To Greenbelt! I love it - this will be my 20th year in attendance and it just sorts me out in all sorts of ways. And there will be the Off the Path'ers, the Raine Drops and the Deep Enders so it's going to be fab!
And it's my birthday tomorrow! I've bought a lovely big sticky chocolate cake to take with us, plus a bottle of Baileys and a couple of bottles of wine to share tomorrow evening - fab!!
But before we go tomorrow morning, we have an appointment at the local outpatients dept here in town for us and Jade to see someone from Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services about her selective mutism. She doesn't know yet as I'm pretty sure she won't want to go and I want to limit the amount of protest we all have to undergo. Not sure if that's the right decision but it's where we've ended up, anyway.
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Without planning to, it seems I am going against the mainstream in many areas of my life. Home-birth, cloth nappies, attachment parenting, long-term breastfeeding, formerly home-educating and Christian! So here's the blog of me, DH Bill, DD Jade (June '01) and DD Shannon (Nov '04).
About Me
Blogs I read
- Grit's Day
- Happy At Home
- Home Educating the Puddle Girls
- Just another morning here
- Life is a Highway
- Making It Up
- Moving at the speed of life
- Mud & Mischief
- One word? When seven would do...
- Petits Haricots
- Seeing with new eyes
- Stepping off the path
- T-Bird Anni Rides Again
- The Portico
- To the Manor Born
- Where the Days Go
4 comments:
hope you have a great time at greenbelt. and happy birthday for then.
deep breath about the appt tomorrow, hope it is helpful, and the doing of it not too traumatic
seriously jealous about Greenbelt, I WILL get there one year....
Hope appointment goes well this morning. I know it's not going to be easy for any of you but hopefully it will bring you some results before long.
K
Happy Birthday!
Hope appt goes as well as possible.
One of Clo's friends was totally mute at Pre-school and virtually mute elsewhere. But she told her mum that she would talk when she got to nursery. I think it had become a habit and then she knew if she started speaking it would suddenly draw a LOT of attention onto herself that she didn't want (which may have been why she hadn't spoken - couldn't cope with the pressure). Anyway she decided she would speak at nursery and she did! Not that she's the chattiest of creatures - but she will speak and now does so with no issues (even if sometimes it's very quietly). At school now and still speaking. I know Indie's mum found the not-speaking very upsetting, as I think Indie did too. Hope you all find the support you need.
Hi Jo,
Backreading (have been 'flumpy' too, and offline). A lot of what you are writing really resonates for me! So ((((())))) lots of those, and hoping things are picking up, and that Greenbelt helped lots.
It is really hard to know how to support a child's self-esteem when you have spent all that time doing it and it doesn't seem to have worked. Have been there ... goes with the thoughtful, sensitive kid territory ... and the sibling rivalry I suspect (from experiences here).
Difficult to get the balance between helping them to learn to be self-sufficient and positive in their evaluations of themselves ... and being supportive and affirming. sometimes, it has seemed here, that the more affirming I do, the worse it gets.
Have found The Feeling Good book (David Burns) stuff I have learned really useful recently in helping Lani and Becs to begin to evaluate themselves without the unrealistic need to be perfect (even down to the level of their private thoughts and feelings), and to look at themselves in context, and in a more positive way. Also to be less reliant on approval or achievement for their sense of worth.
These are all vulnerabilities I've grown up with and are prominent in our culture. It's really difficult to avoid them, and difficult to learn to judge your worth realistically and independently of others' judgments.
I've also found Alfie Kohn (Unconditional Parenting) really useful for clarifying the pitfalls of praise. It has explained to me how it just doesn't seem to have worked to try to build my kids up ... they always seem to be working all the harder to shatter the 'expectations' they then think I must have that they don't feel they can live up to!
I'm sending you lots of love and hope that joy returns/has returned to you for at least a part of every day.
(Your description of the clinging and hands up the clothes was almost too real for me to read. I've been right there with you!)
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