More Pictures

These were taken by a friend's daughter. Aren't they great? Yes, I know I post a lot of pictures of Miss Moana, but I feel less comfortable posting pictures of the others--toddlers and babies don't care if you get their best side! I did post a picture of Keola, but it was such a good picture, how could I not?

Strawberry Shortcake

Toddler Pictures

Keola's First Violin Concert

When J Keola was six, we took the kids to see a piano/violin concerto. He was fascinated by the expressive violinist and he played "air violin" in his seat during most of the performance. Ever since, he's wanted to play the violin. I figured it was a passing fancy, but for years he kept asking for violin lessons. Four months ago, we finally found a teacher and he started taking lessons. He had his first concert/recital last night and he did very well!

Look, there he is!

21st Carnival of Homeschooling!

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The 21st Carnival of Homeschooling cordially invites you to a
Progressive Dinner Party hosted at Principled Discovery.

Dress is casual.

Invite a friend and enjoy the food, travel and conversation
as we get to know each other a little better.
~ . ~
.

Wallpaper: Purple Flowers

My current wallpaper. I took the photo about a month ago and did a lot of post-processing on the computer.

(Click on the image for larger--1024 x 768--resolution.)

Educational Reform

"After sober and judicious consideration, and weighing one thing against another in the interests of reasonable compromise, H. L. Mencken concluded that a startling and dramatic improvement in American education required only that we hang all the professors and burn down the schools. His uncharacteristically moderate proposal was not adopted. Those who actually knew more about education than Mencken did could see that his plan was nothing more than cosmetic and would in fact provide only an outward appearance of improvement."

- Richard Mitchell, The Graves of Academe

After the Storm: Reflection

Puzzle out what hidden symbolism you want. It's a stump, a puddle, and a bunch of clouds. :D

A First Written Narration

My youngest son ("Kahoa") just started written narrations this term. This is his first one, he wrote it last month, when he was nine. I asked him if it would be okay to post it here and he chose the one he thought was his best one. The last sentence is in my own handwriting, he had asked me to add that. And this was from a period where he had just seen a Veggie Tales video and was apparently very impressed by it. ;) He signed all of his schoolwork "Larry Boy" for a couple of weeks.

This is from A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer, the chapter about "John Whom Nobody Loved."

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John was bad and no one like'd him. One time John wantid a frend to be a bishop but the Pope saed that he did'nt want him to be and said that he would close all the churchis. So John chos his frend and the Pope did what he said. Now the people hateid John and John was scard. The Baron put John in prison. John was unwillingly made to sign the Magna Carta by the Baron.

the end
by Larry Boy!

My Non-CM Diet

Charlotte Mason suggested moderation and balance in all things, and warned against fad diets. Here's what she had to say about fad diets (I've paraphrased her words, but you can read them in her original here and here)

Vol 4 Book I pg 193: We can be moderate without going on a narrow diet (we don't need to live on things like apples and nuts). In fact, moderation might best be practiced by eating a moderate portion of whatever food is set in front of us . . .

Vol 4 Book 2 pg 18: Conscience isn't as concerned with how immoderation is manifested in our lives so much as the underlying principle behind moderation. St. Paul wrote about it when he condemned people who 'worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.' It's by this principle that we'll be justified or condemned. In light of this, we have good reason to suspect any style of diet or exercise that encourages us to have too much concern for our physical body, whether it's a diet of nuts and fruit, peacock brains, or cock-a-leekie. England is in serious danger of giving herself over to worship of the goddess of health. But a more elusive goddess was never revered--the more she is pursued, the more she runs away. Yet she's ready and willing to bestow smiling favor on the person who never even casts a thought towards her. I say truthfully and sincerely that the pursuit of physical and mental well-being is becoming a cult. The danger of this kind of cult is that it makes us focus our attention on our own selves instead of on Christ.

Meanwhile, I'm a week into a recommitment of my nuts and fruit diet. LOL! I'd been doing a raw diet for a few months, then got lax about it for the last few months - still doing a lot of green smoothies, but indulging a lot in wheat-free, non-dairy, mostly vegetarian "other foods", too. (soy 'chickin nuggets', Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop popcorn, Peanut butter on Newman's Own wheat-freechocolate cookies - mmmmm!) It was starting to take a toll in my energy level, so I'm going back to the strict raw diet.

