Family Beds (or Co-Sleeping)

You never get any time for sex! If you are so uncreative as to believe that sex can only be performed in bed and at night, I'm surprised your relationship has lasted as long as it has. There are other places you can play like the couch, the shower, and the kitchen table! For all you know, having kids might actually spice up your love life because you have to learn to get creative.

You can roll over on your baby! This statement is untrue. You will not roll over onto your baby. The same sense that allows you to be aware of your child in the next room when they cry or when you hear a strange noise in the house is also there to let you know that your child is sleeping peacefully there beside you. Women have always slept with their children since the beginning of time. Only recently has putting the baby in another room become a common  practice. A healthy mother has never rolled onto her child in her sleep. Drugs and alcohol will, however, have an effect on your sensory perception. If you drink or do drugs, you should NOT sleep with your children.

The baby can fall off the bed. That's right. The baby CAN fall off the bed. Any sensible parent would realize this and either place pillows on the floor on the side of the bed, buy a bed guard, or move the bed up against the wall to keep the baby from falling out. You can also buy baby beds that have bars around all but one side. These little beds can be pushed up against the side of the bed and you can sleep next to each other. For parents, like myself, who want to alter their style of living to fit their children's needs, you can buy a futon and sleep on the floor. I do not like beds anyway. Futons are the popular style of bedding in Japan. A futon is a soft, thick mattress-like pad that lays on the floor. If baby rolls off of the bed, he won't have but a few inches to fall.

Your kids will become dependant on you. This is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard and I hope that anyone would think first before letting this slip through their lips. You would be amazed at how many times I have heard this said. Why would anyone think that a baby should not be dependant on its parent? It is a helpless, defenseless creature that depends entirely on its parent's every thought and action to keep it alive. Even as a child gets older, it is still just as dependant on its parents for its survival. In fact, I don't think a child should have to be at all independent until he or she is around fifteen years of age, and long before that time, believe me, they will have chosen to sleep in their own room. In our society, we are taught to be as distant from others as possible. Parents no longer have to watch their children. Television, daycare, babysitters, baby swings, and playpens take care of them so we can go do other things for ourselves. From their first days, babies are separated from their mothers in another room of the house. Why? Your children are only young for a little while. Pretty soon, they will be rebellious teenagers, then college students, then adults having children of their own. I would never take for granted what little time I have to spend with my children when they are young. I want to develop loving, lasting relationships with my children that are build on nurturing, not pushing them away.

Kids are not supposed to sleep with their parents. Exactly who made this up? Until recently, family bedding has been the norm in all countries all around the world. I see absolutely no reason why children should not sleep with their parents. I see many reasons why they should. For one, sleeping with your baby reduces the risk of SIDS. Babies breathing is regulated by their parents' breathing while sleeping. Many researchers believe that one cause of SIDS may be a lack of stimulation by hearing the mother breathe. Also, if your baby stops breathing, you will hear them and become aware, even if you are asleep, that there is a problem. A baby in the next room cannot be saved because it cannot be heard. I have also heard some say that they believe one cause of SIDS may be that the babies lack the desire to thrive simply because they are lonely. This is especially prevalent in children who are forced to cry themselves to sleep out of sheer terror of being left alone.

     Sleeping with your baby is also easier on both of you, not to mention the father. If you sleep with your baby, you do not have to get up to feed or change them. Babies don't have to cry for their mother in the next room when they are hungry, they can root or coo or simply find the nipple themselves while mother sleeps. Baby does not have to cry at all or be afraid and everyone gets more sleep. Mothers who practice co-sleeping all say that they get a good night's sleep and that their babies are better behaved and sleep through the night.

