Paul's Birthday

Yesterday was Paul’s birthday. Most of you probably know who he is by now but for the benefit of those who don’t, he’s my special needs son who’s currently staying with my parents in order to help Mum look after Dad, who’s very, very ill at the moment. He was 31 yesterday but to all intents and purposes, he’s still very much a child. An incredibly loving, helpful and honest child.

I phoned him yesterday to wish him happy birthday - like you do - and after a quick ‘conversation’ (Paul can’t actually speak and as he obviously can’t use sign language or gestures via the phone, conversation is difficult) I spoke to my mum.

She told me he’d received a card from my ex husband. This is a man who I haven’t lived with for about 18 years and who isn’t Paul’s natural father. Paul was a year old when we met, two when we married. Since going our separate ways, he’s had relatively little to do with Paul (long story but there is a reason) but never once has he forgotten him. And there’s always some money in the card too, even though he’s far from ‘flush’ himself.

Paul gets ever so excited about birthday cards - small things mean a hell of a lot to him. Far more so than they ever have to me or my daughters. Paul sees and appreciates things that most of take for granted. Sadly though, he only received two cards. The second one was from my mum. Today he should get two more, one from me and one from his sister (ours obviously didn’t arrive on the day) but unless there are some more late-comers, nobody else bothered.

Now I understand that we usually stop sending cards when children grow up, and that some people won’t send cards at all for ethical reasons, but I would have expected a few more people to understand that Paul isn’t ‘grown up’, especially those who have been close to him, and that he doesn’t have a great many of the pleasures in life that we all take for granted, and at least taken the time to send a card to brighten his day with - to help make him feel special and appreciated. Because he IS special, in so many ways.

I just feel that fewer people seem to take the time to think about what would make somebody else happy and actually do it - sending a card isn’t that difficult. Even a phone call would have been something. Or a letter. Anything!

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t expect anything. Maybe it’s just me being selfish, expecting others to give a damn about my son.

Sharon J xx

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Children and Darkness

The streets are quiet here during winter. The children are at school during the day and in the evening they’re all inside, most of them playing on their games consoles or watching TV. It’s such a reversal of what it’s like here during summer, when our street is alive with children riding their bikes and generally messing around, having fun.

But it’s dark, and parents don’t let their kids out in the dark. Or in the cold.

Ok, I can understand that to a degree - they’re worried about their children’s safety in public areas after dark, but the dark and cold themselves won’t hurt them, not as long as they’re dressed properly. But they don’t even play in their gardens. Everything’s quiet.

Children need fresh air and to use their bodies. They need to go outside to do that. They need to kick a ball about, skip, run and jump. They need to climb and they need to discover all the mysteries that lurk under stones and rocks, in the earth, on leaves and in trees. They need to learn about the natural cycle of life and they aren’t doing that through computer games.

All that’s needed is a decent back yard light and some good, warm clothing. Kids are generally pretty resilient and their fear of darkness isn’t something they’re born with, but something we adults teach them.

When I lived in Norway, the children were always out playing in the dark. It was either that or stay inside the whole time because darkness was something that was there when they left for school, was there when they came home and wasn’t going to go away for many months during winter. They wrapped up well, and played for hours.

Is it any wonder that children here in the UK are increasingly suffering from obesity, allergies and other health problems when they’re bodies aren’t getting the exercise needed?

Sharon J x

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Social Services and The Rest - What Do They Know?

No doubt those of you in the UK will have heard about the James Hughes case, the severely disabled man whose body was found in a suitcase in the garden after his mother hanged herself. Once again a finger is being pointed at social services for not noticing that he’d lost huge amounts of weight, and at his GP for not having seen him for three years.

Well let me tell you something. Paul, my 30 year old son, also has profound learning difficulties (as did James) and in the eleven years we’ve been living in this country, social services have seen him once! Yes, that’s right, once! ONE TIME IN ELLEVEN YEARS! And that wasn’t in this town but while we were living in Manchester. And what’s more, they weren’t particularly interested in him either. I was told there was no work available for him and no respite care other than a weekend in a house shared with drug addicts. Yepp… that’s the God’s honest truth!

During the seven years we’ve lived here, they haven’t seen him at all. NOT ONCE!! They know of him, but they haven’t bothered to visit him, enquire about him, or anything else. For all they know, Paul could be dead and they wouldn’t even notice!

His GP has seen him maybe twice during those seven years and certainly not for the past three years. For all he knows, Paul could be dead.