Moderation in her world meant three meals of hormone-free meat, sides of vegetables and bread without preservatives. In our culture, it could mean anything from a boxed breakfast cereal with pasteurized hormone-laced milk and sugar-sweetened juice, to a burger with hormone-laced beef on a chemically laden white-flour bun and a side of potato strips fried in hydrogenated fat. Balance and moderation in itself is no doubt a fine thing, but in a world that encourages excess in the wrong foods, dependence on processed foods, pesticides and hormones added to foods, with the resulting food allergies, immunity issues and food addictions, moderation can become a mammoth feat, and existing health problems sometimes need more than a determination to not think about food, and to only eat what's put in front of you. Especially if you're the cook.

Oh, my. I wonder what Charlotte would have thought about this Bug Banquet featuring dishes like mealworm pasta and chocolate chirp cookies?

One More Butterfly

It's coming along. It has to do with angles, I think. I just need to figure out where the angles are.

There's two sides of a triangle between the tops of the wings, and each top wing is an odd shaped triangle. And the bottom wings have points that need to match up.

Drawing Butterflies

Miss Moana asks me to draw butterflies for her a lot, and I'm tired of doing pitiful round-wing things. So I've decided to learn how to draw a butterfly. I traced one from our field guide to get the shape and I've been trying to practice. It's not easy, I can't get it right, but this is only the first day. These were done on Paint where I could flip and superimpose the left side to the right to get them exactly symetrical. These are even on both sides, but still not right. Drawing it in pencil is a lot harder, and it's been a source of frustration to me today.

Ruskin on Feminism

"We hear of the 'mission' and of the 'rights' of Woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission and the rights of Man--as if she and her lord were creatures of independent kind, and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong-- perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove)--is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her weakness by the pre-eminence of his fortitude."

- John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies

Positive Discipline for Preschoolers - book review

Positive Discipline for Preschoolers
by Jane Nelsen, Cheryl Erwin, and Roslyn Duffy

The book is geared for both parents and teachers, so each chapter gives examples at home and in the preschool to show how problems can be handled in both contexts. For the record, I support freedom of choice in parenting methods and I know families who have had success using methods different from mine, so I'm not especially dogmatic about this. All the parents I know of in real life naturally use many of these tactics already - understanding the child, trying to stay positive, gaining the child's cooperation, etc., even when they use corporal punishment on top of that. I would venture to guess that it's the other methods they're using that are working in spite of the corporal punishment. But it would just be a guess.

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The first chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book. Parents are urged to focus on the long range goals they have for their children rather than short term rewards of temporary outer behavior. In other words, rather than focusing on getting a desired behavior out of a child now, think about the qualities you want your child to have, such as self-discipline, compassion and problem-solving skills. If the tools in your parenting kit aren't working towards those goals, then get some new tools. Look at mistakes (both the child's bad choices and your own parenting blunders) as learning opportunities rather than failures. If your child knows you love them unconditionally, they can withstand a lot of mistakes (Love covers a multitude of sins?)

Chapter 2 tells us what preschoolers are like. They're not helpless babies anymore, and parents need to start learning to let go and encourage them to do things for themselves in order to instill self-sufficiency and confidence. Preschoolers are relating to the world with new friendships and relationships outside the family. They often need transitionary items for security in the big world - such as a toy or blanket, or a special lunchbox to ease the transition to preschool.

Chapter 3 talks about helping children learn to accept their own feelings (which can be new and overwhelming to them), but learning to express those feelings in acceptable ways. (This is pretty basic Mister Rogers stuff!) They can read our nonverbal cues, and they can tell if we're mad even if we insist that we aren't mad. But our refusal to admit the feelings they can see in our expression teaches them that it's not acceptable to put uncomfortable feelings into words, so we need to be honest with them. They need us to make eye contact with them when we communicate with them. This will often require that we get down on their level (or bring them up to our level.) Children need to learn to recognize their own body's signals that they're getting upset or mad, and learn self-coping strategies. Charlotte Mason gave an example of this in action in volume 5, chapter 1, where a little boy named Guy learns to recognize his cross feelings and run until they're gone.

