(Slight) Change of Plan on the Alternative Education Path

We’re switching from our current Reggio Emilia (constructivist) preschool to a freedom-play-based-learning (democratic) preschool.  Although there is a lot to love about the preschool we are at, there are some things that we are concerned about for next year:

• The schedule. For Ali’s age, they will only do a 5 day full-time schedule next year of 25 hours per week. This year she is doing about 16 hours and it seems like slightly too much for her. The elementary school that we are most interested in (for when she is 6 and older) is also part-time (about 15 hours per week). So it doesn’t make sense for her to be at school 25 hours per week at age 5, then 15 hours per week at age 6. Lastly, we like to be out and doing fun and interesting things together as a family, but that will be less possible if she is in school 5 days per week.
• The price. I don’t like feeling ripped off.
• Limited Access to Materials. We thought the children would have free access to the plethora of wonderful art supplies at the school, but that has not been the case. Ali is surrounded by these beautiful high quality materials all wonderfully organized, artfully displayed and looking oh-so-inspirational, but it turns out that she can’t actually use them at her leisure. When I was dropping her off one recent morning, she was asking one of the teachers what the work options were going to be that morning. The teacher indicated 4 choices (sewing, wire sculpture, building blocks, and I can’t recall the 4th option). Ali indicated that she was interested in painting, but the answer was “nyet”.
• Too Many Restrictions. ”No, don’t pretend that piece of driftwood is a hammer”, “No, don’t stand in the wagon”, “Don’t run down the hill (on a nature walk at a state park)”. “Don’t use too much of the glittery oil pastels on your picture”. “Don’t bang your feet against the rung of the chair”. These are just a small sampling of the No’s and Don’ts that we hear on a daily basis. I understand that they can’t say “yes” all the time, it doesn’t work at our home either, but they are way too overly cautious for my comfort zone (probably for liability reasons in most cases). We can see all the learning that happens in the “Yes!” moments. Sure, sometimes it involves a fall or making a mistake, but those experiences are invaluable, too.
  

So Ali is going to attend a different preschool (School K on our original preschool tours.) This one is 10-15 minutes from our home and the schedule 2 mornings per week (total of 7 hours per week with the option to go up to 10 hours per week). We are much more comfortable with the price and it’s on a month to month basis (we like flexibility and freedom) whereas the current preschool was a one year commitment. Zen is going to enroll on the same schedule. She hasn’t been all that interested in the current preschool (7 hours per week), but we are going to try this one for her and if she doesn’t like it, we can cancel her enrollment any time. Ali embraces new places and new experiences readily, so we are not worried about her transition. Zen transitions much more slowly to new people/places/experiences unless Ali is right there with her (have I mentioned what an awesome big sister she is?!) The new school does not separate children by age which is great as we prefer a multi-age environment. This also means that Ali and Zen could spend all morning together if they want to, or they could each work in individual areas if that’s what they choose. We hope this arrangement works out really well for both of them. This also means that I get  a small “break” without paying the babysitter. Up until now, our girls have been on opposite schedules at the current preschool, so if I need to get anything done, we have to pay a babysitter in addition to what we pay the current preschool.

So there you have it…our slight change of plan on the alternative education path involves a little less school and more life-learning. We can only hope we are making the right choices – time will tell.

Someone Else’s Belly

MARCH 2013

We were at a very busy, loud and crowded lunch rush at a Mexican restaurant, when about 100 people overheard the following conversation:

Me: “(Your friend) has a new baby brother! You know how his mom has been pregnant with a baby in her belly? Well, she’s not pregnant anymore. The baby has been born. It’s a boy. (Your friend) has a new baby brother!”

Ali: “Mom…what’s it like to be pregnant?”

Me: “I don’t really know –  I’ve never been pregnant before.”

Ali: “Except with me and Zen”

Me: “No babe. You and Zen were born for someone else’s belly. I didn’t give birth to you”

Ali: “Oh. That makes me feel sad”

Me: “You feel sad about that loss. (Waiting and listening to see if she wants to say anything else…nothing). I can understand what you mean. Birth is only one way to enter into a family. Some families are formed by marriage, some are formed by birth, and some are formed by adoption.”

[Side notes. She knows ours is an adoptive family. We read adoption picture books. We talk about Russia. We look at pictures from when the girls were still in the orphanage. There is no secret...but they're still figuring out exactly where babies come from, so the full understanding is coming at a slow pace - at their pace.

APRIL 2013

Ali was helping Zen get her socks and velcro closure shoes on when I overheard her say "When I was 2 years old and we lived in Russia, I had shoes with buckles and I could buckle them all by myself. Then mama & papa came to get us. But the other kids' parents didn't come to get them."

