I did something like this over 6 months ago but wanted to do it again because I’m really keen to find out a little bit about you! It’s simple and hopefully fun, so please do add your comment.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to simply copy and paste the list below into the comments of this post and then finish each sentence!

You do NOT have to be profound, witty or have sentences that work on several levels, rhyme or are spelt correctly!!! Just be honest and write what comes into your mind. Be as long or short as you like. Be as revealing or guarded as you dare… Just be sure to have a go!

Please do participate, even if this is your first visit to the Pit. But please especially add your comment if you are a regular visitor (and for those slightly paranoid, silent lurkers out there – it’s totally private – your email does not show up on your comment and you don’t even have to submit it when you leave a comment…)

Here goes:

• “I live in …”
• “the last time I had a huge belly laugh with my child(ren) was when …”
• “My mother would often tell me … “
• “To be the sort of parent I aspire to being, I find myself becoming more …”
• “If I had a two week fully paid holiday with absolutely no responsibilities, and no kids I would … “
• “A book that profoundly impacted on my life is …”
• “I secretly would like to … “
• “At my funeral I want …”

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This is so me sometimes

click on the image below to see the full size pic in a new window…

[note: you can reproduce any of these cartoons so long as you: 1) leave a comment or drop me a line to tell me where; 2) include a live link back to www.theparentingpit.com; and 3) if you ever meet me in person, promise to buy me a banana smoothie.]

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Ive been uninspired about writing recently… so thought id draw instead. Hopefully this family will make a regular appearance in the pit…

click on the image below for a full size pic in a new window…

[note: you can reproduce any of these cartoons so long as you: 1) leave a comment or drop me a line to tell me where; 2) include a live link back to www.theparentingpit.com; and 3) if you ever meet me in person, promise to buy me a banana smoothie.]

btw if your male is not so easy to convince you might want to read the Unauthorised Unschooling Dad Handbook.

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We are plotting & planning ways to attend the Live & Learn Unschooling Conference in the USA this September (we live in Australia).

I am very motivated to be in an environment where unschooling and the like is the norm, even if it is just for a few days… and also keen to meet many of the people who I’ve read so much about and from whom I continue to learn from.

We are aiming to be in California in late October for two other events (including the Bioneers Conference.) That means if all goes to plan we will be in USA between early September til the end of October.

We want to keep things relatively simple and only visit a few places: so far our list includes New York, Seattle and several spots in California.

Warning – shameless self interested use of this blog for personal gain approaching:

So here is the thing. Over those two months we will definately be using hotels etc… but we are also keen to find other options.

This might involve spare rooms with other like minded families or even perhaps house sitting or house swapping options. Its not my habit to use this blog for shameless requests but we are keen to make this trip happen, so wanted to “put it out there” in case one of you has an empty villa in the heart of San Francisco or something

If all goes well I hope to meet some of you at the conference!

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What did you do for Earth Hour?

We spent ours sitting in a nearby cow paddock looking at the stars.

It was a high tech trip into nature because I took my laptop with a copy of Stellarium on it.

Stellarium is an open source application which I downloaded after an unschooling mum listed it as her favourite resource… and its fast becoming one of mine.

Stellarium allows you to identify stars that you can see from any location on the planet. In addition you can view constellations as lines or art (M’s favourite, the pic right is a snap shot of it), spot planets and more

M finds it reasonably interesting but its really me that is enjoying it. In fact its inspired me to start watching ebay for cheap telescopes (by the way any advice on what to buy for a clueless would be astronomer would be appreciated).

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Anne & I have recently been reading and implementing coaching techniques for our home business to great effect. We have been using a coaching approach called the GROW model popularised by John Whitmore in his book Coaching for Performance. Although I feel uncomfortable with describing parenting as coaching, I was struck by how this approach is so aligned with some aspects of unschooling.

The book quotes a study by IBM which looked at the levels of recall for people being told/ shown/ having experienced something (click for bigger view as it speaks for itself). Mind you since I am just telling you this, in three months time most of you wont remember so I may as well have made up those figures!

