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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Let me unequivocally state here and now that consistency is essential, non negotiable and crucial in parenting… if you are going down the behavioural modification road.

The bastion of mainstream parenting, this approach generally has shaping and moulding children’s behaviour into acceptable forms as its primary goal.

Studies show that consistency is crucial to this end. OK, I admit that Im one of those people who normally start sentences with the words “studies show…” when I have absolutely no evidence or facts to back up my claim… but this time I mean it!

It was in Thomas Gordon’s PET book i read about the the classic experiment with rats being trained to jump through a trap door (yes that’s why the big smiley picture of the rat… see, its all coming together hey?). The scientists got the rats to do what they wanted using a series of rewards & punishments… and it got the desired results.

When they “shifted the goal posts” and began to get inconsistent with the rewards & punishments, not only did the behavior of the rats start to go off track (they did not jump through the trap door properly when they were ‘meant’ to)… but they also got skin disorders, some went catatonic and others would not eat!!!

The obvious conclusion therefore seems to be that inconsistency is a health hazard. The argument goes further: that consistent boundaries, rules and implications will empower children because they know what to expect and when to expect it.

Now some of you who have been reading closely might have noted the one small flaw in the argument…

yes!

OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT RATS! You are perceptive, it took me four years to work that one out!

So if you do not get into the behavior modification thing as your primary goal… and instead are focused on connection, understanding and nurturing… then what?

Personally I still try to be consistent… but now I aspire to consistently understand & connect to the best of my ability. I aim to consistently be forgiving and compassionate (with myself, my children & others). I consciously and consistently aim to mindfully engage with each moment, again with my standard extremely handy disclaimer and escape clause… to the best of my ability.

Some of my actions might seem inconsistent – whether its negotiating with my children rather than setting and enforcing limits. Or trying to understand and address underlying needs rather than having a punitive response to some “undesirable action”.

So yes I probably would make a bad rat trainer… I can only hope that my kids think Im doing ok as a parent

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Two interesting articles doing the rounds recently caught my eye. The first was published by the BBC and asks in its headline, “Is five too soon to start school?”.

(btw – thanks to Scott Stantis for the cartoon).

The article compares England’s experience with countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland where school begins at seven years of age. A Cambridge based review of this question states:

The assumption that an early starting age is beneficial for children’s later attainment is not well supported in the research and therefore remains open to question

The report also notes that motivation for an early school age was historically about “child protection and social conditioning rather than learning.” It is interesting that the focus of the article is what age to start school given the journalist’s admission that:

One of the most intriguing statistics from international comparisons is the lack of relationship between hours in the classroom and educational achievement. Finland, a global superstar in education terms, is consistently among the top performers. But it is also at the very bottom of the league in terms of the hours spent in the classroom

While brushed over in the BBC article, the idea is taken to its logical conclusion over at City on A Hill Press where they’ve published an article called “Class Dismissed”.

Its a nice contrast. The journalist takes the time to talk to a number of unschoolers (both parents and children) and seems interested in exploring the concept even through the “experts” she interviews, so she writes:

Studies have shown that this type of learning as a family dynamic has proven effective. Dr. Doris Ash is an assistant professor in UC Santa Cruz’s education department and has researched science learning in informal settings like aquariums and zoos.
“The family for me is a stand-in of a social unit that can collaborate together,” said Ash, who watches families as they interact and learn from their environment. “Some kind of exquisite mix happens between what people already know and the activity they’re learning. What kind of knowledge does [the family] build collaboratively? It’s always the case that they know more together than alone.”

Its not often that the conventional wisdom about schools gets questioned, so I for one found both articles to be a breath of fresh air… hope you do too.

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A friend recently emailed a link to this 2 minute video to us… hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Apparently it was part of an initiative celebrating 60 years of independence in India…

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Jan Hunt director of the Natural Child Project and her unschooled son Jason are coeditors of the soon to be released The Unschooling Unmanual. This compilation of eleven essays will be available in early Feb, 2008.

I managed to get my mitts on an advance digital copy of the book and have written an indepth review of The Unschooling Unmanual right here.

If you are interested in ordering it, click on the links in the review and no, I don’t get commission from book sales I just enjoy reviewing valuable and helpful books, of which this is definitely one.

