HOMESCHOOLING FUN . . . (IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE HARD)

Over the years I have been asked time and again "how do you find time to homeschool" - to the point that I want to write a book about it, (.  .  . maybe later, when the children have grown). People often treat me as though I'm either a complete saint - and believe me that is not even close to the truth - or completely insane. But the truth is that there are days when I question why I am doing this as well, especially back in the early days when I had three children under the age of 11 at home. I clearly remember the day that I had a complete epiphany right back at the beginning when I thought that if you were homeschooling you had to have a class room set up and act like a teacher. My children were so bored and challenged by our structured routine that they would act out every chance they got; this particular day they decided they were turkeys and were wobbling and gobbling around on the floor and pulling on their lower lips and making the most absurd noises - when they should have been studying. At first I was furious with them but then anger gave way to despair which gave way to amusement which gave way to hysterical laughter with tears rolling down our cheeks. Even though I didn't know about "natural learning" or "unschooling" at that point and had never met other homeschoolers I knew that structured lessons were not the way for us. Since that day I have used a more eclectic approach and it's only now, 5 years later, that my youngest is doing set lessons every day which came about because she asked to be "learning more from textbooks."

I still do have moments when I become too serious, especially now with a book business as well, but the moment I feel my attention has strayed too far I talk to my younger children in falsetto or with an irish accent or sometimes in falsetto with an irish accent and that gets me straight back onto their page; they respond to the fact that I'm mucking around and love it.. If I ever stop seeing the world through the eyes of my children or grandchildren I will be very sad indeed.

With my older children I regale them with stories of drug addiction, car crashes, broken hearts, homelessness, out of control parties etc that I remember hearing from my teenage years. And we talk about the old days when if you wanted to contact someone and you weren't at home you would have to go to a red box in the street and put money into a phone and often there would be a queue of other people waiting to use the phone. And if you wanted to contact someone and you didn't have their phone number you would have to get a piece of paper and write (with your hand) the message you wanted to convey and then fold the paper up and place it in an envelope, write the address on it and then walk to the post office and buy a stamp, lick it, put it on and pop it in the letter box and the person wouldn't get it for at least two days and then you would have to wait more days to get a message back from them and . . . they look at me with wide eyes and shake their heads and say "you're soooo ancient Mum."