Pushing away

As I'm typing this it's raining hard  from what I can make out of the gloom just showing through my bedroom window at this hour so whither or not I get outside remains to be seen although after another day where the politicians singularly failed yet again discussing and voting on trade options after the EU but NOT passing an actual withdraw agreement that EU Rules require before they can start negotiating trade outside of it with us.
It's hardly surprising then that a return to the constants in my life has been around in the last month or so across the board as much as because all that "groan up" stuff I've struggled with motivation. 

I have been spending more time out not just walking although I have been doing that too but also sat in the park, just focusing on what's around such as the various flowers that are starting to emerge from the winter, passing insects and birds and trying to keep my mind more more on what I need to do rather than being diverted toward those things that really I have little control over.
I have been doing a bit more reading, reading more of the kinds of stories I loved in original childhood with mysteries and adventures and connected with it spending a bit more time on a website for people who like that kind of fiction, talking with them.
Being in more of a child-like mindset makes for a big difference not least when as it was at the weekend Mother's day over here cos our relationship is still very much child to parent.
As well I have been around SN as tensions lead to toward issues in my emotions and breakdowns when it comes my behaviour that can be talked through as much as with someone like me spanking or at the very least a reminder of its likelihood really helps with it as I easily get into oppositional conduct striking out.
That sites recent changes seem to have reinvigorated it not just in having a software update but also when it comes to interaction with more discussion as well as 'fun' threads.

Jo and Noddy

Today I'm going to write something a bit different to what I normally do on this blog as generally I don't write much about books, especially book series I never had that much to do with but in a way actually it ties in rather well.
Enid Blyton it has to be said wrote a good number of the books that featured in my childhood not least the period around ten to sixteen years before people started pushing more 'adults' reading at me even if this series and its central character wasn't one I read much never mind collected.

Noddy is a very interesting character, living in a world known as Toyland, being made from wood and styled as an perfect naughty little boy often getting in trouble with PC Plod having an Uncle Big-Ears who was a parent figure.
The significance of this rests really on what adult wisdom cannot get and children do which is in reality although Noddy is actually (in law) an adult, is able to own and drive a motor car in many other ways he is not, he is very much a young boy having that kind of an outlook, not really responsible, lacking the awareness of what he'd be expect to know. He may be portrayed as a child but isn't.
In some respects then, to me he's a poster child of a person exhibiting a developmental order is like adult (legally) but child (developmentally).
He's got a inflated view of his abilities which may be more from having to 'pass' for an adult but as when challenged by Big Ears his father like figure points out, really he's not and if he'd been educated he'd see that but he hasn't and amongst other things, cannot count beyond twenty.
It's that which the subject of this book, the only one I bought with my own money, which is when it is he goes to school with the young children which you can in Toyland.
He has no idea of what what Miss Rap, his teacher means when she asks him if he knows his tables. Equally when asked to write on the chalkboard one thing he likes to eat he writes his own name because that's all he knows to write which annoys Miss Rap and all the other children laugh at him.
When you have a developmental disability, life especially in school can be like this as you're not functioning at the same level as the others, you have a defensiveness that can soon spill over to defiance, you tend to be very impulsive not concentrating and you don't always help yourself.
Noddy going to school ends with Noddy having learned some lessons, however painful about life having learned some social skills and taking part in a school concert.
I see a connection here in  me having to go back to learning what I failed to both academically, where the story does extol the virtues of hard work, putting ones mind to things and also when it comes to how you relate and behave where Noddy is sent to the corner and when his friend Gilbert Golly after misbehaving is ordered to bring Miss Rap the slipper hanging on the wall.
Put simply I had to realize what I did  not know, having a sense of humility to seek out what I needed rather than allowing the trappings (for Noddy his car, for me, certain roles) to blind me to my true needs and address the attitudes I had that made my life worse than it needed to be.
Noddy needed his corner time, Gilbert needed that reminder even when it has put on hold until the very next time he was going to get a spanking.
I needed someone who was going to be strict with me so I worked to my full potential, being prepared to practise a lot  and given the difficulty I have in dealing with more complex ways of trying to change my behaviour, as that adult but child I needed spanking in the same way.
While I'd sooner this was about a girl, the lessons in the book do apply to someone like me cos in many respects they speak about US and in that respect, it's unique.

Gingham dresses

Going back to Junior and even Infants, such dresses were normal for Spring and Summer for girls being cool, easy to put on  and complete with a pocket for your hankie and so not surprisingly they feature in school based stories some of which my reference school discipline.

St Trinian's

The out of control schoolgirl is best personified in the classic St. Trinian's series even if the last two installments take us away from the more innocent bad behaviour of the original series and the cartoon strip that inspired them.
This image from the most recent movie shows a more modern uniform than the original gymslips and stockings (for older girls) .

Treetops

Treetops school as a concept began on a short lived website of mine around 2012 and took on a life of its own last year with a series of stories featuring people I was in contact with who shared a similar outlook on the no longer existing Tumblr and perhaps with a few changes, will return on this account.

The basic premise of Treetops was it was set in a fictional school in South Staffordshire in a big rambling former hall of which there are fair number and converted into school for Adult Middles with a suitable middle backstory, who were struggling with life and learning be it ‘real’ schools, college or  University or whatever.

Part of the reason they were struggling was that the had very much for real a ‘Middle headspace’  that was their normal one so not only did they not relate to other adults as adults, from the inside they were not, being children of around 12 upward who simply could not cope with adult expectations and critically needed the structure of traditional girls school.

Treetops was a place that offered them a second chance because it respected their being adult middles, allowing them to express themselves while at the same by effectively putting them back in school, it provided the very structured life they needed as well the chance to improve on their formal education.

Every Treetops adult Middle ‘child’ has to wear a full per-determined school uniform with only a few exemptions that they are given as needed, there is a house system which every girl is assigned, and Prefects to encourage the girls to exercise responsibility for themselves and to ensure other girls do the same.

Treetops provided them with personal support and guidance that went beyond academic education, covering social and life skills as many had struggled with these that to get by around the Adult World they needed  to grasp.

Treetops also understood something fundamental about most adult middles, which is often they struggle with behavioral norms, don’t get subtle hints and more ‘grown up’ ways of disciplining them so they agreed to be given strict corporal punishment instead which often works better at making long term changes for the better to their attitudes and behaviour in their work and personal relationships.

This would start from slapping of legs and hands, through spanking to  having the cane with many finding it not only helped with learning appropriate attitudes but with being in an appropriate sense of place being held to account in suitably child-like way. Treetops middles truly appreciated this even if some big wigs in the Adult World had issues with it, because it works for them.

In some ways them it was more a cross between an enlightened, progressive Reform School and Malory Towers, which as far as the girls were concerned was the bestest place to be.

Malory Towers

This is I'm informed the original dust jacket-the thick paper covers hard backed books come with this volume in the Malory Towers series came with, a series like much of Enid Blyton's books I read as a child and certainly in boarding school which was most appropriate when you sit and think about it.
It resonated strongly with me and I'd of loved to have been in such a school during the era it was written and fortunately my copies haven't had the references to school discipline removed as that was a part of that experience as it was with my own schooling.

The Archies

I grew up with the Archies on tv as well as comic form which reflected the kind of family life we grew up around and that included spanking as did a good number of tv shows and books cos it was normal.