Today we have sat watching the emmergency services fishing a coach out of a river. This was a coach full of school children heading for a day out at Alton Towers that left the road in a blizzard. Tonight one of the pupils is lying dead and several of her classmates are nursing injuries.
There is no doubt this is an awful, tragic event, but I'm not sure I am happy to call it an accident. One website states the definition of an accident as 'An unforeseen incident'(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/accident). This was certianly an incident, but was it unforeseen.
Severe weather warnings had been issued for the area with the advice not embark on any journeys that were not essential. This implies that the risks of travelling wereshould have been known, yet the teachers and coach driver involved still thought it was acceptable to set off this morning.
It is doubley distressing that this should happen so soon after the Government has been trying to convince us that school is the safest place for children. Following the inquest into the death of Khyra last month politicians claimed that Home Education was a factor in her death and had she been at school she would most likely still be alive.
However it is increasingly appearing that school is not the safe haven they claim. In the past couple of weeks the case has been in the news of a young boy who was left in a corridor during an asthma attack, action which was a contibuting factor in his subsequent death, and then today, this young girl died, when her teachers failed to take the common sense action of cancelling a pleasure trip in a blizzard.
So I have to wonder where my children are safer. Would Khyra really have lived if she had been at school, or would her death simply have been delayed until the long summer holiday when she would have been at home for several weeks? Does child abuse really only take place between 9 and 3? Do abused children really confide in their teachers rather than close friends and family?
On the other hand, would the asthmatic boy have received medical treatment sooner if he had been at home with his mum or dad, would Natasha's parents have set off to drive through a blizzard to Alton Towers if they had known they had the flexibility to look out of the window and decide to reschedule because they didn't have to fit into a timetable?
Nothing is perfect, children are abused, children do die. It is an awful but truthful fact, and whilst we try to help it is unrealistic to think we can save every one. The government have their 'Every child matters' slogan, but it only applies where it suits. Many children could be saved by banning cars, but the sacrifice is deemed too great - essentially the lives saved are not worth the inconvience. Sounds harsh and it is - life is harsh.
I choose to home educate my children because they are my responsibility. I want to have the final say in their care as well as their education. I don't want to rely on someone else to decide if they are ill, or to have to send them on a school trip if I think it is dangerous because they are not allowed unauthorised days off school. I am their mother and it is my job to protect them. I look at situation and way up the odds and really do not want anyone else interferring with that. I don't wrap them in cotton wool - last summer I was told off by a National Express chef for letting them go on a train to meet their dad ( I know - a chef??). I let them do things that WE decide are safe and suitable for THEM.
So while my thoughts are with the families of the children on the coach, those parents wondering who is to blame, what could have been done, I can feel confident that I will never be in that position. If something happens to my children I will be responsible. I will have made the decision that led to the event because I felt it was the best thing. I won't be looking for someone to blame or expecting policies to change. It's a big responsibility, but one that is mine and I accept willingly.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Monday 29 March 2010
Diary: Day 3
This weekend has been particularly difficult. Guy's mother has been here, and I really don't think she like me or the children.
This has made me think about what we should expect the children to put up with in the name of family. Is she really their family, being their step fathers mother? Guy never sees himself as a stepfather, he is daddy, but she does not see things the same way at all.
It's a very strange situation, because ordinarily if anyone was that rude to my children I would ensure they never came into contact with them again. Certainly if someone was telling the sort of rubbish she comes out with I would take steps to end all contact. I'm not sure if she is being deliberatly nasty or just doesn't realise what she is saying, or understand how much they understand it.
Comments like 'if you spend all day on your computer you will get square eyes' is a) factually wrong and b) very insensitive when their daddy (her son) works as a computer programmer. I now have to reassure them that Daddy is safe at work.
Comments like 'if you didn't have children the house wouldn't need so much tidying up' don't really help either. Talk about how to make children feel insecure and unwanted. As much as daddy is their 'daddy' they are aware that he isn't their father. It's really not good to start planting ideas that perhaps his life would be better without them in it.
If it were anyone else they would be asked to leave, perhaps politely, but asked to go and not invited back. But she is the mother of my husband, and this is his home too. I don't want to ask him to choose - what a choice to have to make.
But my job is to protect and nurture my children, and here I am letting someone in the house who upsets and hurts them. She criticises our liefstyle, our home, our hobbies, what we eat, what we watch - it's very close to just outright criticising us. It's not healthy for them to be around, they don't like it and they are counting down the hours until she leaves.
