And here we go again...

You know what I find strange? Months will pass where we'll just breath and live and forget that our children have undiagnosed problems or uncertain futures. And then out of the blue, multiple problems will arrise, reminding us that we're not off the hook just yet. That we had a respite, but that was all. We can deal with one problem, but then we need time to forget about it before the next one comes up. Handling all these little mysteries all at once.... the unknowns, it's difficult. So not only do we now have to stress and worry about why Boeboe's function is declining, but in the last week, three things popped up with Monkeyman's health. All three could be nothing. All three could be something. All three most likely is nothing. But until we get the all-clear, you can't help but worry. We're parents, it's normal! Ai.

Firstly, last week he showed me the Beau lines (I blogged about it in the previous post). I don't like the look and sound of it. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but since we've been postponing his checkup with his cardiologist for 6 months now, I decided to take him now. That's happening on Monday.

Here's some pics, explaining why I find this nail-thing so puzzling.


This is very difficult to see. The Beau's lines on these fingers are
already almost grown out. It's right there on the tip of the finger,
just before the white. The 2 fingers on the right (his left) shows
it best.

 

These thumbs are the reason it irritated him so much that he bugged
me about it. Look at how it flakes off. Then that gets caught and
hurts. You can see how deep the grooves go. The darker bits are
trapped dirt, I'm guessing. Maybe dried blood. How could his
body have dealt with something so traumatic and intense, that
the nails stopped growing long enough to leave such deep
grooves, without me knowing??

 

His right foot. You can see the Beau's lines, and if you look
closely, you'll notice multiple ones on some of the nails.
I don't know what the brown parts and bits are. My guess is
that his nails stained from the red dirt that Pretoria (close
where we live) is famous for. He goes to school barefeet.
You can see it's also stained the toes themselves.
I did try to scrub it off a bit, but failed. I'll try
again with a little brush tomorrow, before we go to
the dr on Monday.

 

His left foot. You can see the multiple Beau's lines here more clearly.
Look at the 2nd and 4th toe. What's also bothering me, is that if you
look at the very top part of the big toes, just where the nail grows over
the toe, there's a red blotch/band/stripe underneath the nail, on
the nailbed itself. Apparently, this is a sign of disease
or illness as well.

 

Here you can see it better. The dirty/yellow/brown part is the
Beau's lines. The nail is so thin there, it flakes off, which I
think makes it more susceptible for trapped dirt, which is
why it's so very dirty. Well, I'm hoping it's dirt, and not a sign
of his liver or something! If you look closely, you can
see more than one white line, thus, multiple Beau's lines, in
that brown part. In short succession. Very intrigueing. The light
reflects brightly on his nails, but it's still possible to also
make out the red halfmoons of the nailbed itself, on the
other end of the nails.

So what was the second thing happening with Monkeyman this week? Well, we went to their new school to drop Mr N off for some event there. As we climbed into the car, Monkeyman kinda hesitated, before attempting to get in for a 2nd time. He made an angry/frustrated noise, so I asked him what's up. He said everything is blurry. Apparently, it's been like that for months/weeks. He can focus on an object clearly, but everything around it is blurry. Doesn't matter if it's near or far. I'm not sure if he describes it accurately, but those were his words. I've booked an appointment with an optometrist tomorrow for him. Our usual optometrist could only see him in December, but a friend urged me not to wait too long with such a thing. Especially as it seems that his vision was still fine when the school nurse came around and tested the grade R's eyes in May/June of this year.

(Edited: I took him to the optom this morning before publishing the post. Optom says he has absolutely perfect vision. The problem is that his eyes are extremely dry, and that causes the bluriness. The cause of the dryness are almost certainly from his reflux medication, which was upped in June due to him aspirating his stomach acid. So we can't lower the meds dossage, thus we need to treat the dryness. He got an ointment I have to put in his eyes every day. We'll see how it goes. I'm so relieved it's nothing more serious!!)

The third thing was that about a month or so ago, I took the kids to the dentist. Shortly thereafter, his first two adult teeth appeared. The top ones, not the bottom ones as it was supposed to. A while after that, the bottom two came out. Now, there's 2 things that worries me a bit. The one top tooth is coming out at a crooked angle, though I know that other future adult teeth can still straighten this out in time. The other thing, is that the bottom teeth are coming out towards the back and also at a bit of an angle, all the while the 2 baby teeth isn't even out yet. Not even loose much. :-( So he currently has 2 rows of teeth, so to speak. I guess I need to ask the dentist if this is a worry, or a wait-and-see thing.



My very handsome young man. Here you can see, at long last,
after loosing his teeth at age 2 already due to untreated reflux (and lost
implants twice over the years), his adult teeth has now finally
started to arrive. Out of sync, but who cares? He's soooo
happy to now be able to eat corn on the cob like other
people do. Straight from the cob!!



