Switch Witch and Buy Backs

I was planning on writing this post next week, but I am going to Blissdom Canada so next weeks posts might be a little more about that and a little less about Halloween. Don't worry though, you can still see what I am doing over at Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

It's no secret that my son and I are allergic to dairy. I first became sensitive to milk as a teen and it has escalated from there. My son, on the other hand, showed symptoms of dairy allergy the very first time it was introduced it to him. I then had him checked out by our Naturopath and had the allergy testing formally done.

Being allergic to dairy really sucks. It is in everything. However, as an adult I can suck it up…my son, not so much. He gets really distraught that every "cool" thing has dairy in it. All types of chips (other than natural), all chocolate (unless it is from a health food store), and cookies, cupcakes, crackers and pretty much anything processed. This leads to a really healthy lifestyle, but he pines for the same things that his friends have. Goldfish and Dunkaroos - why cant you have a dairy-free option?!

The Whole Stash

Halloween is especially problematic. I would wager that 80% of the candy given out is chocolate, so to over come this we go twice the distance that we regularly would because when you sort it all out you are left with less than half the stuff they collected…and then when you take out the gross things (like black liquorice and no - name gummy candies) and the Jawbreakers (that they can't have yet), we are left with a 1/6th of the stash.

Non-Milk

Milk Products

Now, obviously my kids are disappointed by this and so we came up with a couple ways so to soften the blow. After we go through all the candy we put half of the castoffs on the front porch for the Switch Witch to come and collect it and leave a toy for them instead. This is such a win-win for us as the kids are happy to give away the candy and I am happy that there are no tears!

Switch Witch to the Rescue!

Here is a great video by Mama Natural about the Switch Witch.




Another thing that we do is go to our local Candy Buy Back. There are many different incarnations of the Buy Back and not all operate the same way. For the most part they are organized by dentists who all have a party the day after Halloween and pay the kids a dollar a pound for their unwanted Halloween candy. (my particular dentist also donates a pound of apples to our local food bank for every pound of candy that collected.)

Isn't he Cute?!

This is great for us because the chocolate bars are going to get thrown out anyway - so does it really matter if it is my dentist's trash bin or mine?

I know a lot of moms like the idea of the Buy Back just not the trash part, and I agree somewhat, but not for the waste of candy, more for the adding to the landfill. My particular dentist made a great YouTube video that shows exactly why they throw out the candy and how they are hoping to convert it into fuel in the upcoming years. That way more families will get on board.

Are you a fan of the Switch Witch or the Buy Back? Or are you completely against them? Share your comments below.

Homeschooling =/= School at Home

We are homeschoolers.

Last year was our first *official* year of registering with a school board with the intent to homeschool. Before that my son went to kindergarten in a regular public school and before that I "home schooled" preschool (but I also owned a preschool at the time so it wasn't too much of a stretch).

Of course when we decided to homeschool we came across many different opinions of why we should not. Allowing him to be behind in academics was one concern, another was not being able to be on the sports teams within his school,  or not having access to IP programs and aides for his ADHD. The biggest concern that friends and family had (and perfect strangers for that matter), was socialization.

Socialization is such a funny concept though, because if you look at our society as a whole, the schools idea of socialization and putting children into little boxes that are all the same age group isn't really how the real world works. We mix together with children of different ages, ethnicity and backgrounds (both educational and economic). So to say that one has to go to their neighbourhood public school to be socialized is erroneous at best.

Watch: Ken Robinsons Talk on Learning Revolution

Another common misconception is the "what exactly do you teach him?" What don't I teach him? If you go to your local provinces guidelines for education outcomes you can see that the ones for elementary school are really quite basic. Some of the learning outcomes kids already know before they go into the system and others can be taught by a variety of methods outside the traditional classroom.

"But you are not a teacher!" That is right. I am not trained as a professional teacher, and I don't pretend to be. I am one of those homeschooling parents who contracts out for my kids education. I look at their strengths and weaknesses and my strengths and weaknesses and I find the ones that mesh and the ones that don't.

