Home Education

Holidays where Dad is home is always very special. Each of our children has their own way of finding special time both with Dad by himself and with he and I together. Today Boof had his special time.

With his brothers occupied with a DVD they got for Christmas he saw his chance and jumped at it. With a busy home schooling life, and PJ Bear's special needs, I need to be ever so mindful to make time for Boof and, thank goodness, he is mature enough to be able to seek our attention in truly positive ways.

We have been on a mass cleanup in preparation for having tradespeople romp through in coming weeks and we had spent most of the day collecting up all the odd toys, bits and pieces with a view to getting them sorted and packed away where they belong.

We made some great in roads though I am still left with a large pile on the floor. Mid afternoon, though, my back was feeling the strain of all the effort of shifting all our furniture around to thoroughly clean and I was due for a break. In the process of cleaning, Boof noticed that I had made some games more accessible for him and as I stretched my back he picked up his favorite family game, Boggle and asked to play.

Of course, Boof is not a child prodigy, he is barely forming letters let alone identifying words. In reality he just loves shaking the box with all the letters in it. (Yes, I know the new version doesn't need a box). It is loud and when he is done he has his own pad to write on as we get to the serious task of word finding to 100 points.

It was great to be able to play without the children so that we had an evenly matched competition for once! Of course, my husband beat me 108 to 73. I am sure that it is only because he writes faster than I do as we are never usually short of word finding with only one exception this time around. It was a doosey and we were stonkered. I put it aside to show you all but, in typical fashion, absentmindedly either misplaced it or threw it out. Oh well, next time!

My Christmas wish for you is that in these festive times you can see past pain, hurts and troubles to reach out your hand. I pray that your hand will give hope to another as you reach out to help.

My Christmas wish for you is that all that you do, albeit the same as any other day, that it will be done with appreciation for all that you have that others may not. I pray that you are enveloped in joy as you serve others.

My Christmas wish for you is that you take the time to love someone else that you find hard to love. I pray that in doing so that you feel loved for just being yourself too.

My Christmas wish for you is that you can consider others with a higher regard than yourself. Then, when you arrive home safely after your celebrations, I pray that you can bring thanks to God that no one lost their life at your hands that same night.

My Christmas wish for you is that you can share the spirit of Christmas in special ways with those who see you in a faceted way. I pray that your life is a testimony of love to work colleagues and clients, to playgroup mums and to the barrista at your local coffee bar.

My Christmas wish for you is that as you contemplate the year ahead that your already laid plans clearly seen as wise or unwise. I pray that all fear, angst and stress be replaced with empowerment, encouragement and, above all, peace.

With love at Christmas

As a household, we are now 'known' for our library and for a long time I have been lost as to how to get it into a maintainable order. This has been, in part, owing to the need for custom shelving to be put into place but that is a separate matter.

One of my big issues is classification and recording the content of our collection (primarily for insurance purposes) because we have about 2,000 titles varying wildly in the cover price of each. Something that makes this harder is that indexing records are held behind a barrier called 'money' so that doing these things for yourself, in your own private collection, becomes a problem.

So, on my pre-bed quest of the night I went searching for answers...

..until I stumbled upon Library Thing. This was a dream come true that had me asking, "Where have you been all my life?"

The web site is primarily made up of forums and your profile which includes the ability to list books from your collection which is great! Now, don't be thinking that's all because I am sure there is more there but I have been overwhelmed with the wealth of information I have gleamed already.

They also have Group forum areas. This is where I will say it is not necessarily child friendly because there are some very liberal groups in there. For the discerning adult, this is a fine place to visit as long as you make an active choice to just not visit the groups that you may have moral/religious/political/other objections to.

So, as part of my group subscription trawl I came across an interesting group called the 'Build the Open Shelves Classification' which has a wiki that it is working from at the moment. It appears to still be at a grass-roots level at the moment (from my brief reading) but I look forward to delving deeper in the nearer future. It has been a while since I have been on the Open Source scene so it may be a good chance to dust myself off and get to work for a change!

Well, it certainly has been a big long weekend that just passed. With lots of fun and intrigue at 'the block'. Our epic conclusion to a wonderful weekend was to head out to Dundee Wildlife Park on the way home on Tuesday. Of course, it can't be Dundee without a crocodile...

Of which there were a few. It was really exciting for Boof when he decided he was going to hold one for himself too. But Dundee is not just about crocs, there are lizards, pythons and frogs..

..bats, finches and cockatiels and cockatoos..

..and a couple of koalas and a kangaroo too.

In fact, the only other place which we have been to that was as hands on was the Canberra Zoo but they would also charge you for the privilege to whereas at Dundee it was included in your admission and tour fee which was awesome.

Of course, along the way there were other animals that called Dundee home including some domestic and farm animals. The children did their best to befriend them also.

It made for a great day out, that is for sure!

Down here in Australia we tend to follow the United States like a baby lamb following its mother. With an average 10 year lag, of course. Our Government looks at all the pros of the trade offs.

It is saddening when we look at all the things we are adopting, knowing full well where it leads 10 years down the track. Like building super-schools, selling off smaller school grounds, and saving a few bucks and justifying the construction of 'newer' buildings only to find 10 years later after 5 years of studies that doing such a stupid thing destroys 'community' between the school body, parents and students.

The results are clear of that stupidity has already been published. Jaded teachers feel under-appreciated and under threat of the large school bureaucracy where teachers are numbers. Parents no longer know the parents of their children's classmates and the critical social support network suffers an epic fail. Gone are play dates and weekend visits. Parents wind up having breakdowns or fall into deep depression at increased rates because they don't know who to call to share a coffee with when life throws them a pile of the exponential. Instead of a basic group dynamic which ends in a 'norm' you see the dynamics of 'clusters' with more cliques and more bullying and the resulting increased youth suicide, eating disorder and self-harm rates because a child can be 'invisible' from the crowd they are put in from the small age of just five or six. And, the cake, they can't roll it back because the land they sold is now prime real estate and car parking space.

Well, I guess you could say the same of parenting approaches too as author, Lenore Skenazy, reports that Courts in the United States are rewarding 'intensive parenting'. Of course, this is something that this ex-columnist refers to as 'helicopter parenting' and strongly warns against in her book, "Free Range Kids".

This Mum believes, like many home educating parents, in educating and equipping kids to face the situations in life and allowing them to experience life without the fear that is mongered in news reports which foster the development of perceptually blown-out-of-proportion risks in the minds of parents.

Her book, unwittingly, points out the obvious parenting trends and seeks to shed light on just some of the many trade-off's that are made in the name of child safety. This is a must read book for any parent. It will challenge any reader's parenting perspective and, hopefully, give them an eye-opening as to what the costs of their decisions may be.

Lenore hit Australian shores this week and was interviewed on ABC's 7.30 Report just tonight. She is in Australia to present at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas which is being held at the Sydney Opera House from 1-3 October 2010. You can find out more about her stance on parenting on her blog but believe me her book is better!

Remember: Every decision we make as parents will in some way impact our children as they become adults. All we can do is be mindful of those decisions, the costs and the pay offs, and then pray that we make the best decision possible.

You can purchase Free Range Kids at the following web sites:

Free Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) available on

Or, buy Free Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) now with free shipping at