His bottom adult teeth has also appeared. But our worry is as
you can see here, the baby teeth is still there. And the adult
tooth on the left (his right) is coming out to the side of the
baby tooth, not directly underneath it, to push it out. (It's the white
dots directly behind the 2 bigger baby teeth right in the middle.)

Ontop of all of these worries, he woke up sick two nights ago. I kept him at home, and he had about 300ml of fluids and half a slice of toast for the whole day. But he's on the mend again, fortunately, so not a really bad bug. Just another worry, another thing that's putting stress on us. It's never nice seeing any child ill, but one that you know have immunity problems, just make the stress doubly hard to handle at times.

Well, just to lighten up the post a bit. Here's a few more pics.



My beautiful daughter turned 11 last month. Her birthday wish?
Studs in the ears! I always said that it's their body, they decide
the if, when and where of putting holes in it. She was soooo
excited, and very proud. She felt so grown-up! She's looking
after it beautifully, so I'm glad she chose to wait until now.



Just a nice pic! We all decorated her cake together. She took
party packs to school, as well as to her art class after
school. And then we had a little family party at home.

 

Added this one specially for the hair!!
Boeboe's curled even more. I love it!

 

Isn't she the most gorgeous little girl ever?
Here, her hair was just washed. It lasts about an hour
or two, before we're back to the curls of the above pic, LOL.



She LOVES to pose for pics! Hahaha. So sweet.

Time for an update

I thought it time to just give a bit of an update on all of us.

It's going well, sort of. We're happy, healthy, loving the spring weather, praying for rain (without the electric thunderstorms!!), and enjoying the bit of reprieve before the craziness of the last end-of-year exam starts.

So here goes. Firstly, an update about the school situation (afterwards I'll get to the children and their health issues).

We're taking the children out of their current school. My heart is breaking. I'm going to miss the people there so much. I have made friends there, and I don't know how much I'll be seeing them if I don't see them at pick-up time after school or at school events. I'm also going to miss having my best friend's children and my children in the same school. We helped each other, picking up kids when the other couldn't, we talked about the same teachers, the work, the school, etc. And it's gonna be sooooo difficult for our 6-year old boys not being together anymore. It kills me!

But, when I put those feelings aside. I have peace, happiness and excitement about our decision. Like my friend says.... something about it just feels right. She's a teacher at the new school, and she feels that all 3 my kids are just going to be perfectly happy. I agree with her. Which is the nr 1 reason I'm doing this. I'm looking forward to see them excited about school again. Enjoying close friendships, something the 2 older ones haven't had in the past few years. I'm excited to see them excel and do well, and maybe even perform well enough to be proud of themselves again. Or at least be noticed and appreciated by the teachers.

Mr N said something a few weeks ago that hit me really hard. He said that in their current (big) school, you're only noticed if you're academically excellent, really naughty or good in sport. And because Boeboe is none of those three, she's a nobody.

A nobody.

My daughter is seen as a nobody. Nobody cares about her. Nobody sees her. Nobody worries about her. She's just a nobody. Just there. One of the numbers.

How utterly sad and shocking. But true. In a thousand kids, those that's exceptionally quiet and good and never naughty, is pushed to the side. The teachers are just soooooo happy to have a few of those kids in class, so that they have the time to spend on those that's not so quiet and good. And being average academically, means again, the teachers are just so happy they can spend the time on those that's really intelligent and excelling in their subject, or those that fails it so badly that they need loads of extra energy from the teacher to have a chance of passing. So again, the teacher is just really happy when there's a bunch of kids that pass, albeit only just. And ya, Boeboe doesn't excell in sport either, so even there she can't be "seen". So she doesn't qualify for any of the 3 things to be noticed. How sad for her.

It's must be so hard to be an average, very shy, struggling little girl in a big school. So I'm hoping that next year, when she's one of 12 kids, the teacher will love her for being the good one. For being the one that doesn't make ructions. That works hard and tries hard and does her work dilligently. That she will be seen by teachers, peers, etc. Just seen. Noticed. That she won't be a nobody anymore.

So we're all excited about the new school. Boeboe was especially out of skin from happiness when we told them we made our decision (which now makes sense, in light of the nobody-comment of Mr N). All three of the kids wants to go to the new, smaller school. It really tickles me, because what's the chance? Two out of three, yes, but all three? And none of them seem particularly unhappy about leaving their current school. The only thing that came up, is that Monkeyman said he'll miss his 2 best friends.

