swissarmy_wife

I've been lurking on this list for a few days. I thought it was high
time I made an introduction. My name is Heather. I have 2 young boys
ages 9 and 3 and another boy due in July. I am married to the live of
my life, TJ (we met at age 12 – vomit now – it's one of those
disgusting fairy tale stories LOL). Together we live in VT with our
Puggle, Linky Soda, and Josie the Pusseycat. I love politics and
painting, the boys enjoy sports and video games and cooking, and my
husband, while a mild mannered IT professional by day, is a superhero
husband by night.

We've been unschooling since early 2006 and making our way toward
peaceful parenting shortly thereafter. Both my husband and I were
raised in very coercive and controlling environments and have found
much solace in raising our children the way we always wanted to be
raised.

I also co-moderate a group on MySpace with my friend Tara which has
also turned me into an advice giver instead of receiver. There are so
many things I am well versed in, but there is so much more to learn,
experience, know, so while I grow here, maybe I'll be helping others
grow there.  One of those things is message board clarity! I can't
count how many times I have been misunderstood. Moving on…

When my friend Tara sent me the link to this group, I hesitated.
Because the LAST thing I needed was MORE emails, from MORE yahoo
groups! However, I am already enjoying the conversations I am
reading. I definitely look for a lot personal exchange of support on
message boards, since I have a lack of support of other radical
unschooling families here. There are other unschoolers, but I would
say unschooling in the "no curriculum" sort of way. Not necessarily
the parenting sort of way. (Well, that I can tell anyway.)

The issues that pop up most around here are sibling rivalry, chaos in
the house, and some real combative behavior from my three year old
(I'm thinking he might become a boxer <G>). My children are
high-spirited and my oldest has been giving me a run for my money
since birth! I'm so glad to have found this lifestyle that enabled me
to reconnect with him. Our lives have never been the same since!
Then, pregnancy has sort of added in an irritability factor that I
thought I had gotten rid of! So I come to the boards looking for that
no-nonsense, kick my rear end advice that I know I can't get anywhere
else!

OK, I think that's enough for now! I look forward to future exchanges
with all of you.

Sandra Dodd

-=-The issues that pop up most around here are sibling rivalry, chaos in
the house, and some real combative behavior from my three year old-=-

There are some things here on peacekeeping with kids:

http://sandradodd.com/peace/fighting




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