More Martin Luther King

For some reason, in the last couple of days, I have come across a great deal of articles and quotes about and from Martin Luther King, this is a snippet from Tricycle magazine:

"We must meet violence with nonviolence. We must meet hate with love."


In these times when images of violence and anger fill our screens and airwaves, the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and all those who refuse to answer anger with anger and violence with violence is more important than ever. King shows those who feel trapped by the cycle of violence and anger that there is another way.

King was at a meeting during the Montgomery bus boycott, when segregationists bombed his house. He rushed back and found his wife Coretta and their baby Yolanda unharmed. Outside his damaged home, an angry, armed black crowd confronted the white policemen at the scene. The situation was edging toward violence when King raised one hand to quiet the crowd. “I want you to go home and put down your weapons,” he said. “We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence.... We must meet hate with love.” According to the white policemen there that night, King’s calming words in the heat of racial violence saved their lives.

With his wife.

Hippie babies, mainstream toddlers

I have found this really interesting. By reading and listening to what mothers are saying, I see that a lot are bringing their babies up in a very nurturing and responsive manner, but as soon as they hit the toddler mark, something kicks in and traditional discipline begins to be implemented (naughty chairs, time outs, various forms of punishments). Why is this? I suppose that babies can be quite passive and it's comforting to sleep and carry a fluffy cuddly baby, as soon as they start crawling the word NO appears in our dictionary (although removing the offending or dangerous object is better than yelling NO at an 8 month old, but I am also guilty of doing this) and we feel we somehow need to control them. And then they walk, they talk and discover independence, so the need to control gets bigger and bigger until we find ourselves in the middle of a real power struggle with a 3 year who has a lot more energy to spare than we have. Where have all the hippie responsive ways gone?
I think it's time to bring them back and stop fighting. I looked at my toddler the other day and thought that he has a wonderful spirit, it was time to leave an activity group he was enjoying and of course he said: no mummy, don't want to go. And I thought: good on you! Of course you don't want to go, I wouldn't like it either is someone came along and took me away from an activity I was enjoying, he has no sense of time or that we need to meet daddy/cook supper/whatever. And I really would not like to have a passive child who just says yes all the time. If he's saying yes to me now, will he also say yes to his mates when he's older, to his boss, to anyone? Scary...
So the trick is in balancing their needs and wants with the running of a house and family, the much hated compromise comes in and do you know what? Traditionally, compromising with your children is seen as a mark of weakness, you are no longer boss, they will run riot. But what has actually happened is that by using compromise, Mr Toddler has also learnt to use it, so instead of screaming NO MUMMY I'M NOT GOING!!! He added, mummy one more minute, then he was happy to leave.

This is me to a T

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter - Martin Luther King

Education and home schooling

There has been a lot of talk in our house recently about schools and education as we have started to question mainstream schooling and are thinking of alternatives. Our main concerns are that, as we are raising our children to be independent thinkers who love learning, we feel that being put in a class with lots of other children and having to follow the national curriculum will not help them to nurture their own abilities and ideas. We also worry about the way our system works: competing against others instead of cooperating, punishments or rewards for "bad" or "good" behaviour, this effectively kills off any joy in learning, if you worry about being told off or about getting that prize you won't be enjoying your task very much.
We have also noticed that Mr Toddler seems very advanced for his age with things like the alphabet and numbers, I am not sure if this is because he really is brighter than the other kids I know, or just because he loves learning these things, and he has learnt them himself by watching alphabet songs on the Internet and counting alongside the older children, all I have done is give him lots of encouragement and chances to practice. So what are they going to do with him when he's 4 (he's 3 next week), goes to school and can already read... will they fast track him? But then he'd be with older children who are more advanced in other respects, I don't know... If you have a class of over 10 children (and you are not a Montessori or Steiner school) how can you nurture each child and make sure they live up to their full potential? I should know, I taught for 10 years when I lived in Italy and leaving children behind was the saddest and most frustrating thing that could happen.
So we're considering home education, I have been in touch with local groups, we'll go and see how other families are doing it, then we'll decide.

Tantrums and bad habits debate

I was innocently looking through my birth club (online forum) posts and saw one with the title Tantrums and Bad Habits, as we're talking about 10 month old babies I was curious to see what the post was about. And did I have a surprise!! Apparently 10 month old babies have tantrums... And they also have terrible bad habits that need to be broken: these bad habits consist (according to the mother in question) of her baby wanting to eat some of her food (preferably from her own hand, terrible child!) after he has eaten his own dinner, and if he doesn't get what he wants he has a "tantrum" (I guess she means that he screams or/and cries), she also mentions the child stumbling (mine doesn't even stand upright yet so the stumbling itself seems amazing to me) and "whining" as a consequence (maybe he's hurt himself?), she doesn't pick him up, only if he has really hurt himself, so the question to the group is: do your children have tantrums at this age and how do we stop these bad habits (like wanting some toast of crying if they fall over...).

Now, I don't know about you but this made me rather cross, Mr Baby is the exact same age, is allowed to eat whatever he wants whenever he wants and he's the happiest eater of our bunch (the only one who will wolf down veggies or pretty much anything else you put in front of him :) while the conventionally weaned children pick at their food as if most of it was poisonous) as well as being very good at regulating himself food and sleep wise, much is to be said about baby led parenting. We love to have him sitting on our knees and grabbing whatever from our plate, I cannot imagine the parent who doesn't enjoy this closeness. But the tantrum bit left me rather surprised, Mr Baby will certainly shout if upset or frustrated (you try taking something away from him, the screams can be heard from the next county) and fair enough! He's a little person with likes and wishes that need to be respected as if he was an adult, and to tell you the truth I wouldn't like to have a passive and depressed child that never reacts to anything, who never complains or expresses himself. No it is not convenient to bring up independent thinkers and to show respect to our children, it is much easier (but is it really?) to train them like pets, put them on naughty steps and force them to conform. To think that a baby can develop bad habits is just ridiculous, in a subsequent post the mother I mention says that she did not breastfeed (fair enough, her choice, but it meant she missed out on a strong bonding experience) and did controlled crying on the poor child when he was just 4 months old. I can say that all these things create a wedge between us and our children. What a sad picture: a baby sitting on the floor crying because he wants to be part of his mother's world (in this case sharing her meal) and the mother thinking that this is naughty behaviour.

Sir Ken Robinson talk on education

I came across this the other day and watched open mouthed! Apart from the fact he's very funny, I agreed with everything he said.