I made a little video. I’ve never made a video like this (and don’t plan to do it again) but I don’t know…. I started thinking about talking about fear, and I kept seeing the words in my head as little blurbs instead of one long written-out thing.
I apologize for the unprofessional-looking video, but it was my eighth attempt and I finally decided that I was just going to believe that you’d appreciate the message and forgive the imperfections. 🙂
Filed under learning, life, parenting, trust, unschooling
I’m really bad at Scrabble. So bad that on the rare occasion that I dare play with my husband, he doesn’t just beat me. He demolishes me, with double or triple my score. And no matter how many times he tells me it’s a puzzle game, NOT a word game, it still bothers me that I – someone who lives and breathes for words – can be so dreadfully awful at a game that revolves around… well, making words!
I’m bad at chess too, and all my kids who play can beat me easily. I don’t have the attention span required to think two, three moves ahead (to be honest, paying attention long enough to think through one move is pushing it), and I can never remember the rules.
I’m good at baking, but I can’t fry a decent egg to safe my life.
I like sports, but I’m incredibly clumsy. I ran track one year in high school, and the coach was so frustrated at my repeatedly bungled attempts at the high jump, that he finally said, “You know what, this event isn’t for everyone. Maybe you need to think about trying something else.” I did eventually get the hang of the long jump and triple jump, although doing so gave me life-long shin splints, so I’m not sure it was a fair trade-off.
I struggle with math. Once I go beyond the basics, something inside me cries, “Too hard, too hard!!” and a little switch in my brain shuts off. Refuses to even try.
I have a terrible sense of direction. I’ve lived here in Phoenix for over 8 years now, and while I never truly worry that I’ll get lost-lost (mainly because the layout of the city is very gridded, and I know I’ll eventually get to an area/street/highway that I recognize) my track-record outside of my own normal stops is… spotty. The thought of going anywhere I’m not very familiar with, especially without my little sticky note of directions (I tend not to trust the GPS) makes my palms sweaty.
So why am I sharing this list of shortcomings? Because, about a month ago, I started taking a karate class as part of my 40 for 40 list of goals for the year. I always thought it’d be fun, and it is fun. But it’s also really freaking hard, at least for me. It doesn’t come naturally. I keep getting my left and right confused, I’ll start a middle block and some how end up with a high block, and when my hands are finally doing the right thing, my feet forget what they’re doing. I get flustered and embarrassed and I have to work really hard to mentally get past my mistakes.
But I keep showing up, and I keep working at it.
Twenty years ago – probably 10 or even 5 years ago, if I’m being honest – I would have quit. Gone home after that very first class, made some sort of declaration about karate being “not for me”, and never gone back.
I stand before you a recovering perfectionist. For most of my life, if something didn’t come easily to me, if I couldn’t do it well right from the get-go, I simply didn’t do it. I avoided anything that was hard at all costs, anything that would make me feel stupid, or incompetent, or… human. And you know what? It’s really no way to live. I mean, sure, I did some worthwhile things. I wrote! I made art! I played music! But the things I missed out on… the things I really wanted to try, but avoided because deep down I was afraid of failing? That list is longer than I care to admit.
Some of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done as an adult have been things that were terrifying. Things that took me way outside of my comfort zone. Things that were – or continue to be – really, really hard. Over time I’m learning to embrace the challenge, stare the fear in its face and say, “You’re not going to stop me this time.”
My kids? They don’t need to learn how to do this. They’ve already got it. When I interviewed them for my blog last year, and asked the question: “Some people think that unschoolers will only learn things that are easy for them, and will not ever challenge themselves. So do you learn things that are difficult, or do you just go for easy things that you know you’ll do well?” Spencer was quick to answer, “I like a challenge!” Right now he’s currently challenging himself with a two-year long small engine repair course that’s going to mean assignments, studying, and formal tests. And just last week, when Everett and Paxton started a fencing class, their first comments after the class was done were, “That was SO HARD! And so fun! I can’t wait to go back.”
They’re not afraid of doing the hard things, and I’m finally, after 40 years on this planet, understanding why.
Because that feeling you get when you finally get that triple word score, or solve that polynomial equation, or smoothly execute the low block – middle punch – upper cut without getting tangled up in your own arms…
That feeling is pretty damn awesome.