Chapter 4 says that children need to be encouraged to take initiative by letting them participate in finding solutions and think through behavioral issues. Before going to the store, ask them how they should act, what's okay to do and what's not okay. Let them make decisions - but only give two or three choices so they aren't overwhelmed, and be sure that all options are valid. "Do you want to get ready now, or are we going to have to leave without you?" isn't a valid choice because it's illegal to drive off and leave a preschooler home alone. Instead of lecturing, let children figure out results by thinking it through or experiencing them for themselves. When there's a conflict, see if they have ideas about how to resolve it. This helps them to take responsibility for solving problems rather than waiting for an adult to play mediator.

Chapter 5 helps us understand preschoolers. Prechoolers enjoy the process and like to stop and smell the roses, so it can be difficult taking them shopping when you're in a hurry. Their idea of fantasy and reality is sometimes blurred, so movies can be intense for them. They may not differentiate between pretend and lying, or free samples and stealing.

Chapter 6 goes into brain development. Jane Healy's book Endangered Minds is used to show how nature and nurture work together, and to explain the most effective early education. Preschoolers need real two-way conversation, read aloud books, safe opportunity to explore their world, and limited TV/electronic games. Children also need a mom who isn't worn out and depressed, so it's good to do what will recharge you (Charlotte Mason might have called this Mother Culture!)

Chapter 7 is about understanding your particular child's temperament using the nine temperaments identified by Chess and Thomas. We can be more effective at helping our children reach their potential if we know their limits and work with their unique strengths and help them develop in areas where they have weaknesses.

Chapter 8 defines preschool social skills. Preschoolers like to have a favorite buddy, they may need help with sibling rivalry and learning not to turn people off if they want to be included in play groups. They may need to learn what behaviors are acceptable, how to handle quarrels, how to share.

Chapter 9 gives ways to avoid saying No all the time ("You can't do this, but you can do that" or, "Yes, you can have dessert after you finish your dinner" might be two examples), and helping preschoolers learn to say no gracefully ("No thank you" works better than throwing the bowl of peas across the room.)

Chapter 10 helps parents to identify their own and their child's lifestyle priorities: what's most important to them - comfort, control, pleasing others or significance? This information can explain clashes and lead to resolving things in acceptable ways so that nobody's needs are neglected.

Chapter 11 starts getting to the crux of the positive discipline concept: What's the difference between discipline and punishment? Punitive solutions may stop an undesired behavior for the moment, but it does nothing to teach the correct behavior (I personally don't know of any parents who punish without also guiding and teaching - but then, I hang out with all conscientious homeschooling parents!) The punishment mentality is that a person deserves to feel bad to pay for what they did wrong. Positive parenting is a totally different paradigm. Its premise is that people who feel better will be more inclined to cooperate. Dealing with undesirable behavior by punishing it usually makes the child even madder or lonelier or whatever - a child in time-out may be stewing and plotting revenge! Positive Discipline seeks to identify the root problem, deal with that, and gain the child's willing cooperation in making restitution. Instead of seeking to establish control (which often leads to butting heads), it seeks to develop a child's own self-control and cooperation. This is very different from permissiveness, which lets the child do whatever he wants because it's easier to avoid conflict, or because the parent is afraid to make the child unhappy.

Chapter 12 encourages parents to have a plan and stick to it. Choose your battles, explain what you expect before you get to the grocery store, and work towards follow-through and consistency.

Chapter 13 gives some Positive Discipline tools. Time-outs are still used, but in a different context. Instead of banishing a child to make him suffer for being bad, time-outs are used to help a child remove himself from the conflict and cool down. The goal isn't to punish, but to teach the child that, when he's too heated to respond properly, he can remove himself for a cooling-down period. Even adults need to learn this skill. Therefore, time-out corners are comfortable and have books to help the child refresh his attitude so he feels more cooperative. Tantrums aren't rewarded by giving them attention. If the child is destructive, he cleans up (or helps to clean up), but he isn't punished additionally on top of that. Parents need to be kind and firm, but they don't need to make the child suffer in order for him to learn to make better choices and make restitution for his mistakes. This chapter gives more specifics and examples.

Chapter 14 lets parents know that switching to positive methods when they're programmed to punitive methods will take time, and they should forgive themselves for lapses. It's about progress, not perfection. And remember to take time to enjoy and accept the child you have during the transition process.

Chapter 15 talks about class meetings for preschoolers. Although it doesn't apply much to parents, even in in family meetings, it does help to remember that even preschoolers want to feel included, although their contributions will often be way off the mark. That's okay, just thank them for their participation and move on.

