cunning plans and clever tricks

i had a funny text exchange with a friend the other day. he's someone we used to hang out with back in the day when everyone lived in crookes, only the first round of weddings was taking place and kids were still twinkles in their daddy's eye.

i was on the bus heading and saw this friend from the window walking down the street looking very pensive. so i texted him about it and within the text exchange i was able to use the phrase (from roald dahl's "The Enormous Crocodile") "cunning plans and clever tricks". i really enjoyed that - it made me smile. i love when things like that happen - the mixing of the imaginary with reality. although i suppose not so imaginary now that it is immortalised in a book!

a couple of things have been bugging me about radical unschooling recently. andy started an interesting discussion on the radical unschooler's network about the cost of unrestricted food. our boys are loving their binge on sweets and like to go to the shops fairly regularly to top up. we are seeing changes though - both boys are starting to dislike certain sweets and choosing not to eat them as a result. this means we've had open bags of uneaten fudge and other things lying around! also we've been creating monkey platters for them and they've been happily digging in to those and eating all sorts of yummy goodies.

i am trying to relax about the excess of sweets as i see the changes take place and trying to trust that the boys will find their natural groove with self-regulation. i know for me as someone who experienced an eating disorder, along with all the crap our culture puts on food and our relationship with food, learning to self-regulate is hard. but i am convinced that it is harder as an adult than for a child because by adulthood you have so much more baggage.

the thing is though that i had an image in my head that the children who have been unschooled from day dot would be so self-regulated that they'd be fairly slim having achieved a healthy balance between food and exercise. that they'd have fallen into rhythms of eating that enable them to stop when full and just have a little of something they fancy because they know the 'banquet' is always there for a re-visit. this meant i was shocked to follow a link to a young adult who was unschooled from birth (including food) and see someone overweight. my friend samantha will roll her eyes when she reads this. she has been involved with a project that seeks to share the 'truth' that fat and fit is a healthy option. i suppose it is a healthier option but it doesn't fly with me for various reasons. however i also know that the info disseminated to us is hugely biased and full of propaganda (take vaccinations for example)so perhaps fat can be healthy.

anyway - as incoherent as this post is, it is my thoughts and struggle at the moment!