Choosing to Home Educate Healed us Both
For us mums it can be hard to realise that what our child maybe going through mentally and emotionally could be our fault.
Or sometimes we know it, but we just don't know what to do about it. So we keep the thoughts to ourselves and operate out of guilt and feeling ashamed, which can lead to lots of stress internal stress in the end, believe me I know.
For me it was when my daughter Hayley was refusing to go to school, and when she was at home she was either glued to an ipad or screaming at me. No cuddles, no talking just anger.
Little did I know then that the emotional trauma I had experienced during pregnancy had affected mine and Hayley's attachment to one another, which is why she didn’t want to leave me just in case I disappeared. Which is what happened when her beautiful granny Janet left us for heaven when she was just 4.
It was a combination of a faulty mother daughter attachment which can happen when you have pregnancy or birth trauma (like I did), and grief that lead to a mental and emotional breakdown situation for Hayley. The way I look at it her little brain went into survival mode and maths and English just wasn’t necessary to keep her alive, and as for socialisation (which is what everyone who asks you when you say you home educating) well when your in survival mode the worst place you can be is amongst others who could be judging you, or planning to make you feel a whole lot worse because lets face it kids can be savage. Which leaves you feel a whole lot worse.
Self harming at 6 was not something I ever imagined possible but it happened to us, and as her mum I took the responsibility and did what I knew in my heart I needed to do. Take her out of school and rebuild our relationship, which at the time I had no idea how to even start.
It soon became clear though that in order to change the tense atmosphere in our home I also needed to take the lead and to heal alongside Hayley. This meant reassessing what we did with our time and finances to be able to make home educating work, because no matter what, I knew in my heart I could not send her back to school.
6 years later, I am grateful I made the changes to make it work. Our relationship is better than ever, she feels like she can trust me more now, she knows that even in public I can hold myself together to help her calm down, and she talks to me about her worries, which to me is the most important thing especially as she goes into her teens. She is also confident enough now to leave me, and go to groups at one point I thought this may never happen because I didn’t leave her many times in the first 3 years, I always had to loiter somewhere.
All in all its worked out but it was a bumpy ride, with many tears, and I really wish I knew what I know now which is.
Mental and emotional health can be healed
Our brain can be "fixed" or changed to enable a happy healthy productive life
Time is not linear, its the way we think about time thats the problem, we have got stuck in a 9-5 rut
When we follow our hearts the finances and resources we need, to do the right thing come along. we just need a different perspective and a desire to learn
Since becoming a Neuro coach which happened in my pursuit of wanting to be the best mum possible (I took it to the extreme a £20,000 qualification later), I discovered that it was how I thought about things which were causing me the most stress, and in turn this affected Hayley because she is a very sensitive child, given to someone who was a very sensitive child as well. .
However I had become hard and angry in the life school of hard knocks!
Well not anymore, just yesterday I was told by someone who has only known me a short while that I have a lovely vibe about me, I am peaceful and lovely to be around. I do marvel at these comments and also celebrate because thats exactly how I want to be at home, as well as around others. I dont like being Jekyll and Hyde or pretending to be someone I am not in public.
All in all I've become the women I needed when I became a mum and now I get to help other-mums get to where they want to go.
“Helping women find joy, peace and freedom by resetting their lives mind body and soul.”
Is this something you need?
Take a look at my Pdf of “101 reasons women are stressed” to see if you can relate to some of the thoughts I was having which were causing more trouble than I realised.
With joy
leanne
