Navigating the challenges of raising children whose learning needs don’t align with the way the curriculum is taught requires us to consider both their experiences and our emotional responses. Reflecting with close friends on the challenges of motherhood, especially when raising children who struggle with school, I found myself wondering, “Are there parents out there whose kids genuinely find joy in life?”

While my kids enjoy certain aspects of life, their day-to-day experience with school is something they loathe. I often think how much more fulfilling it might feel to be the parent of children who are truly happy.

Yet I also know that life’s challenges are where our opportunities for growth come from. In my fifties, I wouldn’t have half the resilience, competence, and confidence my kids see in me if I hadn’t been through some tough times. Not that we wish tough times on our kids, but they are an inevitable part of life, and I try to teach them that they can do hard things. I truly hope that as I watch them grow and mature into adulthood, I’ll see them flourishing, and that may bring a deeper sense of fulfillment in my role as a parent.

I don’t remember being as miserable as my kids when I was growing up. I remember the thrill of climbing onto the top of communal garage blocks, running across rooftops, and playing games like Hide and Seek with friends in my younger years. Sure, there was angst over friendships and boyfriends, anxiety in new situations, and resistance to my mum’s behavior and opinions most of the time, but on the whole, school wasn’t something I actively resisted. On the contrary, it was an area where I found autonomy and independence.

Through my competitive swimming, I experienced another world of independence outside the home, traveling to distant towns and staying away overnight. My mum used to say the biggest benefit of the intense training schedule was keeping me off the streets while doing something healthy. In high school, though, I always felt like I didn’t belong. I was “Shona the Swimmer” or, devastatingly once called, “Shona the Man” because I did Physical Education with the boys. I was dorky, wreaked of l'eau de chlorine, and often drifted off in class. But thankfully I didn’t have any learning difficulties; I did reasonably well academically.

Reflecting on my childhood, I can’t help but contrast it with the experiences of my kids. It makes me think about what Abraham Hicks says—that the purpose of life is to experience joy. When we’re true to ourselves and follow our inner guidance, we naturally feel joyful. Growth happens as a by-product of that joy; we don’t need to force it. But then I think about how tough it is for kids with learning challenges. The traditional school environment can be so frustrating for them because it doesn’t fit how they naturally learn. Every day can feel like a great effort, and it’s hard for them to find any joy or motivation in that kind of setting.

From kindergarten onward, my kids have balked at being in school. I didn’t fully understand why they seemed so exhausted and overwhelmed early on. Sure, there are days when they go without fuss, and occasionally things they look forward to, but both have (different) dyslexic and sensory challenges that make the learning environment particularly tough, leading to resistance and frustration.

I think about the concept of optimal motivation, which involves aligning tasks with intrinsic goals or value. While I understand that there are things in life we might not want to do but have no choice about other than choosing our attitude, for most kids, this is a level beyond their understanding unless they regularly see it role-modeled. Their childhood is filled with obligations they have to fulfill because the government or their parents say so.

For many kids, especially those who are neurodivergent, understanding and embracing the idea that they can choose their attitude toward learning tasks is both complex and often unattainable. They may struggle to see the purpose behind what they’re forced to learn in class, leading to feelings of frustration, resentment, or even helplessness.

As children grow, how they internalize these experiences can significantly shape their adult behavior. Some may continue to comply out of fear of disappointing others, leading to a pattern of people-pleasing and self-sacrifice. Others might rebel, seeking to assert their autonomy but sometimes doing so in ways that are self-centered or harmful to others. Finding that balanced approach—being assertive yet mindful and compassionate—is rare and often requires a conscious effort in adulthood to unlearn deeply ingrained patterns.

At the age my youngest is now, I was immersed in an intense routine—swimming morning and evening, attending school all day, and sneaking in late-night reading sessions by the hallway light. In contrast, my youngest doesn’t seem to have any strong interests outside of school. Social activities are rare, and by the end of the school day, they are completely drained, having expended all their energy at school.

My older child, who overcame many early reading and writing challenges, would greatly benefit from a hands-on, project-based learning environment now that they are in high school. They thrive in settings involving experiments, arts, crafts, and building models. Unfortunately, traditional education still relies heavily on a lecture-based approach, where teachers present information and students are expected to follow along all at the same pace. This system can be particularly challenging for students with non-linear thinking, as it often exacerbates issues related to memory, organization, time management, concentration, and communication.

