Regretting taking kids out of school.

[apocketfulofposy]

Posting here for traffic,sorry.

I have 5 children ranging from aged 6 to 10 weeks old.

We always planned to home educate after reading a book about it when ds1 and 2 were toddlers,then when ds1 was about 4 and a half,and i was pregnant with baby number 4,i decided to give our local primary a go,partly because it was just that time where he would of been going and partly because i was finding it hard with them all at home (no family on either side for 3 hours,husband who works away monday to friday,rural ish area,i cant even drive!).

Anyway reception was ok,he liked it,made plenty of friends,dc2 and 3 went to the pre school and liked it,except dc2 had lots of issues with hitting other children and just general destructive behaviour.

When ds1 started yr1 last year he hated it from the word go,he still liked seeing his friends but he really noticed the change between mostly play to mostly lessons,plus his teacher left after a term and the new one was very strict and spoke to the children like she was some kind of prison officer.

Ds2 started reception and seemed to enjoy it but after a few weeks i was called in a few times about his hitting and destroying things,they said he just physically wasnt ready to be at schoolt hat much so put him down to half days,which was a bit of a faff for me as i was in and out all day but it was fine.It didnt seem to help though and he was behaving worse and worse at school,especially at lunchtime,but strangely his behaviour at home was getting better.

Add to this the fact i was finding it hard carting them all around everywhere and i felt crap because i kept forgetting to reply to things and i kept hearing all this micheal gove stuff,i just decided to pull them out,id been thinking about it on and off for a while and just thought do it,and id id it almost on a bit of a whim.

The first few weeks were great and we all loved the novelty of not rushing around in mornings and the kids have been playing all day,and actually one good point is that they have been getting on so much better.

But apart from that i am starting to regret taking them out,i miss the routine,i miss being able to take the babies to their groups and talking to my "mummy friends"(cringe) i miss being able to go to the shop quickly with just the double buggy,i also just dont know what to do with them,and the house is just such a mess!

I know these are'nt huge things but its starting to feel chaotic and i can feel it going back to the way it used to be,before school,and it hink i underestimated how much it did for all of us.I just dont know what to do!

Help and advice please!xxxxx

I have noticed recently, and I dont know if it is releavant here, that now I know some well to do people, they always, and I mean always know lawyers, financial advisors, doctors etc etc.
It seems to me, that if you are well connected, that it is remarkably wasy to ask Mr J who knows Mrs P if your son Timothy can come and work a few hours a week for you, unpaid if necessary.

I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that they are dependent on her. Well at least no more than a lot of children of similar age who are dependent on their parents to go to uni or have help with house deposits or whatever.
I also can't see where it says Marty didn't pay for his own car. Maybe his parents did buy it for him but I've known parents who have bought their children cars. And if they have the money and it makes them happy, that's their choice. Nothing at all to do with what form of education the children had as far as I can see.

I think it vastly hypocritical -most women on here would not want to be married or have children with these 'adolescent' men and they wouldn't want a MIL like Sandra Dodd and yet they will bend over backwards defend her methods.
He was 20 years old when he got that jeep. I could safely bet a considerable amount of money on the fact that he didn't get it through his earnings. A little runabout would be quite satisfactory-I still disapprove.

She actually says that Kirby is her experimental model number 1!!!

And he is only in customer services at Blizzard Entertainments-he isn't doing anything creative after all those years playing computer games.

I don't see my children as 'experiments'.

I wasn't going to add to this thread but Tamer you said something that really annoyed me - 'what if he marries an engineer or lawyer who wants to put her kids in nursery and concentrate on her career'. Are women the only people fit to raise children now FFS? Is their father not capable of raising them? Nursery is not the only solution for a woman interested in her career!

Sorry- quite right- I was getting carried away from the MIL from hell! However I struggle to think of a high achieving woman wanting to marry a man with arrested development who has never cut the apron strings- or want her children to be similar. Sandra Dodd must employ a cleaner. If she isn't making her children do anything I can't see her telling them they have to empty the dishwasher daily and I can't see them volunteering to be the person who cleans the bathroom. I apologise for my remark- I didn't give them a though as the one at home because they are too self centred.

Idk, my son's only 5 but he offers to unload the dishwasher, do the hoovering etc. He often says no when I ask if he'd like to help but other times he asks out the blue what he can do to help with the 'homework' (housework). I anticipate him being a fully independent young adult and something of a catch, tbh.

It didn't cross my mind that the Dodd children could run a house and look after children, they haven't seen the need to pitch in as a family because they have never been expected to do anything they don't want to do.

I don't know the Dodds (read some of Sandra's stuff & liked it though) but I think it's a misconception that you have to make someone so something in order for them to want to help out. I bet you do favours for people, esp your family, because you want to; you love them and want to help them out.

*do

In an ideal world, yes. I don't think it works like that or you wouldn't have all the threads on here of men who don't do anything or children who can't even get their clothes in the dirty washing basket!

It makes me laugh at the fact that a 20 yr old can earn enough from odd jobs to buy a jeep and they are all having a voluntary rota to clean bathrooms, cook meals etc and never have to be asked to take out the rubbish!

We live/d consensually. Our only rule was one of mutual respect.