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Here at the Parenting Pit we are working on a range of products to make your homeschooling/ unschooling journey a blissful haven (you know… like the ones you read about on all those egroups!). Take a sneak peak at some of the products soon available:

THE FREAK OUT FILE

For mild to medium freak outs, gather favourite articles, quotes and references in this genuine imitation leather folder. For extreme cases we highly recommend buying our “Anxious Unschooler Pack”, which consists of ten folders – one for every room of the house and the car. We highly recommend beginning the folder with a letter to yourself written during your more lucid moments which begins, “I am choosing to unschool because…” (comes with examples). Beautifully adorned with wise, soothing text inspired by the late Douglas Adams.

THE EMERGENCY BOX

When you are really losing the plot and about to send the kids to boarding school, its time to purchase our “Emergency Box”. Break the glass and get an emergency copy of Rue Kream’s book, “Parenting a Free Child”. Not only will Rue’s compassionate wisdom help soothe your soul but breaking the glass with a small hammer is surprisingly cathartic, liberating and loads of fun.

THE BRAIN FILTER

While it might look like a normal sponge… and feel like a normal sponge… and work like a normal sponge. Well yes ok, it is a normal sponge! But this sponge has been treated with our patented “foot out of mouth fluid”, a secret blend of herbs, spices and anti freeze that transforms it into an effective brain filter.

Simply place between brain and mouth via the left nostril (tongs not included) and the Brain Filter will immediately delay your thoughts from reaching your mouth by 4 seconds. Time enough to reconsider those ill advised judgement statements such as the classic, “stop playing bloody world of bloody warcraft, get off that couch and go and learn the god damn periodic table or something, anything!!!”

THE HOMESCHOOLERS CARD

For those times when you dare take your school aged child out in public during school hours but do not feel like patiently and compassionately answering the questions from curious or concerned onlookers. Simply smile and pass them “the card”. Choose from one of two approaches below (click on them to see larger versions:)

“GATTOMATIC PILLS” – DEHYDRATED JOHN GATTO CLONES

Perfect for those particularly pesky relatives or friends who are challenged by your decision and continue to strongly advocate the school system. We have successfully cloned John Taylor Gatto, New York Teacher of the year and eloquent critic of schools… we have also dehydrated him (them). When you find yourself in one of “those conversations”, simply pull out your Gattomatic pill, add water and make a hasty get away while the John Taylor Gatto clone takes over.

ACADEMIC TRANSLATOR

For those that unschool and yet have to report to some government agency… or the kids grandparents, why not buy our academic translator? simply say the activity that you have been pursuing (eg. blowing bubbles in the garden) and allow the translator to do its magic, in this case the results were: “todays lesson plan consisted of Chemistry, particularly working with the results of the saponification process from sodium and potassium fatty acid salts; Physics, examing surfactants and the Marangoni effect on liquid surface tension. A side experiment of light wave interference patterns from solar sources through viscous air borne fluids was also pursued.”

Stay tuned for prices and shipping details. In the mean time please add your comments, including any further suggestions for our Research and Development team below.

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You may have noticed that im not like other bloggers who are able to write something daily.

I promised myself when i started this site that id only blog when a mildly interesting thought popped into my brain.

But here is a confession… im not actually an interesting person at all! Not in the slightest! Ive learnt to disguise it brilliantly – I have dreadlocks, I hang around an interesting partner & kids and I move house alot.

Im working on looking even more interesting in 2008 by buying a motor bike helmet and a guitar case as well as inexplcably breaking off in mid conversation, staring at the sky before silently nodding to myself much, much more than i did in 2007. Now if that’s not interesting I dont know what is!

Anyway my point is that im doing well to get an even slightly interesting thought or observation once every week or so. Then for that to turn into a post to this blog is even more unlikely.

So if you want to stay in touch with things when i do get it together and post something new, I’VE FINALLY SET UP A NEW OPTION WHERE YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARENTING PIT! Simply fill in your name and email address in the following fields:

When you subscribe you will get a short email when there is a new post or page to this site.

Not sure whether to take the plunge? Here’s a quote from a satisfied customer:

Five stars! Ive found posts to the parenting pit invaluable, inspirational and amazingly helpful. I would highly recommend everyone to subscribe now to keep in touch with this amazing resource… much better than visiting once and never finding it again which is what most of you probably do…
– Arun’s Mum

Actually i lie! My mum is not a subscriber. But I’d imagine that’s what she would say if she did subscribe… and approved of us unschooling our children… well even approved of us homeschooling… and was not extremely concerned by our parenting approach… and for that matter if i ever got the guts enough to tell her about this web site in the first place… hmmmm.

Well subscribe anyway

Anyway i better keep packing boxing… Im moving house again in two weeks (seriously).

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