1 WEEK LATER

I lay down with the girls most nights and read books and sing songs to them. Some nights Ali wants to sing a song, usually Jingle Bells. But this time she made up her own song about a lonely goldfish who was swimming and swimming all alone. Then the goldfish remembers that she had a mother and a father and a sister, but they went out to eat at a restaurant and left her to swim all alone for a long, long time. Then the goldfish went to America and her mother and father and sister were there and she was very, very happy. But there were many other lonely goldfish swimming all alone with no mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters. [This indicates to me that she may think we left her at the orphanage for 3 years, then came back for her. So we'll be bringing it up in conversation in case she is wanting to discuss or clarify.]

Then Zen sang a song about a witch setting her mother on fire and her mother and father were dead, dead, dead until the good witch came along. (Unfortunately they watched Wizard of Oz unsupervised while I unknowingly slept late one October morning – stellar parenting moment).

A popular game here over the past 3 or 4 months is for Ali to crawl under my shirt or pajamas or blanket or whatever is covering my belly and she pretends that she’s a baby in my belly waiting to be born. I’m always wondering if it’s going to be a boy or a girl. Wondering what my baby will look like. Trying to decide what to name my baby when he or she is born. Then of course I take excellent care of my baby girl when she is born and I name her Ali and lovingly dote on her as every new mother does.

Words of Life

I have recently discovered the wonderful book The Parent’s Tao Te Ching. It has inspired me so much that I will start to include some quotes from this and other helpful resources I have come across in hopes to inspire others and also to remind myself of the way of peaceful parenting.

Don’t mistake your desire to talk for their readiness to listen.

Far more important are the wordless truths they learn from you.

If you take delight in the ordinary wonders of life,

they will feel the depth of your pleasure and learn to experience joy.

If you walk with them in the darkness of life’s mysteries

you will open the gate to understanding.

They will learn to see in the darkness and not be afraid. 

***

Go for a slow and mindful walk.

Show them every little thing that catches your eye.

Notice every little thing that catches theirs.

Don’t look for lessons or seek to teach great things. 

Just notice.

The lesson will teach itself. 

~The Parent’s Tao Te Ching by William Martin

3 Years 1 Month

3 years 1 month. That is how old Ali was when we became a family and that is how old Zen is now. This brings up so many random thoughts and memories for me. Here are a few.

I know I’m never supposed to compare my children, but here goes… Ali’s mantra at this age was “all by myself”. Zen’s mantra is “help!” These little phrases seem to really capture so much about their personalities. Ali is confident and independent, and she eagerly tries new things, meets new people and loves to have new experiences. Zen is quite happy to be nurtured and also be in the moment, going with the flow of whatever is going on. She’s a little shy with new people at first. Ali dives in head first and wants to learn, explore and experience things first hand.  Zen likes to sit back and watch for a while before tackling something new, although she’s easily encouraged and motivated after a little while of observing. Their individual personalities co-mingle so beautifully and these two have been an inseparable duo since day 1.

Here’s Ali at 3 years 1 month old. Trying on all the shoes in the house.

Here is Zen at 3 years 1 month (doing a runway fashion show)

We went to a dinner party this weekend and Zen wore the same European pink woolen dress that Ali had worn the very first day our whole family was together under one roof. That prompted me to do a slideshow for the family of Zen’s court trip and pick-up trip to Russia.

Ali wearing the dress – 3 years 4 months old

Zen wearing the dress that her big sister wore the day they met. 3 Years 1 Month old.

We talk about Russia sometimes and we look at the pictures every few months, but this was the first time Zen really had anything to say about it (she started talking more about 4 months ago). Here is a summary

Me: [Looking at a picture of Zen with the nannies] “Were these people nice?”

Zen: “Yes”

DH: “Did you like it there? What was it like?” Zen: “No. Bad”

Zen: [Looking at a picture of Zen with a little boy] “He was my friend. Nice boy” (She couldn’t remember his name)

Zen: [Pointing to a playpen in a photo of the play room] “Two babies in there”

DH: [Looking at pictures of her crying on all the final visits on the pick up trip] “Why were you crying so much?”

Zen: “Papa not come”. (My dear husband thinks she means that she was upset that he couldn’t visit every day but I think she means she was upset that she was in the orphanage for so long before he picked her up. 7 months went by between the time we met her and the time she came home which must have felt like an eternity to her. It must have been very confusing for her that we kept showing up then disappearing).

