More fool me then for allowing a little of another channel one day. This channel did have advertising and my kids quickly worked out which adverts were targeting boys and which were for girls. Imagine soft, high pitched voice saying “Pretty pink and floating fairies just want to be your friend….” and then deep, gruff voice saying “power, fighting, robot dinosaurs, who will win the battle?….” and you’ll see it isn’t so hard. My kids thought the adverts were a little annoying and we turned back to our trusted CBeebies and thought no more of it.

But a few days later I took my children into the supermarket to buy a few things we needed. The toothpaste just happened to be in the same aisle as the toys and within moments my eldest was tugging at my clothes and begging me, I mean really begging me to buy her something. My children often look at toys in shops but are really pretty good about putting them back when it’s time to go. Not today. “Pleeeeeeease mummy, I reallly want it, pleeeeease!”. The toy she wanted was called a Zooble. A bird kind of thing with a baby bird which could be stored in its tummy. “Pleeeeease” she continued “I saw this on the telly”.

I can’t be sure that my girl wasn’t so very excited by this toy because it was the first time she’d seen something from the TV. Maybe kids that watch adverts all the time are more immune. But what if not? If my children behaved that way every time they saw a toy they wanted I’m not sure how I’d cope. Would I give in? That kind of pressure must be very hard to ignore. Ignore it I did, however, whilst suggesting she keep it in mind for her Christmas list. She assured me it would be on there. That was a week ago. No mention of it since.

I imagine that by Christmas the Zooble will have been forgotten. I imagine too that this is partly because she doesn’t watch TV with commercials. I’m not so naive to believe that advertising on TV is the only influence on our children’s desire to own this or that toy. But without it we haven’t yet encountered the same level of pleading during our shopping trips. I wonder what shopping is like for families where kids spend the UK’s average of 3 hours a day in front of the screen. Eek!

It’s now Friday, and the word which best sums up how the week has felt is this one – “liberation”. My daughter has commented on her friends going to school but has, so far, not seemed in the slightest bit bothered about going herself. Our week has consisted of park and playground, walking in the woods, meeting up with other home educating families, baking, reading, going to the library, drawing, making stuff with clay, talking (a lot), laughing and making a long domino run. Simon has taken them to Coleridge’s Cottage today and they are going to write some poems. No uniform, no alarm clocks, no sad goodbyes. Liberation. My girl seems lighter, more relaxed. Life seems freer, already.

It took us a long time to realise we could and should just say no to school. It’s so deep-rooted in our way of thinking that to just say no and do something different was really challenging. I wonder what I would have said if asked as a school pupil if I wanted to keep going to school. And I wonder now what else I should be just saying no to. Looking back at the fear I felt as the summer holidays came to a close and our decision was about to become a reality, I wish I had known how easy it was going to be.