The other night after dinner, Mike and I were playing a board game with the two younger kids. Tegan was excited (she’d just won the lottery), and was dancing around in her chair. She stood on her chair at one point, and leaned over to hug her dad. She started to lose her balance, and after she’d righted herself, I said, “Could you sit down please babe? I don’t want you to fall.” Our table is counter top height, and our chairs are tall like bar stools. I know the terrible sound of a little head clunking against the unforgiving tile floor, and if at all possible, I’d like to prevent a repeat performance. She listened to my request, sat back down without an issue, and happily went on with her celebrating.
We don’t have any rules about standing on chairs. We don’t need to. Besides, standing on chairs is useful sometimes. I stand on a chair when I need to reach something high in the cabinet and one of the big boys isn’t around to help. Tegan stands on a chair when she helps me bake cookies in the afternoon. Mike stands on a chair when he needs to mess with the ceiling fan. I don’t doubt that Tegan will learn how to safely use a chair, just like her brothers before her because 1) I trust her, and I trust that as she grows and matures she’ll make good decisions, 2) I’m right there with her as she navigates the world… not to bark orders, but to guide, and to help when she needs it, and 3) Our relationship is such that if I do ask her to do or not do something with safety in mind (such as to sit down before she dances herself right off the chair), she trusts that I have a reason for asking, and she listens.
And that’s how radical unschooling works.
I’ve been thinking about this lot lately, because the misconceptions seem to be flying around with even more fervor than usual. “I would NEVER radically unschool! Kids need boundaries! They need limits! They can’t live a life where anything goes!” Just yesterday, someone said she was “repulsed” by the idea. And last week, when I shared this (excellent) article by Shamus Young, it was suggested that my advocating violent games was no different than encouraging my young sons to watch porn.
I’m not picking on the person who said that either, as it’s actually a fairly common leap to make. Not too long ago, the subject of porn was rapidly broached on a thread about… Dora the Explorer. The logic went like this: Dora uses witchcraft. Witchcraft is evil. Porn is also evil. Therefore, radically unschooling parents who embrace evil things like Dora for their young daughter might as well be embracing porn for their young sons.
(I’m going to give you a minute to let the absurdity sink in.)
Let me be really clear when I say this: Radical unschooling does not mean that there are no limits. It does not mean that there are no boundaries. It does not mean that anything goes. Life has all kinds of natural limits; every person has his or her own personal boundaries; and a home that truly was “anything goes” would be chaotic and stressful.. quite the opposite of the goal of unschooling.
What it does mean is making a conscious decision to step away from arbitrary, parent-imposed limits.
It means to stop placing limits and imposing boundaries based on your own fears.
It means to trust your children, and trust your communication, and trust your relationship.
It means to stop making unnecessary (and unhealthy) leaps in your mind, and to free yourself from that kind of thinking … from thinking that allowing your daughter to watch Dora and its “witchcraft” is going to lead to blood-letting rituals in the backyard … from thinking that accepting your son playing first-person shooter games is going to lead to his shooting up a school-full of kids … from thinking that not placing hard and fast rules about R rated movies will lead to your 5 year old watching The Hangover and your 7 year old watching 9 1/2 Weeks.
There is a big wide world of choices in between ALL and NOTHING.
One thing I hear fairly often is that people will “experiment” with radical unschooling, the kids will go wild (for lack of another term) and the parents will pronounce it a failure. But the problem isn’t unschooling. The problem is that if you take kids who are used to lots of control and lots of rules, and all of a sudden say, “Okay there are no limits now. Do what you want, when you want. I’m not going to tell you what to do”… of course they’re going to go crazy. Why wouldn’t they? Like horses who’d always been confined to a pasture, and are suddenly given access to acres and acres of rolling fields, of course they’re going to run. They’ll buck. They’ll kick. They’ll squeeze out every ounce of rebellion and adventure that they can, in fear of their new-found freedom being taken away.
Unschooling doesn’t work that way. Unschoolers aren’t afraid of their freedom being taken away. They also know that they’re not going it alone. They know that there’s nothing to rebel against, because their parents are beside them in partnership… helping them navigate, exploring with them, supporting them, listening to their desires, and helping to make them happen. They know that they’re safe, and they know that their parents will help them learn where their OWN boundaries are… and that those boundaries are a constantly changing and fluid thing, and not something that can be arbitrarily defined by anyone other than the individual to whom they apply.