On top of these learning challenges, my children also navigate typical social anxieties and emotional pressures of being teens—further complicated by screens and social media. These factors often lead to internalised stress, adding to their complexity of experience.

Reflecting on their journey since kindergarten, I understand the value of both education and resilience, yet it’s heartbreaking as a parent to see every day feel like a struggle for my children. I often feel frustrated with how the education system seems to overlook opportunities to make learning more engaging and fulfilling.

As I think about re-imagining education, it closely aligns with my current book project on healthcare, finding better ways to support people more holistically. While my current focus is on health, I’m eager to explore and share the stories of the people and organisations doing something different in terms of engaging our younger generations more holistically into the realms of learning.

It’s been forty years since I sat in a classroom, and back then, neurodivergences were not recognized. Those who struggled with traditional methods were often misunderstood and labeled unfairly. I’ve encountered many intelligent individuals who were misjudged simply because the system didn’t accommodate their learning styles.

Today, we recognize that learning differences exist, yet many educational systems still rely on outdated methods. This raises an important question: When will we embrace a more inclusive approach that truly supports diverse learning needs?

As we reflect on these issues, I invite you to consider your own experiences with education and the impact of outdated systems. How can we collectively work towards a future where every child’s learning style is valued and supported? How can we advocate for changes that will make learning more engaging and effective for all students? Your insights and actions could be key to driving the transformation we so urgently need.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Finding Balance: Making Big Changes Through Small Steps in a Complex Life, The Silent Wins: How to Acknowledge and Celebrate Your Growth, Leaders Who Walk the Talk and Are Interested in People and Self Empowerment , Crafting a New Vision for Healthcare: How Our Personal Journeys Shape the Future and Evolving Education. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog. 

This week I’ve been contemplating taking on work outside home for the first time in almost seven years.

When I left my corporate career I knew I’d never return to work in the way I had done until then, yet I knew I’d gained a lot of skills and experience that I would no doubt put to good use at some future point.

As I often recount, at that juncture in my life I simply felt my outer and inner world were not a match, I had a gnawing frustration I was not all me, yet I had no idea who or what that looked like.

When my children came along I had become more determined to live the way I wanted them to, so when I left corporate life to spend more time with them, it was also with a steely determination to tune in and figure out who I really am, what I really like and what I really want out of life.

Jungian analyst and author Dr James Hollis believes asking “What does my soul want of me?” to be one of the most important questions to ask ourselves if we want to live a fulfilled life. He says “This is especially imperative for people journeying into the second half of their lives”, something he’s explored in writing for almost thirty years.

I haven’t quite been writing that long, but I have written continuously over the last seven years. In fact this is the three hundred and sixty first week of publishing my life lessons as I come home to more of me and learn to nurture my true nature.

It’s been a big journey, one where I’ve looked into a lot of dark corners, faced a lot of fears, brought to light and merged together parts of myself that were in conflict. All the while the question on my mind has been “What comes next?  What wants to find expression through me?”

I had been thinking perhaps I’d move away from the business world altogether and work more one-on-one with individuals. The field of Customer Experience represents the output of an organisation. The issues, frustrations and customer complaints reflect the amount of collective dysfunction within an organisation, which in itself is fuelled by the dysfunction within individuals, particularly in leadership teams.

Patrick Lencioni sums this up well in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (a Leadership Fable) where he spells out the five most common dysfunctions as absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results.

Now that I am more trauma informed, I deeply understand how much of this directly maps back to how the human psyche is shaped by early childhood experiences in each individual, unknowingly influencing the way people show up – and often limit themselves – as adults.

I was no exception with my perfectionist and people pleasing tendencies, I worked long and hard to do and be it all for everyone. There was one particularly competitive, controlling and manipulative colleague who really contributed to me eventually learning a valuable lesson, summed up well by an unattributed post I saw this week:

“You absolutely have to become okay with not being liked. No matter how loving or kind you are, you will never people please your way into collective acceptances. You could be a whole ray of sunshine and people will hate you because they are used to rain.”

I say eventually as it took many more years in a similarly intensive personal relationship to fully awaken to the level of trauma within my psyche and body. Being good was a childhood lesson my nervous system had learned well, and – as such – I carried extremely high levels of anxiety into adult relationships and interactions. That is something I have had to consciously learn to recognise in the moment and apply learned skills around having and holding healthy boundaries in order to move away from defensive states of being.