A few years ago he had an appointment with the hospital that I cancelled. Nobody asked why and when I said he didn’t need a new appointment that was accepted without question. Paul could be dead.

Paul receives disability living allowance but nobody has asked to see him since he was first awarded the benefit. It just goes into the bank but Paul could be dead.

The neighbours haven’t seen him for a couple of years - not since he came home from my Mum’s two summers ago to come on holiday with us. Nobody has asked about him. He could be dead.

The point I’m trying to make is that anything could happen to Paul and nobody would notice. It’s just assumed that all is well. But how do they know that? How do they know that taking care of Paul didn’t become too much for me and that one day I snapped and…. well…. did the unthinkable?

I can assure you that Paul is very much alive and well and still helping my mum care for my dad but you really only have my word for that. Some of you will know it’s the truth because you know me personally and have seen Paul, but most of you don’t. I could be covering up something sinister, couldn’t I? How would you know? How would anybody know when nobody follows him up? I don't even have a recent photo of him to post here to prove he's alive and well (he is though, honestly. I'd hate to think you really think I might have... !)

Paul is just one of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in this country and I’m sure he’s not the only one who hasn’t been followed up properly. Who knows what might be going on behind closed doors? It’s hard being the parent of a disabled child and it doesn’t get easier when they become adults - sometimes a person’s patience can only stretch so far and when they’re not getting help….

It’s a scary situation.

Once Paul comes home for good I shall contact social services and ask why he hasn’t been assessed regularly. I wonder what they’ll say.

Sharon J xx

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We Don't Need No Education

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone


Most of you will probably recognise those lyrics as belonging to Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in The Wall’, which I was listening to last night surrounded by candles (LM’s doing, btw) and those lyrics, no matter how many times I hear them, always hit a chord with me.

I’m a believer in free education, y’see. By that, I don’t mean education that doesn’t cost anything, although I do believe in that too; what I mean is education where youngsters are allowed to form their own opinions and conclusions rather than having to go along with what teachers and text books say is right, where the pressures of ‘performing’ are obliterated and where kids can be free from bullying, not only by fellow pupils but by teachers too.

Mainstream education may well be the right choice for some but for many it isn’t. I remember Lise’s first year of Junior school, and how she was reprimanded for not writing ‘joined up’. Oddly enough, the same teacher had earlier commented on how beautiful my hand-writing is, so I went to the school and asked her how she could punish my daughter for not writing in the way the school had decided was correct when my handwriting was perfectly acceptable and so was hers. The teacher had no answer other than “it’s school policy that children should be taught to write this way”. Not good enough I’m afraid. I pointed out that hand-writing is individual (hence why we have graphology) and the teacher had to admit defeat. I was not going to allow my daughter to be pressured into writing in a way that didn’t come naturally to her.

There have been many such incidences that, on the surface, may appear petty and insignificant, but they can have a huge impact on a child’s sense of ability. Everybody isn’t good at sport, math, language, science etc. We all have our areas in which we thrive and we all have things that we really don’t enjoy. By utilising the subjects that our children do enjoy, we are, I believe, giving them a far greater chance for the future than by pushing them to do well in areas that just don’t come easily to them. By doing so, I believe we’re bullying them - pulling rank - into being something they’re not.

And then there’s the playground bullying. I don’t care how much a school’s administrators insists that bullying doesn’t exist in their school, it does. It exists in each and every mainstream school I’ve ever encountered (and my kids have been to a fair few) and it isn’t easy to stop. Kids are bullied going to and from school, in the playground and in the classroom (just a look can be enough) and too many kids have already ended their lives because of it. My own children were traumatised by it and eventually I realised that there was an alternative - home education.

I’m sure there are good private schools around too, such as Steiner schools. I don’t have any experience with them so I couldn’t say, but a good friend of mine was once a teacher in a ‘free thinking private school’, teaching philosophy to five year olds in order to open up their minds and allow them to think for themselves, thus drawing their own conclusions and forming their own opinions. That has to be a good thing but we can do it ourselves too. Children need to be able to explore their minds, make mistakes and learn from them without chastisement, and learn to be true to themselves. This, I’m afraid, rarely happens in mainstream state schools.

All too often they’re ‘educated’ to be Just Another Brick In The Wall.

Sharon J

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Photo Credit: LNX

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Consumer Bullying

Image: T.SC

Apparently, a survey has shown that around 55% of teens here in the UK have been bullied because they didn’t have the right products, be that the latest designer trainers, computer game, mp3 player or some other object that's considered ‘cool’.

