“Give me the ch…

“Give me the child for seven years, and I will give you the man.” Baltasar Gracian, Spanish Jesuit scholar. 1601-1658

Sonic was 7 years old on Sunday, and with the coming of the day I reflected on the above quote  that who he is now will be who he is as a man, and I am proud that he is the creative, explorative, kind child that he is. 

I read a most interesting book by Dr Dan Seigel who concluded through his research that this quote reflects neurscience: That by age 7 the brain is pretty much mapped for life. This knowledge has led me to feel an overwhelming pressure to  nurture and stay in tune with my children, however it has also led to tremendous amounts of guilt when I have not been able to – that old mothering chestnut! But he says, the good news is that in the developing science of neuroplasticity.  It is now thought that our brain can rewire itself in as little as 6 weeks with mindfulness techniques.  John Holt himself demonstrated this ability by defying mainstream thinking (and didn’t he always?) by leaning how to play the cello in his late forties! I still have much work to do in  achieving consciousness and mindfulness in my own actions let alone modelling this ability for the children in my life, but the project is life long.

My current interest is in the history of Gnosticism and the Gnostic gospels only recently translated and released about Jesus, which interestingly demonstrate this such knowledge of owning ones own thoughts and creating our own perception of reality.

 

Back to the non-science entrenched birthday – we spent the day playing games, making Lego, visiting baby bunnies, and went to Orana Wildlife Park. For the first time in our visits we managed to join the keepers as they fed the animals and gave talks. We saw the giraffe, rhinos, trout and cheetahs up close and developed further admiration for them.  Sonic actually got to a point at the cheetahs where he simply wanted to go home and do more Lego, but after the cheetahs started meowing like baby kittens we were transfixed.  Back at home he watched Harry Potter with his sisters and Sergeant while I made his favourite dinner of lamb lasagne followed by ice-cream.

Roll up, roll up…

Since becoming a mother, I have felt a need to protect myself and create a cocoon around us of a like-minded support network. This need has been essential when faced with the reality that my instinctive parenting style generally flows against the masses.  Now that my twins are 3, my son 6, I feel ready to be in the real world again.   Or at least the world I have created in a more positive perspective?

As a teenager, I was friends with people I stereotyped as drugs dealers, football hooligans, some of my teenage friends were trying to get pregnant, I had womanising boyfriends and duplicitous friends – and life was full of fear and feelings of disapproval. When I went to university I realised that people exist in a different reality, and I moved away from the life I knew before. But with a fear of turning back.

My aha moment came in a life couching session, when it finally sunk in that to love and accept my children unconditionally, I have to accept myself. Not doing so led to me using all my energy to try and be a perfect person, then loosing energy and swooping down into immense self-disapproval, depression and rage, then looping up again – the crazy 8!  I now aim to forgive myself, and to understand that every strategy I so effectively developed to protect myself from pain, doesn’t serve me.

So I am now trusting people and opening up to all sorts of possibilities.  Everything that has happened up until now has been an amazing opportunity to learn and grow, and will allow me to help others. I now have friends from all corners of the world, from all walks of life.  While I want to protect my children, I have found that we can share our lives with all sorts of people as long as we continue to promote their personal growth; and ensure that they know and trust themselves.

Life is a lot of fun at the moment. I have my support through the democratic school, my safe place, and freedom to explore outside the community. Life is presently a delight!

Today we spent the afternoon at school lying in the library, before going downstairs to find a mum had set up a bean bag activity. So we sat making bean bags with whoever wished, the aroma of lavender oil floating around. I am now desperate to get an overlocker. Sergeant says I am getting far too nerdy in my interests 😉  Now home after realising we had forgot to have lunch, making (at their request) a Thai curry from scratch with fish balls and pizzas. The sun is hot, the breeze is turning into a stormy wind (woo hoo!)and we’re going to see the circus tonight.  It’s all good.

I had to include this picture as I was about to walk on the blanket when I luckily noticed someone having a nap!

What is ‘Gentle Parenting’ and how is it different to ‘Mainstream Parenting’?

Another Visit

The last week has been spent with family visiting from Australia.  We have been to Akaroa rocking on boats, Hanmer Springs wallowing in hot rock pools, and the Antarctica Centre watching penguins and riding in military style buggies! It has been a wonderful week and we were sad to see our our brother and sister and law, niece and nephew leave.

I have had gastroenteritis for 5 days so this afternoon am having a rest and cleaning the house while Sergeant is testing two new co-operative games at our friends house with the children.  

I am very fortunate to have made a few close friends in Christchurch who share similar conclusions in parenting and education, one of which was a nanny previously.  Whilst I have yet to find any research which states that mass childcare is beneficial to the development of a child in terms of social or emotional well-being, I have seen much evidence that if a child is bonded with alternative caregivers the experience can be positive so employment is restrained by the hours my friend can offer as a nanny and what flexibility the role offers.

While I love the theory of democratic schooling, if under-resourced both in terms of the input of fellow parents and in terms of support and actual resources, I prefer whole-life learning as a more holistic and nurturing education.  Subsequently I have been asked frequently if I would consider Sonic going to a “normal” school. I do not accept the social norm – children are natural learners and mainstream school does not work for millions of children, (certainly not my son) and learner centred education does; so I would rather support alternative means of education – let’s support a revolution!

