To teach or not to teach

(actually not about my teaching….yet…)

How can I get my child to focus and pay more attention to what he is doing????

Since Ewan was about 2 we have been going to speech and language therapists… getting hearing tests done… practicing our questions and answers at home and basically….. worrying…. About what?? About him not being at the same level as other 4year olds. Same level of socialization. Same level of speech. Same level of literacy. Same level of communication and behavior.

Milestones and the internet…  Is the internet a useful tool??? OF COURSE!!! There is sooo much information out there that you will always find an answer to what you are looking for…. BUT, you will also find sooo information that it may actually hinder, not help, your quest for knowledge….

While Ewan was going through his “months”  ages (by this I mean that when I child is still quite young we refer to their age in months not years yet. For example 1 year and 5 months would be 17 months)  I was always trying to compare his progression to what others reported on the internet or in magazines, or what doctors stated was the expected ‘norm’.  And this really drove me a bit neurotic I think, well just ask my husband.  From thinking that my son will never talk to thinking that he may have tourettes syndrome, I was constantly trying to figure out why he just wasn’t doing the things that other kids were doing at his age…..

At age 4 ½ he is now in JK and doing well.  With a lot of ‘noise’ from me, letting all of his teachers and care givers know the troubles that he has been having, we all know what he needs to work on, how to approach certain issues and how to teach things that he doesn’t yet know, and needs to learn.  ( I am not going to get into specifics because this is not really about how we have been getting through life’s hurdles, but rather what hurdles are out there…)

I was recently researching symptoms of ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to see if my son actually did have some reasons as to why his progression was a bit slower than other boys his age. (now I do want to specify boys because it is known that girls’ and boys’ progressions vary quite a lot…) But after speaking with doctors and teachers and therapists this is what I was told and it is something that I just have to track and have patience for…. My son is a late 4 yr old, or in other terms he is a young 4. What this means is this… age is calculated in regards to the school year.  School/JK (junior kindergarten, our first year in regular school) starts in September and if a child will be turning 4 in that same year he can start…. Meaning until December of that year…. If he will be turning 4 in the following year, but still the same school year, the child must wait until the following September to start school.  So, E (my son) started school what he was really only 3, and did not turn four until the beginning of November…..

To make a long story short, I am not the only parent that has this concern …  After my obsession into finding answers to what I thought to be a medical problem, I saw this on the news…

Youngest kids in class more likely to be labelled with ADHD
Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20120305/adhd-kids-diagnosis-relative-age-120305/#ixzz1qHR7xdQ8

… and MAN! My world just became sunny once again….. PHEW! I tell you! The pressure that parents put on themselves to make sure their kids are ‘okay’ could really give us a heart attack! 

So, do we believe everything we see/read/hear or not…..

This is the conclusion that I have reached, with no less than a four year migraine about these so called MILESTONES….

Obsess about your child in every way … but inform and educate yourself and your family…. Don’t sit on the fence and hope that school will take the place of your responsibility to your baby…  be proactive and be involved….

Goal #3 – accept and learn…. (I have to accept the ‘place’ where my baby boy is in and I have to learn with him to be able to teach him…)

So as a TESL teacher for the last few years I have kind of evolved to be more educated about education and this is going to pose another huge dilemma in my life, and I hope in your life as you take the time to think about what is good for your child(ren)…

While teaching ESL I was exposed to many cultures and their stories about their education/study expectations….

Here is North America we start school at, usually, 4 years of age. We continue to finish high school at the age of 18 and then it is up to us, as adults now, whether we want to continue our education or not… Our school days start at 9 and we finish at 3, we have homework and we study for tests.. In university we attend classes, go to study groups but we kinda make our own schedules as to how we study and get work done due to a vast number of reasons…. Work, family, travel distance… PARTYING!!!  My point is, we schedule studying and living around each other because both are important…

In Asia, I have been told, their study practices border on the ridicules….. (please know that I mean NO offense to any Asians, especially former students, that may be reading this blog)

I am not sure in which grade this “studying” starts but it may be the beginning of high school… going to study groups or early classes at early as 7am, then going to regular classes and then after school study groups again until 10pm or so….

And then there is quite the opposite in Finland… please read article, here is a small excerpt…

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

“Compared with the stereotype of the East Asian model -- long hours of exhaustive cramming and rote memorization -- Finland's success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play. All this has led to a continuous stream of foreign delegations making the pilgrimage to Finland to visit schools and talk with the nation's education experts, and constant coverage in the worldwide media marveling at the Finnish miracle”.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

So…. Where is our happy medium?? How do we know how we are supposed to teach our kids…???

