Children and the Future

When my son was very young (between his birth and one year of age), I did an extraordinary amount of research on different parenting styles and techniques.  I did this because I wanted to be the best mother possible.  And part of the reason for this desire is the fact that since I was eight years old, I've never dreamed of a career as anything BUT a mother.  Being a mother and homeschooling my child has been my plan since age eight, and nothing I've seen since then has encouraged me to deviate from that goal.

But, for some reason, I did not begin the research until after my son was born.  Until his first birthday, I followed more traditional methods of parenting (something I now regret, though I'm thrilled I learned as early as I did).

Anyway, I did lots of research.  I did web searches and followed links.  I borrowed books from the library.  I can't remember the exact paths I followed, but I wandered and read and pondered and considered and eventually found myself aligning to a concept of unschooling (and more specifically radical unschooling) as being closest to what I wanted for me and my son.

It's not the easiest path to follow, because it's not the path followed by the majority of the world.  It's hard for those who haven't done the research to see the benefits to this path.  It's hard to encourage some of those closest to my son that despite the fact that I don't push, he's learning all the time, every day.  He's just doing it at his pace.  He may not start reading at the age those in more traditional school do, but he will also not be taught that reading is a chore, is difficult, requires instruction, must be taught, or any of the other false "facts" that most schooled children learn.

My son reads.  He may not sit down and read a book, but he most certainly reads.  He may not know how to sound out every word he comes across, he may not recognize every word he sees, but that's not all that reading is.  Reading is pattern recognition.  It's recognizing symbols and interpreting their meaning.  He's done that since he first saw the "golden arches" and called it "McDonald's."  But this isn't reading enough for more traditionally minded people.  Additional aids have been acquired, and he is free to pursue them at his interest, but I will NOT require his use of them, as that is counter to everything I believe.  And even without them, his reading has improved to the point that most would recognize it as early reading.

My son does math.  He was refilling the soda section of the refrigerator (which has eight spots), counted out six cans and then stated that he needed two more.  That's subtraction.  We got a box of ice creams with six treats inside.  He was able to figure out that if we two shared it we'd get three each, but if we included his father, we'd only get two each.  That's division.  He may not do math the way the kids in school do, but he's not lacking for math ability.  In fact, this method of learning math may very well leave him without the math anxiety that plagues many people (myself included).  Because instead of something that's artificial and difficult, math is a part of his daily life.

My son has passions and focus.  He can spend hours playing with his LEGOs or exploring our yard (we live on 22 acres in a very rural part of Virginia).  He is completely fascinated with Star Wars, and has established at least one acquaintance on that basis (someone he can call to ask a Star Wars question when I don't know the answer).

My son is very helpful and sweet.  He may not always do exactly what's asked of him (he's not expected to, it's his life, after all), but more often than not, he's willing to help out when he's asked.

My son is curious and expressive.  His pronunciation may not always be perfect, but it is improving.  He asks great questions (though at times a bit too many for my personal preference).  He is able to express his feelings, though not always in ways that most people would prefer, still in ways that do no harm to those around him.

In all, I'm thrilled with how well unschooling is working for me and my son.  I just wish that those around him could see that it's not just him alone that makes him the person he is (though that's certainly a part of it), it's also the freedom and support that he's been given.  I doubt any other parenting style would have led us to the person he is today.  And I'm completely unwilling to take the chance that I'm right by trying more traditional methods.

As for me and my family, we unschool.  And that means that my son has the freedom to learn at his own pace.  My job is to be there to provide whatever support he desires and to make sure he's aware of just all that the world has to offer.  I provide opportunities, show possibilities, and allow him to accept or reject them as he chooses.

The advantage of this parenting method is that by the time my child is an adult, he's already been making his own decisions, responsible for his own actions, and confident of his abilities for a very long time.  He won't be suddenly thrust from having all his decisions made for him and being required to follow instruction to being allowed to choose for himself.