To me, that is wrong in so many ways. We try teach them how to relate to people, polite behaviour, how to see the other person point of view, but with her that is just so hard. To be honest, I don't want them to see her poing of view and I don't like having such a negative role model around.
As I see it I now have 3 choices:
a) put up with it for the foreseeable future
b) ban her from the house
c) take the girls away when she visits
all have their problems, but I think c) is the favourite. It means uprooting the girls, but maybe we can at least go somewhere fun.
This has made me think about what we should expect the children to put up with in the name of family. Is she really their family, being their step fathers mother? Guy never sees himself as a stepfather, he is daddy, but she does not see things the same way at all.
It's a very strange situation, because ordinarily if anyone was that rude to my children I would ensure they never came into contact with them again. Certainly if someone was telling the sort of rubbish she comes out with I would take steps to end all contact. I'm not sure if she is being deliberatly nasty or just doesn't realise what she is saying, or understand how much they understand it.
Comments like 'if you spend all day on your computer you will get square eyes' is a) factually wrong and b) very insensitive when their daddy (her son) works as a computer programmer. I now have to reassure them that Daddy is safe at work.
Comments like 'if you didn't have children the house wouldn't need so much tidying up' don't really help either. Talk about how to make children feel insecure and unwanted. As much as daddy is their 'daddy' they are aware that he isn't their father. It's really not good to start planting ideas that perhaps his life would be better without them in it.
If it were anyone else they would be asked to leave, perhaps politely, but asked to go and not invited back. But she is the mother of my husband, and this is his home too. I don't want to ask him to choose - what a choice to have to make.
But my job is to protect and nurture my children, and here I am letting someone in the house who upsets and hurts them. She criticises our liefstyle, our home, our hobbies, what we eat, what we watch - it's very close to just outright criticising us. It's not healthy for them to be around, they don't like it and they are counting down the hours until she leaves.
To me, that is wrong in so many ways. We try teach them how to relate to people, polite behaviour, how to see the other person point of view, but with her that is just so hard. To be honest, I don't want them to see her poing of view and I don't like having such a negative role model around.
As I see it I now have 3 choices:
a) put up with it for the foreseeable future
b) ban her from the house
c) take the girls away when she visits
all have their problems, but I think c) is the favourite. It means uprooting the girls, but maybe we can at least go somewhere fun.
Friday 26 March 2010
Diary: Day 2
Today was a bit of a crazy day with skating and shopping in Edinburgh, children to collect from Jedburgh and friends expected. But out of all the chaos came one of those moments Home Educating parents cherish.
All the back and forthing meant that Hannah had a couple of hours at home alone. She was expecting to tidy her room but no exopecting the other 'challenge' thrown at her
Keith arrived. Keith is an ex-colleague of her Daddy, they worked together about 6 years ago. Hannah saw quite a lot of Keith in those days, but since then has probably only seen him a couple of times at parties.He was coming for her Daddy's birthday party and had been expected to arrive early evening rather than at 2pm. She rang to tell me he was at the house as I was leaving Edinburgh; Daddy had already left. It was down to Hannah to entertain our guest.
I'll admit I was a bit worried. The Hannah we see is very shy, always has her head in a book and communicates mainly in grunts. Still, at least the fact that she was home meant Keith could sit inside rather than in the car on his drive I thought.
I arrived home to find both Hannah and Keith sitting at the kitchen working on their respective laptops. Hannah had been the perfect hostess, making tea, supplying biscuits and wifi codes and entertaining Keith by telling him all about our life in Scotland. Far from not speaking, she had never stopped talking. Keith's bags we in the right room, he had been offered facilities to freshen up and was happily working away whilst waiting for us to come home.
There are times, as a parent, that you worry about your children. Wonder how this little person will cope in the big bad world. But sometimes I think we forget that we only see one side of them. We never see them when they aren't with us, never see them being independent. For some reason Home Educating seems to magnify some of the worries. You feel that people are more critical of your children, they are looking for problems, expecting them to be sheltered and unable to cope in social situations.
So knowing that your little girl is actually growing into a very polite hospitable young lady, that she can cope with the unexpected, and cope well, and that she is comfortable in the presence of virtual strangers is a big thing. Tonight sees me tired from shopping, stressed from party cooking, frazzled by mothers but very very pround of my firstborn
All the back and forthing meant that Hannah had a couple of hours at home alone. She was expecting to tidy her room but no exopecting the other 'challenge' thrown at her
Keith arrived. Keith is an ex-colleague of her Daddy, they worked together about 6 years ago. Hannah saw quite a lot of Keith in those days, but since then has probably only seen him a couple of times at parties.He was coming for her Daddy's birthday party and had been expected to arrive early evening rather than at 2pm. She rang to tell me he was at the house as I was leaving Edinburgh; Daddy had already left. It was down to Hannah to entertain our guest.
