NotSheep

Long promised - and also just plain long - thoughts, half-way through Henry’s six-month stay with us.

First I should say that Henry is a really great kid, and that I think a lot of the success of his stay so far has been because of that. From the beginning, he made a huge amount of effort to fit in, to be helpful, to learn - and that has all paid off. His English was minimal on his arrival, but now, after just three months, he’s reading Artemis Fowl. He still struggles with much of his maths and has told me that he hasn’t understood a lot of what has been covered in maths in school in the last two or three years. We’re spending a lot of time on the basics of concepts like decimals and fractions. I’m aware that he will be returning to school in France in March and will be expected to sit exams that term, but I think he really needs to spend time on these basics before we cover the rest of what he’d be doing in school right now.

Because he needs more input from me than the others (apart from Jack), home-educating is currently more difficult for me. Whereas I can sit Barney or Freddy down to a page in a maths workbook and quickly check it once it’s done, I need to check every question that Henry does, right after he does it. But then he also helps around the house, so on balance I’m not losing out

When we started thinking about this exchange, I thought more about what it would be like for one of our children to go to France, and didn’t give a lot of thought to how we would find having another child in our home. Things are usually busy around here anyway and our house is always open to friends - and I’ve been a childminder too, so I suppose I imagined it would be just like that, only more. And in lots of ways that was right. When we met Henry’s French family, we were amazed at how well everyone got along, and how quickly we all felt like friends. We have similar philosophies on family life, even though we have quite different lifestyles. That has made it easier for Scratchy and me, because we’ve been able to treat Henry just as we’d treat our own children - the exchange organisation emphasises that you must do that, but I suspect that sometimes it’s easier than other times.

A friend said she wouldn’t want a stranger in her home for six months - a statement that surprised me, because I’ve never thought of Henry as a stranger. I suppose there really wasn’t time to think of him that way before he came, and once he was here, he just became part of the family very quickly.

At the beginning, Barney and Henry spent most of their time together, but I think now they both see that they need some space too. Henry has become good friends with N, who lives across the road from us. N and Barney were already friends, but I think perhaps there’s more of a connection between N and Henry, and I think that’s been a bit difficult for Barney.

At one point Henry asked to move into the small bedroom where Barney used to sleep, but I wouldn’t let him - partly because I was concerned that he might “hide away” rather than participating in family life, but also because part of an exchange like this is learning how to get along with other people who might be quite different from yourself, cooperating and making allowances. Barney is a messy person: clothes only get picked up when he puts them back on, he’ll cheerfully share his bed with a dozen books and several Bionicles, etc. Henry, however, is tidy and methodical. He has a place for everything and everything is always put in that place. His clothes are neatly-folded and put away, the pencil he keeps in his room has a specific place to live, etc. I talked with both of them and asked them both to consider the other person. The result is that Barney is actually getting better about putting things away (though he’d still be happy to wear the same clothes for a week if you’d let him), and Henry - well, he doesn’t seem as bothered by the small amount of residual mess. He certainly hasn’t complained about it, and I know he recognises that Barney is making an effort.

I think life as part of a “big family” has come as a bit of a shock to Henry sometimes. There’s quite a difference between having one sister and having five brothers He does sometimes disappear to listen to his CD player (English music only ;-)) and I think he probably wants more downtime, more peace and quiet, than he gets. But it wouldn’t be fair to expect everyone else to tiptoe around him, and it wouldn’t encourage positive feelings towards him if I did that either - so while he does occasionally get some quiet time (like this afternoon, when he chose to stay at home rather than go swimming with the others), he’s mostly just having to get used to it. There have been times when I’ve been worried that he’s unhappy and perhaps wishes he’d never stayed, but he always says he’s glad he’s here, and he says that the time is going “too fast”.

Having written all of the above, I asked each of the boys for their thoughts.

Barney says that he’s glad we did this, because Henry likes him and is good to him. He says that when Henry is unhappy, it “shows quite a lot on his face”, and “I can comfort him”. He says he’s glad Henry is here because he has made a good friend and also because it’s fun. He says that sometimes Henry is annoying; I asked when that would be and Barney answered, “when he insists I turn my light off” He says Henry asks for permission to do a lot of things (like go on the computer); I suspect this is because he’s used to being at school and following rather than initiating activities. Barney says he likes sharing a room with Henry and thinks he has learned to be more tidy and more considerate. When asked what the best and worst things about the exchange were, he said the best thing was making a friend, and the worst thing was that I was busier now (though when I asked if he felt that he needed more attention, he said no).

Henry says that the beginning was very difficult because he understood nothing, but that the more you go on with an exchange the better your English gets and it becomes more fun because you understand more. He says that sometimes it’s difficult to be in a family with so many children when you want to be alone. When he first read our file, he said he liked that there were so many brothers, and I asked how he felt about that now; he said that it’s good to have so many brothers to play with and he’s not bored. He likes living “in a street” instead of the countryside because he can go see friends and doesn’t need to go by car. He said that an exchange is not easy. I asked, “If you had a time machine and could go back to August, would you still come here or not?” and he said he definitely would, because “it’s very cool, you make new friends and have new brothers”. I also asked what he’d do if he had a choice between going back to France tomorrow or staying the full six months; he said he’d stay, because he will miss us when he goes back.

I asked him what was the best thing about doing an exchange, to which he replied, “You have a brother and you know his address and you can visit him afterwards.” The worst thing about an exchange is “being homesick” (no surprises there). I asked if he was homesick every day, but he said it was mostly when his parents phone from France (about one time in every two calls, he said) and also sometimes in the evening when he thinks about France. He said that starting an exchange was like going to a new world.

Interestingly, he didn’t say anything at all about home-education or school until I specifically asked him about it. He thinks it would be more difficult if he had gone to school here, because with home-education he was able to improve his English before tackling other things, but in school that wouldn’t be possible (I taught him a new phrase at that point: “in at the deep end” :-D) He says that he prefers home-education and I asked if he would still prefer to be home-educated if he was going to live here forever and he said yes. I asked what he thought were the best and worst things about home-education: the best was “if something is easy you can do it at a more difficult level” and “you have more time for yoursef”. The worst was “there’s nothing that is bad… sometimes if you have nothing to do… but there is nothing bad, absolutely nothing!” I also asked if he’d prefer home-education or school when he returns to France, and he very enthusiastically said “home-education” - but I made sure to tell him that wouldn’t be happening, so his French parents can breathe a sigh of relief

George said he was glad we decided to have Henry here “because Henry’s really good”. When asked what he meant by “good” (at cycling? well-behaved? good fun?) he replied, “good behaviour and good fun”. The best thing, according to George, is that Henry is “really friendly”; the worst is that “I like speaking French but I have to speak English all the time when Henry’s here”

Freddy said “it’s great Henry being here because he’s funny.” The best thing is “Barney might go back to France with him” - no, wait, you have to hear the end of the sentence! - “and get better at French and teach the rest of us.” He said there were no bad things “except that Barney takes up most of Henry’s spare time”. Bad Barney

Jack said having Henry here was “good because I like Henry”. The best thing? “He’s my favourite brother.” I asked if that meant Jack liked Henry more than Toby, at which point Jack dived on Toby and said “I like them both the same… yes, you’re my favourite brother too!” The worst thing about Henry being here is “he’s mad”. That’ll be why he’s fitted in so well then