Category Archives: development

Diving into Unschooling

I wrote my first post about unschooling and how we were thinking about ways to homeschool a little less than three weeks ago, and pretty much right after I wrote that, it became clear we would be jumping in head first, sooner than later. As the testing began and the pressure rose for our first grader, her days became more miserable and her nights filled with stress and anxiety. We found ourselves thinking (again), surely there must be a better way. So we took the plunge and pulled her out of school.

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And Now We Shift Gears…

Last week we were camping in the mountains at an annual event with friends and family, trying to keep the focus on the moment, our surroundings, and simplifying. This coming week, school starts. We’ll try to keep the focus on the moment, but somehow school raises the level of anxiety and stress about 100 notches—which has us questioning (again) if the path we’re on is the right one.

Isn’t that the constant in parenting? Assessing and finding balance. What’s working, what’s not? What do you change and what do you accept? How can we get close to everyone being happy and content? What can we do now to help our kids be the most well-balanced adults they can be?

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Limping Into Summer

The first week of summer is done and gone and we’re already halfway into the next. It feels like Team Hokama has barely survived so far. We started out tired, having returned from a three-day weekend trip to Sacramento celebrating Great Grandpa Vic’s 80th birthday. This seemed okay since hey, it’s summer(!), and there will be plenty of time to rest and play, right? Not so.

Last Tuesday afternoon (June 17), while Keana and Sarah were at Keana’s physical therapy appointment—yes, a couple more weeks before her sprained knee is back to normal—I was on a phone call and I heard Maia and Aliya busy playing. They can be quite the dynamic duo, busying themselves all over the house with this or that, and I didn’t think anything of their little chatter until I hear a BANG, CRASH, and Maia screams, “Papa! Papa! Help! It Hurts!” I quickly got off the phone and found Maia on the floor of the laundry room, on her back, one shoulder in the cat water dish. Aliya was standing by the dryer, door open. I tried to get her to tell me where it hurt amidst the sobs, but it was impossible. At that moment, she didn’t know what had happened, she was just in pain.

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Big Events and Finishing Strong

It’s going to be 100 degrees today. It was almost that yesterday. I can’t think of a clearer signal that summer approacheth. Around here though, the weather is a little ahead of the game—there’s still lots to be done before we can officially say Team Hokama is on summer break.

The kids have 13 days of school left, but they’re not really into “the countdown” yet in this stage of their schooling, though I know they’re ready for a long break. As usual, we don’t exactly have our summer planned out, but I’m sure it will all come together. The only definitive is our friend Adam is getting married in Medford, OR at the end of June, so we’ll be trekking up there for that. And we’ll be camping—somewhere, sometime—so that’s the “plan” so far.

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Taking Care of Business

There are lots of pretty thin lines you balance as a parent: being supportive without being stifling; providing structure and guidelines without being controlling; encouraging your kids to take risks while keeping them safe. Another of those lines we’ve been trying to find the balance on lately, especially with Keana (our oldest), is pushing them to do things for themselves without being unreasonable.

There are times when they’re excited and eager to do just about everything for themselves, and there are times when they feel like we’re slave drivers. They each have their least favorite tasks. Maia struggles with getting herself dressed on school days. Keana’s great about getting ready for school, but strongly dislikes cleaning up after herself. Aliya’s not so good about throwing away her trash. Just tonight, Sarah found 12 empty yogurt “bags” of hers stashed away in her bedroom. Yeah, pretty gross. Luckily, the “valve” on them kept things pretty contained.

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How to Capture a Birthday?

Birthdays are some of those tough moments for me to capture in words. I can (and have in the past) just given an account of what happened, which is fine, but that approach doesn’t capture all the intricate, deep thoughts and feelings I have as I think about each kids’ birthday and what a big deal it is when any of us make it through another year.

Two different friends of mine had their first kids on Keana’s birthday this weekend, which was a great reminder at how far we’ve come. Keana is still the sweet, playful, beautiful, bright-blue-eyed girl she’s always been, year after year, but of course she’s maturing. Her thoughts, feelings, and understanding of the world continue to deepen every day and it’s really an honor to witness. She’s growing gracefully and takes all the new, exciting changes in her life in stride. She’s interested in everything growing up entails, and so far has embraced it all without fear. In fact, she’s happy to be growing up and seems to enjoy her increasing abilities and freedom.

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