In my corporate career I worked closely with people at all levels of business. From executives at a strategic level, to those at the coal face delivering the product or service, it became very obvious to me that true success comes from people being, well, authentic. That sums up in a nutshell what Patrick Lencioni was pointing to.

Left unchallenged, the school bullies are still bullies, the nerds are still nerds, the rebels are still rebels and the compliant kids just become compliant adults. From the water cooler to the board room it could often be like a school playground. There are those who strut around acting entitled and superior and those who are repressed, with everything in between. All human dysfunctions come to the fore.

Because I worked to transform the customer experience through people and cultures, I could clearly see what did not work. For example, I learned that job descriptions and key performance targets – even giving them lots of training and development or new systems or processes – doesn’t change their inner landscape.

So between my own personal growth that needed to happen, and the collective dysfunction that I’d seen over and over in organisations getting in the way of meaningful and lasting change, I hadn’t expected I’d want to return to that world.

In terms of living a fulfilled life, to Dr James Hollis’ point, what my soul had been yearning for was me to step into my full potential. I can’t say I’m all the way there yet, that feels like a lifelong journey, but I certainly feel like I’ve a stepped into a much healthier, more evolved version of myself. I know for sure that any future work I do with people and organisations must be based around one thing – authenticity – both from me and them.

Talking to a business owner this week, who has several things they need help with, brought my lens into sharp focus. As I listened to the issues and tasks at hand, I started to mentally take on what they might look and feel like, some felt great, and others not so great.

“Boundaries” I thought on a personal note, “this is hugely helpful in gaining clarity around the stuff I’m great at and enjoy, the real value-adding stuff that is a win-win, versus the kinds of things I’m might be proficient at but I really do not enjoy”.

I started to think in terms of my skills and experience across three categories:

• What I’m great at and enjoy
• What I’m proficient at but do not enjoy
• What I’m just not good at

I know whatever I do has to be about the first category; it’s where I can really make a difference.

But there is a lot in that middle category after decades of perfectionism and people pleasing, and I can get distracted and tripped up by taking on things just because I am capable of doing them, but then |I just end up demotivated and unhappy, and it shows.

Then I remembered that a few years ago I went through my Linked In profile and purged dozens of skills endorsements I had for skills I really did not want to use again professionally, like contract management. Anything structured like that gives me a headache just thinking about it.

I also similarly took out bullet points of achievements that I had no desire to recreate. That was hard to do because they were hard won, but made no sense to keep unless I wanted to invite more struggles.
But I did keep all the ones that make my heart sing; those that centre around understanding people and their potential, writing, speaking, personal development, leadership development, communications, strategic planning, coaching and mentoring to name a few.

In my thought process this brought me to a dilemma, how to succinctly convey this breadth and depth of skillset and experience with just the right flavour of me. The me who no longer gets driven by wiring that wants to please and perfect to the exclusion of my soul, but the me who is learning to dance to my soul’s rhythm.

When I have done contracting or consulting work in the past I’ve just used my name, as I have on my website. But I got invited to a Soulful CEO circle a while back, and I immediately thought “Oh that name is amazing”, I could see the benefit of having a name that gets directly to the heart of matters.

The bringing together of what is often seen as a juxtaposition – the sharp edge of business with the authentic resonance of the soul – is something that excites me. Having a real passion for authenticity, creating structures in society (whether a business or part of a larger system) that thrive on and enhance people being their full authentic expressions of themselves motivates me.

As for a business name, I like Authentic Edge, or something similar, but the right thing will fall into place at the right time. I’m just blown away by the possibilities of getting back into something I thought I’d never go near again, and it’s really all down to tuning into and defining more of who I am and learning the skills I need to honour that.

What about you? Does your career honour who you are on the inside? Does your role reflect the biggest version of your contribution you can imagine right now? In what ways could you shift focus to attract more of what would excite and empower you and deliver more of what you have to offer to the world at large?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Living Your Passions Fully Combats Feeling Lonely, Simplify Your Life to Be Accepted and Loved as Your Authentic Self, Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good, What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? and How Do I Honour What I Believe and Care Less What You Think? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

A few times in the last week I’ve been triggered by communications I’ve received and my mind has gone into overdrive compiling responses.

I know enough now, and generally have enough restraint, not to react when I’m triggered. This is eloquently summed up by Teal Swan in her article on criticism when she says “Be aware that the reactivity that spirals us into criticism is always a by-product of trauma we have suffered. It is indicative of the ways that we have been hurt. If we tend to that hurt, we will be less reactive and become less critical. Our opinions will then be wanted and received well by others.”

