Is unschooling best for our kids, or for us as parents, or is there a difference?

[Debbie Penley]

I've been pondering some thoughts today, so this will be long!

It started with a discussion in another forum about CIO (cryinig it out) with a baby to get him to sleep. The mother had heard that CIO meant that the child eventually comes to the realization that no matter WHAT they do or HOW hard they cry, no one will come to them. And she didn't want her baby to think that, so she's not CIO. But she resents having to rock the baby to sleep for a length of time, and often again during the night.

One of the responses (of course they dismissed the idea of the child giving up on help coming his way...) from another mother was that her children (NOT CIO) don't nap well, wake often at night, and often wake up unhappy. But not so with her CIO friend, whose children nap for 2 hours, sleep all night, and wake up smiling and talking.

I have found this to be true for me, as well...I co-sleep and nurse on demand, throughout the night, and my kids have never napped well.

Which got me to thinking about WHY I do what I do, from Home birthing to Unschooling....

I don't necessarily think that our kids will turn out BETTER because of the decisions I'm making. In other words, I've seen healthy formula fed babies (I was one!) and my babies, all exclusively breast-fed, still got sick and an occasional ear infection. Not all co-sleepers are confident and my kids still get more diaper rashes when they wear cloth....

So WHY do I do what I'm doing? Do I unschool because I believe my kids will be more successful? Smarter? Happier?

Sometimes homeschoolers will wave the facts about inventors and geniuses who were homeschooled...as if every child who learns at home will turn the world upside down...

When I first became a parent, I wanted to give my child the best of EVERYTHING, knowing I technically couldn't. I can't afford all organic food. We can't afford the "perfect" house, if one can even determine WHAT makes a perfect living space...And I had no idea how to determine what success in life actually meant. I knew it wasn't having money. Or a house. Or STUFF. Or even education. And yet, there must be SOMETHING I could do to make my child happy.

And so I did what came naturally to ME. I trusted my child to know what she needed, and I gave it to her to the best of my ability as long as it wasn't harmful to her or anyone else.

I think that even if I had formula fed her, she would still be the child she is today. I think that even if I had birthed her in a hospital, she would still be the child she is today. I think that even if she slept in a crib, and I HAD let her cry, that she would most likely still be the child she is today. Because *I* am her parent. Because *I* am still who *I* am, she would still be who she is because I'm the one raising her.

And here's where the philosophy comes full circle, if you can follow my strange thought pattern:

But it's BECAUSE I am who I am that she WAS birthed at home, nursed, and slept beside me. It's BECAUSE I'm her mother that she will be unschooled. It's because *I'm* the one parenting her that she will turn out to be who she is...

Now, I'm not saying that she doesn't have her own personality and all that...what I'm saying is that it dawned on me that those of us who unschool, or homeschool, or any kind of school don't have a monopoly on the brightest, happiest kids. And most parents love their children just as much as we do. There are public school kids who are well-adjusted and turn out as good as can be. And I bet there are some great parents behind them. And of course there's always the exception with the bad parents and kid who overcame, just as there's the vice versa.

But in the end, the reason we choose to unshcool may have less to do with wanting our kids to succeed, than to do with OUR desire to be the BEST parents WE can be, and finding that we can do no less than completely trust our child to know what's best for themselves.

I really DO wish my child slept through the night, took 2 hour naps, and woke up happy EVERY time. But the only way I KNOW of insuring this (short of having a naturally happy-go-lucky baby instead of the high-needs ones I did!) would be to let them cry until they give up hope.

And this is something I simply CAN NOT do. Not because I think my kid will be haunted by it forever. Most kids who CIO seem fine. You couldn't find them in a crowd and pick them out against the kids who co-sleep. But it's because every fiber in my being will NOT let me listen to my child cry for me and not respond. It's because my instinct demands I affirm his need for me.

And for this reason, I choose to unschool. My kids MAY not be the most intelligent, they may not be the most versatile, they may not be the best ANYTHING.

But they WILL be what THEY want to be, whatever it is. And they will know, beyond ANY shadow of a doubt, that I am ALWAYS there for them and will cheer them on to ANYTHING they should strive for....

And today, as I needed to get away from my kids for JUST a half hour walk by myself....Today, as the twins (14 months) kept climbing on me and crying for goodness knows why (teething? growing pains? just toddler angst?)....Today, when I actually get jealous of the moms who CIO or the parents who send their kids to school for the free time they get in return...

Today I reaffirmed MY reason for taking the road less traveled...

Deb

[Meredith]

How DO we learn, apart from trusting others, when it's something we can't verify for ourselves?