 

 

Science and God

Recently, I have encountered quite a few people who have said to me “I don’t believe in God – I am a scientist!”. And I have thought about this for some time, as I have spiritual beliefs and I have a science and research background/skillset.

There are in fact a plethora of scientists who do have religious beliefs, including those working in quantum physics, molecular biology etc etc (including Plank, Einstein, Newton, Galileo). Furthermore, there are quantum physicists and biologists who believe that there is evidence for the existence of God – e..g Dr Amit Goswani, and others who believe that evolution has been misinterpreted and can be better explained by epigenetics, and spontaneous evolution. The fact that I seek an evidence-base for the existence of God is my own prejudice and my own preference not a basis for arrogance or superiority.

I do not think that it is acceptable to mock what we cannot ever know for sure. In every day science, we are working with likelihoods not certainty, and with new evidence comes new beliefs and understandings. A scientist use data from a known population in order to describe it meaningfully, to draw conclusions from it, and make informed decisions – but the inferences are only as good as the data and even then there are so many confounders and prejudices.

 

The Journey of the baby seals – Kaikoura & Hanmer Springs

Two trips courtesy of my kind and generous parents were to Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs. These locations are situated north of Christchurch and I would estimate a 1 hour 45 minutes drive to Kaikoura which took us 2-3 times as long due to rest stops, and promptly deleted our anticipated trip to Queenstown 😉

The drive to Kaikoura was absolutely stunning, and we travelled north of Kaikoura, aiming to get to Ohau waterfalls but went too far and ended up at a turning point only to realise there were plenty of seals sat on a rock:

Kaikoura

We went back to do the Ohau waterfall walk featured n the following link:
http://trampingtracks.co.nz/Ohau-Waterfall-Walk.html

Here are some of the pictures, you can see at the waterfall there are many baby seals frolicking awaiting the arrival of adults bearing food. As we walked down we saw some adult seals climbing up to the waterfall and I crept down the bank and waited to take some close up pictures:

Ohau Waterfall with baby seals playing!

Walking back

He caught me looking!

Walking under the old bridge

CUCHSHINE PETTING FARM, Kaikoura

Are you pleased to see us Peacock?

Gorgeous piggy

We were cornered by the goats and other animals wanting feeding

My parents shower at the Aspen Spa Hotel (what?? it seems noteworthy.)

Spa shower

A glimpse of the sea in Kaikoura

Random pictures of New Brighton & things we made

Cuddles

Syringe painting

The walk to school

Tina & my neglected guitar

I just love this one of Sonic sorting, I guess must appeal to my OCD type brain!

A morning at Christchurch Lego show

Hearts I made

Old chest updated with home-made chalk paint (old paint form the tip mixed with plaster of Paris)

My attempt at a “healthy” birthday cake – FAIL!

Rice play

I fixed this crib from the Ecostore, only cost $8 and $3 in materials!

Sonic takes a picture

Our garden

This is the thing that I love, finding randomly altered furniture courtesy of my creative family:

The girl with the straight hair decorates a chair

Sonic and his sisters used marker pens to redecorate their table

NEW BRIGHTON

The girls and I take a walk on a cold day

Picture wall

New Brighton beach

The sea

New Brighton beach

Memorial at NB

The Travel with Skiing

Travelling on the way to Mount Hutt and Methren

Our family has had the pleasure of a free skiing lesson on Mount Hutt courtesy of Sergeant’s work. The altitude sickness affected Sonic and his sisters children quite soon after starting our lesson, but my parents arrived to save the day and they took them for hot chocolates and a play. Sergeant took to skiing brilliantly, I enjoyed it but if given the choice between dancing classes/gym over skiing, I’d leave the skiing. I feel grateful to have had the experience and would try it again. I do hope Sergeant can go again…

The steep ascent up to Mount Hutt

Skiing Lesson

Another heavenly place – there are a few places I have visited that have just been awe inspiring and this is one of them:

Heavenly places – gorge on the way from Methren to Christchurch

The gorge coming form Methren to Christchurch, (before Whitecliffs)

Don’t Ignore Your Children

Abundant Life Children

Many of the popular books I’ve read about managing children’s unpleasant behaviors (whining, tattling, screaming, tantruming, name-calling…) include a similar “strategy” for raising young children.  Adults should ignore a child’s unwanted behaviors.

Ignore.

One logical (though incomplete) idea underlies this suggestion: children will continue with behaviors that meet their needs.  If a child is trying to get attention by tantruming,

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And here is Spring in Christchurch

Today is the day I wake up after an intense month with my parents has ended.  They came to visit and I was so grateful.  Before they came I wished time would speed up to see them,  then they arrived and I wished for time to  slow down so we could enjoy our time together.  After our teary goodbyes, I went with my family to start planning our house again.  We bought curtains, chipped chairs and an old rusty fireguard and came home to paint them up chalk style.  God was smiling on me today as I asked for bowls and something to put our shoes in, and as we walked along there were 4 nice bowls out to gift and later on in the day on the way home a huge wooden chest!

 

We have been so fortunate to be able to explore Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs with my parents, and I am looking forward to posting about them in more detail.  It s now Spring and the sun is very strong already, our skin in quite ravaged from it.  Explanations of why the sun in New Zealand is so much more damaging than the Mediterranean or even the Caribbean would be appreciated.