I can see by watching my son, he is very “hands on”, as his teachers have also noticed… He learns by doing and not by listening… he has to be exposed physically to the idea that is being taught…. I see him with his cars and trains and books at home and know that with his “play” he is learning a lot more than if he were to be forced to sit at a desk and look at letters and number and try to figure out what is what… don’t get me wrong… we have flash cards and posters on the walls and I will randomly ask him questions about what he sees/hears/and reads, but what I am trying to say is that he needs to be active in what he is learning, it has to be a part of his daily routine because if it is just put in front of him without any correlation to what he is doing it will not make sense to him….

Well, as I stated previously …. I think that it all depends on the student, the situation and the material… all I know, because there is no way that I am in any position to make any decision for the world’s children (and really I am here to write about my life and maybe make you think about things in your life).. so all I know is that I am going to do my best to start with the basics, like the alphabet and numbers and sounds and go from there.  It is very clear and obvious when a student, my son especially, has had too much information and that will be my clue to stop…. I also think that the way you teach, with patience and respect, which is my 3^rd goal that I am working on, has a lot to do with how the student will learn and how much the student will retain….

In conclusion I think my title to this blog should be … ‘to teach stressfully or to teach calmly”…

just breathe....

Maybe I want to write to let others know how life can be both precious and devastating and we can’t question why things happen ….. and unfortunately just accept them and know that things happen for a reason…. We may not know/realize the reason for years to come but in the end it all comes together…

Goal # 2 – just breathe… and treasure every single moment and person in your life…. (already working on this one…)

As I mentioned in my previous post I probably would be writing about my mum… I think today will be that day, but before I start I want to “remember” Graham’s dad first…. And with the story of these two gorgeous people in our lives I would like you to think about the “issues” that come to your mind…. I will not formally mention my struggle with these two situations but I hope they leave you with something to think about…..

Graham and I married in September of 2006.  We had known each other for about 3 years and decided that at our “stages” in life we did not want to prolong the whole “trial” period of dating/courting/seeing if this was the right person, because we knew, and tied the knot! 

Around the time of the wedding Graham’s dad had been having some pain and had been seeking and going through medical treatment but doctors could not pin-point the exact cause of what was causing the pain….

In April of 2007 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed 3 months later…. 4 months before he could have met his first grandson.  I will not go through the time that Graham’s dad and family knew he was sick and knew what the inevitable was because that is a private issue that is not for me to share, but I can tell you that it hurt.  I can only tell you how I felt and how I think my husband felt…..

During the last few days I was scheduled to go for an ultra-sound (about 5 months pregnant by now) because one of my tests showed positive for possible Spina bifida (is a birth defect in which the backbone and spinal canal do not close before birth - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002525/ ).  We travelled from Kingston, where my in-laws lived, to Toronto on Thursday for the test but before I left I sat down with Graham’s dad and asked him to make a deal with me…… We did not tell the others what we had been going through since it seemed insignificant compared to what the family was dealing with…. although I was quite scared about my baby….. I told him that we were going to check if Ewan was going to be alright and that he had to wait… wait for us to come back and wait for the answer to let him know our baby was going to be okay…. I didn’t get any acknowledgement from him as to whether or not he heard me, because at this point he could not move at all anymore, but I knew that he made that deal with me…..

We got back from Toronto later that day and I went back in and whispered that he was going to be fine… his grandson was going to be perfect…. early the next morning Graham’s dad past away with his whole family be his side…..

Ewan was born November 03 2007, 5 lbs 6 oz…. not a big boy at all but he has definitely made up for that now…. He is a great, smart, funny little man that keeps me on my toes while his daddy is away at work….

Ewan was only 17 months old when I mum was rushed to the hospital one Saturday… April 25, 2009… and that was the last time we saw my mum, the mum that I grew up with, the wife my dad married and the Baba (grandmother) that Ewan was starting to know and love…. She was in the ICU for almost 2 months under heavy sedation and kind of a medically induced coma….

OK, let me back up a bit… the week previous to the hospitalization we were all sick at home… for those of you who do not have kids, prepare yourselves… when you have a child in daycare or school you will be exposed to the most horrific colds and flues and sicknesses ever!  That week Ewan developed and ear infection that quickly spread to my mum since she was our main caregiver during the day… She went to the doctor’s and got an antibiotic and was on it for a few days… That Saturday morning my dad went to work, and Graham and I wanted to go out shopping with Ewan and went downstairs to ask mama if she needed anything…. She started to complain about pain in her neck and a bit of nausea and since I knew she was on medication already I didn’t pursue any other course of treatment other than some Gravol for the nausea and that would help her sleep for a while….