With the importance of direct experience and ownership over solutions as a foundation Whitmore explains,

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them. […] To use coaching successfully we have to adopt a more optimistic view than usual of the dormant capability of people, all people.

And as that insightful philosopher Horton the Elephant said:

People are people, no matter how small!

… so Im guessing these principles apply to children also.

GROW coaching then is not about finding the ‘right’ answer but aims to foster self belief, awareness and responsibility in the coachee.

The coach is not a problem solver, a teacher, an adviser, an instructor or even an expert; he or she is a sounding board, a facilitator, a counselor, an awareness raiser.

That last quote is from Whitmore by the way… not Horton.

The book has insightful discussion on asking effective questions (that are open, avoid judgement and increase the requirement for observation and awareness). A simple sporting example is avoiding the common, “are you watching the ball?” and using something like, “which way is the ball spinning when it comes over the net?”

There is also interesting notes on listening, he does not use the term ‘mindful’ but Whitmore basically is describing the need for self awareness and detachment in the process to avoid projecting your stuff on others and to simply understand them.

Whitmore comments:

Perhaps the hardest thing a coach has to do is learn how to shut up

As I said we read this to apply in a business context and I don’t think its an exact fit in the parenting world. For a start the idea of goals are often quite fluid, especially for those of us with younger children.

Yesterday M had a stated goal of wanting to build a helicopter out of wood. Rather than me going into coaching mode I watched her dive right into sawing a piece of wood. Her goal suddenly changed as she realised that she had never actually sawn a piece of wood right through. The helicopter idea was soon forgotten after she reached this new goal.

Perhaps other more coachable goals will arise as our children get older… those of you with older kids might like to comment? Right now it is really more about play, exploration and joy… having said that I hope these goals persist throughout their entire life

Another key difference is the power of parents to model. To live our values rather than tell our values. And its true that one of the most challenging things for me to do is “learn how to shut up” and trust in the process more.

So while I still dont see myself as ‘my children’s coach’… reading this book has reminded me to focus on trust and giving my children support which is based on confidence and space.

That was today anyway. Now to work out how Im going to stay on track tomorrow

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Some of my fondest memories of my youth was time spent with my family, our next door neighbours and a couple of my brother’s friends as we trawled through swamps, fought a huge array of monsters, raised armies, trapped dragons, fled from trolls and plundered treasure… oh… and we died on numerous occasions.

Of course we did this from the comfort of our families dining room table with lots of chips, juice and toilet breaks to keep us going.

For those unitiated into the way of the nerd – I am talking about my mispent youth of playing the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D as its known to its friends. Actually it has more friends than you might think, with over 20 million people having played it!

I wanted to write this post now in part as a tribute to the creator of D&D, Gary Gygax who died earlier this month. His creative legacy continues and has made a big impact on many.

Actually it in part led me to have children, after all now I have the opportunity to literally grow my own nerds so in a few years I will have in-house D&D partners… I know what you are thinking, ‘it would have been easier to place a classified’ right? wrong! Have you tried to find a nerd that you could cope living with!?!! No, much better to grow them, it takes longer but is definately worth it in the long run.

It’s a slow process and I have been laying the foundations for sometime. M is 6yrs old now but for the last 2 years I have been telling stories about “Annabel’s World”. M & I worked out this world together which includes Annabel the rainbow fairy and her friends such as GoGo the Giant; Ruby the rainbow dragon (what can i say? the girl loves rainbows!); the Grumpy Witch and Fadoogle her pet dog to name but a few.

I tell these stories as interactive “choose your own adventure” sort of things. We recorded a number of these a and even added some music & the odd sound effect.

A favourite of mine is Annabel & the Hungry Monster which was one of several stories recorded when M was 4 years old, it goes for seven minutes and you can listen to it online here. Listenting to it will also explain the title of this post.