I'll admit I was a bit worried. The Hannah we see is very shy, always has her head in a book and communicates mainly in grunts. Still, at least the fact that she was home meant Keith could sit inside rather than in the car on his drive I thought.
I arrived home to find both Hannah and Keith sitting at the kitchen working on their respective laptops. Hannah had been the perfect hostess, making tea, supplying biscuits and wifi codes and entertaining Keith by telling him all about our life in Scotland. Far from not speaking, she had never stopped talking. Keith's bags we in the right room, he had been offered facilities to freshen up and was happily working away whilst waiting for us to come home.
There are times, as a parent, that you worry about your children. Wonder how this little person will cope in the big bad world. But sometimes I think we forget that we only see one side of them. We never see them when they aren't with us, never see them being independent. For some reason Home Educating seems to magnify some of the worries. You feel that people are more critical of your children, they are looking for problems, expecting them to be sheltered and unable to cope in social situations.
So knowing that your little girl is actually growing into a very polite hospitable young lady, that she can cope with the unexpected, and cope well, and that she is comfortable in the presence of virtual strangers is a big thing. Tonight sees me tired from shopping, stressed from party cooking, frazzled by mothers but very very pround of my firstborn
Wednesday 24 March 2010
Diary: Day 1
Having been doing my 'How to Weave Yoghurt' blog now for a couple of weeks I found that, while this is a great way to record the activities of the girls, there was nowhere to record the activities of me, mum. I don't want to encroach on their space, and clutter their achievements with my inner ramblings, but I want to have somewhere to reflect on how things are going, what is working, aims etc.
So here is that space. As I blog the girls life I will waffle along in the background, and then no doubt look back in a years time and cringe at all the psychobabble I have spouted :)
So how are things starting - in chaos, how else. Grandma W arrived yesterday, Grandma N arrives tomorrow, today Dad is 40 and at the weekend we have about that many people coming to help celebrate the fact that now his is officially a grumpy old man. Not content with that lot, then the rest of my family are visiting for Easter - 15 house guests, and a pony show in the middle.
So in the middle of bed shifting, sheet washing, cake baking, saddle cleaning, ham roasting, child taxiing, mother collecting and the odd glass of Tia Maria there is this tiny niggle in the back of my mind that somewhere in this I am suposed to be educating the children.
The only tangible thing they have to do is Hannah's application letter for the OU - which we are doing this morning, because it has to go out of my brain if not to the OU. But other than that...
They will get lessons in engineering (bed building), Home Ecconomics (baking, sheet washing), Science (why does the sugar do that on the ham, and why are you boiling it in Coke) and of course, advanced diplomacy (what else could watching your parents interact with both mother and mother-in-law at the same time be called). Pony show will cover P.E. (trust me, all that tack cleaning is physically hard work).
But still I worry that they do enough, or that I do enough. Should they be sat at a desk with a workbook for 6 hours a day? On the whole - No :)
So here is that space. As I blog the girls life I will waffle along in the background, and then no doubt look back in a years time and cringe at all the psychobabble I have spouted :)
So how are things starting - in chaos, how else. Grandma W arrived yesterday, Grandma N arrives tomorrow, today Dad is 40 and at the weekend we have about that many people coming to help celebrate the fact that now his is officially a grumpy old man. Not content with that lot, then the rest of my family are visiting for Easter - 15 house guests, and a pony show in the middle.
So in the middle of bed shifting, sheet washing, cake baking, saddle cleaning, ham roasting, child taxiing, mother collecting and the odd glass of Tia Maria there is this tiny niggle in the back of my mind that somewhere in this I am suposed to be educating the children.
The only tangible thing they have to do is Hannah's application letter for the OU - which we are doing this morning, because it has to go out of my brain if not to the OU. But other than that...
They will get lessons in engineering (bed building), Home Ecconomics (baking, sheet washing), Science (why does the sugar do that on the ham, and why are you boiling it in Coke) and of course, advanced diplomacy (what else could watching your parents interact with both mother and mother-in-law at the same time be called). Pony show will cover P.E. (trust me, all that tack cleaning is physically hard work).
But still I worry that they do enough, or that I do enough. Should they be sat at a desk with a workbook for 6 hours a day? On the whole - No :)
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