I spoke to his teacher though, and she assured me that we're doing the right thing. Actually, we were still a little undecided at that point, and she told me that we should do it! Not once or twice, but really almost pushing for it. She knows our history, she knows about Boeboe and all the issues, I took her in my confidence regularly over the years. She taught both boys, and her collegue and close friend taught Boeboe in the class right next door. She knew that we were always on the lookout for ways to help Boeboe, like looking at possible schools for when it becomes really necessary. She also knows about Mr N and the whole grade 7 saga. And she wasn't happy herself with some of the ways the school handled that whole episode. So I understand how she could see that for us, for our family, our three kids, this really seems like the better deal. And encourages us. Even if that means that Monkeyman is taken out of the school she teaches at. I appreciate her candour and honesty and support. She assured us that the trauma of moving schools would be equal to the trauma of moving from grade R to grade 1 (more about this in another topic. Suffice to say, grade 1 is very different in our country, fromhow grade R is. Grade 1 is the start of very formal school. Few, short breaks, wearing uniform, strict rules, much less play, etc.).

I'm a Christian. And somehow, I find all of what happened this past 4 months just a "meant-to-be" scenario. I have known about this school for almost 10 years. When Boeboe's best friend moved there after playschool, at the same time Boeboe started grade R in her current school. I found the setup, the idea of such small classes and so few kids in the school fascinating. I never knew there were options like that in the city. Coming from a very small school (in the country) myself, I would've loved the same for my kids. But there were a number of obstacles which prevented this from becoming more than a fleeting thought. Until halfway through this year, when my friend was headhunted to teach at that school. And she told me about all the changes that this school went through the past 4-5 years. It has grown into a very well-run school. They have their own school buildings and sport grounds now, they have a good reputation, etc. My friend was exceptionally impressed with the teachers at the school, the work/curriculum, the children (their behaviour and friendships and relaxed attitudes - not as stressed as our kids in the bigger school). She was so impressed, that she told me about it, and said she really thought I ought check them out. To her, it seemed the perfect solution for Boeboe. As my friend, she obviously knew about our search for a school for Boeboe that could work with her like she needs to, without it necessarily having to be a remedial school, but also not a prestige, expensive private school. We went to the open days, and voila, rest is history. Doesn't this seems like it were all planned by a Higher Hand? Right time, right place. All our prayers answered.

To get back to the rest of this post, the update about the kids.

Boeboe
Not such good news. :-(  Her bladder function is declining. It's a bit scary (ag, who am I kidding, it's **** scary), but until we have answers, I'm going to try, at least, to not worry. She just turned 11, and the specialists all said that between 11 and 13 girls has a huge growth spurt. So they want to check her out from head to toe before this growth spurt starts. I've organised all the appointments and scheduled it after the exams. Sounds like this is going to include another MRI, a urodynamic study (crapping myself!!) and probably at least one anaesthesia (botox). Currently she's on oxybutynin, immediate release (medication to calm bladder spasms). It makes her a bit weepy, but has definitely made a difference in the nr of accidents. So at least that helps. Unfortunately, it's not just her bladder function I worry about. She sometimes complains about legpain and back stiffness and sensitivity. Some of it seems normal (for her). But sometimes it goes on for days and days, relentlessly. Or she'd make a comment like: "Mommy, I struggle to bend forward, it makes my back feel all stiff and uncomfortable."

Monkeyman
Well, it's like always with him. Some days are tough, others perfectly normal. We really just never see a decline. He is like he was 6 months ago, like he was 2 years ago, like he was as a 2-year old. Never declining. Never getting better. Just there. The unvisible cause of his tiredness.

Something else is bothering me a little bit though. Well, actually, it's irritating him. Some months ago, his dad taught him to cut his own nails. Since then, I never really saw his nails. A few weeks ago he asked me to have a look, because there's something on them that's really bothering him. All 10 his nails had a horisontal groove across it. Quite deep on the thumb nails. He bugged me for a few weeks to find out why he has them, because it keeps getting caught on things, and thus irritates him (it flakes off at the grooves). So eventually I googled. Seems like it's called Beau's lines, and could point to some health concerns. One possible cause could be mumps, which would fit the time line of when he had mumps and the fact that the grooves on his nails are about half-way on his nail already. So consistent with 3 months or so's nail growth. A few days later I checked his toes, and it's on all of them as well. So all 20 nails are affected. This weekend though, I noticed him struggling to cut his toe-nails, so I offered to help. While cutting, I noticed that there wasn't just the one line. On some of his toe nails, there were a few more.

The reason why this worries me a bit, is the fact that apparently it happens when the body are busy dealing with something else that takes so much effort, that it scales down on other processes. Nail growth aren't important, so it's stopped when the body diverts all processes towards dealing with the other process, like an infection, illness, disease, traumatic event like a heart attack, etc.

