Meet the Family: Connor

Rebecca Watson
Mar 19
2 min read

Updated: Apr 10

Some background:

For the first year and a half of Matt's life I was adamant that he would be an only child, parenthood was not easy. The I looked at him one day, that cute little face, and thought - how can i not do this again?

We welcomed Connor John Watson around 09h00 on Tuesday, 29 July 2008, at the Medi Clinic in Nelspruit, about 140 km from home.

We, once again, chose not to learn the gender beforehand and while praying for another son I resigned myself to the fact that there was a 50% chance it would be a girl.

This beautiful, peaceful child was born on a ray of sunshine; a sweeter, happier person could never be found.

Early Years and Education

Connor, like his brother, has grown up with both parents at home—something we feel incredibly blessed to experience. We also realized early on that we had to balance this with making sure our kids had a social education. He started attending Kleuterskool in Lydenburg when he was 1 and was the apple of everyone's eye.

As an English-speaking family in a largely Afrikaans community, we faced the challenge of deciding which language to educate our boys in. We ultimately chose English, as neither of us felt confident enough in Afrikaans to help with homework beyond a certain grade.

Homeschooling wasn’t an option either; with the farm’s demands and the potential strain on our relationship, we decided against it.

Connor started Grade R at Laerskool Lydenburg in the English class, he thrived in this environment and loved school. However his brothers academic struggles meant that when Matt changed school's Connor needed to as well, as it was not practical to have 2 kids in different schools, in different towns, in opposite directions.

Connor moved to a smaller school in Dullstroom in the first term of Grade 1 and completed all of his primary schooling in a tiny cottage school, where there were only 19 kids when he started and 45 kids when he finished Grade 7.

Being a bright boy, who is easily distracted, the small classroom environment helped him to thrive academically.

High School and Boarding Life

Connor started high school in 2022 at Uplands College in White River, boarding as a weekly student.

The transition wasn’t easy and Connor found that he had a lot to learn about people. His early years in hostel were difficult socially as he battled with dealing with back biting and other social childhood nastiness he hadn't had to encounter in such a small protected school where everyone was his friend.