Attending a friends wedding and taking the opportunity to catch up with friends & family in Melbourne. Has been both fantastic fun and really difficult at times.

Mental note to self – non coercive parenting is very challenging when in five different houses in seven days. Of course we created the situation but it has been hairy at times! Especially since we are really are still in transition with a lot of our parenting and things have not really had the opportunity to settle down.

In that context we have been told of the dangers of homeschooling by family, including someone giving our daughter “Go To School” dvds and on the other side of the spectrum told of the “problems of choice” for children by our steiner (waldorf) friends…

Meanwhile have learnt to keep what we are doing re parenting & education to ourselves much more. Fact is most people are not interested and are happy doing what they are doing. So we just ask about what they are doing in genuine curiousity and always ready to learn. And we have learnt to only share our opinions or experiences when asked… and even then doing so sparingly.

It was always going to be an ambitious trip… fitting in so many people and places in 10 days. Glad we bought our copy of Life Learning magazine away with us… helped us regain some sanity. Especially enjoyed reading an article by Alan Thomas who will be speaking at the homeschool conferences in Australia later this year…

Today has been a good day. Much slower – some baking, playing with dolls and now off to a cousins school fete. At one point our daughter was going to be her cousins “show and tell” topic at school… but when she saw the crowds of kids (600 kids at that school) she decided it would be more fun to go shopping and baking instead.

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