I know what it’s like to have children bullied by their peers - it puts a LOT of pressure on parents. We have our own standards and ethics that we try to live by yet at the same time the last thing we want is to put our children through the torture of being sent to school each day to meet the bullies and live another day of hell. Because for the kids concerned, it really can be hell, so much so that some teens choose to end their lives rather than face another day of it.

How do we bring our children up to understand the value of things and that true happiness and contentment with life can’t be found in stuff when they’re receiving the opposite message whenever they set foot outside the home? In fact, they don’t even need to do that. All they need to do is switch on the television or open a magazine to be told that they should have whatever they want ‘because they’re worth it’? (The one advert that really make me cringe right now is the one for DFS furniture that uses Nickleback’s ‘Rockstar’ with all it's "I want..." messages).

I clearly remember my daughter asking for a £70 pair of shoes. This while we were living in an area where most people were on benefits and therefore couldn’t have had (shouldn’t have had?) much of a disposable income. Although I was working, I was on a low income and £70 was a lot of money, probably about what I had left each month after carefully budgeting for the bills, food and other necessities. Out of that I had to clothe my children, furnish our home (it was very basic back then) and run a car, the latter of which was important to me because of Paul, who was difficult to travel on public transport with. Seventy quid for a pair of shoes wasn’t only way above and beyond what I would have considered reasonable for a pair of school shoes, it was impossible to find. The result? She got bullied. Badly.

Eventually both girls were bullied to such an extreme that they were taken out of school. They were too afraid to go there - in fact, they were too afraid to even leave the house without me with them. Up until that point, they’d believed that the answer to their problems lay in having the right stuff, but eventually realised that no amount of worldly goods would ever be ‘good enough’ - the bullies would still find something to pick on them for.

And that’s it. Therein lies the dilemma. Do we give in and buy all sorts of stuff for our kids, supporting the consumer band-wagon and possibly putting ourselves into debt, or do we try to help our children understand that the bullying would go on regardless? That being the ‘cool kid’ isn’t always what it appears to be? That attitude is far more important than material status? How far do we let things go before we cave in to their consumer demands?

Mary Whitehouse may have seemed a bit extreme to most of us but she did have a point when she said that television was corrupting society only these days it’s the adverts I’m opposed to. I realise they’re a necessary evil if we’re to have ‘free view’ channels but what kind of freedom is there in being drip fed with non-information about stuff we should have but really don’t need? I don’t care how much people say “It’s our choice”, It’s akin to brain-washing and unless we’re very strong, it’s easy to be misguided, especially while we‘re young and susceptible to all sorts of influences. Yes, we can turn the TV off but does that really mean our teens will never be exposed to it? Of course not.

I don’t have the answer to the problem (but oh how I wish I did!) but it’s a sad state of affairs when our children’s lives are being wrecked because of the pressures of our money oriented consumer society. All I hope is that the credit crunch will have more parents thinking twice about what they buy their kids, and that some of the pressure will eventually lift.

Sharon J

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Seventeen Tries & Tomatoes

Image: Muffet

According to Antony Worrell Thompson, you have to eat something 17 times before your tastebuds adjust to a new taste. Or at least take 17 bites. I don’t suppose you actually have to swallow the food if you don’t want to, although choosing not to might prove somewhat embarrassing at a posh dinner party. Or even a not-so-posh one for that matter.

I think that's quite an interesting titbit and one I shall remember next time I taste something and decide I don’t particularly like it. Notice that I didn’t say really found it foul though, because if that’s the case then I’m not going to put myself through taste hell seventeen times just to see whether I eventually become accustomed to it. No way. There's a big difference between unpleasant and disgusting.

Seriously though, it’s really worth remembering when you’re teaching children to accept new foods as it’s obvious that persistence is key if they’re actually going to accept a taste that they don’t find particularly appealing to start with. I have to admit that I gave up long before I’d made seventeen attempts, going back to things now and then and trying again, but as only one of my three children is willing to give most things a try, I do feel a bit “if only I’d known that then”-ish.

I used to be very picky myself - probably because my mum was never really interested in cooking so tended to serve the same things over and over - but I’ve improved as I’ve got older. I want to improve even further though. I want to broaden my food horizons and discover the joys of everything nature has to offer our palettes.

The one thing I’ve always refused point blank to even consider tasting though is a tomato. I’ve always hated them. Really despised them. Not the taste or the texture - I wouldn’t know what they’re like - but just the thought of them would make me feel ill (all in the mind, of course). I’ve decided it’s time to overcome that now, or at least try. I shall buy a tomato next time I shop, and will try a tiny piece. It won’t be easy, I know that, but I’m gonna try. And I’m gonna try seventeen times! After all, there must be something I’m missing because everybody else seems to love ‘em!

