The Homeschool Journey

Helping Children When You Move House

Apparently, the average American family moves an average of 6 times over the course of the children's growing up period. Everyone knows that people are always moving - you just settle in somewhere and your child's best friend announces he's moving to Seattle.... or your husband suggests you go to Philadelphia because there are better jobs there. Or young parents who settled in their college town decide to move to the country. Or to be closer to grandparents.

 

I felt quite relieved actually, when I saw that number. Our family has moved a lot - so much so that it's too embarrassing (and too long!) to relate here the course of our travels - which included going back and forth between the US and Britain as well. And so I also feel like a bit of an expert on moving with children (!!) and so thought I'd share some ideas here as it is bound to apply to many of you at some point or another !

 

*   Don't include young children in the pre-conversations about moving. This can cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety and as little ones don't really have a sense of time, saying "we'll be moving to be near Granny next Fall"  has no real meaning. Under 5's (and even some children who are a bit older) will only understand that you are moving - tomorrow? next week?

 

*  Even when you make up your mind to go, only tell them fairly close to the time. Obviously, if you are packing up and taking several drives to the new location over a longer period of time, you might need to tell them sooner. But choose your words carefully and try to imagine into what your child might be thinking or feeling. A friend who is currently preparing to move has had to repeatedly go through all of her 2 year old's possessions verbally, saying "yes, we are taking your teddy. Yes, we are taking your bookshelf." etc. They got stuck when the child asked if they were taking her closet! Remember, little ones do not experience the world like we do - for this tiny child, to ask if her closet was going to be moved made perfect sense!

 

*   Think through how you will discuss friends with your child. Saying things like "I am sure that Mai can come and visit" might be helpful - but if that really is unlikely, then you'll have to figure out how to help your child really say goodbye. Be careful with the temptation of e-mail - if your child is under 12, you really don't want to go there. Once upon a time people who lived far apart wrote letters or sent cards - that is far better for children than e-mail. The telephone is another possibility! But be prepared - someone is bound to suggest e-mail and you need to have figured out what you will say.

 

*   My sons found it very helpful to make books about where we had lived. We used a main lesson book and I helped them remember and draw highlights from the place where we were moving from - when they were very little I wrote in the text that they wanted and when they were older they did this.

 

* Talk a lot about the new place - but beware of making promises that you cannot keep. If you are feeling guilty about uprooting your child you might find yourself promising to get a pony or something similar and then be in a jam when push comes to shove. Talk about the highlights - your child's new room, living near the sea etc - but don't exaggerate. You'll also want to affirm your child's feelings about the place he is leaving - especially if he is sad. "Yes, we will miss the park. You really enjoyed those swings." Affirm. Hold the space. But don't let your own sadness creep in and load down your child's memories with your stuff. And don't minimize, either, brushing it all under the table. The new park won't be like the old one.

 

*   Many children move effortlessly with no trauma at all. But there are those who really do have a strong attachment to place. Your attitude and your inner strength will be what, in the end, helps your child adjust to her new home. So work on you - don't just expect her to adjust.

 

*   Are there times in a child's life that make moving easier than others? I would say that in general, the younger the child, the easier it is to move as the child's center of his world is home - is you. If you are an attachment parent, your family bed might be really useful here - I am sure that one of the main reasons our many moves have been so easy is because my sons got what they needed emotionally from co-sleeping. Though I have recommended talking to your child - even your little child - about your move, the non verbal ways you approach this are far more important. Again - that means how you are coping and how your reach out with your calm love to your children - that is what counts most. And a family bed makes it that much easier. If the family bed is something you have never done or is past history, it is quite possible to playfully "camp out" together on mattresses all snuggled up together the first few nights in your new home - even if your children are really big! Even if they are teens!

 

*  Once the time comes to let your child know about the move, get her involved in the process. Let her help you pack and get organized. This is not the time to thin down the teddy collection - wait until you are in your new home for about a year before throwing away old junk. Of course, if you are super organized and know well in advance that you are going to move, you might thin things down a few months before the move. I've done that with good results!

 

* I would really caution parents against involving their children in decisions about which house to buy etc. This is your house - you will (hopefully!) be living there many years more than the children and only you and your partner as adults can make such decisions in the full context of location, logistics, price and a host of other factors. The children might see a really big yard or a pretty bedroom and then insist that that is the house you need to buy while you see the flooded basement and the isolated location. In our last move I narrowed down the choice of houses - then my sons (11 and 13 at the time) and husband came to see the houses. Even at that age, they were not fully able to participate in this decision - and were told so. They were not happy about this, but that's tough. In the end, of course, they were really happy about our new home. But my eldest had it in his head to continue to live in the country and I knew deep inside that we needed to live in town. I was right - but could not make him see it at the time and so he just had to live with his outrage. It went pretty quickly.