At its heart, unschooling successfully is about the relationship. It’s about the open communication between myself and my kids. Knowing them. Knowing where they’re at, what they’re feeling, and what they’re thinking. Respecting them as individuals (and they’re all SO individual!), and honoring their differences. Spencer, who is 16 at the time of this writing, has long been interested in those true life medical shows and crime shows. Paxton, now 12, always found them scary… so out of respect to him, I’d make sure they were never watched in his presence. Mike and I will sometimes watch campy old horror movies, or shows with more adult themes (things like Breaking Bad and Weeds come to mind). But do we watch them in front of the five year old? Of course not. Little kids wouldn’t even be interested in things like sex or violence, nor would they understand it if they were – which is what makes the Dora/porn thing such an odd leap to make. Any parent that’s paying attention, whether they’re an unschooler or not, is going to know that 1) not everything that’s available is going to be appropriate for each and every person out there, and 2) that there is a big difference between something actually being inappropriate and/or harmful for a certain individual, and your making a knee-jerk reaction about it based on your own issues, hang-ups, or fears. If it’s the former, that’s where knowing your kids comes in. That’s where discussions come in. If it’s the latter? Then you’re living in fear…. which is not a healthy place for you, your kids, or your relationship.
No good parent – no matter what educational or lifestyle philosophy they believe in – is going to just sit back and watch (or more accurately, not watch) while their child does something that is truly harmful or damaging. To do so would be neglectful and permissive parenting (which, it stands to be said again: is the OPPOSITE of unschooling) My goal with my kids is to always be able to offer unconditional love and acceptance, to have a relationship built on trust, and to keep fostering our connection as a top priority… so that when an issue does come up – and it will, because no life and no relationship is all smooth sailing, all the time – we can recognize it.
We can recognize it, we can deal with it, and we can figure it out. Together.
Filed under misconceptions, trust, unschooling
Thanks to Alice for another spot-on guest post!
I was raised without cable TV. Actually, there were long stretches of my upbringing where we didn’t even own a TV, until my aunt and uncle would come to visit and bring one of their (many) old black and white TVs that wasn’t being used in their house. Then we would be able to tune in the local channels, wiggling the rabbit ear antennas around until the fuzzy lines actually resembled peoples’ faces. Sort of. To give you a little perspective, I’m 36 years old at the time of this writing. My peers grew up watching Fame, The Cosby Show, Family Ties, The Wonder Years, and Beverly Hills 90210. And probably a lot more stuff I can’t think of because, you know, we didn’t have a TV.
Our TV situation was complicated even more by my parents’ prejudice against it; we could have afforded a TV, but it was beneath them. TV? No no, we’re readers. Even when we owned those secondhand black and white sets, we weren’t actually allowed to watch anything. The standing rule in the house was No TV On School Nights. If it wasn’t a school night, I could maybe watch something but there was a whole lot I wasn’t allowed to watch. On that list were innocuous things like Golden Girls (because Blanche Devereaux had indiscriminate sex). Over and over again, I heard how TV was going to turn my brain to mush, or rot my brain, or was a waste of time, or was junk. Why didn’t I read a book or go outside? As a matter of fact, turn off that TV and do something else. Sometimes I was allowed to finish whatever I was watching, and sometimes I wasn’t. (And just for the record, my parents were and are excellent parents. This post is not meant to malign or judge them.) Their rationale – that TV was junk – was the same thing I hear all the time from parents today, and at its core is fear. Fear that kids will somehow be damaged from TV; grow up too fast, become violent, materialistic, zombified, lazy, not smart. And when you view TV as the harbinger of all of that, of course you want your kids to spend little to no time watching it.
When a kid values something – anything at all, whether it be TV, sports, books, or Barbies – and their parents repeatedly tell them the thing they value is junk, it creates feelings of guilt and shame. I’m not speaking in hypotheticals here, or repeating something I read in a study.
I’m telling you that I found value in watching TV for many reasons, and was told my entire childhood that TV viewing was not worthwhile, and that created feelings of guilt and shame that lasted into adulthood.