DH: [Looking at a picture of her saying final goodbyes to the workers at the orphanage] “Were you sad to say goodbye?”

Zen: no answer

DH: [Looking at a picture of them driving away from the orphanage together] “Were you scared when you left?”

Zen: “No.”

DH: [Looking at a picture of them at the airport] “Did you feel scared?”

Zen: “No. Happy”

She then looked at my dear husband with the biggest smile ever and gave him the biggest hug ever. A truly defining moment for us as parents knowing whole heartedly that we have done right by our children. They have lost their original culture, but they are happy, they are loved, they are grateful, they are ours.

What We’ve Been Up To: Winter 2013

Tubing

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Love this one. It was taken outside a cultural museum.

Learning about the printing process.

Flying like a bird

Contemplating nature

A rare January beach day

Cycling with Papa

Balancing and Jumping

Checking out some live Middle Eastern music at a family-friendly concert

Roller Skating

We got to see a real space shuttle

Playing dress-up with Papa’s clothes

Chinese New Year Parade

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At the Chinese New Year Parade

Making a birthday card for their Papa

Bday

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They made their own valentine cards for their friends and got all dressed up for the occasion. Ali knows how to write all the letters in the alphabet now, so she was able to write all her friends’ names on the cards.

Checking out lots of boats at a boat show. They were watching a seal swim by in this photo.

Playing dress-up and eating seaweed are two favorite past-times around here.

I wish I were more of a fun mom, but every now and then I have my fun/silly moments with my girls.

Impromptu tour of the fire station. Our friends and neighbors welcomed a new daughter, so we’ve been doing fun stuff together. Ali just loves spending time with her new friend!

Farm tour.

Do cows really need to be groomed?

Ali got to milk a cow but Zen wanted nothing to do with that.

The chickens eat rainbow chard and other greens. Zen still talks about how much she LOVED holding the chicks.

Ali Swimming

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We spent a week in Florida for a combination business trip / family getaway.

We went to a Native American Indian Pow Wow and Ali and Zen even got to join in the children’s dance.

Turning Another Developmental Corner

Our girls both seemed to turn another big corner in development recently.

At about 2 years 10 months, Zen started talking a whole lot more and everything has been easier for her (and everyone else) with this new breakthrough. No full sentences yet, but it seemed like overnight she went from using 2-3 words at a time to about 6-7! We stopped doing speech therapy around the same time because we felt like she’s doing okay, we don’t want her to start thinking there is something ‘wrong’ with her, and we don’t want to go through the school department for free services. With our state services, a switch happens when a child turns 3 from in-home private sessions to in-school sessions in a group setting. If we had gone ahead with that, she would have needed to get an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and we would rather not have her labeled as having special needs at this point. We can always change our minds if we need to, or the other option is to pay for private speech therapy.

Shortly after that, our Ali stopped needing as much day time sleep and this transition has been really enormously positive at our house. When she was needing a nap every day, we had to be so strict about sleep patterns because she was totally dysfunctional without enough sleep. I always hated forcing her to go to bed…The tears…The drama…The tantrums. She really had a true fear of sleep (due to terror and possible mistreatment in her first 3 years in the institution). Sleep was a daily topic of conversation at our house. (Did she get enough? Is she going to be able to function well enough to go out today?) We tried several times over the course of a year and a half to give her the opportunity to regulate her own sleep, but during those times she would not sleep during the day so we could never get past the 4 week mark because the behavior/whining/demanding was just Way More than my dear husband or I could reasonably handle, so we’d abandon that plan and go back to strictly regimenting sleep. We tried everything. You name it, we tried it (except ‘cry it out’). For the first 6 months, we laid down with her for up to 2 hours until she would fall asleep. She would be completely exhausted but she could fight it for hours. Then she’d be up at the crack of dawn turning all the lights on in the house and jumping on us to wake us up. (She had a few impulse control issues which have now dissipated, although her last impulsive behavior is still waking people up, but at least she does it more gently now!) She cried every single day for about a year whenever she heard the words ‘nap’ or ‘sleep’ or ‘bed’, poor baby.

