, if they were put in the school system right now they would fail miserably. Some people will argue that life is full of tests and they will have to get tested at some point. Well, yes, they will have to for their driver's licence as there's no other way around it. Or if they decide to go to high school (I hope not) or university. But for now, there is no need to be tested for them to function perfectly well in society. I like it this way, without the pressure, and I'm sure it's a lot healthier for their intellectual and emotional development.

An Open Letter to my Childist Friends

2013-03-31T01:32:00.000-07:00

Since I've had my own children, now aged 5 and nearly 7, I've come to the conclusion that most people, including parents, do not like children. Some people say they do, but they don't really. They only like them when the children are 'good', a euphemism for 'obedient' and preferably quiet. Most people are childist to a certain degree. I am too, but I don't want to be. In her book Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, Elizabeth Young-Bruehl, a psychoanalist and leading expert on the nature of prejudice, described how prejudice against children create a world in which disliking and even harming and abusing children is normalised and accepted. Childist people believe children are burdensome and absorb more than their share of resources, that they should serve adults, that they are property, that they lack reason, that they are rebellious and must be broken through discipline. These beliefs do not reflect current scientific knowledge about children's development, capabilities and needs.

Since I decided to be someone's mum, I've been trying hard to be a conscious one, to take my children's feelings always in consideration as well as my own and those of other people involved. Apart from loving them, I happen to like them and I enjoy their company so much, and they mine, that the three of us spend most of our time together. Dave and Alex don't go to school and I work from home, so this is possible and we're all happy. The only thing that makes me sad sometimes is to see that other people do not like my children. It's not other children who don't like them. On the contrary, despite the fact that they don't go to school, or precisely because they don't, Dave and Alex are very sociable and have no problem making friends with other kids. It's other adults who can't be bothered with them.

These people are part of our family and circle of friends. At some point or another they have all told me that I should look out for myself, that the kids take up all of my time, that I should hire someone to help me with the burden so I can go out with them, 'my friends', and have a good time. They are right, I do need help with the children, but my mistake lies in hoping this help will come from them, my family and friends. I can't reconcile myself to paying someone to spend time with the kids. It is not because I can't afford it. Some people can't bring themselves to pay someone to clean their house. I don't have a problem with that, and in fact I'm very happy to pay someone to come once a fortnight and spend a couple of hours doing the floors and bathrooms. But paying someone, probably a stranger, to mind the kids just doesn't feel right. So I only ask people who are willing to do it out of love for the children or me. That doesn't happen often, of course, most people have enough of a handful with their own children or other grandchildren. So my circumstances are these: I can only go out and meet with friends alone when Dave and Alex's dad, Brad, is home and not working away like he does most of the time. My friends know this and they've known for a long time that if I am to go to a party, dinner or whatever we must meet with the children, theirs and mine, who are friends and in many cases are the reason why we became friends in the first place.

Dave and Alex hate to go to an adult gathering with me if his friends are not going to be there too. To me that is totally understandable. Why would they want to be around people who don't play or interact with them like only other children and very few adults do? Most adults ignore them, so they don't want to be there. What's worse, not even I pay attention to them, because I am busy chatting to other adults. So they nag me and say they want to go home. We've been in this situation a couple of times, although unintentionally. Both times that I remember, Dave and Alex were excited to go to wherever we were going because my friends' kids were going too. But on getting there we found out the parents had left the kids with their grandmother, so that the parents could drink, chat and have a good time without being annoyed by the little ones. The last time this happened I had to leave the party after half an hour or so, as Dave was pestering me to go home while Alex was wrapped around my leg and on the verge of tears. My friends looked at me with pity in their eyes. We were making a scene and they saw me as the victim. So we left and I was happy to do so. In the car I empathised with Dave and Alex. I told them they had a right to be disappointed and angry, and I was too. Their parents had told me the kids were going to be there, and they weren't. It was inconsiderate of them not to let us know.

A few weeks ago we were going to have dinner at a restaurant to celebrate one of my friends' birthday, with the children. Again, Dave and Alex were excited about meeting with their friends, at a place we had been before and where they had had fun.

'Where are the children?' I asked in dismay when I saw the other parents coming without them.

'They didn't want to come. They stayed with their grandmother,' my friend shrugged her shoulders.

I looked at my kids and felt their disappointment again. When you are a child and you are really looking forward to something, what hurts more is the adult way of shrugging it off, of belittling your feelings with comments like 'there's nothing to be upset about'. I wasn't going to say anything like that. This time I was as deeply hurt as they were, possibly more. It had been me who had suggested to have a dinner party rather than a lunch so that the other kids could come too, and play and run around, so I could have an adult conversation.

'I'm not staying,' I blurted out. There was no point in even trying. I had been through this before and I wasn't going to ask the children to sit down properly, be quiet, draw a picture and finish everything on your plate... In short, stop acting like children so that the adults can enjoy themselves. Yet, one of my childless friends, trying to help me, no doubt, tried precisely this.