Tending to that hurt is the bigger part, as I talked through in How to Stand in Your Truth and Be Heard Without a Fight. I think of it like doing the groundwork before a new construction project can take place.

By the same token, I want to express my perspective and to hear that of others. As Teal says “We need feedback, our growth and awareness depends on it…

But feedback falls into two distinct camps:

• Criticism
• Your individual and honest perspective or experience

Criticism is often done in a state of reactivity when we are in a state of defense, it has no regard for whether the person on the other end is receptive”.

She makes the point that there is really no such thing as constructive criticism “The more the person you are criticizing feels compelled to defend their value, the less capable they are of absorbing what they are hearing.”

Then she goes on to say “We have to be aware of why we feel the need to share our opinion. And even if we have good intentions, we must still ask ourselves if - despite the good intentions- we are harming the other person with our critique.”

I thought these were really good questions as I worked my way through the fire consuming me, not wishing to leave my relationships in the burnt ashes of my reactions.

Relationships are important to me, but I also often have a tendency to put other people’s needs before my own, and to rush in quickly to prove my worth, which I covered in How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns. So I have to look with real curiosity at what’s actually going on in each situation.

What was triggering me this time were some communications from the kids’ school that opened up an old wound. A wise person once gave me an analogy of putting our hurts into the manure pile versus the freezer, the manure pile being preferable as it fades to nothing over time. But this wound had obviously been bunged in the freezer, unattended, since it stung just as sharply as if it were fresh.

Anything that requires or encourages extracurricular activity throws me into a spin, since my kids have well and truly had enough in the process of just attending school each day. By the same token, I’m a person who attended school without any real issues while also managing a few extracurricular things and, later, an all-encompassing training program as a competitive swimmer.

I prided myself on my resilience and strength (part of perfectionist tendencies designed to prove my self worth and avoid the harsh criticism and punishment), and still laugh/cry at the memory of me pulling my daughter’s dummy out of my bra in the middle of a corporate meeting, wondering what it was that kept itching my skin.

So when receiving various communications this week contradicting the school’s own philosophies (zealously encouraging our kids into extracurricular sports activities and daily violin practice), on top of extensive requests for my personal participation in fundraising activities, meanwhile hearing a comment made to the whole parent group that was clearly criticising my individual decision on pursue external remedial support for my kids to help them work with their brain instead of against it, triggered me in gasket-blowing ways.

It created a surge of feelings comprising being overwhelmed by contradictions, criticised, disregarded and undermined. The little girl inside me whose thoughts and feelings were unimportant to the adults making decisions, who had to strategise to canvass and rationalise my opinions, and get my needs and desires met, swung into full counter attack and defense mode.

I observed all this. I struggled between the part of me that that wanted to lash out at those whose words poked at all my old wounds, and the part of me that wanted those people to simply understand the unintentional ways in which their words have landed.

I want people to understand what it feels like when your kids have different wiring, unseen and yet overwhelming. I especially want those who are charged with the care of my children during their time at school to know this. If I go further with this, what I deeply desire is an educational approach that caters to the neurodiversity and differing talents of all children.

But I also know that, while those who educate my children during school hours care about them, there are another twenty five or more other unique kids in the class to cater to – quite aside of the teachers they report to, the school board, the Education department and the many other stakeholders involved. I know that those who educate my kids also have their own rich perspectives, and most likely their own wounds. I know that in order to be truly heard, I will have to be kind, to tread softly.

I recognise people don’t make me feel a certain way, I simply feel what I feel in reaction to what they are saying because of my own unique circumstances, experiences and disposition.

So, while tending to that wounded part of me - the groundwork that has to happen before I share anything - I have asked myself many times:

• Why do I want to share my perspective?
• How can I share it in a way that is not going to harm? In a way that is not likely to invoke a defense response?

I have reworked my response many times in my head; continually refocusing within myself to hand the talking stick to my heart; the warrior self versus the infinite self. Early in the week, in a more peaceful moment, my inner voice spoke its truth plainly. It took another few days to get my mind aligned in order to proceed without the criticisms that wanted to work their way in there.

All along the way I kept asking myself whether any response was required at all.