Unschooling and Homeschooling
     School is another idea I am completely against. I do understand that some parents are single parents and have no other option. In this case, school can be helpful. I believe that school has many negative and no positive effects on children. For one, school follows a schedule much like work and prepares children for a life in the working class instead of encouraging children to achieve on their own terms. I have put together a list of my own beliefs and ideas regarding public schooling of children:

- teaches children that it is only appropriate to be friends with people your own age.
- teaches that the older a person is, the more important they are and the more power they have over you.
- forces children to follow a schedule in which play, work, and meals are all governed by a clock.
- forces children to wait in line for everything
- children are punished according to someone else's rules
- children are not treated with respect
- children are only around people their own age, so they learn to socialize and act like other people's kids, NOT like proper adults
- children have no way of receiving any attention they may need as an individual or love and care
- children are separated from family
- children learn that they must fake friendships in order to get along with others they do not like
- children are forced to learn at an alarmingly slow pace so that even the slowest of children can catch up.
- school prevents children from having time to do anything productive or worthwhile
- children must learn to either be bullies or to accept bullying from others
- parents cannot decide what they do or do not want their children to learn in school
- children are taught that they are not equal to others
- school does not allow children any basic human rights: cannot eat or drink when they are hungry or thirsty, cannot go to the bathroom, cannot be late, cannot rest when tired, must do what they are told right when they are told to do it, etc.
- school does not allow children to be creative. Even when making art projects, they must follow instructions
- children are not given the time THEY need to complete something, but must complete work on a schedule or fail
- children are graded by someone else's rules
- offers a plethora of disease
- children are taught that what they think does not matter
- children learn from a book with no ability to put lessons into context or learn from doing something.
- children can be failed, even if they have made an effort at the assignment.
- teaches that a person is smarter and better than another if they have a better grade.
- does not allow parents to keep their children away from other children or people who may be harmful to them.

     Schools also tend to waste a lot of time in which children could be doing something constructive. I remember spending hours on end learning things I never remembered and still do not remember to this day. If I could count up all of the hours I spent staring blankly at a chalkboard while the teacher tried to get us to memorize every president in order or the table of the elements, I could have written ten novels by now. Instead of teaching something useful every day, teachers go over and over and over a topic until every single child understands it. Never mind that ten of the kids understood it as soon as they saw it the first time. They have to waste days doing it until even the very last kid is finished understanding. This is time they could have spent learning about their favorite animal, learning how to ride a bike, or growing a garden. When schooled at home, children can move onto another subject as soon as they have learned one.

     Lessons in school are boring and rarely, if ever, allow children to have hands-on experience in what they are learning. When in school, a child can learn what a jaguar is. They can even see a picture of it in a book. A homeschooled child can take a trip to the zoo and see a real jaguar, watch the zookeepers feed it, and see how it moves when it walks. A publicly schooled child can learn the exact date a painting was painted and who painted it. A homeschooled child can go to a museum and see an entire exhibit by the same artist and perhaps, afterward, write about what they think and feel about the art. In addition, children schooled at home can learn about what they want to learn about when they feel they want to learn it instead of learning about it at a time designated by the teacher. Children are much more likely to learn something when they want to learn it as opposed to when they are forced to learn it. This also makes it easier to put lessons into context. For example, kids can learn about weather as they experience it. They can take a trip to the ocean and learn about sea life while they are there, not stuck behind a desk. When kids have the opportunity to choose what they want to learn, they pay a lot more attention. My daughter likes to pull books off of the shelves and look at the pictures. When she sees something she thinks is interesting, she asks and then we talk about it. Child-led learning allows them go to at their own pace. Because they are deciding what and when they want to learn, they remember more.

     I homeschooled my brother when he was a baby. I was just a little girl at the time and never realized I was actually teaching him, but the difference between learning at home and learning at school was amazing. We played a game we called "playing school." From the time my brother was three years old, I made play school assignment papers. He would fill them out and if he did a good job, I would give him a sticker. I was only pretending to be a teacher and he was pretending to be a student, but the lessons I gave him were priceless. To us it was a game and because it was fun and we only played when we wanted to play, he retained everything he learned. Before he got into kindergarten, he could read and write in cursive, could read books perfectly and was already into middle-school novels, could add and subtract, and was already started on learning multiplication. Imagine knowing all that before you are even old enough to go to school. His kindergarten teachers all thought he was a genius. He was not any more intelligent than any other child, he was just given the opportunity to learn what he wanted and at his own pace. They decided to move him up a grade, but what good is that when he is already at the middle school level? Finally, it was decided he would go to a special private school. He attended special schools until he reached high school. Once enrolled in school, his learning slowed. Now he is at the same level as everyone else but I feel confident that if he had remained at home to learn, he would have surpassed any level he could have reached in public schooling.