'Oh, come on, stay, stay. I'll buy you kids an ice cream, or have some crayons, here.'

I hesitated for a second, and wondered if they'd be happy with that. I had also looked forward to being there and having a nice meal and a chat with my friends. Maybe I could still have it, even if the kids wouldn't. So I talked to them. They accepted the ice cream offer reluctantly. But then I stopped myself. No way was I going to bribe them like that so that I could have ten to fifteen minutes of 'peace'. After that they would have said they wanted to go home and my friends would have pitied me again and suggested next time I get a babysitter, poor me.

No, I left. I kissed goodbye the friend who had tried to help me, and said nothing to the other parents, who were already sitting at the table, happily chatting without any nagging children around. Another friend was caught in the middle, torn between staying at the restaurant or coming with me. I told him he should stay, but in the end he decided to support me by going with me to another restaurant with a playground, where we could have dinner and the kids could play. I suppose he chose to come with me out of pity, not empathy or understanding, and this was a mistake. He said, 'They will be saying they're bored in ten minutes and you'll have to go home, anyway'. I was already fuming at what had happened, and that was an unfortunate comment. It did not happen, by the way. Dave and Alex had dinner and played for a long time, so my friend and I had all the space to argue without interruption. He said my whole life revolves around the children and my friends are just secondary characters in my life. And just because I think that my children are the most important people in the world, I shouldn't expect my friends to feel the same way.

'A phone call,' I said in my defense. 'A phone call is all the help I needed from my friends, to let me know that their children weren't coming, so I would have had time to talk to mine and probably decide that we would stay home, as the outing was not going to be a happy one for the three of us.'

In other words, a little bit of consideration for their feelings. I am sick and tired of seeing how my children get stood up by yours, my friends. I understand your children don't need any more friends because they have loads at school. We, on the other hand, have to get out there and make the effort to make friends and choose who we want to be friends with. That to me is a privilege and I'm happy that my kids can choose their friends, like I do.

I still like you, my childist friends, but I'm afraid I only have time for you alone (without the children) when my kids are happily spending time with their father or other children. I will call you then.

Slip, Slop, Slap gone too Far

2013-02-28T01:04:00.004-08:00

My first summer in Australia was one of the longest I ever had. Up until then I had never really experienced the fierceness of the sun. I was out at the beach one day for just five minutes and I got punished with one of the worst sunburns ever. The sun really seems to be closer to Earth in Australia than in the rest of the world. It's one of those things you don't really believe until you experience it. From that first year on I always tried to break the summer by going somewhere else in the world, mainly home for the winter Christmas. On the occasional times when I couldn't escape the whole of the long summer, I would be one of those people at the beach for a 6 am swim in the ocean and then I would spend most of the day indoors or under shelter until the late afternoon.

The summers don't seem too long anymore, but we're not one of those families who go to the beach every single day. I still like going late in the afternoon or early evening. One day I bumped into a friend at the car park, as she was getting her boys ready for the beach, successfully making them look like cupcakes covered with white icing. Only it was tonnes of sunblock, not sugar. I couldn't help but ask her why she was doing that.

'Oh, I always do it. My kids don't get out of the house without sunscreen on.'

'But it's four thirty-seven in the afternoon!'

'I don't care what time it is. You can never be too careful, I get paranoid.'

'And the boys are quite happy having all that cream on their bodies several times I day', I observed.

'Well, they are used to it. I've been doing it since they were babies and it's become second nature. They know the sun is really bad for you.'

I was gobsmacked. My friend is a well-educated intelligent person, yet here was another example of someone following authority without question, the result of a quarter of a century of a very successful campaign, the "Slip, Slop, Slap".

When I first had my babies I was also very careful, never exposing them directly to the sun. I covered them with hats and at the beach they always wore rashies and boardies. Like all Australian kids, they are so used to wearing hats in summer that they won't go outside without one. And they'll never go to the beach or in the water without their rashies on, even though I tell them sometimes it's okay to go without when it's late in the afternoon. But I was never too keen on the sunscreen, especially not on their faces. It just seemed very unnatural to cover their soft cheeks and noses with the yucky and smelly stuff, especially because they hated it as well, and still do. I always listen to them because I believe children are more in touch with their intuition than adults are. So when Alex says, 'I don't want that horrible stuff on my face' and I say 'But you might get burnt if you don't put it on and that would really hurt and might even cause disastrous consequences' (a phrase he loves thanks to the Lego ninjas), and Dave says, 'I'm not having that on either, and I don't even want to go outside, the sun's too hot', I know they're right, and that's what we do. We've had the same tub of sunscreen for the last four years.