Now, the fact that growth were stopped for all 20 nails, points to something really invasive, that his body had to deal with. Apparently when mumps or measles is the cause, it's because of the fever. Now, in Monkeyman's case, his mumps was really no big deal at all. He had NO fever. And he wasn't really ill! Much less than a mild cold! Apart from the fact that it took him 10 days after he was better to be able to eat all foods again (since most tasted sour), he really wasn't "suffering" from mumps. It really didn't affect him much. Why would his body stop growing all his nails due to an illness that really didn't make him ill much?? The cardiologist once said that after keeping a watch on him for about 5 months, that it seemed that his heart function took a dip every time his body has to deal with something else, most likely because of a mitochondrial disease. So his body can't cope with any increased energy demands. This sounds very similar to what happens in the case of Beau's lines...

I hate medical mysteries. Especially when it involves my children. My mind said: Ignore it. Right? Sounds to me like it's best, not true? But given the fact that there was more than one line on some toes, and Monkeyman's whole history of pulmonary hypertension, I decided to listen to my heart. So I made a check-up on Monday with his cardiologist. Hopefully it's all just a waste of time and money. But I just don't feel comfortable ignoring a medical mystery with Monkeyman.

We're also still waiting for the pulmonologist to get back to us about the mitochondrial specialist. I'm starting to feel disheartened. Are we EVER going to get a chance seeing this woman, if a doctor can't even get us in??

Mr N
He is doing well. He's extremely excited about the new school. We (his parents) are very apprehensive on the other hand, because they're not doing the normal South African matric. They're doing the International Cambridge Examinations. And before he gets to start highschool, he has to pass grade 7 first! It's going to be a very, very tough exam, so I'm really worried. So much work, so little time to study. Apart from school though, and having to still schedule the orthodontics, there's not much up with Mr N. Oh, and I still need to organise his EEG, but ag man, I procrastinate!!

Peanut
She's just perfect. Talking up a storm. Absolutely hooked on her dummy still. Adores her siblings. She's just always there, always healthy, always fine. :-) Very mommy-attached, but I think it's due to the molars she's cutting. Still not sleeping through. Still not eating well. Still not recognising any colours. Oh, and she sings!! Soooooo cute. When we're in the car, when she plays, when she listens to music on tv or the radio. She's just always singing. Her current favourite is "Let it go" from Frozen. LOL.

The school issue - at long last

Sorry for the time delay. I don't really have any excuse, other than - it's actually going well!! We're still waiting on the mitochondrial specialist with Monkeyman (the pulmonologist mailed today to let us know that she's still following it up for us), so we used the time to just relax, and realise that life is still good. Still worth living. We got rid of the stress we were under. We slept alot, played alot of games together, we ate well, etc. We participated in school sport and cultural events, I treated the kids regularly with an ice cream or such out of the blue. I tried to smile more, laugh more, touch base with them more, etc. It's really going well with us. All of us! Yay!!

So. Here's the sordid school affair post.

When we were looking at schools for our eldest at age 5, we only considered public schools. Since we're Afrikaans and living in a mostly-Afrikaans community, the public schools around here are plentiful and exceptionally good. There were no reason to look futher than what was around us, and I come from the public school system myself, with parents who worked for the Department of Education.

We went to 2 of the nearest schools' open days. The one didn't impress us at all. They had 6 grade R classes, with 20 kids each, thus 120 children. I thought it CRAZY. My precious, shy, quiet little boy, one of 120 other little ones??? No way!!

The 2nd school had the opposite effect on us. They impressed us immediately. The way the school was run, the teachers, the school grounds and surrounds, etc. Most of all though, it was the fact that they were the smallest school around that impressed us most. There were only 2 classes in grade R, with a total of about 40 kids. We were assured that classes will be kept to 18-20 kids per class, and in grade 1 to 22 children.

Yeah. Right.

We believed it!

In the beginning, the school was so great. I really loved it. Mr N was so happy in grade R, and adapted very easily. The 2 teachers were very good and experienced, Mr N made friends, and it was a real "community" spirit. Even when Boeboe joined 2 years later, it was still a fantastic school. The standard was good, though of course by this stage, we had a few smallish complaints. Like the fact that the grade 1 teacher didn't teach them well enough how to form letters. Both my children  struggles today to know where a letter has to start. It's a pity. Still, it was small, normal complaints. No school is perfect, and not all teachers at a good school are exceptional.

When Boeboe started grade R, there were about 54 kids, and still just 2 classes. So she was one of 27! We had no choice but to accept this. She was happy, and being amongst 54 kids were still good. She did well and made a few good friends. Most of the other surrounding schools were all well over a 100 grade R's. So 54 still counted as a "small" school.

