Zen-Mother

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Well, chock up another one for the unschoolers. I swear I feel as though I am learning some of the universe’s deepest and most evasive secrets from them. Why is it that I read some of the things they write and I am dumbfounded by the profound truth in them and wonder why it was I could not see this?

Here is an example.

The poster Melissa writes about how her daughter so dutifully helped in the garden of her own volition and how this is just one area in which unschooling has benefited their lives. She also talks about how unschooling is a concept that seems to be feared by mainstream society as a sure  fire way I would think, to let your kids run wild. Trusting in your kids is just not an accepted practice.

The post is beautiful and entertaining but I admit I have to say my first inclination would be to say that kids will take advantage of limited rules in the household as did one commenter name Blue. I found myself internally agreeing with everything she said and found her statements to be sound proof that unschooling won’t work for many families.

Then I went on to read Melissa’s response and I was slapped back into reality. Unschooling is a process and not something to be done cold turkey or your worst fears might in fact be realized. There may even be a short time when your kids to take advanatge of the relaxed rules but that is where confidence in your children to turn things around and settle into a pattern of learned responsibility is needed.

I especially liked how she showed that kids who were given the right to make their own choices were perhaps less likely to grow up and feel pressured to choose what other kids percieve as “adult” things like drinking and sex. It really makes sense that if they were treated like an individual capable of making decisions for themselves and caring for themselves they will make smarter decisions than their peers because they have had significantly more practice. They won’t need to choose sex and drugs to feel “grown-up”.

But the real gem of advice in this post is her advice to Blue that she should start gradually by “erasing those limits in our minds, and being open to saying…Yes”. I can get behind that. Why not see if it works in your family by making the conscious decision to say yes more? I think I will.

Share This