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Academicially speaking my ultimate goal is to have independent learners, students who want to learn and who can learn by themselves. This is a good thing. Sometimes I think that I’m not teaching my independent learners anything but then I step back and look at our whole day, not just the morning of study. I talk to my kids lots – lots! They are quite able to gather information by themselves, to learn the facts but it is in the talking that I am moulding their character, their thinking, their worldview.

We talk about their reading and we talk after I edit their writing pieces, we talk after watching tv or listening to the news, we talk about their blogging world, we talk after we’ve been to town; we talk lots! 

I have noticed with my son, 15yo, that he often comes to me to talk about something significant (world politics or moral ethics) after bedtime. I believe it is something that goes on in the teenagers brain!! They like to talk at night time. Often I answer the immediate things but have to make a time the next day to continue the conversation cause I am just plain too tired!

I have had to teach myself to talk to my kids. It has been an intentional decision to talk to them. I have no problems talking to adults but kids – I don’t know that I connect so well with kids. So to connect with my own kids I realised I had to learn to talk to them. This transition happened when they were very very young and I have seen our talking becoming a family identity thing – it is what we do – we talk!