All mine can live independently, look after children, hold down a job, and run a household very well....even though we didn't make them do anything they didn't want to.

We live consensually too.and we have mutual respect. That means that, for example, it would be unthinkable for someone to cook a meal and for it not to be appreciated and the washing up done afterwards. There are ways of people doing things they don't particularly want to do that don't require coercion. The insistence on mutual respect is one of them.

You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think children are going to do housework every day if it not expected. There would be no problems on MN, all men would be doing equal amounts, all teenagers would be asking their mothers what jobs they can do. Or are you saying that it doesn't work if you ask them or make them, but if you don't ask them and don't make them they just do it?
'Living consensually' is another of those modern terms that irk. If you have mutual respect you don't leave it all to mother, you go to bed at a reasonable time, you don't spend all your spare time on computer games.
As Martorana says, if you cook a nice meal you expect someone else to do the washing up. I don't think that this mutual respect comes naturally when it comes to cleaning toilets- it needs to be explained that you don't get rights without responsibility. Mutual respect doesn't happen unless people take responsibility.

Actually, mutual respect does extend to keeping the loo clean. I think I take back what I said about us living consensually. What I mean is that we don't bark orders. Particularly when it comes to housework- we just do stuff because it means that we all have a nicer life.

Reading further it appears that mother is to blame ! You stop thinking of it as a chore and you do it happily with a smile on your face and the children see it in the same way! You follow the policy of 'if the mess is bothering YOU, then YOU clear it up'- (a bit of a failure with my DC3 in particular as messes never bother him!)
Apparently having a clean house isn't as important as being happy living in it. ( I am not house proud, but I hate living in a mess and I can't live in dirt).
Apparently having a vacuumed floor isn't as important as letting Fred and Jack watch a TV show so not only should you not ask them to do it you shouldn't even disturb them by doing it yourself!

I don't think anyone is talking a out barking orders- just pointing out nicely that it is their turn and mother is part of the ' consensual' living and not the housekeeper.

About

Reading further it appears that a lot of them hire household help because that way they get pleasant living conditions without having to bother their children with tasks they don't want to do!

I think next time a woman complains on AIBU about her DP being unable to even pick his towel up off the floor I will point out that it was all due to his parents not living 'consensually'!

I must go to bed but I have found the part where women feel taken advantage of by their children in the household stakes- the solutions are hilarious - and all to be done by a cheerful, smiling mother!

I can generally see some sense or good points in any parenting methods, if I look hard enough but I fail completely with Sandra Dodd who appears a complete nutter! I suppose her good point is that she really believes the rubbish she spouts.

I shall share the hilarious solutions of how to manage the chores so that you don't insist they do any and yet you don't feel put upon. dealing with feeling 'taken advantage of
I really can see how anyone can defend this way of living.

I don't label how I live. I just live the way my parents lived and they lived the way their parents lived- with common sense. I treat other people, including children, the way that I would like to be treated and expect the same back. I don't shout at them, they don't shout at me. I am polite, they are polite back. I don't bark orders, I don't use 'naughty' steps. We live together, I am not the hired help. I cook the meals and we eat together, they have a choice of take it or leave it. If they cook it I get a similar choice from them. The person who does the cooking doesn't wash up. I don't get down before I finish eating, they don't get down before they finish eating. Household chores are boring, that is why they are chores. They need doing. If I am doing one I hate, cleaning the bathroom I grit my teeth and get on with it, I do not, to quote, put a smile on my face and do it with a song in my heart, to make them think it is a fun task! It is not a fun task and they will not be fooled!
I have at least 30years more experience of life and I use it. Some things are non negotiable, they will clean teeth, they will go to bed at a reasonable time for their age, they will be served a healthy diet and I know where the off switch us on the computer and won't hesitate to use it after a certain time.

Since my youngest is almost 23 yrs I can say that it has worked and they are emotionally mature adults who can run a house,cook etc and not expect a woman to do it for them and are fully functioning adults out in the world, able to make relationships.

The family of home educators that I know best are similar. They didn't bother much with GCSEs but they went to school for A'levels because they needed them. The eldest took an extra year and then went to university and is working, the second went to university at the normal time and is working, the third didn't bother with university but landed a job in a very enterprising way. Their mother has moved on to doing something completely different with her own life and doesn't define herself by her 20 years of HE. Her children, like most children don't see any need to discuss their education unless it comes up in conversations. They are not defined by it.

I look at Sandra Dodd's children and see 3 over indulged adults with arrested development. I apologise for assuming the mother had to do the childcare-it was just in this case I saw them as having an extra child!

Sandra Dodd will be a nightmare for any future DIL or SIL. The grandparent needs to keep all advice to themselves, unless asked. Can you imagine sitting at a dinner table with her when you won't let the children down to run around a restaurant or you tell them it is bedtime? I don't think that my advice of 'smile, nod, ignore' would work- you would either have to be very blunt and tell her that it is none of her business or move to another continent!

It is no wonder that most of these radical unschoolers have money and employ household staff- the only way to live comfortably and not insist on children doing a fair share is to pay for others to do it!

I expect that someone will come on and tell me that they don't ask their children to lift a finger and yet they are only too pleased to get off their computer games and clean the bathroom because mother has done it so cheerfully it must be such fun!