So nice to hear from you. We are doing really well, in that crazy chaotic creative way that seems to colour our Radical Unschooling life! It is very much a journey of trusting our children and trusting ourselves. I have been having so many of my beliefs and thoughts challenged - the process of sifting through all the ideas and info out there is a challenging one but I try to just take it one day at a time.
Funny you should mention blogs. I so want to be blogging but it is hard to find the time. That said we are now in a lovely rhythm of sleep as a family. We all go to bed together, which my husband and I are both at the same place with finally, and the boys sleep til 10am. This means that Andy and I get two to three hours in the morning together when we are refreshed rather than a couple of tired hours together in the evening post bedtime like we used to try for. Our kids are sleeping better doing it like this too which is interesting. I need to use my morning time a bit better on the days i wake up first. today i have annoyingly woken at 5 because robin was agitated in his sleep and i couldn't get back to sleep again. perhaps this morning i'll blog!
tv and food are still the things of note within our home in terms of how RU has seen big binge change! but i am seeing enough of the positives through lifting restrictions to be able to trust this is right. we no longer do sweets at breakfast (!) and we even have days when we don't buy sweets! Jos (3.5) loves to bake cakes but often isn't bothered by eating them. robin (5) now puts sweet things down when he's had enough. so he'll get half way through an ice cream and decide he's had enough, or he'll ask for biscuits and if i have them in the house i'll give him a couple to start with and sometimes he'll only eat one. it's interesting you mention your eating disorders because for me (in context - i also had an eating disorder) it is incredible to watch small children get to places of freedom with food so that they can decide for themselves when they've had enough, or Jos can make a cake and not want to lick the spoon or eat it every time. but i do still have days when i think we might be making one giant mistake and i still have days when i just wish they went to boarding school!! :o)
i don't go on the RU forum any more. i found it a very difficult place to be vulnerable and some of the voices on there were too strong for my liking. I discovered the Radical Christian Unschooling group on yahoo and that has been amazing for me and for my RU journey. It is a completely different environment to the RU forum and I feel that people meet me where i'm at on my journey and i never feel judgement or criticism for not being further along or for not 'getting it' more.
there are so many things to work out with RU though. yesterday i just seemed to be impatient all day long and i find it hard sometimes to reconcile my children's way with things and know how to deal with it in the best way - they tend to be quite destructive and not look after toys or our home in a way i want. so i find myself going round and round in my head working out what is my business and what isn't!
but we're all doing the best with the resources we have available aren't we?! and i feel able to disagree with some of the things naomi aldort says which is interesting because for a while i kind of idolised her.
i think my husband is so much more on board too these days. how is yours getting on? perhaps we could work out a way to hang out together. my friend niki and her boy eli (4) are up for doing RU hang outs. i think she mentioned ages ago that you and she had made contact around the time of the RU conference in London.
So there's an update for anyone who actually reads this blog! i really do want to blog more but i seem to have more to say than i have time to say it so i end up saying nothing!
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