 

*  Lastly, one of the real advantages of homeschooling can be seen immediately if you are a family that moves a lot (which is one reason why so many military families homeschool). Switching schools is really very very hard on a child. But although saying goodbye to friends and homeschool buddies is also hard, it is not compounded by the huge challenge of adapting to different schools. When you homeschool, life just becomes so much easier. Indeed, researching your new town in advance for older children and exploring it when you arrive (all children!) can become the basis of many a lesson in your homeschool.

Passive Learning

A concern that many people express is about children who do not seem to want to engage in play or who prefer to stand aside and to watch. As our society values a "get ahead" and assertive attitude toward life above all, parents with a child who does not embody these characteristics often worry. Is there something wrong? Why won't he join in?

 

As so often in the various things I write, I put the blame for this confusion squarely on our modern Western cultural norms which have inappropriately invaded childhood and which cause so many people to have  a poor understanding of the nature of childhood. And of course, as so many people become parents without actually having the chance to really observe and be with young children, the confusion is perpetuated by the myriad of "experts" who create milestones and expectation charts which basically say that if your child ain't a leader, he ain't gonna succeed.

 

(Of course we could digress into a lengthy exploration of what the parameters of success might be to those who hold this view - but that would take us too far away from the point I'm trying to make).

 

And that point is this: that all children learn, to some extent, passively and for some children, this is the main way that they internalize the world.

 

Let me define terms: by passive I mean outwardly inactive. Indeed, in a situation where a child might seem to be doing nothing, he might actually be extremely active. But his activity is an inner activity.

 

One of the things which drew me powerfully to an appreciation of attachment parenting was the idea of the passive baby. Jean Liedloff, on whose work much of AP is based, saw clearly that the babies strapped to the backs of native peoples learned an enormous amount in that seemingly passive position. Their bodies learned invaluable amounts about balance, movement, and rhythm. The children learned about their mothers' work, their siblings play and the customs and habits of their people by witnessing what happened around them and by absorbing, via their mother's very being, everyday life.

 

From a Waldorf point of view, with the aid of knowledge of the Madonna's Cloak, an etheric link between the mother and her child, we can bring an even deeper appreciation to understanding the importance of passive learning. Because of this link, the tiny child learns primarily via his mother, via her experiences, her feelings, her thoughts. There is no barrier between a mother and a very young child.  Waldorf then teaches us about the primacy of imitation which starts sometime after 3, reaches a peak around 5 and fades after 7 or 8. By 9, as the child reaches the 9 year change and separates more fully from his parents and teachers or other adults, this faculty fades. Whether we choose to cultivate it or not, all young children learn via imitation. What we would like him to learn and experience causes us to take great care with his surroundings and who the people are around him.The child imitates all that she sees with no discernment, internalizing her environment.

 

And here is the paradox: such passive learning is in fact extremely active. We know that young children especially (and all children) need to learn actively and to involve their bodies. This can take the form of hopping, clapping and all the rhythmical games and exercises which work so powerfully on the physical being of young children. But when we give the children the right story material to work with, we also engage them actively - even if they are sitting, seemingly passive. The right stories told or read at the right time work on the child's soul - and this is a crucial part of real learning, learning that actively engages the whole human being. Children who receive such lessons work actively with them and their bodies can respond as well as if they had spent the lesson climbing a tree!

 

Indeed, Steiner often said that the most important part of learning is that which takes place during sleep. This is the time when children take the lessons they have received during the day into the spiritual worlds (or into their subconscious of you prefer!) and actively - on a soul level - work with them. What they give back to the teacher and then work with artistically the next day is that much richer.

 

I should also say that passive learning in groups of mixed age children is the natural way for children to learn. In parts of the world where children still know how to play, much of group play involves a lot of standing around talking. Negotiating, planning, brainstorming and excited what if scenarios form much of children's play. And who is doing the talking? The older children - usually those over 9 years old. The younger ones may participate to some extent - but for the most part, they stand around and listen and watch. They are learning an enormous amount about how to be a child - and how to be a human being.

 

So the next time someone says your child should "join in" or you feel worried because you see her spending more time watching play than engaging in play, think about how children learn. American "go get 'em" attitudes are not the only way to be in this world.