Sharon J

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Other posts that may be of interest:

• Garden Plants To Use In Salads
• Menu Planning - How I Do It
• Sweet Stella Cherries - A Real Taste of Summer

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Simple and Frugal Outings That Will Keep The Kids Amused

Image Source

With the school summer holidays looming, knowing how to keep the kids occupied without having to spend a fortune isn't always easy.

Like many hundreds of thousands of others, I’ve been to Alton Towers with the kids, bought a games console, and spent far too much on cinema visits. I’ve done lots of other things that have cost an arm and a leg too, but all that was a long time ago and during a period where I, for reasons that I no longer understand, thought that they had to have and do the things that other kids had or were doing. It's that old 'keeping up with the Jones's' syndrome.

I was wrong. Those things haven’t played any part in shaping them into the adults they are today. Sure, they were fun at the time, but they haven’t given them any lasting memories or taught them much worth knowing. Those things have come through the simple things we’ve enjoyed together - the things that hardly cost much at all.

If you’re looking for ways of entertaining the kids on a budget, here are a few ideas.

1. Take a walk in the countryside. My kids used to love picking wild flowers that they'd later press, and collect twigs, cones, leaves and such to make into things or stick on cards. They'd try to spot wildlife, whether birds, mammals, reptiles or insects, and look for berries and wild fruit. This opens up for another opportunity - you can go to the library together and find out more about what you’ve picked or seen.

2. Use your local park. Most towns have one but if they aren’t used often enough by enough people, they’ll eventually disappear. They’re often inhabited by squirrels and even though grey squirrels are classed as vermin, kids love feeding them and park squirrels are often bold enough to approach us two-legged giants.

3. Play board games or cards. As well as bringing the family together, these teach children how to be gracious winners and accepting losers, something they often miss out on otherwise.

4. Go camping. It’s cheap, it’s fun and everybody learns to pull together for it to be successful. My kids had more fun camping than on any other type of holiday and just a night in a tent can be lots of fun.

5. Visit a beach that isn’t attached to a tourist hot-spot. That way you won’t be seduced into buying all sorts of useless rubbish and there will be a better chance of spotting wildlife, finding shells and bits of driftwood, not to mention burying Mum or Dad in the sand.

6. Go fishing. You don’t need fancy, expensive equipment - just a simple rod, reel, line, hooks and suitable bait will generally do the trick. You’ll need a license but unless you’re after salmon or trout, a full season’s license costs £24.50 for an adult and £5 for juniors (12-16). Under 12s won’t need one. More information can be found here. My girls learned to gut and prepare fish as well as how to kill them humanely, things that are far more useful than knowing how to press the right button on a computer console so that they can blow up a human enemy.

7. Visit museums. Your kids may think this sounds pretty boring but there are a lot of fun museums around. Science museums usually have special areas for children where they can try things hands on (this was one of my children’s favourites), and some history based museums are a lot of fun too as some give kids a real feel for what it was like to go to school, work and play in ‘the old days’. Follow this link for a list of UK museums.

8. Use the library. Local libraries often arrange a variety of events that appeal to all ages so next time you’re passing by, pop in and pick up their events leaflet. Most are either free or cost no more than a few pounds.

9. Visit your local swimming pool. If you’re lucky to have one nearby, swimming is good fun and exercise for all the family.

10. Arrange local get-togethers. Just think of how the old street parties used to bring communities together. Talk to neighbours and/or other parents at the school gates and ask whether they’d like to get together for a picnic in the park, a barbeque evening, or whatever else you can think up. The children get to spend more time with other kids and you get to know other parents better.

11. Make something. Crafts help children develop their creativity and imaginations whilst teaching them that you make things yourself instead of buying everything. Teaching them how to cook is always fun and useful too.

12. And once the kids are tucked up for the night, have sex. Why give your hard earned money to babysitters and pub landlords when you can enjoy a glass of wine with your partner in bed, instead?

While the occasional visit to the cinema, a theme park or, better still, the zoo, are all fine in small doses and as long as your purse can take the strain, it’s perfectly possible to keep a family entertained without having to throw large amounts of money around and the results will probably be far more valuable.

We're off on a picnic in Delamere Forest today. My kids may be adults now but they're my guests at the moment and I still have to keep them happy without breaking the bank.

Sharon J

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Other posts that may be of interest:

• All Feet To The Pole
• Fishing

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