He may not follow the path that I would in his position.  In fact, I'd be astonished if he did.  He may not follow anyone's specific idea of what they consider "success" to be.  But I have no doubt that he'll be successful in whatever he chooses to do, as he is today.  I've heard it said that he needs to be prepared for the "real world."  I disagree.  He already lives in the real world.  There is no portion of the real world that cannot be handled with a combination of cooperation and choosing consequences.  He may choose a traditional job and follow the rules of the office (choosing consequences).  He may choose a traditional job and work with his boss to find creative solutions that meets both his and the boss's needs (cooperation).  He may work for himself.  He may decide not to work at all, but to travel and explore and do without material things.  But regardless of the path he chooses, it'll be his path.  He'll know what the options are, and he'll be able to follow his heart.  And that's all I ask for his future.

Change

As of this past Wednesday there's been a fairly major change in my life. My sister-in-law stopped working for my mother's company, so I stopped watching Andy. All by itself, this doesn't sound like much of a change. However, Andy's absence from my childcare plans means that I'm much more able to follow a path of consensual parenting with Tre and Wyatt. So, even though Andy was a MAJOR challenge all by himself, I've found that my work has INCREASED since I've stopped caring for him.

If this doesn't sound right to you, then you probably don't know just how much work is involved in consensual parenting. When things are going smoothly, it can seem incredibly simple. In fact, it can seem an awful lot like "un-parenting" (or letting your child parent themselves, something very akin to neglect). Nothing could be further from the truth. The groundwork that must be laid to make this smooth sailing possible is extremely time intensive and requires a lot of creativity. Plus, problems are much more difficult to solve when you can't revert to the "do what I say because I told you so" method of traditional parenting.

It isn't until I discovered that Andy's absence has actually increased my workload that I realized just how far away from consensual parenting I had slipped. He's been so difficult to work with, and reverts to violence so quickly, that I had basically fallen into a pattern of solving problems by separating the kids (a solution none of them was very happy with). Now that I am actually working on helping Tre and Wyatt solve their disagreements through consideration of each's position and looking for a mutually acceptable solution, it's not so easy.

But despite this fact, I'm absolutely thrilled. I know it's not easy now, but it should get easier as Wyatt and Tre develop more tools for solving disputes (which at the moment seem near constant, though I'm sure it's not as bad as it seems). The time I spend now in helping them learn how to work together consensually will pay off in their future well-being, and this goes for Wyatt too, even if his mother doesn't fully follow the same parenting standard.

Side Note

By the way, I just want to make it clear from the get go, that though I am absolutely convinced that the method of parenting I have chosen (radical unschooling, consensual parenting) is the best possible and I can't imagine trying to go down a different path, that does NOT mean that I am perfect at following the path I have chosen. I try, but I also fail.

I think maybe that putting it out here and holding myself accountable for both success and failure may make the failures happen less often.

Also, though I have decided to use this method to raise my son and have done the best I could to follow that path since he was about one year old, my brother and sister-in-law have NOT done so with their son, Andy, who I watch frequently. He has not been taught that violence is not the solution to problems, and it is usually his first solution (even his "dancing" is very violent motions). I am not at all sure how well I will be able to handle this, and I know that my interactions with him are significantly subpar compared to my interactions with my son, Tre. As I can't convince his parents to put in the effort required to raise him in a consensual manner, I don't know how far down that path I can go with him. I guess we'll all just have to watch and see how it all plays out.

Try, Try Again

I'm going to try to be a bit more regular about updating this blog. There are a variety of reasons I want to keep a better track of what goes on in our lives, but the topmost consideration is that I plan to unschool Tre, and keeping track of what happens each day on a blog seems a bit easier that just about any other form of recordkeeping.

In that regard, today I was watching Andy for the afternoon. We got a bit of a late start, but Tre was feeling sociable, so he invited Andy to come "visit" early (I was supposed to start watching him about 2:30pm and Tre invited him back about noon.

