Thirty-six of our Dreaming Spires students, plus about seventy of their siblings and parents (and grandparents!) came to our third annual summer camp in Wales this past weekend. Amongst the activities planned were team photo-scavenger hunts, a cèilidh (barn dance), “olympic games”, and a campfire with old Welsh stories, but our Saturday was given over to the outdoor adventure sessions: canoeing, archery, climbing wall, the “blob” bounce, and water slide.
It was toward the twilight of that day that I was chased down by the canoe instructor, and he said, “I wanted to tell you that I remember your kids from last year.”
This comes from someone who runs water activities year round and all over the area, someone who has remembered us from before.
We stood out.
He went on to explain why they stuck in his memory: they were friendly, focused, purposeful; they listened and followed instructions; they were kind to each other, helpful, and showed excellent teamwork; they were confident and bold and imaginative.
In short, he said, “Your kids are delightful.”
OK - I can’t let this go any further without basking in that phrase of “your kids”. I mean, for the first year of our annual camp, I actually did NOT have one of my own kids in attendance, so the fact that he was describing the thirty-six campers as “my” kids was just about the highest honour he could give me.
Yes, Dreaming Spires students are, in my mind, “my kids”. That’s why I’m so adamant about building courses that build the child, taking each one from where they are to somewhere much beyond where they thought they could go.
But literally, I digress.
The compliment from the canoe instructor wasn’t about me. It was about the children and their families and their lifestyle that nurtures all those things he said - executive functioning which comes from the self-regulation that’s occurring in a home-based education, day in and day out; kindness and teamwork that comes out of family-based socialisation first, and from friendship groups second; and the creativity which comes from the freedom of something as simple as extra space and time to fill up on their own volition, their own ideas (in other words, not being so regimented all day that everything is plotted, planned, and dictated - a part of the day where boredom is present, but not inevitable).
“Your kids are delightful.”
In other words, the instructor really enjoyed being around them. They brought him joy and delight.
But those four words also mean something else:
— the kids were full of delight themselves —
I’ll leave you with this thought. While often we home-educating parents are very hard on ourselves, trying to juggle the kids and the educational plans as well as the household and the jobs (whether at home or outside of it), not to mention that feeling that we’re one of the public faces of the home-educating community whether locally, nationally, or worldwide.
We can feel overwhelmed by these pressures. They can make us anxious or tired or frustrated, but take a step back once in a while and look for the delight - your delight, the kids’ delight, and how both can bring delight to others.
Four important words: “Your kids are delightful.”
And your three-word reply: “Yes, they are.”