My son goes to a particular program that is really well suited for children with ADHD in my city, and we are so lucky that it is available. He goes to classes two days a week where the professional teachers teach math, science, social and English in a thematic based approach. (Thematics means all of the subjects together, and project based). This is a wonderful approach for a child with a short attention span who can't be bothered, or gets bored, doing worksheets. The rest of the week we have other classes. Swimming lessons for gym, piano lessons for music, and an incredible City Ecosystems class for getting outside and learning about habitats every single week. (which also means me living in my car for hours on end…)

We do have days where all we do is science experiments with kits that we have bought at Scholars Choice or from The Magic School Bus. We do math games, games for learning, games for writing, and games for reading all just for fun. Not scheduled, just thrown in whenever we have a spare time to learn. We also have days when we do nothing but play and read and learn just by living. It's this balance that is so wonderful for our family, and why I choose to continue the path that we are on.

Learning is all around you. It doesn't have to be so rigid and doing what works best for your family and your child is really all that matters in the end. So if you are thinking that homeschooling needs to look like something in order for it to work, re-evaluate and see that parenting doesn't have to look like something for it to work as each and every parent will do it differently…and that is okay too.

                                                       My Vlog about Car-schooling. :P

Can the Cupcake or Tips for Sending Treats to School

My Son's Allergy Bracelet

It's that time again, and so the topic of sweets and schools is in the forefront. With allergies and sensitivities at an all time high, many parents do not realize that sending a treat to school can lead to disappointments and tears for a growing number of children (or worse). Who can blame these parents for wanting to send something special for a class party or a birthday? Food is one of those things that has been the center of a community for countless generations.

Switch Witch

Disappointment is something that children with allergies/sensitivities and/or food preferences are just going to have to learn at an early age. As adults we can understand fully what happens when we eat something that we should not, however, children have a real hard time understanding this especially from the ages of 3-7 when being like your peers is a daily goal. Protecting our children from disappointment is easier when they are not in daycare/preschool/school as we control the environment and/or we can distract and/or we can be prepared in advance.  For example, being the "switch witch" at Halloween you can take all the candies that your kids cannot eat and leave a toy in its place, or you can take your children to venues that have goodies that they *can* eat. It is only when the child is asked to do this self-policing that things can get a bit trickier…

As a parent with a child with food challenges here are some ideas to make the early years a bit more manageable:

Can't get any simpler than that. 

1.) Ask the teacher for a list of all the birthdays in the class. Make sure that when they land that your child has a substitute (frozen treat that they can eat) already at the school or send with the child in his/her lunch.

2.) Ask the teacher for a list of all the food sensitivities/allergies and preferences and then sign up to bring a treat and make sure that it does not have any of the trouble foods in it. Tell the other parents so that they know and are aware of the food challenges in class.

3.) Get shirts, pins, bracelets or labels to go on your children’s school items so that all the parents/teachers that see your child will know that they have food challenges. With more education comes more change.

4.) Get involved in your child’s parent council. Especially if your child has a severe allergy. Peanuts are not the only food that can kill a child, and again education is key.

5.) Consider doing a presentation or have a coffee meeting with the parents to let them know that having a heads up when they want to bring treats is preferable… sometimes parents will just keep kids from home, it  can be simpler that way.

As a parent of a child who does not have any food challenges.

Leave the Cupcakes at home.

1.) Try not to send baked goods. As much fun as it is to have the whole class celebrate with your child, baked goods are one of the most common things that all children can not eat. There will always be one child who must miss out. If it is the child with diabetes, the vegan child or the child with a dairy, egg or gluten allergy; one of them will be disappointed when everyone else gets to share in the celebration and they can not.

2.) If you really want to send baked goods, ask the teacher for a list of all the food challenges that are in the class and try to accommodate. The children may not be able to eat it anyway, with all of your efforts as cross-contamination is really easy to happen when baking, and most parents will not let their child take that risk.

Little Tree Crayons

3.) Send stickers, pencils or homemade crayons as a way to celebrate. This way the celebration can last longer than eating a cupcake in 5 seconds flat!! (and I bet the kids will treasure it more!)

4.) Make your child an extra special birthday lunch with their favourite foods. You could also make a themed lunch. Just typing into google-bento lunch and your child's favourite thing can give you a whole host of ideas to try. It will also make your child feel really special – and isn’t that the point entirely?

5.) Save the cupcake for home or the birthday party. A lot of it comes down to the parents of the other children not knowing that a treat is coming so that they can prepare accordingly. If you save the treats for the party the other parents can warn their child or have a substitute.

6.) Send fruit or vegetables. Childhood obesity is on the rise and many children do not get the proper servings of fruits and veggies needed for optimal growth, a celebration day is a great way to get them into children.