We got home around noon and she was still napping so I left her to sleep, because we all know that your body regenerated while sleeping…. Before dinner I went down again (we live in the same house, THANK GOD) and she was still sleeping and by this time I was getting a little worried….. While I was trying to slowly wake my mum a huge wind storm blew through our neighbourhood knocking over trees and power lines and, my ever-brave-helping husband ran outside to the house that got crushed by a tree to see if anyone was hurt… by now I really couldn’t wake my mum and started shouting and shaking her… I was screaming for Graham to help me but he thought I was just worried about him getting hurt outside…. until he saw the horror in my eyes….. I put Ewan up in his crib, he was hysterical, and I was yelling at Graham to get an ambulance. I was on the phone with my dad and ordered him to come home immediately… Because power lines were down it took 20 minutes to talk with emergency services to get an ambulance…. The operator was now on the phone with me telling me to turn her on her back…. I did. And when I saw what was coming out of my mum’s left ear I stopped breathing….. I though part of her brain was melting out of her head….. Yes that is where my mind was going…. It was actually the infection coming out of her ear…. But sadly it was not only exiting her ear, it had reached its way to her spinal cord…

Bacterial meningitis is a medical emergency.
Untreated, it can be fatal in a few hours. Even survivors can have severe consequences including varying degrees of blindness, deafness, paralysis and mental retardation. Suspected cases of bacterial meningitis require immediate medical attention.  http://www.meningitis.ca/en/what_is_meningitis/bacterial.shtml

It felt like for the next 5 months I did not breathe at all…..
We did not know what this was and for the next 24 hours my mum was quarantined and everyone at the hospital was trying to figure out what was happening. My dad told me that he will never forget the night after my mum was admitted into the ER… even though she was not coherent she was screaming in agony from the pain, the pain from the meningitis attacking her spinal cord, her brain, her body…. Doctors were nowhere to be found… nursed paged and paged and called and called and all were terrified to deal with my mum… she had scans and tests and blood work done and finally they diagnosed her…. But my dad will never forget the screams or terror and horror in her voice and her calls out for her own mama to help her….
She was finally taken to the ICU and was there for almost 2 months…. Through a dense haze… I remember going to visit her, sitting beside her, singing to her the song both her and I sang to Ewan, making sure to keep letting her hear our voices. 
I remember teaching…  and taking Ewan to daycare … and picking him up after the hospital visits … and talking to family and friends… and doing daily tasks that needed doing… but I don’t remember breathing…. I remember holding my breath sitting in the waiting room by myself crying hysterically NOT breathing and thinking that I am not ready to NOT have a mum. I am NOT ready to raise my boy without her advice… I am just NOT ready for this!  The other deeply embedded memory is of one day either talking or singing to her, while she was unconscious and hooked up to a million tubes and a breathing machine, and seeing one tear slowly fall down her right cheek…. The side what I was sitting on… Those are the two most vivid memories of my mum in the ICU….
I am not going to talk about the next few months… of our struggles to get her into a rehab facility and our fights with doctors and directors and policy makers cause what matters most is that she is home… right?
RIGHT?
It has not been easy the past almost 3 years since I lost MY mum and had to meet my new mum…
Our second child was born November 24, 2010… God blessed us with her and he blessed us with keeping me here to come home to care for my two babies and my new mum….

excuse the mess...

Why do we need ‘hiding’ places for our children’s toys?

Why do I want my guests to come into my house and say “wow, your place looks great!” ???

Since I have been home with my kids full-time I have been having a hard time following the rules of society and what is expected from a ‘stay at home mom’…. And I know this has ALL been said and written before but really!?!? this is what is EXPECTED from us …. Raising children, which includes; bathing them, feeding them, dressing them, changing diapers, playing with them, running after them, taking them out, teaching them, listening to them, doing their laundry, waking them, putting them to bed, reading to them, grooming them, comforting them, disciplining them….

What else are we expected to do??.... clean the house (which doesn’t sound that bad for a 1000 sqf home without carpeting, just sweep and Swiffer. But when you have two constantly shedding dogs it becomes a daily task), cook (well I don’t have that issue since my DJ/cook/mechanical & electrical technician does the cooking when he is here… but Graham has been on the road 3 out of 4 weeks of every month since November of last year so it has been myself and my dad cooking for the rest of us), take kids to doctor appointments, take kids to school/daycare, take dogs to groomers and vet appointments, shop for groceries, shop for household items…. so to sum things up, these are the ‘professions’ that I have to perfect while being a ‘stay at home mum’…

Nurse/doctor, maid, cook, teacher, vet, caregiver, …. and what I want to let everyone know is that I don’t mind it, I love it, I really want to be here for my kids …

What I forgot to add is caregiving for my mum… without getting into the dirty details of what happened, cause I am sure it will be a future blog, she contracted bacterial meningitis in 2009 and it since my parents live with us it is just a given that I take care for her when she is home, and not in rehab.

