11 September 2013

Interviewing My Children and Other Family Movies


I have this brilliant (?) idea. I might have to learn a few new skills to put it into action.

“Girls, do you want to learn how to make videos? We could make some and post them on our blogs.”

“What will we film?” my daughters ask.

“We could film our everyday lives, our outings, things we do… I could interview you, ask you questions. I’m sure you’ll think of some entertaining answers.”

The girls roll their eyes. “Not only does Mum write about us, she now wants to film us too.” They laugh. “We’ll have to be careful what we say!”

“It might be fun,” I say. “What do you think?”

“Okay, you can film us,” the girls say. I smile. Aren’t I lucky having such agreeable children? 

Children have lots of interesting things to say. I’ve already written posts based on conversations I’ve had with my kids. But instead of putting their thoughts into words, I could interview them and catch it all on film. Do you think that might work? 

But first I have to learn how to make a movie. And I have to encourage my children to start talking. That might involve finding the right questions, ones that will spark off some interesting thoughts. 

I remember a conversation I had with my daughter Sophie about a year and a half ago. I wrote a post about it called More Thoughts from Sophie: Families and Teams for my Sue Elvis Writes blog. What if I captured such a conversation on film, rather than in words?

But first I have to learn a few new skills. Has anyone else posted family videos on their blogs? Do you have any hints to share?

Hopefully I’ll soon have a movie to post. In the meantime please read …

More Thoughts from Sophie: Families and Teams


This afternoon, Sophie and I were returning to the van, clutching our bags of shopping. “We’ve got such a lot done today,” I remarked.

“Yes, we’re a good team,” observed Sophie. “We work well together. I like how our family is a team.”

I am always interested in Sophie’s thoughts so I asked, “What are the good things about being a team?”

“When you work as a team, you get things done. You can help and encourage each other. You grow up not being selfish but kind and generous.  And friendly. You can always tell the children who are part of a family team. They include you in their games and conversation. A team also has fun together.” Sophie thought a bit more and added, “And when you’re part of a team, you feel needed and wanted.”

“How does a family become a team?”

“By spending lots of time together and doing all sorts of things together like… learning, shopping, jobs, working hard, playing, having fun.”

“Couldn’t children refuse to be part of the team?” I asked.

“Well, they could but then they’d feel left out.”

“They wouldn’t feel like they belonged?”

“That’s right.”

I guess everyone has an inner need to belong.

“How do children learn to be part of the team? How do they learn how to work together?”

“I suppose they copy their bigger brothers and sisters.”

“But what about the oldest children in the family? Who did they learn from?”

Sophie mused this over for a minute before replying, “I don’t really know… Perhaps they had to figure it out for themselves.” I couldn’t come up with an answer either.

By this time we were home and Sophie was eager to show the other girls her shopping. I’d taken her to buy new running shoes. It’s not often a 7th child gets Mum all to herself for an afternoon and comes home with something new.

Sophie paraded down the hall in her black shoes with the hot pink soles: real running shoes.

“Wow!” The girls were impressed.

“They’re my elephant feet shoes,” Sophie announced, her face one huge smile.

“Elephant feet shoes?”

“Don’t you remember, Mum? I was learning about elephants the other day. They have something like gel in their feet to absorb shock as they stomp along. My running shoes have gel in them too.”

Sophie can’t wait to try out her new shoes. At 6.30 tomorrow morning she’ll get her opportunity. As soon as we get up, The Teamwill walk down to the bush tracks for our daily run.

Isn’t it wonderful to belong? Isn’t it great to be part of a team?


Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

6 Comments

  1. Videos would be very interesting! My son has a camcorder – the hard part is that anyone who is being filmed doesn't seem to be able to act naturally, the camera changes everything – that's how it's been for us anyway.
    Have fun exploring the new project!

    • Kelly,

      I know just what you mean about everyone acting unnaturally as soon as a camcorder appears. I act all strange every time someone wants to film me! I hope my kids are more relaxed about the whole thing than me. I think the older ones will cooperate just fine. The younger ones… we'll have to see! Yes, it should be lots of fun.

  2. It may surprise you that my very camera shy daughters (cough, splutter) often video each other, or just themselves. I can almost see that knowing smile Mrs Elvis! I save them all my pc and have a giggle to myself every now and then when I watch them. I have a video of The Fashionist reciting her first poem, The Caterpillar, by Christina G Rosetti, when she was about 5 … I just adore watching it.

    • Lisa,

      Oh I can just imagine your beautiful girls videoing each other. Does The Fashionista do fashion parades in front of the camera? You have lots of wonderful treasures stored on your PC. I bet you smile lots when you watch your girls' videos.

      I have recordings of about 8 or 9 years' worth of birthdays and Christmases. I meant to put them all onto DVD, but they are still on video tapes, those small tapes that have now gone out of fashion. The camera is still very good though. It's got a great lens and takes sharp images.

      I think for this project I'm going to use a Kodak pocket video camera as they are really easy to use, and we can take them anywhere without worrying about losing or damaging the expensive camcorder. I had a trial run this afternoon and had so much fun. I even tried some editing. I haven't anything worth posting yet but hopefully soon!

    • Chris,

      You are so kind! I hope you don't get fed up peeking into our everyday life. It might not be that interesting after all. I browsed a few homeschooling videos on other blogs last night. I saw one showing a family's school room. It was immaculate and organised and full of the most attractive resources. We don't even have a school room, but if I filmed our family room where we spend lots of time, it wouldn't look impressive at all. Our craft materials are crammed on shelves, books poke out at odd angles, usually there is organised mess everywhere! Now what would that look like on video? Not very good at all!

      Hugs to you too!

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