I still wonder at people who smear themselves and their children with so much sunscreen. If applied correctly, sunblock can prevent skin cancer, but it also prevents vitamin D production in the skin. The sun is the best natural source of vitamin D and people should in fact spend small amounts of time in the sun without sun protection when the UV index is below three. Vitamin D is essential for the development of strong bones, as it is converted from cholesterol in the blood by sunlight and helps increase calcium absorption in the body. Ten or fifteen minutes in the sun a day will provide your body with more calcium than a glass of milk, which in fact I don't think is very good for you, but I won't get into that today.

The skin cancer aware message of the campaign has so successfully been absorbed into the Australian psyche that people who are always slipping on a shirt, slopping on the 30+ sunscreen and slapping on a hat may in fact be exposing themselves to the sun more than non-sunscreen users. So, if they are not applying the sunscreen correctly, they might be more prone to develop skin cancer. And if they are, they might belong to the 30% to 70% of the Australian population with a vitamin D deficiency, which has also been linked to colon, breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other diseases.

If you're one of those Australians who is not getting enough vitamin D because you cover yourself with sunscreen and all its potentially harmful chemicals, you can always get vitamin D supplements, which might upset your stomach, but then you can take more tablets to remedy that...

Where does it end? In our materialistic society, when you have a problem this is what you are encouraged to do: buy, buy and buy. But the sun is free, it is up to us to use it with caution.

Overprotective Parents Make Schools Bad

2013-01-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog I told myself that I wouldn't badmouth about schools, but I'm afraid today I do have something bad to say about them. I decided to unschool my children not because I thought schools were bad for children — I didn't. On the contrary, I was sure schools were better today than what they were when I was a school kid. Only when my kids' friends started school did I find out that in some regards no progress has been made when it comes to giving children an education.

I get surprise after surprise. A couple of months ago a girl was given a detention at a school in Bunbury because she hugged another girl and that violated the school's no-hugging policy. I don't watch television, but for about a week this news was in everyone's conversation. Bunbury is only one hour away from where I live, so I kept hearing about it. How paranoid and ridiculous are schools getting that they have to make rules like this? Apparently, the pressure comes from the parents, as my sister-in-law was telling me the other day. Schools have a hard time trying to keep all the parents happy, especially the overprotective ones. My sister-in-law was annoyed as she was telling me this because her kids' school had just banned anything associated with the Gangnam Style, following the complaints by one mother, who deemed the music and especially the style highly inappropriate for children.

'The kids were having so much fun with the song,' she said with regret. 'But this mother said it had sexual connotations and she didn't want her kid doing those dance moves. So now none of the kids at school can do them. It's just a song! And what's worse, now I have to explain to my kids why it is bad for them, they had no idea before!'

But the recent school story that shocked me the most comes once again from my friend Ann. Her youngest son, Daniel, who is now 6, was also given a detention one day. He was quite upset because he had no notion of having done something wrong. So the school called Ann and she had to get out of work to settle the matter. In fact, she had to apologise because what happened was entirely her fault, as she put it; she just never thought it would get to this.

Daniel was talking to some of his school friends about a certain type of men who are not happy being men and decide to change parts of their bodies to become women. His friends were gaping in disbelief. Enjoying the attention, he elaborated by saying, 'They have their penis cut off and a doctor makes it into a vagina, and they get fake boobs too.' This was nearly impossible for his friends to believe; it sounded too surreal. So, in a desperate attempt to keep his credibility, he exclaimed, 'My mum told me, so it is true!'

That's when he was pulled by the ear and sent straight to detention.

Ann was amazed at Daniel's memory. Two years ago, when Daniel was only 4, the whole family went on a trip to the United States. It was in Los Angeles that Daniel and his brother met a very tall and beautiful woman who had a man's voice. They were mesmerised by her and confused at the same time, so they asked questions. As I would have done, Ann gave her answers with the plain truth and no euphemisms. She never thought that this conversation would bring her problems with school two years later. She argued with the principal, who said this sort of talk at school was unacceptable and she shouldn't talk to her kids about these things. Ann stood her ground by insisting that she wouldn't lie to her children because if she did they would soon find out, and if you can't trust your own mother, who can you trust?

Schools are supposed to be a place where children go to get an education, but in many cases they are actually deprived of it. They are put there as if to protect them from the real world. Lots of Australian families take long family holidays and most schools don't have a problem with that — homeschooling is widely accepted in this country — and I'm sure everybody agrees that children learn more when they're out there, travelling with their parents, than at school. It is shocking and sad that when they go back to school they are denied certain information. Overprotective parents do this as well. They say that their kids are not old enough to know certain things, so they lie to them. This is so counterproductive. It is actually safer for them to know about the world. I'm not saying that you should make them watch the world news every night, but if they ask a question it means that they are interested in the answer and you should give it, they are prepared for it. Just answer the question, don't give a full-on lesson unless they keep asking. This is how they learn. At school they only learn what they are really interested in, the rest they will soon forget. Daniel will probably never forget the way he felt the day he was unfairly given a detention. And I bet he will never ever forget his first lesson on transsexualism and how it is still stigmatized, even in Western culture.