One of the things I really like about many of the radical unschooling discussion lists (groups, boards, whatever!) is the focus on specific, detailed stories of real people. That’s valuable because it gives me the chance to see what’s similar and what’s different to my own life. In the short run, it can let me hold on to my skepticism if an idea challenges me, but in the longer term I’ve been able to see a repetition of themes – ideas and solutions that cut across a range of variables.

One really useful theme that gets repeated a lot is the idea of Principles –which maybe doesn’t need to be capitalized, but it’s a specific piece of unschooling lingo, so here’s a link if you haven’t found that page of Sandra’s site yet (hey, you changed the url! I like it.):
http://sandradodd.com/principles/

Figuring out what your principles really are is a great starting place for making decisions – about family stuff, unschooling stuff, but also about what kinds of information you are going to experiment with. Experimenting is where you get to learn what’s going to work in your own real life, but principles give you a direction from which to start.

Okay, that’s pretty vague. CIO makes a good “for instance” though. Since one of my own principles is being kind, given conflicting information about CIO I would choose to try the option that seems kinder first. That’s not to say I’d shelve all other options, but I’d start with what seemed kindest. Which is what I did, irl. And found I have an odd child who doesn’t always want to be touched when she cries. So it became kinder to set her down and move out of her line-of-sight for a minute so she could calm down.

But that’s an example I could verify for myself, and you wanted to know what if you can’t? That’s when I turn to the ru discussion groups and look for other repetitive themes. Because I can verify some of what I’ve read, these groups have become “trustworthy sources”, at least in terms of deciding what to experiment with first. As more of those experiments become things I’ve verified for myself it has become easier to trust the philosophy as a whole.

It’s definitely scarier in the beginning, and seems more uncertain with younger children. There are so many more what-ifs to run up against! Its been amazing for me to bring a schooled teen into my unschooling home and see the really astonishing benefits of radical unschooling with a teenager. Wow. Somewhere in Ray’s deschooling process I stopped doubting if we were “doing the right thing” in the grand sense. I've been able to see how living by my principles makes a real difference in my life And his life.

[Sandra Dodd]

A week ago I had written a long, careful response to how people can learn and what about trust. My computer just turned itself off with all that writing sitting there. The computer was fixed on Tuesday, but I hadn't recovered sufficiently yet to try to re-write. It won't be as good, so I won't yet, but I'm glad Meredith addressed it.

-=-Its been amazing for me to bring a schooled teen into my unschooling home and see the really astonishing benefits of radical unschooling with a teenager. -=-

Holly just got back from an afternoon at the home of a "school kid"--a friend she's had for a few months. The girl's mother LOVES Holly. She was gushing about how nice Holly is and she can come over there ANYtime, and if she ever needs someplace to go...

Why would Holly "need someplace to go"? But then I remembered that very often kids her age desperately do. And some of the other stories of the afternoon were about those things. The girl has a new boyfriend, and they had wanted to hang out together, but his mom wouldn't let them come over, and she wouldn't let him leave until he did a bunch of chores.

So Holly is seeing what could have been. And she said she thinks the girl saw her as the kind of daughter she would have liked to have had but it's too late. I didn't comment on that, but I think probably the mom doesn't have any theory on why Holly is so different. Unschoolers know what kinds of things she was probably seeing in Holly.

[Katherine]

She wanted the boyfriend to do chores? Sounds odd and familiarly like a thread we had not too long ago about an unschooled girl who could visit her boyfriend but the "charge" for that privilege was chores for them both. Strange. I've never heard of that. Apparently it's more common than I thought.

Who's idea is that anyway?
_____

[Sandra Dodd]

That was common at my house, too, to have to "earn" the privilege of going to visit elsewhere by doing housework. And I'd be given a specific time to be home (rarely long enough to get really involved in playing) and if I was late, I couldn't go the next time.

That was the rule. "Then you can't go the next time." I think I was 13 when I figured out to ask to go somewhere and let my mom absolutely refuse, because I had been late the last time, and act very chastened and wounded, and then when there actually WAS a place to go, "the next time" had already been enacted dramatically.

[Summer Payer]

This conversation is pleasant to read. It's actually about something real to all of us. i was going to say that even though I'm not a Scientologist I'm reading Dianetics and it's really compelling. I wouldn't leave this one unfinished if I was paid. I've read several books on humanity including The Road Less Traveled, Everyday Blessings, The Natural Child, Release From Fear and Anxiety, The Celestine Prophecy, Life After Death (Chopra), The Tao of Pooh, Earthway, Keep Going-The Art of Perserverence, How to Practice, Walden, The Essential 55...all of these books have something in common. Read Dianetics. If you want to understand why people do what they do then read it.

I'd like to heard from those of you who have.