Parallel Play

We were going to try to meet some friends to go swimming this morning, but it's snowing hard, and Bridger and I are still recovering from colds, so we decided staying home was a better idea. I'm so glad we did.

Inspired by the children's picture book Zooflakes ABC, Cassidy and I spent most of the morning sitting on the living room floor cutting out snowflake patterns. Experimenting with the book, I cut out a lizard zooflake, and then Bridger asked me to try the alligator pattern from the book.



It took me three tries to finally get an alligator zooflake that didn't fall apart when I opened it up. I had to make lots of mistakes, look back at the directions a lot, then look at my mistakes again, to finally figure out what I needed to do.

"That is so my learning pattern!" I realized. I tend to give instructions a cursory read, jump in, make lots of mistakes, then figure out what I need to do from the mistakes. This isn't always the best way to accomplish a task the correct way, obviously, but in this case, the stakes were low, so it worked out. I enjoyed being able to "think out loud" as I did the work and learned what I was doing wrong and right as I went--and because the stakes were so low, I was able to laugh a lot at what I'd messed up.

Meanwhile, Cassidy was cutting out her own designs and coloring them with different color patterns at the new art table we've set up in the dining room. Bridger was busy making a car out of Legos that would be powered across a table by a dropping weight attached to the car with a string, though he definitely got roped into making comments and suggestions on our snowflake designs.



I tried to get Bridger interested in cutting out some snowflakes, too, but he said, "I'd rather just watch you and then maybe I'll try some later." Fair enough, I thought.

I have to admit that when I picture "a good homeschooling family," I often picture parents and children of all ages learning the same subject together, at the same time. In our family, the learning model often seems to adhere more to a parallel play model--a few of us might be doing the same activity together, while others are doing their own thing nearby. I'm learning to try to make the best of that model instead of trying to force my "good homeschooling" model on to my family.

Still, I do want to make sure that our family doesn't fall into what Alison Bechdel described in her wondrous graphic memoir Fun Home: that her family often felt more like an artists' colony than a family, and not necessarily in an all-good way, with each member off, alone, doing their own artistic pursuits (for her, cartooning; her brother, music; her father, home restoration, and so on). In Bechdel's home, family members didn't share in or even notice each other's efforts and pursuits; they were carried on in isolation from each other.

My hope is to strike a balance: plenty of room for individual pursuits and self-expression, with a continued effort to find things we all like to do together, too. As with my alligators, it may take many, many tries before we hang together as well as we hang apart.

Learning How to Learn

Today the kids and I were talking about how much we'd enjoyed cross-country skiing yesterday, as written about in my previous post.

Cassidy looked at Bridger and asked, "What did you learn from doing that?", which I thought was an amazingly cool question for her to ask, and one I'd like to ask myself more often when I try something new.

"I don't know," Bridger admitted.

"Do you know how I learned to ski?" she asked him with a sly smile.

"How?"

"I watched you do it!" she told him.

Such a small moment, but for me so sweet. I loved that Cassidy shared with Bridger that he had taught her without even knowing he was doing it. I loved that she had made a discovery about how she learns best--that when she was trying something new, it helped her to watch someone else do it first and then try it out for herself. In my opinion, if she can continue to cultivate that kind of self-awareness, it will stand her in such good stead in her life. In any case, hooray that she can see things this way right now!

Support

Today we went to Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield, MN with a small group of families we see just about every Thursday. It was warm out by recent standards, about 27 degrees, and gray and misty, with a hint of frost on the trees--very beautiful weather.

Bridger and Cassidy tried cross-country skiing for the first time, and they both did great, falling down a fair amount but picking themselves up with aplomb. They really got the rhythm of the skiing much faster than I expected them to. What fun for them to already be doing something I didn't learn until I was in my mid-twenties! At first Cassidy didn't want to ski and just wanted to walk, but after watching Bridger, she decided she wanted to try. I was happy that Bridger felt comfortable enough with one of the other mothers to ski off with her rather than going back with us to the nature center to rent skis for Cass. I was actually glad he was doing his maiden ski voyage with someone else--sometimes it is easier for us both if he learns new, potentially frustrating things with a more neutral person.

He made it two times around a short loop course, and Cassidy did a whole loop on skis, too. I could tell they felt so proud of themselves, and I was thrilled to share a sport with them that I love. "You can do cross-country skiing even when you're a little old lady!" I told Cassidy as she scooted along the track. Nature, time with friends, and a sport you can do for a lifetime--now that's what I call Physical Education.