The next section , titled, "You Can't Make'Em Do It!" exchanges power struggles for respectful cooperation (while still maintaining parental authority, setting boundaries and teaching responsibility). The three chapters in this section each address a specific parenting challenge.
Chapter 16 is about bedtime battles. Routines can help.
Chapter 17 is about eating. Basically, don't keep junk food around, offer good food, and let the child decide what he wants. If he doesn't want what's offered, he can learn to find his own solution without creating a mess for someone else - perhaps he can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Chapter 18 is about potty training. If parents don't stress and pressure the child, children will inevitably train when they're ready. All normal children are potty trained by the time they reach junior high school, no exceptions, whether their parents stressed about it or not.

Chapter 19 teaches us to try to see beyond the child's behavior to what he's really saying. All misbehavior stems from one of four motivations - a desire for attention, a desire for control, a desire for revenge, or assumed inadequacy. The child may not realize this himself. While not accepting bad behavior, addressing the root cause can dispel the reason for misbehaving in the first place. Simply punishing doesn't deal with the cause of the behavior. A child who wants attention can be validated when he's good and given tasks to do. A child who wants control can be given acceptable leadership roles. A child who wants revenge needs to get over hurt feelings and make amends. A child who feels inadequate needs to be encouraged and given small steps towards independence.
Chapter 20 shows this at work in the home. As parents identify and respond to the motivation behind the misbehavior, the child no longer needs to lash out by being bad.
Chapter 21 does this in a school setting.

The rest of the book is about childcare. The author adds a disclaimer about moms working and childcare being a parental decision, but her insistence that "reputable university studies have demonstrated (even though many political groups do not like it) that children do very well in a quality child care situation" gives her away. I accept that daycare is a tragic necessity for too many families, but I personally don't see it as an option to be chosen for convenience or any other reason except real necessity. I've read too many message board posts from heart-broken moms who desperately want to stay home and could do it if their husband would downsize their house or sell his boat or hot rod, but he flat out refuses. Bad Dad!! And there are single parents who have no choice, or have situations where they truly can't stay home with their children. For those families who need it, her tips on choosing a good daycare will be helpful, but not foolproof. I've read too many stories from moms who thought they had found the perfect daycare, only to find out months later that their child wasn't being treated the way they were led to believe. It really shows the rare gift of people who can truly care for other people's kids the way they'd care for their own, and the need for more of these gifted people to take on child care as a calling.

Positive Discipline for Preschoolers, and others in the series, can be ordered from the Postive Discipline website, which also features articles, seminars and a monthly Q&A feature.

I also read Raising Your Spirited Child a few months ago.

Clouds

(Or, What Maxfield Parrish Saw)

Cunning Instead of Belief

"There is a difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection. One of the latter sort comes at length to know at once whether a thing is true the moment it comes before him; one of the former class grows more and more afraid of being taken in, so afraid of it that he takes himself in altogether, and comes at length to believe in nothing but his dinner: to be sure of a thing with him is to have it between his teeth."

- George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie


(The title is a Lewis quote--"they have chosen cunning instead of belief"--from LB.)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

We rented this last night, and we loved it! It was so silly and we were all giggling for most of the movie.

This morning I had to go down to the besement to get something, so I told Miss M, "I need to go downstairs for a minute."

"Wi' ME." That's what she always says, 'with me,' indicating that she wants to come along, too. So I scooped her up and said, "Okay, darling."

That's not a term I ever use, and she gave me an amused, quizzical look. "Darling?"

"Darling."

"I'm a darling?"

"Yes, you're a darling."

"I'm Mommy's darling?"

"Yes, you're Mommy's darling."

Other than that, dh is back home, and we have a few days vacation time with him before he goes back to work. He's spending the time playing games with the kids - archery, Pirates, Mille Born, raquetball and Frisbee golf.

Rainboots

Note that the boots are on the wrong feet. Her chair is a coffee can. And don't miss the Playmobil bunny carefully placed on the white rack so that he's sitting sort of next to her to join in family devotions.

This Month's Books - April 2006

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
I had heard some good things about this book, and it had one of my favorite Chesterton quotes on the front page: "Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." But Coraline was a disappointment. The dragons of this book live in a nightmare-world that is dangerously close to ours, close enough for Coraline to stumble through--and for one of them to come back with her. In the end they are not really beaten, but only shoved away.