Annabel stories were loads of fun, however after several Annabel stories a day over a couple of years… they have started to get harder and harder to tell (M is not usually as forthcoming with the plot as she was in the Hungry Monster example above).

I thought about introducing D&D now, but M is quite a sensitive soul who does not like scary monsters or the like. So after days of web searching I managed to find Faery Tales, which is a younger, toned down role-playing game that can start kids (and adults) along the role playing path.

I’ve already ordered it, yet to read it, let alone play it with a bunch of kids so Im not sure about it yet… but it was encouraging to see that there is a market out there for introducing nerdy games early.

Would love to hear from you other rpg nerds out there. Anyone tried this game or know of other similar ones?

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SPLAT!

It was the sound of our 21 month old son Z falling from the second step of a step ladder onto the kitchen floor.

A few years ago, if that was M, I probably would have jumped in and scooped her up like I was some pseudo action hero… checking for blood, tears or anything.

That was several years ago and I’ve been working on things a lot since then.

So with this particular SPLAT I did not jump to the rescue. I kept an eye on Z but did not say anything or move towards him at all. In this instance Z simply jumped up, rubbed his knee, made brief eye contact with me (I still tried to remain attentive without presuming anything), then he happily ran off towards some other adventure.

Of course sometimes he will cry out and in such cases I will be there to hold, cuddle and attend to him. But giving him a moment to process without having to react to “my stuff”, expectations or assumptions, has meant that Z can decide what is really happening for himself.

This approach has another side to it. I almost instinctively want to say, “it’s OK”, or “you are alright” if I am holding my crying kids after they have been hurt. But just as I am trying to let go of my assumptions about when my kids should cry, I also want to let go of my issues around when they should stop crying.

I am learning to trust their judgement and self awareness about when they need to express pain or simply just release pent up emotions. I am learning (ever so slowly and painfully it seems) to sit with their feelings without wanting to fix or control the situation.

It is definitely not easy and something I have to do extremely consciously. With M who is 6 years old it involves breaking long standing habits for both of us. But its worth it… as its another step in my ongoing attempts to trust, accept and really support my children.

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Welcome to a new monthly feature for the Parenting Pit… The Pit Stop, which will highlight wonderful parenting sites & resources around particular themes each month.

I wanted to kick off the first Pit Stop with two sites from other Dads, although the content is relevant to all parents:

SCOTT NOELLE’S ENJOY PARENTING
If you have been around non coercive/ mindful parenting/ unschooling sites or egroups you hopefully already know about Scott’s Daily Groove emails. If not subscribe to the Daily Groove here and get regular short tips on being mindful and joyous in your parenting and life. Given how many he writes I am amazed at the number of gems Scott manages to come up with. Scott’s emails are short, to the point and often suggest practical approaches to concretely impact on your day. Scott also offers parental coaching from his site which I have not experienced but I suspect would be very powerful.

BOB COLLIER’S PARENTAL INTELLIGENCE
The strength of this site is its ability to plug you into a range of thinkers and writers in the alternative parenting world. Bob has edited two free ebooks entitled “Guiding Stars of the New Parenting Movement” volume 1 and 2. Between them they include bios and articles from the likes of Jan Hunt, Pam Leo, Alfie Kohn, Naomi Aldort, Scott Noelle and many, many more. Did I mention they were free!?!! Thanks Bob! Also subscribe to Bob’s monthly newsletter that collects interesting and current articles around parenting from all over the web.

Stay tuned for more Pit Stop’s next month…

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It was a three pronged coordinated attack. Despite me thinking that a dog would be too much, I faced M talking about how much she would love one; Z dropping everything and yelling in excitement whenever a dog went past; and Anne finding the “perfect” dog in the paper… So I caved and we have done the puppy thing. Let me introduce Lulu (i was pushing for “Killer” but was outvoted).

I would love to hear any tips on puppy’s and kids or just on puppy training in general… if you have ideas or links please feel free to leave them in the comments below. (as mentioned in the last post i would make a terrible rat trainer… so i think that ive got a steep learning curve with dog training too)

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