Upper Grades Chemistry

Working with a Waldorf approach to science in the home is extremely difficult. A Goethean approach, one which is empirical, holistic and creative, can be very frustrating to achieve as soon as one leaves the natural sciences behind. And chemistry is especially challenging as it can be very difficult to present it in such a way that it doesn't seem to be disjointed or unrelated to life.

 

A further challenge with chemistry at home is getting the materials - one can go a certain distance with kitchen chemistry, making bread and root beer, for instance and observing the effects of the yeast on the soda or bread. Getting  water testing kit and/or a soil testing kit can also ground chemistry in the world around us - and I certainly recommend that one begin ones explorations into chemistry with ones child with just those kinds of things.

 

But to do "real" chemistry, one has to get the equipment. And that means acquiring chemicals and paraphenalia which is not found around the house!

 

Just this last month (March 2007) I did a three week main lesson in chemistry with my 8th grader and a friend. The friend is a tenth grader at the high school where I teach who opted to skip his scheduled main lesson to join us instead. Using Thames & Kosmos Chem C3000 chemistry kit (google it and you should be able to buy it for somewhere between $150 and $180) I put together an extremely successful main lesson that was educational, enjoyable and, most importantly, enabled us to do real chemistry experiments.

 

The manual that accompanies the kit is extremely thorough and well written. Unlike many sad science kits my sons and I have bought over the years, this one actually had instructions that were both easy to follow, clear and had a relationship to the actual materials!! One small hiccup was the fact that I could not find one of the test tubes of chemicals. I phoned Thames & Kosmos' very helpful customer service department and the woman was able to tell me that I did have the necessary chemical - but that the label only had the German name! With a bit of quick translating, we were able to proceed.

 

And, of course, not all the experiments turned out as they were meant to. But that is a normal part of chemistry and allowed the boys and I to talk about variables and about duplicating experiments. I should emphasize, though, that most of the experiments turned out perfectly and were really very enjoyable and interesting to do.

 

The other really good thing about the manual is that it puts all the experiments into context (for instance work with sulfur came within a discussion of acid rain). There is also a really well presented progression which runs through the course and which ties them together in a way that ensures the student gets a really good grounding in the sense of chemitry and does not merely play with a series of disjointed phenomena. And back to our Waldorf approach, the more one can present before reading  about what one is doing and the more one can help relate the experiments to one another and to life, the closer one gets to something of a Goethean approach. So for the boys, I kept ahold of the manual and often did not tell them what we were about to do. Instead, I gave them the instructions to set up the experiment and then asked them to observe. Then we talked about what we did and saw (and smelt or heard!) and only then did I read the text to them.

 

Our main lesson lasted for only three weeks because of the 10th grader's schedule constraints - really, we would need a good 6 to 9 weeks to have worked properly with this kit (and my son and I will return to the kit before school finishes in the summer).  We spent a solid hour and a half each morning focused on the experiments. If one adds in time to study the periodic table and atomic theory (both are mentioned in the manual but need additional resources to work with properly) and perhaps a few cooking experiments, then one has about 12 weeks of chemistry here. In other words, one could do at least three good, solid main lessons spanning 8th through 11th grade based on this kit.

 

A few highlights for us so far were:

 

making oxygen

making a mini fire extinguisher

seeing close-up lab effects of acid rain

making crystals

understanding catalytic converters

making hydrogen

chromatography

burning metals

doing experiments which illustrated electron transfer

making silver cleaner from calcium hydroxide and ammonium chloride

desalinating water

and much more....!

 

Almost everything is included in the kit and though the amounts of chemicals one uses and the equipemt supplied is all on a small scale, it never feels like dolls'chemistry. Indeed, with all the health warnings throughout the manual (including clear instructions for disposing of dangerous materials) one has a very real experience of chemistry! There are a few things not included in the kit, mainly because of safety issues. You can get the ethyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) for the burner and the hydrogen peroxide easily enough from a drug store. But to get hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide (crucial for many of the experiments with bases and acids) you need to contact Caroline Biological Supplies (www.carolina.com) and tell them that you are a school.... they will ask for your school's name so be ready....

 

The other tricky thing is that in Germany they must use different potencies of chemicals. So the manual calls for hydrochloric acid in 2 mole strength but Carolina sells only 1 mole or 3 mole. So I bought both and cannot see that there is any difference in any of the experiments. In other words, you can probably get away with just the 1 mole strength.