In the end, I did send one because – as I’ve said - I deeply desire an educational approach that caters to the neurodiversity and differing talents of all children. So I believe it is important to voice our perspective in the current environment to create the seeds of awareness that may one day spout into positive changes.

I received a response thanking me for my insights and also for seeing what the teachers are contending with, and with – I felt – a genuinely hopeful interest in seeing where the approach I’m taking with my kids leads.

I have a perspective that is different and valuable and so do you. But be kind to yourself and to others, and be wise in your ways of sharing. Tell us your story in a way we can hear it, so it can benefit the growth of the whole.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Change Unhealthy Reactions, How to Stop Being Triggered by What Other People Think and Honour Your Story but Free Yourself of Its Shackles. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

As 2020 draws to a close, I was reflecting on a piece of news an old colleague of mine had posted about a lovely surprise holiday her husband had booked to a tropical location at the end of next year. Probably like many people, I am unsure whether that kind of travel will be possible again by then, but I started to wonder whether that was even the right question to be asking myself.

In his article 15 Great Quotes on the Importance of Asking the Right Question Mitch Ditkoff states how, as a consultant, he continues to be astounded by how few organisations have any kind of process to press pause, reflect and make sure they are coming up with the right questions. 

Setting aside questions about COVID19 itself for now, I started to think back to those early lockdowns, when much of the world seemed to stand still. It was a time when we as a family got to pause, reflect and take stock.

I can understand people wanting to get back to holidays and social activities, but what did that pause shed light on? There were reports of Venice’s canals running clearer, the clearest they’ve been in sixty years. An article in Science Direct sadly concluded (after research looking at the effects on the environment during the first global lockdowns) “Coronavirus itself is Earth’s vaccine and we humans are the virus”.

Talk of holidays and “getting back to normal” evokes in me a sense of frustration. I’m going to ignore the expression “the new normal” for the moment, because that seems to be more associated with control and fear, and that is not the kind of future I’m envisaging. But this idea of life going back to the way it was before the global pandemic seems ridiculous to me.

It has amplified so many issues about our environment and our social, political, economic, technological and personal challenges that it is a time in history ripe for change.

But having witnessed the relatively quick return to a lack of human connection between commuters in London after terrorist attacks in the early part of the millennium, I know how quickly distraction sets in.

During the lockdown here back in March through May, I revelled in being able to stroll out my front door and walk peacefully through our neighbourhood. But as soon as the restrictions were lessened, road traffic increased and the peaceful walks became crowded with road noise and traffic fumes, so now I have to get in my car to drive elsewhere if I want to take a peaceful walk.

I loved that my car did not get its tank refilled for over two months, it weighs on me that I consume fossil fuels. Yet, like many people around the world, I have commitments that would be extremely difficult to meet without running a vehicle. How can I find ways to change this?

How many governments and major political parties right now are even thinking about the lessons this crisis has taught us and have evolution on their agenda?

That said, I know my most effective voting takes place through the money I spend and the things I give my attention to. So where am I placing my attention? What am I spending money on? Am I using my resources in a way that would encourage the kind of change and transformation that could be for the benefit of not just me or my family, but for all of humankind, the creatures and the living planet on which we all reside?

I learned this year that I have white privilege. What other privileges do I hold? How can I give other people the benefit of my privileges? How can I help dismantle the systems of oppression within myself and for others?

I also learned from The Social Dilemma documentary that social media is six times more effective at spreading false news. Since conspiracy theories have abounded in 2020, I’ve watched friends and family become polarized on important topics to a degree that neither side seems able to hear the other.

I’ve had to ask myself, am I using social media as a tool? Or am I letting it demand my attention and manipulate my thinking? And where is my own resistance to hearing others’ opinions?
 
I learned that, in a time when our country faced a health risk, our government cut off the supply to my chosen form of healthcare and made only pharmaceuticals available. What can I do to ensure I maintain a freedom of choice in my healthcare even in times of crisis?

I learned that I was absolutely spot-on in my self assessment that I am not cut out to home school my children. Yet being able to give them and their schoolwork such individual attention led me to asking the right questions that uncovered their neurodiversity, and still more questions to find the right support and training so they can flourish. I wonder how I can support all children in their uniqueness to flourish?

I learned the importance of self sustainability. With panic buying, a lack of groceries and no access to garden supplies, keeping emergency supplies and a variety of fresh things to eat growing in our garden became more important. It highlighted all the problems I had known about with mono-farming and the way we currently source goods and services from around the world. What more can I do with our budget to encourage local and organic businesses?

