HE rant

I feel a bit useless at saying that 3 years into HE and I still haven't settled on what I feel to be a successful and happy approach to HE for our family.

I like what I read about unschooling, but I am not totally convinced either in theory or in practice for us. Maybe I would feel better about it in practice if it was like I read somewhere recently with a quote roughly along the lines of "I started to realise how ridiculous it was to call my son away from designing his own model aeroplane to sit down and do some maths." If I saw plenty of designing, creating or discovering going on here, I might well just go along with it. Instead, what happens when left to their own devices is that Jade either pretends to be a horse or pretends to be riding/grooming/feeding one and Shannon begs to watch DVDs from dawn till dusk. I'm also not convinced about it in theory, because, rightly or wrongly and as someone who had a relatively academic education, I really want my daughters to be able to use grammar and the English language properly, with correct punctuation and spelling, and I want them to learn how to discuss and express their ideas and arguments fully and cogently, and I want them to be able to recognise good science from bad, I'd like them to have the basics of one or two foreign languages and the basics of maths, and how do I know whether, left to themselves, they would take these up to the level that I think they 'should'? It's disheartening when I read other blogs and find that other children her age are doing amazing art work, happily attending language groups, making their own patterns to sew their own clothes and being fascinated by electronics kits. With Jade, the only thing she is fascinated by is horses/ponies, and although I know there are plenty of educational opportunities in there, she WON'T do any of them. She will not make up pony stories, she will not write a pony project, she doesn't want to do anything that would feel to me as though she is doing something productive. She just wants to play at riding ponies and read pony stories and that is it.

With Jade in particular, giving her structured work is a dangerous venture, which has to be approached with the lightest of touches, otherwise sparking off major confrontations and leading to grumpiness and misery for us all. She is significantly resistant to being 'taught' anything, even stuff that she has actually asked to learn. I think perhaps she is incredibly insecure about feeling that she might get things wrong, so only wants to do things which she already feels she can do, and is scared of trying anything new. Her difficult behaviour seems to be part of the selective mutism syndrome, having compared notes with other parents, but she is particularly challenging to parent and I feel quite at sea with her at the moment.

It would be great if I was imaginative and energetic enough to come up with interesting activities and hands-on investigations that were fun and educational, but I feel stretched in too many directions and simply refereeing all the sibling rivalry, hitting and arguing and tantrums wears me out and I have very little left to give. It used to be that a quiet evening and a (relatively) good night's sleep (i.e. one where I only get woken about 2-3 brief times by Shannon) would refresh me and set me up again for the morning, but these days I am sick to death of the arguing and bickering before I've even got out of bed.

Part of me would quite like to throw in the towel and just send Jade to school, and then I'd get that blessed much-longed-for me-time that is so missing at the moment, but I know perfectly well that she wouldn't cope, it would do her much more harm than good and we'd end up in a worse position than we are now. Plus I'd miss what I feel that HE could and should be. I still believe in HE; I just don't feel as though I'm making a very good job of it with this particular child.