As they went up in grades, there were more and more classes added, so in grade 1 Boeboe was one of 22 kids, in 4 classes. In a way, it helped, of course. 22 vs 27 in class made a big difference. But being 1 out of 54 kids in grade R was much better than being 1 out of 88 kids in grade 1!!! People seemed to mostly being bothered by the number of kids WITH their child in the classroom. To me, that's not the only important thing. When there's a breaktime, or a sports event or practice, or something going on, even some periods like MBK (psychical, I think called PT in America?), then the WHOLE grade participates together. So then you're one tiny, shy little girl out of 88 others. It just cannot be easy or nice, not if you have Boeboe's personality. The more movement and activity there is around her, the more she backs into a corner, and tries to hide away. Quite similar with Mr N. So over the years, they dissapeared more and more. They had less and less friends. They didn't feature anywhere anymore. No sports, no culture, nothing. They just literally dissapeared. (Apart from Mr N's tennis, in which he made team and competed in the legue for his school. He enjoyed it thoroughly!!)

Now, it gets worse. Where Boeboe and Mr N are each 1 out of about 100 in their grade, Monkeyman is one of 150 grade R kids!!! Put into 6 classes, thus 25 kids per class. Usually without any assistants. Just the teacher and the 25 kids. We're lucky though, there's a young girl studying to become a teacher, and she's assigned to our class, so Monkeyman does have an assistant teacher. Thank God. But just the thought that for the next 6 years, he's always going to be 1 out of 150 kids, gives me the creeps. 1 out of 150 others vying for the 6 teachers' attention, trying to do academically well, participating in events and sports and compete. He's gonna dissapear too!!! So the school grew from about 700 when we started there, to almost 1000. And in the next 6 years, this is going to grow to about 1400 (because they added 50 kids into grade R, that will be phased in for grades 1-7).

The other problem I have with 100+ kids per grade, is that from grade 4, when children starts to have different subjects with different teachers in our country, that means that for example a subject like maths, the teacher have 4 classes in that grade that he teaches. So in total, he still have 100+ kids whose homework he has to check, 100+ exams he needs to mark, 100+ kids who he has to get to know and make sure they stay "up to par". (And 150 in the future with Monkeyman!) This, I believe, is where a load of things go wrong with the kids. Because no teacher has the time to mark homework a couple of times a week or even once a month, when he has 150 books to work through! No teacher has the capability, to know which children of that 150 has fallen behind or didn't understand a part of the work. And just think about it. What human being will enjoy having 6 classes every day, where they have to repeat the work EVERY TIME. Six times in a row. Every day. How boring!! You'll have to be an exceptional teacher to keep that momentum going every day, and make sure the 6th class get the same enthusiasm and effort that the first one did!

I know that in alot of countries, it's normal to have schools of 1000 or 2000 or even more kids. But I grew up in a school where we were 150 kids from grade 1 to grade 12! So seeing 150 kids in a single grade, is seriously overwhelming to me. I really think that it was my saving grace, being in such a small school. I'm pretty sure things would've turned out much worse for me otherwise. As I'm seeing happening with my kids. They don't have autism. But they both have a lot of autistic traits. Diagnosed as such by 2 specialists over a couple of years in Boeboe's case. And I see the same in Mr N, though not nearly as much or as bad as in Boeboe (who doesn't have enough traits to have Aspergers, but a good few that it was suspected numerous times). This, I believe, is one of the reasons my children suffer in school. I know they'll be fine. They have been fine, and will continue to be fine, in their current school. But will they ever excell again?? No. Will they ever reach their full potensial again? No. Will they ever do academically as well as they're able to? No. Not until we, as parents, realise that this setup isn't working for them. Which we did.

When Mr N was 4, he was evaluated by an occupational therapyst and we realised we have an extremely intelligent little boy. (He for example tested age 9 and above on all levels bar one, at age 4). It was confirmed by his neurologist a couple of years later. So we weren't surprised when he got very high marks during grades R-3. Even grade 4, when they had 9 subjects (he did a different curriculum to what's done today), wrote exams and had classes with different teachers (not 1 teacher all day anymore), he still did very well. Mostly what I think the American's call "straight A's". Grade 5 and 6 he went over from the old education system, to the new curriculum introduced by the department of Education. Called CAPS. And his marks went down. We left it be. We thought he was just spreading his wings, testing boundaries at age 11 and 12. All normal, not true?

Then he started in grade 7 this year. And his average fell with more than 20%. Not only that, some individual subjects he did atrocious. Normally, when something like this happens so quickly, on this scale, everyone would assume something terrible is wrong. No, not our school. Because not only did Mr N's marks fell, ALL the grade 7's marks fell. Most with an average of about 20%. So clearly it wasn't Mr N specific, or something that happened to only him, that could explain it. All the parents were up in arms and got very upset. The school pacified us and said oh, don't worry. All kids do badly in the first (of 4) exams in grade 7, because grade 7's curriculum is part of high school, so even though they're psysically still part of the primary school, they're treated as high school students. And this is a shock to the system, so their averages usually takes a dip, which recovers itself by the 2nd exam.

This didn't sit well with me. I'm extremely involved in my children's lives, and know exactly what they study, how the work looks, what it's about, etc. I had my own theories about what went wrong with MY child. Not the class, group or whatever. Just MY child. But the teachers all assured us we're worrying about nothing. Yeah right. Second exam came round, and 59% of the kids failed. Yes, read that again. 59% of the grade 7's failed their June exams. FAILED. Not struggled. Not fell behind or dipped in average. THEY FAILED. Almost 60% failed. How is that even POSSIBLE??????

This time, the parents were stinking, blinking mad. And what did the school do? They refused to listen to our rants. They organised an information evening where THEY told US what went wrong, why and what they're doing to fix it. Without EVER giving the parents a voice, or a chance to voice their grievances. They let the Department of Education came, who did a thorough investigation, and determined that the standard of our exams were a bit "too high", "too difficult", "too advanced", in some subjects. But that there's not really anything wrong. Not with the school, the general standard or the teachers.

So where did that leave us? Well, the school put some (really wonderful) steps in place which has made a  difference already. For one, they employed another teacher so that instead of the 3 teachers for grade 7, there were now 4. Thus, 24 kids per class instead of the 32 they were during the first half of the year. They also spread the workload of the teachers. And all math classes had 2 teachers in the classroom. Though maths was the least of Mr N's worry. He still did exceptionally well in it. Unfortunately, a number of children were not as lucky, and maths was one of the subjects that needed urgent help the most. You can see why I thought my child's problem wasn't completely the same as everyone else's problem.

So what to do? We didn't know. We were scared, we felt lost, and very, very worried. What would happen with our boy in High school, grade 8, next year? Personally, I didn't believe it was just the standard of our current school's exams that were too high. Or the fact that the teachers were expecting too much from kids that were still just... kids. My theory goes much, much bigger than that.

When Apartheid was abolished, the government overhauled the whole education system. We had a fantastic education system for about 4 decades, but unfortunately it was mostly implemented in the so-called "white" schools. So I understood that the new government thought it best to overhaul the whole education system. Unfortunately, within 5 years, it was clear that the new system was failing. So again, a new system was designed. This system failed as well, though there were definite margins of improvement. So, they tried a third system. My children was taught this system, called OBE (outcome based education). Mr N was taught OBE in grades 1-4. I disliked OBE intensely. It was cumbersome, it failed to teach the basics as repeatedly as was necessary to instill a good foundation, and the workload was too much. It also relied heavily on teamwork between children, which was a drawback to someone like Mr N. He's extremely responsible, dilligent and respectful. He could not understand how or why children would act undisciplined in class, disrespectful towards the teacher or uninterested in doing their work. Trying to work in a team with such children caused him alot of frustration and marks worse than what he would've gotten on his own.

So when OBE was replaced, once again, with another education system, I was one of those that cheered hardest. Especially when we realised that the Department of Education has turned full circle, and has gone back to a system similar to the one used during Apartheid. There were less teamwork, and a little bit less tasks, projects and such (still way too much for my liking). The one BIG advantage of the new system, called CAPS, were that they reverted back to handbooks. Yay!!! The old OBE system allowed the teachers to decide by themselves, on an individual basis, which workbooks and notes they're implementing. Now, with CAPS, there's prescribed handbooks like in our days (when I were a child). The handbooks are the same all over the country, so that any child could move to any school, and be on the same standard at any stage during any given year. So even if you move halfway throughout the year, the work is the same, and done at the same tempo, so the child just falls in in the new school, without missing too much. The Department of Education has set prescriptions for every teacher. What must be done when, which term, how long to spend on what chapter, etc. They even prescribed what tests or assessments must be done, how much it counts, and so forth. Very limiting to the teachers, but great for standardizing. I loved it! I loved the promise of CAPS. I loved what it would mean for my children.

Until it was phased in.

Slowly, I realised that with all the good it brought with it, there was one huge disadvantage. The workload was doubled. From OBE that was already too much for little minds, CAPS was worse. Much, much worse. The subjects in grade 4 and 5 were reduced from 9 back to 6, which were FANTASTIC and probably the reason why Boeboe can still cope. She would NOT have coped with the grade 4 that Mr N had to cope with, writing 9 exams and studying 9 subjects' work. BUT, the workload per subject has increased with the new system, and especially from grade 7. It's an inhuman amount of work they have to memorise, study, work through. And from grade 7 it's back to 9 subjects again.

This workload can be seen in 2 areas. The one is the sheer amount of work that's covered per year, as well as at what age this workload is covered. For example, with OBE, the children only really started on their 2nd language in grade 2. Now, with CAPS, they start in grade 1 (age 6-7). Instead of starting to write letters in grade 1, they now do it in grade R. Money-word sums in maths is now part of the grade 1 curriculum (even though they can barely read!!).

Instead of for example have 100 facts about the emigration of the Khoi and San in Southern Africa in grade 5, they now study 200 facts about it in grade 4, and again 300 facts about this in grade 5 and then another 600 facts about it in grade 7!! It's just absolutely crazy, the amount of work they want the kids to get through.

My son has studied the same and more facts about economic management in grade 7 than what I had covered in grade 12. The experiments he does in natural sciences is the same now in grade 7, than what we did in grade 10 and 11. Why do they do this? And what's the advantages?

I don't know. Maybe it gets the kids used to much more work than what we had to face. Maybe it prepares them better for univarcity. Because in our day, only the top 5% or so went to univarcity. It was for the elite. Now, every 2nd child goes and studies a bachelors degree!! No wonder the country has a problem with good handy people. People that can do the physical work needed to run a successful country.

So CAPS is a sign of our times. Getting kids ready for a world that's crazy. Expecting so much from 18-year olds at univarcity, and getting them ready to make it in this tough economic world of ours. I get it, and I understand that it was necessary. I still don't think CAPS is all bad. Not at all. The good still overshadows the bad of it. I think it's a wonderful step in the right direction for our kids. BUT, it's still just a step, in my opinion. I don't think it's the end result just yet. Because they're going to realise that does not matter at what speed the world change and evolves and adapts, children stay children. Children needs time, love and play to grow. To learn. You just simply cannot expect the same from today's 10-year olds, than what you expected of the 15-year olds of 3 decades ago, just because you think it's necessary!! The 10-year olds of today still needs the same amount of playtime, moddycoddling, love, nurturing and emotional guidance than what they needed a hundred and a thousand years ago.

So it's fine to say times have changed, and adapt the curriculum to this. But keep in mind that you're working with children. Not static objects. And children needs to be children. They need time. Time to love. Time to learn. Time to play. Time to study. Time to participate. Time to wait. Time to be lazy. Time to relax. Time to read. Time to do nothing. Time. They need time. And taking all that time away from them, and expecting them to still grow normally... it's certain to fail.

This is just my opinion. And why I say the issue is much, much bigger than just my little boy that didn't do well in school because the standard was "a bit high". Much, much bigger. There's a lot more I can say about this. About countries all over the world that push, and countries that starts to realise that what we need, is to get back to raising children, and not raising a workforce when they're just babies still. But this post is already way too long.

So our solution? Well, we can't change the world. We can't change our country's drive to get back to the standard we had before Apartheid was abolished. We can't change our school system. We can't change our school. We just know that life should not BE like this. Life should not consist of studying day after day after day, for 5 weeks in a row, 4 times a year. Just to pass. Not when you're an above intelligent boy that should not have to study this hard. Life should not consist of a mom and dad's life revolving around exam times. We can't even visit friends for a coffee when it's exam time. We can't take an evening off where they just might get to bed too late, which might make them too tired to get the huge amount of facts into their heads the next morning. We can't even braai or do a family thing together for a Saturday lunch, because they have to study. The little ones have to walk on tiptoe, so as not to disturb the studying kids. There's no playtime really. Just small little breaks. They study, and study, and study. And I'm the one standing with a whip behind them, encouraging, summarising, quizzing and supporting and making sure they study. Because if I don't, if they don't, they FAIL. And what will happen when they fail? What future will they have when they can't even pass primary school?

Life should NOT be like this for primary school children. Life should NOT be like this at all. Not for us as parents either. Yes, small, short bursts of tests or exams are necessary and good. But 20 of the 52 weeks a year??? At age 10??? No way! I refuse to believe that this is normal nor acceptable!!

So what can we do about it? We can look at our children as individuals, list our options, and see which one fits them best. And that's precisely what we did. Our options were limited, pity. But for example, things we can do to get them educated are:

• Move to the country where the pace of life for children is much slower. (Not an acceptable option, since my husband's work is situated in the city only).
• Homeschool (only an option when all else fails - reasons I'll discuss in another post, since it's long)
• Homeschool centre (definately an option, but seemingly an extremely expensive option. In our currency, sounds like it could be anything around R3000-R6 000 per child!!!) That's 3-6x what we pay now!
• Another public school (an option, but will only fix a small part of the bigger problem). The children would still be unhappy due to the big number of children. They would still "dissapear" in the masses. They would still do CAPS. They would still be part of the bigger "system". Part of the bigger problem as I see it.
• Go talk to our current school's teachers/principle. (Not an option anymore, we've tried it multiple times already. With very limited success.)
• Stick to the school they are in currently, and hope for the best. Well, we've tried this for 3 terms now, and guess what? 8 of the 24 grade 7's in my son's school has, again, failed this term. Fortunately, Mr N isn't one of them. With ALOT of hard work (a huge chunk of that from my side!) he has risen in average with 10%, and did very well in some subjects. Really well.

The thing though is, if Mr N who has no learning difficulties or obstacles, has so much problems just passing grade 7, what will happen to Boeboe? So many people, the psychiatrist especially and loads of teachers, has told us throughout the years that Boeboe will NOT make it in highschool (due to the nr of children in highschool and the stress and pressure this brings). I never wanted to listen to them, because how can they be so certain?! Now, I get it. If my clever, intelligent son struggles in grade 7, there's no chance for Boeboe. No chance at all. So the sooner we address this, the better.

So if all of the above options aren't really options, what can we do? Private schooling. It's the only solution I've researched, that seems like it might just be the answer to our prayers. Unfortunately though, we can't afford the expensive, big private schools. Not at all. So I never looked into this option until a friend of mine told me about a school close to our house that has gone through a few changes which made it an option for us. Financially, and in other ways. So here's the advantages (for OUR family, OUR kids) of this particular school:

• VERY small. Only about 90 kids at the moment, from grade 1-7. Next year, they start with grade 8, year after that grade 9, etc.
• Classes of about 10-12, though in some instances it can and will grow to about 20 kids. But still only one class per grade, maybe growing to 2. The grounds are too small to handle a school bigger than about 500. And that's from grade R-12!! So next year, Boeboe and Mr N will be about 1 of 10 kids in their class/grade, and Monkeyman 1 of about 20.
• Quality teachers
• In our hometongue, Afrikaans
• Supporting our religion and culture completely (huge advantage to us)
• Supporting children that needs that extra bit, because teachers have the time and knows what each child is capable of, if they understand the work or not, etc.
• No huge time constraints like in the bigger schools. Kinder to children who's slower, for example. Because they can. They have the time, because they deal with 10 kids, and not 150.
• They do their own curriculum in primary school, so no CAPS. And in high school, they do Cambridge International (from the UK). I need and want to say alot more about the subjects in CAPS, but this post is so long now, I'll leave it be for now. Maybe I'll get back to this.

There's more advantages, like all 3 children in one school, not far to drive, etc.etc. But those are kinda cherry on the cake advantages, not reasons to move your child to that school. The above is the major advantages to us.

It's been a really, really hard decision for us, and we've been thinking almost constantly about it for about 2-3 months now. So it's not taken lightly. We've spoken to the principle, the teachers, the owner of the school, some of the kids, etc. We've looked at it from different angles. We spoke to other parents whose kids were there, but who moved them out for various reasons to other schools. So we're trying to go into this with huge, open eyes. Still, it's scary. It's been a really difficult decision, and it consumed us. We've almost reached the point now where we believe this will be the right thing for our family.

Change, to me, is one of the most difficult things. I hate change. My eldest has been in his school for 8 years. Boeboe has been here for 6 of that 8. They've both only been in 2 schools. Their pre-school/playschool from ages 4-5, and then this current primary school. I don't do change well, not even for my children. They'll probably be fine, but for me, this is huge. This is really, really, really huge. If I hated their current school, maybe it might have been easier. But I still like them. I still think they're one of the best in the area. I still believe in them! But for my kids, we need something different. It took us a long, long time to realise this. That despite our children's good qualities, their dilligence, their intelligence, they're not coping in normal, big-city, mainstream school. So we're moving them. And it saddens me no end. Every day this week, I parked the car, and after 8 years of parking in the same few spots, I get tears in my eyes. I walk through the gates, I look at the flowers, the neat grounds, the little strawberries on the grounds, and I just want to cry. I really love their school. And it saddens me to move the kids. To know that Monkeyman won't move over to the "big" side where the grade 1-3's are. That he won't get to wear his brother's old school clothes that I packed away for him. That we'll never have a photo of him on the fridge next to his siblings, in that school's clothes. That we'll never get to see him play in the school's tennis team as we did Mr N. Ag man, I can just cry. I absolutely hate change. It's gonna take me a few months to get used to the new school. Until then, I'm gonna be a mess of sadness, indecision, worry and stress. There's a number of negatives of the new school, that's positives in our current school, that I'll have to accept. Like the anonymity of being one of thousands of parents. I can just dissapear. Suits me perfectly. Now, in the new school, I'll be one of about 160 parents. No chance to dissapear. Anyway, we'll make this work. And I know it'll be better. Anything will be better than the year we had. Children should still be children, and it seems that in this new school, that's exactly what they will be.