Day in the life without schooling #3

April DITL, the usual links, some thoughts on family mealtimes & dates for your diaries.

I wrote a book! It’s about centering consent in our homes and beyond. I will be sharing it on this Substack, for my free subscribers, starting next week! Sign up if you’d like it delivered, chapter by chapter, to your inbox. I can’t wait to share it with you. Thank you for being here.

Hello friends!

I’m sharing my usual Day in the Life without schooling post today. Some of it is free to read, and the more personal bits are for my paid subscribers - so you will see a paywall a bit of the way down.

You can upgrade to paid to read the whole post.

It’s been a fun period for us because we are in the midst of so many transitions. And by fun, I mean overwhelming and stressful and interesting and just A LOT.

But without further ado, here is our Day in the Life without school.

Some days I try to wake up early so that I can get some writing done before the kids wake up. There are two sides to the waking up early coin: on the one hand, I’m fresh in the morning and more easily motivated and focused; on the other, I know it means I will be exhausted by the afternoon and evening.

Sleep has always been a big thing for me, since I have epilepsy and any change to my normal sleep might mean I have seizures and/or just feel like I’m on the verge of one all day. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a thing.

So on this day, I chose sleep.

8am

When I woke up, both my children were already up, which is unusual. They usually wake between 8.30 and 9.30, sometimes 10am. We are NOT early risers!!

I walked into the living room, and L was listening to Smash, Boom, Best podcast and drawing on Procreate. His drawings are super cool! He has been on a bit of a drawing spree lately - boats are a big focus, as are maps of ancient cities (probably inspired by our research on the Indus Valley civilisation), and also abstract playing around with colour on Procreate.

I love his art so much but I try not to over-emphasize this because I’ve noticed it puts him off. I point out how hard he’s working or how interested he seems, rather than over-praising how good he is (which is entirely subjective anyway, and might feel a bit like manipulation to him). I’m very aware of the effects of praise on some children (Alfie Kohn on 5 reasons not to praise) and the ways we praise children sometimes feel very adultist to me.

P was reading on the sofa. She is re-reading a bunch of the Rick Riordan books, and has been working on some fan fiction with a friend. Lately she’s been creating AI images to go with her writing.

Both kids had already had breakfast, so I made mine and sat with them for a bit.

9.30am

P decided to do some drawing on Procreate. She took an outschool class for a few months, and has learned a ton of new skills. She has also been working on modifying, or adding background, to some AI-generated images. It’s been interesting to watch because frankly I have zero knowledge in this department, and she is learning on her own and through her online SDE community.

L said he was hungry again (this happens a lot! He doesn’t eat enough at meals and is hungry multiple times a day - it’s a whole thing we are working on negotiating, because he often wants me to come up with and make him snacks, and I’m trying to encourage him to at least figure out what it is he wants. I’m not a walking menu!)

He said he wanted ramen and he helped me make some, and as he ate it I finished reading The miraculous journey of Edward Tulane. I basically cried my way through the entire last chapter! P was listening too, while drawing, which is rare because they usually don’t go for the same books. L said this was possibly one of the best books we’ve read lately, and I agree.

10.30am

We decided to do some writing together. L and I took turns typing out a story on my laptop. The characters were me and him, and we each wrote a few sentences about what our charatcer did.