They played some LEGO Batman until Tre got ridiculously frustrated by Andy not doing what he wanted him to do (he was trying to accomplish a particularly difficult goal and Andy was making it more difficult). Tre and I had a conversation about the fact that when working cooperatively with others, we can't always make all the decisions as if we were playing alone. Tre seemed to understand, but it didn't ease his frustration any. He decided he wanted to cry loudly (seconds after giggling, he made this decision in a calm tone of voice). I told him that was fine, but I'd need to close the door between him and us (Andy and me). He agreed, and went back to crying for a minute or two more.

After that drama, they played happily for a while, playing with Tre's Thomas wooden train set. That lasted an hour or two until they decided that it made more sense to jump on each other. Tre got tired of that well before Andy did, so I decided to come up with another form of entertainment.

So, we all three got into swimsuits, I figured out where I could find an outside water spigot I had some reasonable access to, and I started filling up water balloons. The boys had a blast. They each tossed about 10 baloons at each other, only two actually hitting their targets. (One of those two was caught, undamaged.) They retrieved the broken balloon pieces in order to get their next balloon, so there was little to no trash left in the yard. Then we just took turns spraying each other with the hose.

After that, we came back inside, changed into regular clothes, and watched some TV until Andy fell asleep. His parents came home within minutes of him waking up from his nap.

This afternoon and evening, Tre has mostly spent playing LEGO Batman on his own. He's doing a great job, which is pretty impressive given that he's only five years old.

Life and Times with a Three Year Old

I have the amazing joy to share my life with a three-year-old boy, my son, Tre. Though at times it is a bit stressful, the stressful times are far outnumbered by my "I'm so glad he's a part of my life" moments.

We take him to restraunts and everyone remarks at his food choices, manners, and how well behaved he is.  It's been fun to explain that the reason he usually prefers the salad bar over pizza at Pizza Hut is because he's never been told that one is better than the other.  He is able to listen to his body and choose what's best for him without any false priority being given. Because we've never tried to make salad more important, or to limit his exposure to sweets, he doesn't think of salad as something that must be endured to get to the "good food" nor does he obsess about sweets. That's not to say he doesn't choose to eat a lot of something when we haven't had it available (or he hasn't been aware of it) for a while, but that something could be peanuts, bread and butter, or tomatoes as easily as cookies.

I am also regularly reminded that he's supposed to have gone through his "terrible" twos and be in his "terrible" threes now. And I think I understand just why they seem so terrible for most parents. At around that age, a child moves from being willing to do whatever you say just because you said it to thinking for himself and wanting explanations for parental requests. Parents who are willing to accept a child's autonomy (as those who choose radical unschooling do), do not find it surprising or a big hardship when the child starts wanting to make decisions for himself on the basis of information, rather than parental authority. But if you are expecting your child to obey everything you say, you'll run into trouble at around age two or three until one of two things happens: you back down and let the child be autonomous or you "break" your child into the understanding that he's not truly autonomous and must instead listen to you, because you're bigger (regardless of the reason you give or think he gets from the "breaking" this is what the understanding consists of).

This "breaking" lasts until the balance of power shifts in the teen years, at which point it beomes a major problem for traditional parents. But parents who have accepted their children's autonomy from the time of their first display at two or three (or earlier) do not have the same issues to battle in the teen years. Instead, they can continue to accept their children as autonomous. Separation from the family, moving into adulthood, becomes just one more step on the path that began at birth or shortly thereafter.

Radical unschooling is NOT easy. It requires much more of a parent in finding ways to meet everyone's needs instead of the child or children obeying "because I said so." But the rewards, it seems to me, greatly outweigh the early costs. And it does becomes easier with practice.