I learned that reconnecting with my partner and children was simultaneously challenging and liberating. It brought about a huge amount of personal change in terms of consciously shaking off old beliefs and behavioural patterns that weren’t serving us. Where to next on that I wondered?

And then I got one of Claire Zammit’s emails that asked seven power questions:

• Where in your life have you most felt like yourself this past year?
• What have been the greatest challenges you’ve overcome?
• What can you acknowledge about yourself and your strengths?
• What is it time to let go of in your life?
• What is it time for forgive yourself for?
• What is it time to forgive others for?
• What are the old patterns that it’s time to release?

It reminded me that, while I have learned a lot about myself this year, the road ahead lies wide open for me to keep learning.  

2020 is a year that I think of as catalysing. It has led me to ask more questions than it has produced in terms of answers. I’m always impatient for change, and I know as I look back change will probably seem quicker than it feels right now.

Am I asking the right questions I wonder? So long as I keep taking time to pause and reflect on the bigger picture of my own life, I’m confident the right questions will arise.

The question is, with holiday season almost upon us at the end of this landmark year, what are the right questions for you to ask yourself right now?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Change the World One Day at a Time, Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In, What Value Are You Adding to the Currencies in Your Life?, How You Are Complicit in the Oppression of Others, You See What Happens When Leaders Are Not Grown Up on the Inside and The Internal Shift You Need to Help Solve the Social Dilemma. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

As a proponent of finding one’s inner power and expressing our authentic selves, being called into the Assistant Principal’s office at my children’s Primary school at the age of 46 - and getting told off for booking a family holiday in term time - was an interesting experience.

I know this issue comes up time and again in the media, I know some countries – like the UK – actually fine parents for doing this, and I know there are arguments on all sides, but I feel like the arguments are happening at the wrong level.

What is the purpose of education? I’ll start with the dictionary definition; it’s a process of learning new skills, values, beliefs and habits. It’s fair to say that government-run education systems are about indoctrinating children into society.

The question in my mind is therefore what kind of society do we want to create?

For my part, I am not concerned about our future generations, as my recently published article Our Future is Bright – Why Worry? attests; it may be worth a read for a different point of view if you hold any fears about it yourself.

I'm certainly not worried about a breakdown of society and the traditional constructs and systems as we know them, they are long overdue and inevitable in my view. I'm excited to see the changes brought about by these new generations. So how can we best support them in that?

In our country, by law a child has to be in a system of education between the ages of 6 and 16, or the parent has to have been granted an exemption (usually for home schooling). There is no choice in the matter and, as I was taught, we are to feel that having an education is a privilege.

Now compared to some of the historical alternatives, and perhaps even some of those we see in countries today, I can see why the educational process I went through myself was an improvement upon those.

However, in my lifetime the rate of change on this planet has accelerated and, with the ushering in of the technological era and meteoric rise in consumerism, I believe the resulting constant and overwhelming bid for our attention is birthing another era – the age of meaning.

With knowledge at our fingertips, there is less thirst for it.

My daughter said to me just the other day “why couldn’t we just be born knowing how to read and write, then we wouldn’t have to go to school?” I’m going to come back to that thought later in the article. First let me tell you what happened.

My kids attend a school we chose primarily for its setting and general philosophy. I love the natural environment in which it resides, the fabulous adjuncts (like a programme that develops children’s auditory processing skills) and the fantastic teachers my children have had the good fortune to experience.     

The school seems to attract quite a contingent of those of us who have moved here from other countries, so it has quite a multi-national demographic in terms of the families being taught there. New Zealand itself is a country of immigrants; even those we might call indigenous are thought to have arrived perhaps only as far back as 800 years ago.

Thus most people here can track their ancestry to many other places in the world, and so wanderlust is part of the culture. The ‘big OE’ (overseas experience) has been a part of the Kiwi way of life for a long time.  Whereas when I worked in the UK, it was unusual for companies to grant an employee an extended leave of absence for an overseas trip, it is quite commonplace here.

And this has been reflected within the school culture too, travel and experiences oversees were encouraged.

However, last week the school announced a new process for planned absences. Given we are about to embark on a family holiday (that the teacher has known about since February), I found the new process includes being invited into the office and told not to book such a thing again.