     There is a difference between homeschooling and unschooling. Homeschooling requires that you keep to a set schedule, learning certain subjects at certain times according to a curriculum and attending a public school once or twice a year to complete comprehensive testing. Unschooling is different and is sometimes described as Waldorf schooling. Unschooling allows for child-led learning where children decide what they want to learn when they want to learn it. It allows for hands-on experience in everyday activities to teach children, not only book knowledge they would learn in school, but also knowledge they need for everyday living. Some lessons taught by unschooling and not by public schools are how to balance a budged based on income, how to balance a checkbook, how to clean a house, how to grow a garden, how to cook and prepare food, how to fix a car, how to budget when buying groceries, how to choose healthy foods, proper hygiene, how to take care of other people and animals, and how to socialize like a proper adult.

     Many parents think that they do not have enough time to homeschool their children. Unschooling can easily go along with a daily routine. For example, children learn about something when it is time to do it. Kids learn how to cook and prepare foods at mealtime. When it's time to clean the house, they can help with their own special supplies. Kids learn about money and math when they go grocery shopping or while playing games designed to teach while having fun at home. When the bills come in, curious kids can learn how money makes everything in the house work and why mom and dad say "no" when they ask for something expensive.

Getting Kids to Eat Healthy
     Almost all parents struggle with trying to get their kids to eat healthier. What many of these parents don't know is that there are a plethora of ways to get kids to eat the way they should. We don't want to hear that we are doing things wrong, but sometimes it is easier to just sit down and find out why kids eat the way they do and what we can do to change or accommodate this.

     Human beings naturally know what they need in terms of nutrition. In a society where we only have a few options available to us at certain times of the day to eat, many of us have lost the ability to know what we need naturally. When we are hungry, we often do not have anything nutritious on hand to eat, so we get what is nearby - usually this is candy or some other sugary snack from a snack machine or a pre-packaged sweet snack at home. The more sweets we eat, the more sweets we crave, leading us to need sweets all day every day in the forms of packaged sugary snacks, candies, gum, and sodas. Each snack gives us a rush of energy, followed by a sugar crash. The only thing to fend off the depression of such a huge crash is to eat more sugar. I personally hate the whining and crying I have to hear when my daughter asks for a cookie or candy and I have to deny her. I cannot stop her grandmother from asking every time we go to her house, but I can stop keeping any type of sweets in our home. Without sweets, the body is able to naturally choose what it needs. If we need more iron, we may have a craving for some broccoli or some ham. If we need lycopene, we may crave vegetables or fruits. I like to let my daughter choose what she wants from the fridge and know that she is eating it because her body is craving it, not because it is full of sugar.

     Children learn by example. When we do something, our children copy it. In their minds, they are equal to us and do not understand why we can eat something and they cannot. This is why we should always set an example. Eating habits are no different from any other habit. Children do not understand why mom and dad can have sweets whenever they want them, but the children cannot. To them it is not fair, and rightly so. You cannot tell a child not to smoke and then smoke in front of them.

     The best option, as I said, is not to have any junk food at all in the house. If you crave sweets and absolutely can't give them up yourself, learn to keep a secret stash very high in a closet or some other secret place where it cannot possibly be discovered. Keep the fridge stocked with healthy foods like cubed cheese, fruits, carrot sticks, yogurt, granola bars, and peanut butter. Kids can pick and choose what they want as they need it and you never have to worry if what they are eating is healthy.

     At our house, there are no sweets. Everything in the fridge is healthy and organic. This does not mean there is nothing tasty. We have cheeses, fruits, veggies, and yummy leftovers like spaghetti. There is healthy cereal, applesauce, oatmeal, flavored yogurt, and popsicles made from fruit juice. We do not drink sodas. We have organic juice, milk, water, or herb teas. Cambria knows that when she is over, she does not have to ask for anything. She can choose what she wants when she wants it and it is always good for her.

     A lot of parents have trouble finding healthy foods that their kids will eat. Here are some ideas for foods that my mother gave me and that I give to my daughter. Some of these are really great finger foods to pack for lunches.
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