You Home-educate? You chose a high-tension life…

Throughout my early parenting years, at least over the first decade, I felt undersupported, isolated, lacking mental and emotional and skills for resilience and constantly overwhelmed.

I am told I chose a high-tension life. What can I expect?

Children around all the time.

Compassion fatigue. Everything fatigue.

Perhaps that’s one reason why going out to work, even paying for childcare with the money earned, is preferable and encouraged above looking after our own children?

It is very challenging being with our children all the time. I think a lot of this has to do with the way our society is set up. It is set up for children to be in nursery or school. Not for families to meet up and do cool stuff together. That joy is reserved for the weekend and holidays. Overwhelm on mass.

Family Connection Hubs, Monday to Sunday

Imagine if there were more family hubs around where families could go, every day of the week. Easy to access resources including other parents. Places that you can turn up to and enjoy the energy of people wanting to be there. Of offering activities because they want to and enjoy it.

Imagine if self-empowerment and co-creation were encouraged. If people had communal spaces where they could hold space for the benefit of others, dialogue and work together, learn and evolve according to the latest findings in learning and health.

Did you know that the larger the institution, the longer it takes for new understanding to filter in and be implemented. Think schools and the NHS. Apparently, it’s 30 years for them.

This whole ‘only-have-fun-on-the-weekend’ stuff: when I think of what many families do for leisure, I feel sad. It often equates to being consumers. Pick an activity, pay for an hour, eat an extortionately expensive family meal out. Shopping. Lots of shopping.

Doing and Being

This is where we as home-educators differ vastly from the mainstream. When we take an outing, we pick somewhere we can commit to being for the whole day. Something we can settle into and become absorbed. Nourish and build relationships. Enjoy the rhythm.

This has meant that it’s not just one great burst of energy in a short space of time, but paced, and even allows for accepting the moments of discomfort long enough to find the comfort again.

Our society is set up with an overemphasis on the ‘doing’. It’s work heavy, (seen as a masculine energy/yang). With very little space for just ‘being’. With ourselves, with each other, our natural environment, heart to heart. (seen as a feminine energy/yin). In my opinion there’s just n

ot enough rest space. Not enough down time. We need that unconscious consolidation time. Without it we’re imbalanced. Without it we feel taxed. We need both. Stimulation and rest.

Downtime and boredom spark insights and creativity.

When creating home-ed spaces it’s important to value our need for stimulation and rest. Allow ample opportunity for both to take place.

Those pesky Should’s and Shouldn’t’s

One thing I see new home-ed families doing is signing up for every class, going everywhere, having a full schedule and resting only in the school holidays. This go go go is often ingrained. Helping keep up the ‘should’s’ of society.

We should be doing this, should be managing that, should have learned this, shouldn’t slip behind. Shouldn’t allow failure.

It takes a lot to be a home-educator. Not only to we need to work out our unique way to being together soooo much, in a way that actually works most of the time, we also have to navigate the sea of should’s placed upon our parenting and our growing children.

We use a simple tool in our household which has become really useful in making tricky decisions. It goes like this: “take away the ‘should’s’, they no longer exist, now what do you want to do?” we find it very freeing! Try it for yourself.

What should’s are you unconsciously trying to live up to? Are they really serving you? What would you do without them?

If we ditched the should’s, allowed for more downtime, would more creativity flow?

And what does downtime actually mean these days anyway? Netflix? Minecraft? Social media?

I think it means those times with no agenda. Not being directed or fed by anyone or anything else. Just free with our own thoughts.

Darktime Downtime

One thing I learned to value as a co-sleeping household was quiet time in bed whilst the children slept. No tech. No demands. Just in with my own thoughts. During this time, I’ve reflected, planned, revised for exams, structured essays, problem solved and come to value this precious darktime when I’ve no intention of sleeping.

Not at all like the anxious mulling over & mental cycling of a million things that we can get trapped in when all we want to do is sleep. No. This free-flow darktime gives me the headspace free from distraction. It’s a little like journaling before bed and works really well if just one topic is being explored. I’ve dreamed up all sorts of solutions to support healthy family dynamics.

Conflict and Family Dynamics

Being a stay-at-home-mum has meant that I have had to address issues with family dynamics because we’re not going to be separated for 5/7 days of the week. Unlike in school, relational issues are harder to ignore and disconnection is easier to rectify at home.

It may be true that there are more opportunities for conflict being in each other’s company so much. However, being adept at dealing with conflict is a skill that serves us well throughout life in many contexts.

I’m immensely grateful that our home-ed life has allowed for us to learn highly effective restorative processes for dealing with tension and conflict. Not only between members of the household, but also within ourselves as well. When up against those should’s and shouldn’t’s for example.

When I look back at how past tension used to arrive at a climax, to the extent of us all needing some serious recovery time before the possibility of reconnection, I see how far we’ve come.

Obviously, my children are older now and less inclined to squabble. However, it’s a heartwarming memory to recall how even when our daughter was 4 years old, she and her friends would call a restorative circle when things got hairy.

I’ve also noticed that growing up within a different culture, one predominantly of caring, of walking towards conflict with the confidence of re-establishing trust, has given my eldest a different outlook to that of his school friends which means he can provide an alternative perspective when issues arise. This is very empowering for him.

Restoration

I think that choosing to home-educate does perhaps invite in more opportunity for conflict, however, it also allows the downtime and space to be able to feel into it and then to walk towards it, gaining the skills which allow for restoration.

Restoration of the nervous system after fight or flight, and restoration of connection and trust where it has been lost.

Our most frequent methods are empathy or listening circles fostering compassionate communication (NVC)*, The Work of Byron Katie, and Dominic Barter’s Restorative Circle Process. One of my effective strategies is simply giving my presence whilst listening with empathy. It trumps any attempt I make at using words, as it gives space to be heard, and this in itself gives value. It honours that the speaker all the wisdom they need within them. They just need to open up the space to access it.

Once I learned the mental and emotional skills to understand my inner world and empathise with others, I no longer felt overwhelmed. This capacity to process intense feelings is very empowering and I feel incredible resilience as a result.

This coupled with the health resilience I find in herbal medicine, makes for a very effective healthcare package!

My offer to you

If you are finding yourself feeling regularly overwhelmed, lacking support and wishing to acquire new and empowering tools to keep in your belt, get in touch. Working on these relational issues are one of my most favourite and rewarding things to do.

Which makes sense, after all, we are social animals. We need to have healthy relationships with others and with ourselves in order to flourish!

Working together over a 3-month period gives us plenty of space to approach tensions or conflicts in your home-ed home, or within you. I would love to help you adopt some of the valuable skills that have given me and my family greater ease and peace of mind.

www.healthneedsthyme.co.uk

* NVC: Nonviolent Communication