While, certainly in New Zealand, there is no discrepancy in the Ministry of Education's eyes between persistent absenteeism and an absence due to a holiday, I feel there is a huge difference in the two in terms of developing a child's will and the effects on their education.  There will also be quite a difference in overall actual attendance across the year.

It is quite one thing to take measured absences, another to just decide not to bother going to school.

​In the past the ministry hasn’t published individual school absence rates on their website, but perhaps there is a move to push up attendance levels? I was not given a clear answer.

However, neither the intent nor content of the conversation with the school about our family holiday has dissuaded me from the choices we have made nor persuaded me that it's actually my child's interests that are really of concern. 

My children will have a wonderful opportunity to spend two unadulterated weeks in nature, spending their days with parents more fully present than they can hope to have at home with the demands of school and business.

With the way school weeks and terms are currently structured, intense blocks of weeks followed by similarly intense weeks of holidays, quite aside of any financial implications, would any of us really choose to go somewhere at a time (in school holidays) that is likely to be ridiculously busy and full of frazzled people trying to let go of overwhelm?

Now a road paved with less intensity and burn out, shorter school days, shorter weeks and less holidays, more of a natural rhythm and balance, this is something I would support for children and teachers alike.

That said, I can well understand the challenges for a teacher constantly having children absent, having experience myself in the realm of adult training and having managed hundreds of staff for many years. I know it is a rare thing to have a ‘full house’. Absenteeism in the workplace is as prevalent as it as at school, and – I think – for the same reasons.

We inherently feel our freedom within, and are less and less willing to conform to systems that do not allow us to express this. I see people now in swathes quietly and passively rebelling against that which we could call authority, so it was interesting (and perhaps somewhat unfortunate) when the assistant principle mentioned a book he’s been reading The Spoilt Generation: Why Restoring Authority Will Make Our Children and Society Happier by Dr Aric Sigman.

Although I suspect my views and Dr Sigman’s do not differ as substantially as one might think, it’s the deliberately controversial use of his chosen terminology that would set many of my generation against it. The inference is that we’ve ‘gone soft’ in our parenting. While I would acknowledge that we are a generation of parents now having to figure out ideal boundaries for things that were not even thought of when I was a child,
I’m not so sure Dr Sigman’s terminology would attract us to his methods.

In fact, if you’ve read any of my articles you will know I am not an advocate of blindly following any particular system or method for anything. I advocate for people finding their own power, their own answers, within themselves. I therefore hold a vision for an evolution in our education systems (and society more broadly) that would seek to guide a child to look within for their answers.

Much of the help I offer is to people who – like me - are trying to retrieve that sense of authentic self, and have no idea after years of effectively being told ‘others know better’ how to even hear their own inner voice. And I watch as those who've suppressed it are consumed by cancers and other diseases that arise from being so detached from the essence of who they are to even see the connection to the causation, which is usually years of suppressed emotions. It is a fascinating topic.

As to where this leads, I'm not so sure about a spoiled generation, over-stimulated yes. Hence we are now seeing generations of children being born with sensory processing sensitivities and disorders.

But if I circle back to my daughter’s question, about wishing to have been born knowing how to read and write, I think this is a topic worth exploration and research. I had a grandparent exclaim to me recently their awe at their infant grandchild quite obviously being able to understand so much despite not yet being able to talk.

This is well known in child development terms. But what if it goes beyond this? I have read enough accounts of human capability over the years that would lead me to believe that is is quite possible that all that has ever been thought, said or discovered to this point is held in our collective consciousness, and therefore does not need to be retaught again and again, it simply needs accessed.

As I wrote in What We Wonder About Creates Our Future, I am left to wonder at how technology has increased connection significantly yet decreased presence just as significantly. I wonder when people will begin to understand that technological connectedness is a crude replica of the connection that exists to everything when we are able to be fully present within ourselves. And I wonder when the masses will tap into that state of presence and connection, which is infinitely more powerful.

I also wonder when we will treat education as a lifelong journey rather than an obligatory 10 year slot that one should see as a privilege. I wonder when we will wake up to the inherent intelligence in our newborn and help them to access it rather than thwart it each step of the way?

And I continue to wonder at the magnificence of a world that allowed me to bring this conversation to the table, it is a beginning. For all that you might agree or disagree, I believe our systems of education hold far more potential than we are allowing.

Rather than focusing on attendance or methods and a curriculum that perpetuate a society ill equipped to meet the present, never mind its future, we should be taking a huge step back and asking questions that lead to an evolution of the whole thing.

If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog