carolinqua

Hello Id like to introduce you to my blog Denandraresan.com. It means "the second trip", which for me is the second life after I was reborn after I had children. After my first childs birth I came to realize that everything I was taught was plain wrong. I set off on a journey to take a different path to follow what felt right and what was also empirically right. In order to do that we also set off on a real journey and are since almost 8 months a travelling digital nomad family that have never been as free as we are now being homeless and countryless. We lived in Sweden which is what I would call it a surreptitious communist country. I have until I had children not really thought so but after I had children and I noticed how the other parents did with their children (in form of socially accepted forms of abuse and mistreatments of their children) and how they blindly just did what the state asked them to do instead of actually caring for their children I realised that I was not like them. As our children grew we also came to realize that there is forced schooling in sweden and that the state programme for the schools apply to ALL schools even when they call themselves free schools. Homeschooling and democratic and real montessori schools is banned. We had taught our eldest son to read when he was one (which was fun and easy with glenn domans flash card method) so when we looked at the schools we found out that he would have to learn the alphabet when he was 7 and that there were no exceptions. The school plan is also really creepy..the children learn that there is only one way (the state) and how great it is..and doesnt learn to actually question things. My husband arranged a meeting with the local council to find out if there could be an exception for our children...also as we travel a lot in our work. We found that both there are no exceptions and that we wouldnt be able to do our work as they had to go to school. Shortly after the meeting we had a huge tax investigation (which i dont think is a coincident at all).. the swedish tax authorities wanted 4 years of our tax from our british company which is based in UK and all our business is done there and not in Sweden, so we argued but didnt win. They gave us 10 days to pay a huge bill. We appealed so we could ask UK for the tax money back. They didnt give us more time. We almost lost our house on this. We managed to sell it and get the money for it 3 DAYS before the last payment date. We sold the house and nearly all our belongings, and got rid of all ties to Sweden. We are now enjoying a new kind of minimalistic life travelling the world with our children. Never have we felt as free as we are now. Hope you enjoy having a look at my blog www.denandraresan.com. It is mostly in Swedish, and for those there is a good translation button on the top right side.

njae vet inte riktigt vad det blir? Engelsk pappa. Blir de 25% svenska kanske?

Following, I have a 2,5 year old and 4 year old that loves the boobs, its unthinkable for them not have the boob. We are well aware of the benefits but Im on the edge of having enough as the lack of sleep is too much. Any ideas of how stop at these ages?

at least its better that they stick them in day care when they are at this age than when they are older (lets say 1) and has a bond to the parent and dont want to be away, at least they will be too young to know. But i personally think that if a person hands away a small baby at that age, they know that it will affect there bonding, and whatever reason they have they think that that reason is more important than having a bond with their child.

Hi, My name is Caroline and Im from Sweden (Im half Swedish/half Polish by the way), I have a family together with my husband that is from the UK that also is here in FDR and he was the one that originally introduced me. We run a business together and have two little boys. We have both been drawn to FDR because we listen to the podcasts and we feel there are likeminded people to us here. Sweden is an amazingly beautiful country with a nice climate and we have had a good life here, but I believe that it has a culture that is actually not good for the family, I guess most of you are from the states so Ill explain: We noticed since we had our first child that the state sticks its nose in as soon as your baby comes out and if you dont do as they say they try to push you to do that. A lot of people we have know dont think for themselves from the beginning and dont want to check the facts themselves regarding bad advice and being forced to do what is best for the state rather than what is best for the family; such as breast feeding, carrying babies, co-sleeping, non-forceful parenting etc. It gets weirder the older our kids get and the more parenting experience we get. Everywhere where there are kids I see screaming babies not getting their needs met and children getting forced around. At least its good that spanking is banned 84% of 1yearold babies are in kindergardens (most of them fulltime). It is simply not socially acceptable for most to not have your child in kindergarden from that age, there are huge incentives from the state where the state funds 92% of the actual cost and there are penalties (you loose your sick pay benefits) that make people put the kids in kindergarden early. The lefties even want to make the kindergarden compulsary from age 3! I dont actually mind kindergarden as long as the kids want to be there. Our kids are with a child minder part time for now and like it, if they dont we wont force them. The school is compulsary from age 7 (majority of kids starts at 6) and any alternative forms such as homeschooling is banned. (and its also almost unheard of) The Swedish school system is such that every school has to follow the government curriculum even though it they call themselves montessori, steiner etc even though its not remotely what they call themselves so the Swedish "free school" is a big lie. We have visited many schools and had many chats with principals and found none that actually will look after the needs for our sons. You have to be the same as everyone else or you will be forced to be so if you learn to fast or to slow you will have a real boring or hard time. If you dont comply you get in trouble, such as getting hefty fines that are decided on your income so you cant pay and your kids taken away if you dont put your kids in school. one family that tried to move to india to homeschool had their kid taken away on the plane when they tried to leave - as an example to put other people off. Just google Domenic Johansson. Because of this we are leaving everything here soon so that we can educate our sons on what they are interested in at their levels or find a good school that will do that. Our new adventures begins this autumn and we dont know where yet.

Hej hej från en till (halv)svensk!

Im interested! Me and my husband that also is here on FDR run a couple of businesses together. We live in Sweden at the moment

Soren: We have been looking into Denmark actually, there is a Sudbury school in Roskilde that I would like to visit. But that means we would have to leave from where we are anyway. Its just wrong. We are thinking about moving to the UK as my husband is from there even if that would mean a much lower standard of living. AdurianJ: I agree. It must be so soul draining to become a teacher when you are forced to followed that plan. I grew up in the 80s so I remember the boredom of doing the same as everyone even when we were a few kids that were ahead.

I live in Sweden, which is a country where you are so drilled in to learn to love statism when you are in school (and school is the only option for education as homeschooling is banned so everyone must do this) It has been EU election this Sunday, so I posted something in facebook and a couple of forums about why not to vote and referred to the youtube video about the truth of voting. I got very bad feed back on it, which i sort of expected, but i was hoping to get people to think, i think i failed completely. I very negative comments from both people I know well and people i think i should remove from my friends list, even when I layed out the facts in a contructive way. Its like these people have already decided there is only one way and suggesting otherwise is evil and crazy. I only know one single person in reality that is not agreeing with statism and taxes, and that is my husband, which feels kind of lonely. How do you deal with people like that?

Hi Fredrik, Im also from Sweden. I totally agree with what your saying. Its so sad that people just do as they are told and dont reflect about why and if there are alternatives.

Hi TheRobin, Sorry maybe I wasnt clear about living standards: I mostly mean living in a place that is safe and that you can move in freely, where you can drink the tap water without being sick, where there is reliable electricity and internet so we can make a living and dont have to freeze etc.. and were you dont have to worry about violence. Sweden is pretty safe. The kids can be on the street without having to worry about cars hitting them or anyone taking them. We have thought about latin america but i really dont like the idea of living in a house with barbed wire around and scary dogs, ( i lived in guatemala for 1,5 years) We had thought of england too, my husband is from there. But there you have the problem that housing is like 10 times more expensive than Sweden..so we would have to live in a shed or something.. and there is a lot of drugs and crime... people in general dont let their kids play out side on their own and go where they want on their own as its not safe, and you can t just go anywhere you want. everything is owned and you can forget about going swimming in lakes and hiking without driving for miles. I lived in england 3 years and my husband lived there until he was 29 so the living in england doesnt appeal. But you are right.. i guess i have to sacrifice these things in order to be able to homeschool, i just hate to do that just because the Swedish idiot government might take my kids otherwise. Me and another family are looking at various options but it cant be at the expense of putting the children in risk in other ways (such as decreased safety) and we are also looking at places where we can make a living. We are self employed so we have some options of starting up again somewhere else. I just wanted to besides getting some ideas of where to live to tell the world about the government forces everyone to school here, as this is something I never see in the media and definitely need to be spread. So if anyone knows about a nice homeschooling community and montessori and sudbury schools in any country where its quite safe for the kids that would be appreciated to have tips about.

that family is really religious and they are in some sort of christan sect or something there, the difference is we are not and we dont have any ties to USA,. we are just not wanting schools for the reasons i wrote first, but maybe its worth checking with hdsla anyway..

