Reactions from Family and friends

[Mohammad Chappalwala]

Hello all,   i would like to know what happens when you tell people that you will not enroll your children when they grow up or if you have already stopped schooling.......

[laura bowman]

i have found that the more confident i was with unschooling the better i was able to express to family what we were doing. i feel fortunate to not have come up against too much friction about it. my family was used to me being the one that did things differently my whole life so this wasn't a big surprise. still, there were the usual questions about how they will learn this or that and socialization and college, etc. i printed out a lot of things from sandra's website and some john holt, and gatto articles and put them in my parents' bathroom. they read them. they got interested, not for too long but long enough that they stopped questioning it and let us get on with our lives. i'd actually like them to be more interested, even if it meant conflict. but that comes from my need for them to actually be involved in their grandchildren's lives more fully. 

be informed, be confident, talk carefully, explain only if necessary.

these are some of the articles i printed out:

http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/marlene_bumgarner.html

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC06/Holt.htm

http://www.life.ca/nl/40/gatto.html

http://www.rahoorkhuit.net/devi/hs/against_school.html

[Mohammad Chappalwala]

Thank you for your post,   I went through them.

The problem with me is that,  a few cannot read and others wont even consider reading the material i have.

laura bowman said:

i have found that the more confident i was with unschooling the better i was able to express to family what we were doing. i feel fortunate to not have come up against too much friction about it. my family was used to me being the one that did things differently my whole life so this wasn't a big surprise. still, there were the usual questions about how they will learn this or that and socialization and college, etc. i printed out a lot of things from sandra's website and some john holt, and gatto articles and put them in my parents' bathroom. they read them. they got interested, not for too long but long enough that they stopped questioning it and let us get on with our lives. i'd actually like them to be more interested, even if it meant conflict. but that comes from my need for them to actually be involved in their grandchildren's lives more fully. 

be informed, be confident, talk carefully, explain only if necessary.

these are some of the articles i printed out:

http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/marlene_bumgarner.html

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC06/Holt.htm

http://www.life.ca/nl/40/gatto.html

http://www.rahoorkhuit.net/devi/hs/against_school.html

[Meredith]

Don't feel obligated to explain. You can give short sound bites of information if you want, things like "there's so much in the way of information and resources on the internet these days for homeschoolers" or "we'll try this for now and see how it works".

 

When my kids were younger, I learned to say "we homeschool" in a very bright, confident tone and not offer any details. I actually made a few connections when I'd mention homeschooling in small shops - the owners would sometimes pass on names of other homeschooling families. It was nice.

[Joyce Fetteroll]

If one of your relatives converted to another religion that you didn't think much of, how much convincing how right they were would you want from them? How much literature would you want to read?

Be happy and confident. Say "We're doing this for now. If it stops working, we'll try something else."

There's some on Sandra's page plus some links to other pages:

http://sandradodd.com/school/say.html

Joyce

[laura bowman]

i would never ask anyone to read about something unless they had expressed an interest and were asking questions. 

[Jean Godar]

For me it would depend on whom I'm going to tell. There are things I don't normally discuss with just anyone- religion, politics. Unschooling is another topic I often don't discuss with others when it would directly be a discussion about my family and our choices.  Family and close friends know, and have known, that we are unschoolers. Some understand, some support it actively, some are skeptical, some are concerned... but they respect my family's decision.  I think that for me it is important to convey my own confidence and perhaps to convey - that I am not asking for their approval or their opinion on the topic. 

[Mohammad Chappalwala]

Joyce,  thank you !!!

This is the best advice i have received in years,  i tried this with one of my friends and it worked

'"'Be happy and confident. Say "We're doing this for now. If it stops working, we'll try something else.""""

Joyce Fetteroll said:

If one of your relatives converted to another religion that you didn't think much of, how much convincing how right they were would you want from them? How much literature would you want to read?

Be happy and confident. Say "We're doing this for now. If it stops working, we'll try something else."

There's some on Sandra's page plus some links to other pages:

http://sandradodd.com/school/say.html

Joyce

[Joyce Fetteroll]

Yay! Great! :-) And they get to breathe easier since they "know" it can't last too long before it stops working ;-)