If you follow the La Vie de Ki Facebook page (link in the sidebar), you know one of the things I discovered in the past few months and became passionate about was unschooling Krishna. A lot of you asked me to write more about unschooling. This update may not be what you (or I) saw coming but life's like that sometimes - you never know what's around the corner!
2016 was the year of transitions and challenges. Moving to India to have a baby. Adjusting to having two kids. Moving back to France. Dealing with them by myself. It was totally overwhelming.
And Krishna my 3 year old, found it pretty tough. He had spent so much time with my parents that he found life very dull without them around. He didn't like sharing me with his baby sister. He didn't want to go to sleep in his room on his bed. And most of all since he had forgotten all his French, he hated crèche.
So my husband Karthik and I did what we could as his parents. We tried our best to spend more time with him and to focus on his needs. We decided to co sleep. And we just decided to keep him home instead of forcing crèche on him. Instead we hired a babysitter who comes thrice a week.
Once we got over the initial adjustment period, things got better. And soon after, I discovered unschooling and decided that I wanted to keep my kids at home with me instead of ever sending them to school. On most days, it was fantastic. It was fun spending time with my kids, playing, reading, watching T.V., cuddling, singing, chatting..
Learning about unschooling made so many positive changes to our lives. It made both Karthik and I more gentle compassionate parents. It made us stop panicking about "junk food" and "screen time" and 'by the clock' bedtimes and super strict routines. It's not like we began living a crazy chaotic life. We still had some structure but unschooling ideas helped us move towards a life of unconditional love and joy and for that I will forever be grateful.
But, and I say this with a mix of sadness and relief, we have decided to send Krishna to school next year. Because as amazing as it was, this year was also super super tough. As if learning to parent two kids under 3 without losing my mind wasn't enough, I also had to deal with both Karthik and the kids getting chicken pox. And a few months later, I passed out and was hospitalised thanks to never ending fatigue and baby induced sleeplessness. I actually had a freaking seizure because I was just so tired!
That made me realise that I need a break. School can give me that small window where I have to deal with only one kid. Where I can actually nap when my baby naps or get stuff done instead of constantly staying up late to do it. I will have more time to blog and make YouTube videos! And it is way way cheaper than my babysitter is.
Karthik and I also think that it would really help Krishna. He is a social kid and wants to play with other kids. Unfortunately this is proving to be tough in France. All the the kids we used to have playdates with are either in daycare or in school. He passes our local preschool and begs to go in because he sees kids in the playground playing and shouting gleefully. He tries to make friends with the kids we see at playgrounds but he doesn't speak French. It hurts to see how sad he is when no one understands him and he's left standing by himself.
In stark contrast to that, we're in India right now and a whole bunch of kids of varied age groups play with Krishna every evening. He is enjoying himself so much! If we lived in an apartment complex like this, I would unschool my kids in a heartbeat.
Language acquisition and socialisation are both things school can give him while we live abroad. These can be had from other things as well, like classes of different kinds, but those are pretty expensive and he isn't really interested enough in anything like art or music yet.
The thing that swayed me the most was talking to other moms about what the preschool (or maternelle) is like here. Unlike in India, there is no emphasis on reading or writing and thankfully no homework or tests. The kids mostly just play and do artwork and go outside to play. That honestly sounds pretty great to me, similar to what crèche was like. We loved the public daycare system so I'm really hopeful that public school will be as good. Of course, if we ever move away, we will revisit this decision depending on what schools and the local community are like where we live.
So there you have them - some of the many reasons we are sending our 3 year old to school next September. Who knows how it will go?! It may be the best thing ever. Or he may hate it in which case we will just pull him out. Or we may do preschool now and revisit homeschooling in a few years. Basically, we're just going to give school a try. :)
No comments :
Post a Comment