It sure has taken me a long time to find a group of homeschooling families that both my children and I can feel at home with, so a day like today feels like a real gift. When Bridger was three and Cassidy just a baby, I started out with a homeschooling support group that was a spin-off of a much larger, general homeschooling organization, but our family never really clicked with that group. There were times, when Bridger was clinging to me at the group's park days, refusing to play with the other kids, whining to leave, that I really despaired of finding a community that would work for us. Now I wonder why I was in such a hurry, young as my kids were. I was just so afraid of becoming isolated as a homeschooler.

When Bridger was four, we connected with a group with a more specific focus on mindful parenting, attachment parenting, and nonviolent communication, a group that emphasized playing in natural areas rather than manmade playgrounds, and not only did I immediately enjoy and feel comfortable with the other mothers, but Bridger and Cassidy actually enjoyed many of the other kids in the group. It was easier for Bridger to jump into group play in the woods than on a playground, I realized. It was the most wonderful feeling to finally have found a good fit, and though that group actually imploded pretty soon after we'd joined, some of the members branched off into a new group, so our family was able to keep enjoying their company. Then that group got superbig this summer, to the point of chaos, so a small group of us branched off once again. We're committed to keeping this group small, so we can get to know each other well and really foster a sense of intimacy and security.

I do still go sometimes to a larger homeschooling group that's open to new members and includes many of the people from our old, bigger group--I do think it's important that wide-open, messily huge groups like that are out there, so that new people can get help finding their tribe. But I think there's also a place for a small group of people to decide they want to put more energy into getting to know a few people really well rather than having to put energy into getting to know new people every single week. If I had one bit of homeschooling "advice" to offer when it comes to play groups, I'd say this: trust your gut. If you and your kids aren't having fun, if you aren't able to relax and fearlessly be yourself, don't feel you have to settle. There are so many communities out there. If you keep looking, and really clarify what you are looking for in your own mind, chances are good you'll be able to find it. It may be in the homeschooling community, it may be through volunteering with your kids somewhere, it may be at the role-playing games group your Dungeons and Dragons-loving kid drags you to and where you end up having a blast. Wherever it is, it's out there if you're willing to admit you want it and if you trust that you are deserving of a community where you feel at home.

The four-year-old son of one of the members of our smaller group has just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and our group has kicked in to offer what support we can. A few days ago, the two older kids went over to another family's house while their brother was still in the hospital recovering from dangerously elevated blood-sugar levels. Yesterday, I dropped off dinner, some flowers, and a box of calming tea varieties for their mother on their front porch, and today I picked up the two older kids so they could join our group ski outing. On Monday, another mother from the group is bringing over dinner for the family. I'm sure this is just the beginning of the support we'll need to offer, and that there will be other challenges for the rest of us, as the years go on, when we'll be the ones getting the casseroles dropped off at our doors. I am so profoundly grateful to get to rely on this group of friends, and to be able to be relied on in turn, and I am in awe at the twisty roads that led us all to each other.

Less

In The Parent's Tao Te Ching, William Martin writes,

Your children do not need more.
Each day adds more facts,
more gadgets,
more activities,
more desires,
and more confusion
to their lives.

Your task is to subtract.
Each day seek to remove,
to clarify,
To simplify.

I have been taking heart in those words lately, even if it's only to justify my slacker-parenting ways, my lack of hurry when it comes to what my kids are learning. When I see other homeschoolers posting about the many educational opportunities available out there--the websites, the ski lessons, the plays and concerts--when I see the many wonderful things to learn about and do there are in the world, I sometimes feel restless, even anxious, that the kids and I are not doing enough. Martin's words help me see the value in questioning the need to chase after these activities just for the sake of the chase. Sure, if we really feel drawn to learn to ski this winter, I think we should make time for it. But doing it simply to stay busy or check off an item on a list--uh uh.

When I think of the times I felt closest to my parents, it usually wasn't when we were out doing some grand activity. Often, there was a lot of pressure around family vacations and outings--I think we all felt we had to make it fun or we had somehow failed. The times I remember most fondly with my parents were very quiet times: Sitting with my father in our front yard in Southern California watching a sunset and talking about innocuous yet oddly important things, like what our favorite colors were. Talking with my mom at the kitchen table while I had my afterschool snack.

The times I remember feeling most whole as a child had very little to do with elaborate, organized learning activities, either. The memories that come back to me are of rapturously playing in the mud, or drawing for hours on the backs of my father's cast-off business documents, or watching sticks go downstream in the creek behind my house, or gazing at dust motes dancing in the sunlight streaming in through a window. It is so easy for our lives to fill up with busyness. Each time we sign up for a class or drive across town for some elaborate outing, we make less time for the small, seemingly insignificant moments that will actually touch us right down to our souls.

William Martin again:

If each day one minute less
was spent doing something,
And one minute more
was spent being present
in simple pleasures
with your children,
in two months
you would transform your life,
and theirs.
One minute less.