It took until my oldest was 5 for me to find and fully embrace radical unschooling. There are no restrictions on TV viewing (or screen time of any kind) in our house. My kids are free to watch as much or as little TV as they want, and can watch any shows they are interested in. The only limits have to do with the fact that we are a large family with two TVs – it’s a rare occurrence for that to be a problem, and it is generally easily resolved. But what does it really mean to have no rules about TV viewing? What does the reality of that look like on a daily basis in my house? What if my kids want to watch TV all day? And what do I do if the kids want to watch something I think is inappropriate? And what about the materialism promoted in commercials?
When I say there are no limits to TV viewing in our house, I really mean just that. And it applies to computers and video games as well. My kids (8, 6, and 3 year old boys, and 1 year old twin girls) can choose to use or not use electronics in the same way they can choose to read, ride bikes, dig in dirt, build with legos, or anything else they think of. There is a stigma attached to using electronic devices that doesn’t seem to be applied to anything else, and it’s that stigma, and the associated fear that accompanies it, that motivates parents to place arbitrary limits on their use. When you view the world through that veil of fear, there’s so much to be afraid of. I don’t discourage my kids from talking to people they don’t know; the majority of strangers are nice people, and I’m right there with my kids should things seem to be heading in a strange direction. We talk to them about internet safety, but not to the point that they’re paralyzed with the fear of online predators. We talk to them about the kinds of images that you wish you could unsee, but can’t, and why that could be harmful; but not because we want them to be scared of the world around them. I don’t fear that my kids will become lazy, or unhealthy, or less intelligent because I’m right here with them, seeing for myself that they have a variety of interests that extend beyond screen time. Fear does not enter into our decision-making process for our family, and when you remove the element of fear, the need for arbitrary limits disappears.
I can already hear it coming: “If I let my kids have unlimited screen time, they wouldn’t do anything else all day.” Well, yeah. If you limit your kids’ screen time, and then all of a sudden one day you don’t, then of course they’re going to get as much screen time in as they possibly can. History has shown them that limits will most likely be in place again soon, and they’re going to take advantage of the reprieve. I know I would. When we stopped limiting our kids’ screen time, it did take a while for them to believe the limits weren’t coming back. And now? Some days, they’re on the TV and/or computer all day long. Some days, they don’t go anywhere near either screen. And that’s really what it looks like in a house with no limits. Screen time becomes just one more option in a whole world full of options. It’s not better or worse than anything else.
My kids can choose to watch anything they can find. That statement tends to shock people. But here’s what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that I leave them in a room alone with a stack of R rated movies riddled with violence and sex and encourage my kids to watch them. I know what my kids like to watch, and I know what would scare them, or bore them, or bother them for some reason they maybe can’t articulate. I’ve explained what the different ratings on movies and TV shows mean, and they frequently check them on new shows – not because they might get in trouble for watching them, but because it might be something they wouldn’t like. And if they’re not sure, they ask. The most important thing I can do is be there. I’m there to explain what a show might contain, or to read a description of it, or to suggest something they might like better. If they want to watch a show, but I think it might be scary or confusing, I make sure I watch it with them so we can turn it off if they want, or so we can pause it for me to explain something they have a question about. They have no interest whatsoever in shows with adult themes of love and sex, and I can’t imagine them tolerating even a few minutes of it. But at some point they probably will, and rather than forbid them to watch it I intend to watch it with them so we can talk about it together. (And I’m not talking about porn here, people. Work with me.) Let’s say, for instance, we happen to be watching Golden Girls and good old Blanche gets friendly with a gentleman caller. Perfect opportunity to discuss a whole variety of things with my kids! Just be there, and be willing to talk.
As for violence, I would argue that movies marketed to kids are way, way more disturbing than a lot of PG-13 movies. In one 5 minute stretch of The Lion King (which we watch a lot of around here), Simba’s uncle commits treason, then murder, then usurps the throne, and tries to have Simba killed. Right up until that point, everything had been love and roses. Pretty much every kids’ movie follows a similar formula. Everyone’s happy until some horrible tragedy, which the main character must then overcome. Whereas in a movie like Spiderman, everything is laid out a little more clearly. There are good guys, and bad guys; there’s a battle, then the good guys win. The end. Seeing violence in a movie does not encourage my kids to be violent. My kids are kind, sweet, gentle and friendly. They are peaceful because we as their parents are peaceful. My husband and I were watching The Hunger Games recently, and my 6 year old came into the room and asked what it was about. We paused the movie and explained the concept, and he said he wanted to watch a little. He watched a few minutes of it and was interested in the bow and arrows carried by the main character, and then he got bored and wandered out again. If he had decided to stay and watch, I would have spent more time watching him than the movie, to see how he was handling it and if we needed to stop watching. It’s really just that simple. We were there, and we were willing to talk.