Punished by Rewards

The following was lifted from Angie on the AlwaysUnschooled mailing list in regards to "potty training." I believe it is one of the most apt descriptions I've ever seen of why rewards don't work the way we'd expect them to. (For those without a handy dictionary, "intrinsic" means coming from within and "extrinsic" means coming from without.)

Distinguishing between "intrinsic motivation" and "extrinsic motivation" makes it easier to see how rewards infringe on autonomy. If a child were inner-directed (autonomously interested) in performing a certain task (e.g., eliminating in the toilet), then a reward wouldn't be necessary. The *task* (or intrinsic value in it) would be rewarding in and of itself and the fuel behind the behavior.

However, a kid's very focus on the expectation of an external reward (candy, praise, gold stars, etc.) actually *distracts* from the inherent value of the activity in question, and in many circumstances causes the kid to DE-value the activity even more. This is because the task comes to be seen as a "means to an end" rather than an "end" in itself. The activity becomes a "barrier" that stands in between the child and the reward, thus the child is 'trained' to regard that activity as an unpleasent event, only worth doing if there is an "external" reward (candy, praise, etc.) promised for doing it.

If this concept is appealing to you or you'd like to hear more about the idea (explained in detail with a wealth of empirical data from reputable social psychology journals), please get yourself a copy of "Punished By Rewards" by Alfie Kohn.

Connections

I started out life raised in a Christian family. I became a Christian and didn't once question it until around age 18 when I had a long discussion with a friend of mine. That discussion led me to the "seeker" path I'm currently on.

I also was raised Republican. At some point after my questioning of Christianity started, I started questioning politics too. I found my way to Libertarian beliefs through the writings of Harry Browne. As I continued to explore my political beliefs, I have since pushed through to a position of being almost able to consider myself an Anarchist (though I have one or two issues with that position it does typify most of what I believe). I believe strongly in ZAP (zero aggression policy or non-initiation of violence). I also believe that the only crimes that should be prosecuted (and maybe not by the government even so) are crimes where there is a violation of another's rights.

From Libertarian/Anarchist beliefs, I have moved closer to Paganism, especially Wicca. They seem to fit together very comfortably with ZAP and the Wiccan rede being basically the same thing ("an it harms no one, do as you will"). Though I don't yet consider myself Wiccan or Pagan, I do feel a strong draw in that direction, and plan to form my religious rituals with those religions in mind.

Then most recently I added to the mix my concepts of parenting and schooling. I have always planned to homeschool. But I recently stumbled onto the concept of "unschooling". The best explanation of unschooling I've seen is from Wikipedia:

... individualized, child-led learning [which] is more efficient and respectful of a child's time, takes advantage of a child's interests, and allows learning and exploration in depth rather than shallow coverage of a broad range of subjects. It is not what subject matter the child learns that is important, but that the child learns how to learn and learn in depth. Given that, if later, as an adult, he finds there was some subject or nuance that he missed in his education, he will be able to acquire it on his own.

So, unschooling is facilitating the child's interest without trying to direct their path in any particular direction. This form of schooling tends to lead naturally into a form of parenting that is called alternately radical unschooling or attachment parenting. This parenting is based on respect for your children and trust that they are making the best decision they can with the information available to them, doing what they need to do. Practically it consists of doing your best not to say "no" to the child, but to (as needed) direct them to more appropriate avenues, locations, or times for their activities. It is treating the children, from birth, as full blooded people who deserve to make their own decisions about their lives. It is not neglectful parenting, as it requires a parent to be present and intimately involved in the child's life, but it can seem like it to less informed people who don't understand why you don't stop certain activities. I'm sure I'll come back to this topic later as I learn more, but it all makes sense to me.

Anyway, from religion to politics to school to parenting, I have found a path that merges and blends into one coherent world view. It is internally consistent and bears the common theme of respecting the rights of those around you and not trying to limit activities that don't violate those rights. It has taken me a long time to get to this spot, and I won't be surprised if I find more steps to the process in the future, but I wanted to share my exploration with everyone.