Coraline is much darker than Lewis Carroll's books, which I have heard it compared to. Coraline goes through a door that isn't there and enters a world that is like a piece of modern art, or one of the pictures Lewis described in That Hideous Strength. It looks a lot like our world at first, but there are some strange differences--just annoying or disturbing differences until you see how they are carefully twisted to mock the real world. Coraline's attempts to find her parents, who have been taken captive there, read like a vivid nightmare. Worse, when Coraline finally gets back to our own world part of the nightmare follows her without leaving a distinction between the real world and the dream world.

The best part of the book was a description of Nothingness. I think Gaiman actually did a better job than Lewis (in MN or LB) in describing what nothing might be like. His Nothing is like a grey fog, a blankness, that goes on and on no matter how far you keep walking. (I wish I had typed up that section while I had the book.)


The Golden Key by George MacDonald
A good book and deep. It is a fairy-tale about a little girl named Tangle who runs away and finds her Grandmother's house. She stays there until Mossy comes, the boy with the golden key, and Grandmother sends them off together on their journey with her blessing. They travel through the world together, and go through a valley of visible shadows cast by invisible things (which was my favorite part of the story). I would tell more, but you really should just read it.


The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye
A tale about a princess who is decidedly not as beautiful as the day, but marries and lives happily ever after just the same. Fun, if on the edge of twaddle. (Reread.)

My Week

I haven't been blogging so much lately. I just haven't had anything to say. But here's how my week has been going. It's been unusually eventful.

We saw a ballet, which the boys' almost-sister had a nice part in. She danced beautifully! The boys helped for a couple of days with sets. My contribution was that I tried to keep Miss M out of the way. On the big day, I dressed Miss M in a pretty lace dress and pink buckled shoes. She loved the dancing and the costumes! But she got blisters on both ankles from her pretty pink buckled shoes. She never complained about it, I didn't even know until I took the shoes off against her will. She loves shoes. So, to avoid anything rubbing against her ankles, I bought her a pair of rainboots just like her best friend's. I'd been meaning to get her a pair anyway. These don't rub her ankles, and she LOVES them! She's put them on and taken them off repeatedly for two days! Now she has something to put on her feet while her ankles heal. So she went out today with a pink twirly dress, pink pants and black rainboots. At two years old, you can get away with that. ;-)

We went to the library. I was looking for a Ruth Beechick book but it had been checked out already. But there was a display of new books in the computer section that you have to pass through to get to the education section, and Positive Discipline for Preschoolers (by Jane Nelsen) caught my eye. So I took it home instead.

We were also looking for A Winter's Tale video (Shakespeare; they didn't have it) but we came home with a video about Hawaii instead. So, we didn't have to watch the second installment of Texas Ranch House on PBS. We saw the first part of that last night. It seemed like they hand-picked educated, modern-thinking, equality-minded people and stuck them in a ranch house without electricity, then arbitrarily assigned them roles of superior positions and servitude positions. And then strategically placed cameras to catch the fireworks.

We took J to his violin lesson and, while sitting in front of his teacher's house waiting during his lesson, we saw a dog get hit by a car right in front of us. I heard a snap, then saw the dog crawl out from under the wheel of the car and limp off on three legs. The snap was his leg breaking under the wheel. The driver stopped and waited, but, not knowing what to do, I guess, finally drove off after sitting still in the middle of the road for about five minutes. We finally traced the dog to a front screened-in porch. He'd made his way there and pushed the door open, and was inside on the porch growling when anyone approached the porch. We hope it's his own house. The violin teacher said she'd contact the people who lived there.

For the first time, I spent my wedding anniversary apart from dh, who's away tending to a family emergency. I spent our anniversary taking the kids to the pool. Really, it wasn't a bad day at all. Just momentous as our first anniversary apart. We'll make it up next week.

I fixed a slow leak in the kitchen sink. My dishwasher is chipping and cracking glasses again. The van transmission, which has been going for a year but does okay as long as it doesn't go up any long hills, is starting to slip even on level land. We've been more or less limited to staying in town, since going anywhere out of town means going uphill.

I got bit by a tick and got an allergic rash around the site. Of course, my first thought was Lyme disease, but it isn't. The tick wasn't even a deer tick, it was a dog tick. I looked it up online.

I put Miss M on a raisin ban this morning after removing a raisin from each of her nostrils.