We don’t have to take food completely out of celebrations to make everyone happy, but we can choose other things to make it a more inclusionary practice. There are many different ways that we can dress up good allergen free foods to make them fun too. It just takes a little more creativity and some time…time you have when you are not icing 24 cupcakes. 

It's even Vegetarian!

Schooling

Here I go again.
It's after midnight on Sunday and here I am sitting Blogging because I can't sleep and I don't really want to study motivation in Psych. (how is that for a laugh).
Anyway, I have always thought that my older son is a "gifted" child. He could talk before he was a year old, had a massive vocab by the age of two, and can recognize all the letters in the alphabet, and numbers to 10 by three. I am not saying that he is some genius or something, but I have just noticed that he has a love of learning and that it is quite visible.
Now. I have also thought that because of his caring, sensitive soul that I have talked about before, that perhaps he would do best in a different kind of learning environment. Not saying homeschooling entirely, but at least having an advocate there for him to see and learn from. I have also thought that he would need something more than I received.
When he was one, I thought, yes I will homeschool.
Then I met my business partner who happens to be a teacher, she told me that I alone couldnt possibly meet all the needs that he would require and that it was good for him to learn from other people in a enriching environment. So I thought, hmmmmm........
We opened a preschool together and I placed him in Parented Preschool. He thrived. He learned more from my business partner then I had ever thought to have taught him. I just thought that some concepts were above him and never gave him the opportunity to learn. I was sold. Preschool was the best!
Then we had a new teacher, and she didnt treat him the same because I was the boss. (or I perceived it that way.) And so after the R was born I pulled him.
I put him in regular preschool for year 3. Mostly because my business partner had told me all the benefits and I thought, why not? something for just him 2 days a week might be nice.
It has not been as great as I would have hoped. I feel like he is lost in the crowd. That he is not even close to his potential.
So now to the thoughts for next year.
After I saw Alfie Kohn speak I was re energized for School Reform and thought that Keenan will go to public school and I will fight, as I do for parents and birth.....and then I saw that people like John Holt had been fighting for school reform since the 1960's and that made me feel a bit disheartened again.
I seem to go to one side and then the other every year. And as Kindergarden approaches I get more and more and more freaked out. I mean seriously, I was IN education. I SAW who the next generation of teacher are. I saw them at the bar, in the dorms etc. I was friends with a LOT of them....and that is why I left that major.
I know that there are good teachers out there. I have family that have worked with the system all the way up to management. But I dont really want to start a losing battle, this is my kids future we are talking here. His whole life.
I am terrified that he will be destroyed by the public system, but I am also scared that I wont be able to facilitate his learning to the level that it needs to be.

Inspiration.

I first want to start off by saying that I have had people tell me that I should really read Alfie Kohn and I have hummed and hawed about it time and time again, so when my friend told me to check out his lecture that was coming up, I thought sure, why not. (Save me from reading the book.)
I was blown away. Never has something resonated with me like his words. It was a religious experience for me. I agreed with EVERY SINGLE WORD that came out of his mouth. And the weird part, so did my husband.
It was amazing.
When I went into university for the first time it was to become a teacher, I made it into my 3 year and met the other people who would be my peers, colleagues and I hated them. (Not all, but a vast majority.) I wanted CHANGE in the system, and they were only in Ed, because the GPA was a 2.5 and they couldn’t get into anything else. They didn’t like kids, they didn’t really care about education, they just needed a job, or a degree and Ed seemed like the way to go.
Needless to say, I was devastated.
I partied way too hard to drown my sorrows of a front to my idealism and dropped out.
Of course I found my way back, but never wanted to go into Ed, as I felt it was too far gone. I started researching different schooling opportunities for my child and homeschoolling came up again and again, although I never thought that *I* would be the only one able to teach my child.
I just feel like as a mom *I* will get lazy and MISS those pivotal teaching moments that arrive once in a blue moon...and you know what Alfie agreed with me.
I was shocked.
I thought he was all for homeschooling/unschooling, why it was my unschooling/homeschooling friends that told me to go and see him...and here he was saying that peer based learning in a integrative model is the best way to ensure a WHOLE child.
I was surprised, I was intrigued, but above all else I was inspired.
I *WISH* I had seen Alfie talk while I was in University...I can tell you one thing; I definitely would have finished my degree, got my masters, and started a Progressive School.