Commercials and marketing and materialism aren’t an issue for us, mostly because – in an ironic twist – we don’t have cable. What we do have is an xbox, internet, a Netflix subscription and a Hulu subscription. We stream everything we watch through the xbox to our TV. Netflix has no commercials and Hulu (which the kids rarely watch) has about two 30 second commercials in a 25 minute show. But when we go on trips and stay in hotels, the kids see commercials. I’m not concerned that they’re being brainwashed into wanting things. If anything, my kids are totally annoyed by the commercials and talk wistfully about getting back home to “good TV.” I get really excited when I talk about how little we pay to watch TV (in fact I once received a call from a cable company who wanted me to pay for cable, and I’m pretty sure I convinced the salesperson to get rid of hers), but my point here is that while marketers do want to convince people to buy things, I just don’t feel it’s a major concern for us. We rarely see commercials, but the bottom line is that we are more influential in our kids’ lives than marketers. We are not materialistic, we don’t constantly shop for the latest and greatest things, and we talk to our kids about money and budgeting and consumerism. We talk to our kids.
Not too long ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say this without feeling guilty, but I love television. I love it. It brings the whole world into our home. I love watching shows that make me laugh, or cry, or think. I love watching shows with my kids, and seeing the things that bring them joy, or peak their interest. I love learning new things with them. I love the conversations we have that start from something we saw in a show. I love being able to show them countries that we will most likely never visit, or give them a televised preview of countries we hopefully will get to someday. I love that when they feel like lying on the couch all day and watching TV, they have the freedom to do that with no strings attached. I love that TV is just one more choice available for them in a whole world full of choices.
At this phase in my life with so many small children, I rarely have time to watch TV on my own. But someday, in what will feel like the blink of an eye although it will really have been years, my small children will be bigger. I’ll find myself with some free time, and maybe I’ll choose to read a book, or go outside. Or maybe I’ll choose to sit down on the couch and watch TV all day, without guilt or shame.
Alice Davis is an Army wife, mother of five, and probably the last person on earth who doesn’t have a blog. She loves to talk about unschooling, attachment parenting, and mothering multiples. In her copious amounts of free time, she sells custom baby hats, tutus, and embroidery in her etsy shop www.AlicesHandmadeCrafts.etsy.com.
(photo by videocrab)
Filed under fears, guest posts, misconceptions, television, trust, unschooling
“You just have to let go and trust it.”
I read that on Facebook yesterday. It was simply a comment about – of all things – a keyboard application for an Android phone. One person was endorsing a particular type of keyboard, a friend said he’d tried it but couldn’t get used to it, and the first responded with those words:
You just have to let go and trust it.
I realize this was just about a keyboard. It wasn’t about life, but it might as well have been. Pure trust may well be the answer to a more peaceful life with our kids, with our spouses, and with ourselves.
I think of the issue of trust often when I’m answering common questions and fears about unschooling and mindful parenting especially.
What if they just want to play video games all day?
How will I know they’re learning?
Won’t they be lazy?
How will they get into college?
How will they learn right from wrong if I don’t punish them?
How will they learn responsibility if I don’t require them to do chores?
My answer to all of the above is this: Equip yourself with information, tools, and the support of people who have walked this walk ahead of you. And then let go and trust…. trust your children, trust yourself, and trust your instinct! When I first started this journey fourteen years ago, I read all the books… read all the Dr Sears and Alfie Kohn and John Holt and John Taylor Gatto. But I never would have accepted any of it, never would have taken any of it to heart if it didn’t agree with my own instinct, my own inner voice, my own inner logic… that part of you that says, “Wow, this just makes sense to me!” I found that part of me, and I learned to trust it.
John Holt says,
Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.
And it’s true. It starts with letting go and learning to TRUST. Whether it’s unschooling, parenting, or Android keyboards.
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Filed under gentle parenting, trust, unschooling
I'm Jen... the shy, lost girl from the east coast who married at nineteen and eventually found herself - four kids later - in the middle of the desert. I like chocolate. You can read more about me here.