So, as it turns out I am at home for a reason. To care for my family. I am actively looking for a job that will subsidize our needs, daycare, mortgage, bills, and so on….. but that has not been easy.  I can’t make enough hours as an ESL teacher to make what I need and getting an admin position in a school is really by “contact” only… as most positions are… I think that I am pretty qualified to fill a ….. never mind, this is not about me and advertising what I am… this is about me taking care of my family and choosing, what I think, is the right thing to do….

This is why I want to express how I feel about the “home” environment that my kids are growing up in… and not doing the expected thing, of course I will always provide a warm, loving clean shelter for my kids but I really don`t feel the need to tidy their toys away at the end of the day… why would I want to put away the items that make my children think and feel and sing and dance and create! I want to see what makes them happy, I want to know what my kids love to do, I want to play with my kids, not get frustrated that they are making a mess right after I put things away because it was getting too messy….

If I spent all of my time worrying about making my home presentable for guests then I would not be spending that precious time with my kids, and being happy with them… and knowing that they love having me with them ….. I can do dishes or laundry or sweeping tomorrow!

“excuse the mess, we just wanted you to feel at home” …. I think I would rather have a plaque that reads “excuse the mess, children are making memories” ....

hello my name is....

Why do I want to start a blog….. great question…..

I think that I really don’t have a concrete answer as to why except that circumstances in my life are leading me to wanting to ‘share’ my thoughts/emotions/frustrations with, if not the world or my community then as least my family and friends. Here and overseas.

Maybe today was not a great day to start because I have a bad migraine and it makes things difficult for me to focus on one particular project cause I just need to keep my body and mind moving to distract away from the pain….. or maybe that is why I wanted to start because it was a focus away from the pain….

I get barometric migraines… if you ‘google’ it this is what you can find….

It's been fairly obvious throughout history that weather, and particularly changes in the weather, have an effect on your body. In spite of this long line of weather-sensitive individuals, scientists are still unsure why changes in weather cause headaches and other migraines. There is a theory, however. Changes in pressure cause changes in oxygen levels.

It could be that blood vessels in your head expand or contract to compensate. Changes in the size of your blood vessels is part of the flow of changes that happen when you get a migraine headache. This is also why you may get a headache when flying, hiking, or even travelling to a new location.

A study was done by a group of researchers led by Dr. Galina Mindlin of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia with migraineurs and "normal" individuals to compare their reactions to weather. The study found that migraines are indeed more likely when pressure rises, and somewhat more likely when the temperature rises. (Read more about the barometric pressure migraines study here)

http://www.relieve-migraine-headache.com/barometric-pressure-headache.html

(and an fyi… if I include some ‘googled’ info on my site I will always try to include the url…)

So…. I have gone through numerous meds, injections, both proactive and reactive treatments and here I am today, still on the waiting list to see one of Canada’s leading specialists in women’s headaches …. So I’ll keep you posted… ;)

Or maybe it was because I am now home after my maternity leave, of our second, and have decided that it was not financially beneficial for me to go back to work and pay for daycare, for two kids, what I made in a month as an ESL teacher… My husband travels, what seems to be, all the time lately which leaves me at home with a 4 ½ yr old, a 16 mnth old, a physically and mentally challenged mum, and two dogs… My awesome 73 yr old dad still works to help with expenses …..

Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful to have my mum home after her ordeal but it is hard work, for everyone…..

Since I am not working, well ‘earning a living’, cause I do think I work…. I am trying to build up a little business, not my own, but something I picked up a few years ago when my mum went into hospital and I thought it would make me some extra money…. BUT as it turned out, I became my best customer and now I need that to change since I really do need some extra cash…..

SO I guess it is time to introduce myself and this blog…. My name is Basia (Polish for Barbara) Mae Kowalczyk-Sinclair.  I am the only child of Polish born parents who both came here in their 30’s, separately, to find a better life…. So I guess I am first generation Polish Canadian …. I speak Polish, and English (obviously) and am very happy and proud that I do…. Which leads me to my guilt about not teaching my kids more…. “just immerse them in the language” … that is the best way but when you have an English-only speaking husband, I find it a bit difficult…. Ok…. Which leads me to my goals that I will be sharing with you….

Goal #1…. Speak more Polish to/with my kids…. (please feel free to ask me about this is future…)

Yes I am married, 5 ½ years now and two kids later…. And unfortunately no more kids…. Unless we adopt…. Along with winning the lottery! That would be nice….. ;) Graham, my husband is Scottish, born is Glasgow, came here with his mum, dad and sister when he was 7, or 5… I think 7… lol… anyways, … no accent, too bad cause I love it, but it is a blast when he does ‘put it on’ , so funny actually that I really can’t take him seriously sometimes and tell him to quit…. Which he doesn’t of course….

OH, so I should be introducing my blog too…. Well…. I am not sure…. I think I just want this to be me… a huge mix of everything that is going on in my life and mind and all other things that come my way and maybe I will even start sharing the book that I started writing last year…. Maybe… ;)