Since Ali does not need day time sleep any longer, she is functioning pretty well until 7pm.  This means that we can get out more during the day and we don’t have to rush back for a nap (Zen can sleep in the car, stroller or carrier). So we now have a more flexible sleeping arrangement at our house and we are all thrilled! In the evenings, Ali and Zen now choose if they would rather fall asleep on the couch watching a nature documentary or fall asleep in the bed reading books and singing songs. The first 2-3 weeks of this new option, they chose the couch most nights. Then they started choosing to fall asleep in the bed more often. At this point they are now choosing to fall asleep in the bed 9 out of 10 nights. The other thing we stopped doing was forcing them to get into pajamas. After a couple of weeks of sleeping in uncomfortable polyester princess dresses, they started choosing pajamas most of the time. I would love to get to a point where I can drop the remaining controls. Right now the ‘where’ options are couch or bed, but I want to ditch that so they can fall asleep wherever. Right now the ‘how’ options are movies or books, but what if they want to play a game or draw or whatever until they pass out? Right now the only ‘when’ option, is when my dear husband or I decides it’s time to settle down, but I want to get to the point that they are so in-tune with their bodies that they just settle down when they are ready. We’ll get there gradually, but the truth is that the sleep situation is working SO WELL right now for the first time since, well, ever.

This fairy fell asleep on the couch watching the BBC documentary Planet Earth before she was moved to her comfy bed, but I don’t know how she can sleep through the night wearing this.

The Verdict on School for Fall 2013

Although Ali will be 5 in June and will therefore be eligible to start kindergarten in Fall 2013, she will be doing another year at her current preschool. We love the school she is in and we also like the somewhat non-committal aspects of preschool, especially while we are still figuring out what her learning style is. For example, if she would rather go to a museum today rather than school, no worries, ‘it’s just preschool’…we don’t need to fill out any attendance forms or make any excuses. Another consideration is that, with a summer birthday, she would be one of the youngest children in a kindergarten class (cutoff date will be September 1st next year).

Her teachers are advising that she is cognitively ready for kindergarten. However, they are advising that from a maturity standpoint she needs more time due obviously to 3 years in the institution. And from a communication standpoint, she needs more time, due obviously to English being her second language (she has been exposed to this language for 1.5 years rather than 4.5 years). We think she’s doing great! And we are thrilled that her self-confidence is 100%. The overall concern is that if she starts kindergarten too soon, she might start feeling less confident if she’s not understanding all of what is being communicated and she might withdraw (this is not wild speculation, it happens often and there are already signs). She has fantastic ideas, but she is not always able to communicate them effectively to the group, which makes the others more hesitant to embrace new ideas for a collaborative project if they don’t fully understand the new idea being presented. We are also getting feedback that she often doesn’t understand what the others’ ideas are clearly enough, so she sometimes doesn’t feel truly involved in the collaborative projects so she withdraws and ends up working independently.

Therefore, she’s going to do another year at the wonderful preschool she is in before we make any decisions about kindergarten. We’re still figuring out what her learning style is and we think it will become evident in the next school year what type of elementary school (if any) will be a good fit for her. If by the end of next year, she is still mostly interested in working independently, then a constructivist school might not be best for her (in which case we would do life learning or Montessori where the children choose if they want to work independently or in a small group). There are social considerations as well, since Ali is a very social person.

As for Zen, she is currently enrolled at the same preschool 7 hours per week, although she decides not to attend quite often. She will not be re-enrolling for the next school year, so she will be on the life learning path.

We feel very fortunate that we found and were able to enroll in a preschool which is closely aligned with our peaceful parenting philosophies and our alternative education philosophies. Ali will be attending full-time next year; 5 hours per day 5 days per week. My one caveat – that she can fully decide each day if she wants to go to school or not. Keep in mind that Zen and I will be out and about doing interesting things, and it will be up to Ali to decide if she wants to be out with us or attend school. My personal feeling is that it’s up to the teachers to make school interesting enough to want to attend. And the opposite is also true, it’s up to life learning parents to make life interesting enough that their kids want to spend time with them. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of where Ali will be in lieu of kindergarten.

Ali’s First Day of Preschool. 4 years. She was home from RU for one year before she started at school.

We started Zen too soon with preschool, even though it was part-time. She was 2.5 years old and had been home from RU for 10 months. Her transition to school was not as smooth as Ali’s and although she is still enrolled 7 hours per week, she attends only about 50% of the time.

Water Play

Clay studio

They spend a good amount of time in the wonderful outdoor space where they are free to choose their activities.

The children plant and maintain a vegetable garden

The children love playing with the water so much that the school ended up adding more spigots and upgrading the water table to something truly incredible.

Ali has been working on collages. Art is a huge part of the ‘curriculum’. The children explore all sorts of different media before deciding what to incorporate in their projects.

Zen’s classroom is a really wonderful space with lots to explore and discover.

All dressed up and cooking mud soup. Our girls wear whatever they want, which is a lot of fancy party dresses these days, regardless of how messy the activity.

There is a tasting kitchen and this is an activity they do once per week, sampling things from their garden and many exotic ingredients are also introduced.