Im new to the forum, I live in Sweden and I would like to have some input on this if possible. First I will explain the Swedish school system briefly: It is so statist like everything else here in this country I dont think people in other countries have any idea of how bad it is, The school is so in detailed steered by the government it dictates everything you learn in the Swedish school plan from 2011 with the exact amounts of lessons in the decided subjects and what exactly you should learn within them and how to run the school. (but of course you are "free" to choose your school) It is designed for everyone to be the same (not clever nor too stupid, and for everyone to be conformed), which of course isnt working. If you see the most recent PISA-result you will see that Sweden is at the bottom. The government thinks they are solving the problem with making it even stricter now, so now they will most likely make it mandatory to go to school at age 6 instead of age 7 (which all parties are for and its election this year) and if the socialdemocrats win they might make it mandatory to go to kindergarden from age 2! And they want to make it mandatory also to go to school until age 18/19! Sweden has got a lot of "free schools" which are often praised, but actually its all bull shit as there is almost nothing free about them. They have to follow the government curriculum whether its montessori, steiner, or whatever. The school form "Sudbury" is also banned here. And homeschooling is banned. (you can only homeschool if you child is dying or is severely handicapped and similar and then you have to follow the curriculum also!) This result is that there are a lot of children that dont get their needs met either because they have problems learning or they are too smart, so if you dont fit it you will still be forced to go, and even if the government promises in the school law that they care for every students need and to give them challenges appropriate for their own levels and be suited for each individual student these are very nice ideas but seldom happens. Children that has different psychological disorders of course have trouble in school and are suppose to get extra help which they usually dont because the schools dont have financing for that (The parents are never blamed of course..for the kids having these disorders which im quite sure comes from being stuck full time in kindergarden and then ignored by the parents for the hour they have with them before bedtime which is the case for the majority of 1 year olds which is because 99% of parents - everyone that isnt a slacker works and women and men are "equal" according to Sweden)) And the children that are clever gets forced to do the same as their peers although they already know that stuff which might make them naughty and of course bored and sap their enthusiasm.. because they dont get challenges. The dream of the Swedish school is "a school for all" which means everyone to conform to the same, so really this country doesnt want people to be better than other. You see that in the whole Swedish culture. If somebody is better off people get jealous. So Im really stuck in a bit of a situation. We found out you can teach your baby to read and maths when our eldest son was 8 months old, so we did that and by the time he was 20 months he could read anything in english and swedish, and he reads books himself now, knows how to use a computer, and is very good at numbers. He is soon 4 years old and we kind of dont really see the point of going to a school where he will do the same as other kids when he is 7 as he already did when he was 1 and where knows the stuff i had to learn when i was 8/9 years old.. We have also been receiving a lot of negative feed back.. a lot of people think we have destroyed our children with the reading thing, and that the children should only play until they are 7, but they dont understand that learning comes from play and that we have never forced our kids to learn stuff, we are just encouraging them to do things they like and the result of that is they get good at it. The government is insisting that they will give my sons challenges and that school is necessary but I hear from other parents about the horrible stuff that is going on, especially in the local school where I even has seen kids being beaten and the parents had to interfere because there was no staff around. I remember myself how the enthusiasm got sapped out, and how I had so easy to learn but nobody wanted to encourage that, and that because my parents where shit and my clothes were shit and most other kids didnt have those shit clothes and parents excluded me and my parents did nothing and I just had to suffer through it until I got older, i really dont want this for my kids. Me and my husband have been looking into homeschooling or finding a real montessorischool or sudburyschool or cooperative. None of this is allowed here, If you dont go to school (and the school has to be following the government curriculum otherwise it gets shut) then the government gives you hefty fines which is enough so you wont be able to pay, and if you ignore that they take your kids. Yes this has happened - just google Domenic Johansson. So the few people that really believe in homeschooling have fled Sweden. And homeschooling is such a radical idea anyway that almost noone knows about it so its not really a great chance of a law change since almost nobody is supporting this. I just cant get my head over that these stupid parents that have kids that get mistreated in school just keep sending them as they are forced to by the government. Bullys cant get suspended as they have the duty to go to school, not even if they seriously hurt somebody. Im just so annoyed about this having to be a problem.. I dont really want to have to leave the country as it has many good sides and that if we move we might not be able to have such a good standard of living in other ways that we have here. or we might not be able to move everywhere, like we have been looking at australia, nz, usa, and canada is the closest we can think to a good living standard and having a homeschooling culture. Does anyone know if we can seek asylum for being educational refugees?