Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 23
September 18, 2019
EU194: Stretching Our Comfort Zones
Compilation episode time! This time, let’s explore the idea of stretching our comfort zones.
This can come up in various ways along our unschooling journey. Often, we first encounter it when we’re actively deschooling and questioning so much of the conventional wisdom around learning and parenting that we’ve absorbed growing up. We can also find ourselves playing at the edges of our comfort zones if our child becomes interested in something that we’re not fond of, or we’re unfamiliar with. Or maybe our child’s learning journey wanders further off the beaten path than we were first expecting. More stretching.
So, in this episode, I’ve brought together snippets from eight different podcast conversations that I hope you might find helpful and inspiring the next time you bump up against the edges of your comfort zones.
Audio snippets taken from these episodes …
EU016: Supporting Unschooling Teens with Jenny Cyphers
EU093: Unschooling Dads with Robert Gottlieb
EU097: Unschooling and Diversity with Erika Davis-Pitre
EU110: Unschooling Dads & Music with Alan Marshall
EU122: Unschooling Passions with Robin Bentley
EU131: Deschooling with Maria Randolph
EU135: Ten Questions with Anna Brown
EU162: Ten Questions with Alex Peace
Episode transcript
Credits
Image by HowardWilks from Pixabay.
September 11, 2019
EU193: Unschooling Younger Kids with Martha Delmore
Martha Delmore joins me this week to talk about unschooling with younger children. Unschooling wasn’t on her radar before she had kids—she’s a former high school teacher—but her desire to maintain and enhance her relationships with them led her down this unexpected path. We dive into attachment parenting, when family members question our choices, the transition to unschooling, and lots more!
Questions for Martha
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
I’d love to hear how you discovered your passion for treating children as whole people so early in your parenting journey.
What aspects of attachment parenting have you found to be most valuable for your relationships with your children and how do they play out in your days?
It can be challenging when our parents or extended family aren’t familiar with our style of parenting. Can you share some ways you’ve handled those comments or questions?
I’d love to talk about the transition from attachment parenting to unschooling. How did you discover unschooling? Did your days change as your son reached school age?
What is your favourite thing about your unschooling days right now?
Episode transcript
September 4, 2019
EU192: Unschooling to College with Amy Milstein
Amy Milstein’s two children have grown up unschooling. Last year, her eldest decided she wanted to go to college. We dive into how they handled the legalities of unschooling in New York, her daughter’s journey to college, and the lovely flow of their unschooling days along the way. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!
Questions for Amy
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
What did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
Your family lives in New York state, which has a standardized testing requirement for homeschoolers. I saw you mention on your blog that the process was mostly easy and laid back. For those who may be in similar circumstances, can you share how you went about it?
I know your daughter, Maya, chose to go to college last year. I’d love to know how that choice come about and how you helped her along the way.
She’s finished her first year now. What was the experience like for her? Has she chosen to return?
What has surprised you most about how unschooling has unfolded in your lives?
Things mentioned in the show
You can find Amy’s unschooling writing at unschoolingnyc.com and her photography at amymilstein.com.
Amy mentioned her early influences, Wendy Priesnitz, Sandra Dodd, and Wendy’s magazine, Life Learning
The teen travel group Amy mentioned, Unschool Adventures
Episode transcript
August 28, 2019
EU191: Q&A with Anna and Pam
Anna Brown joins me this week to dive into listener questions!
Question Summaries
Mom hears many parents on the podcast talking about hanging out with their kids so much more now that they’re unschooling. But since she stopped limiting screen time back in January, her boys, 15, 13, and 10, play online games. Her question: “Will they ever stop playing computer games so we can hang out together?!!! Nothing is as enticing as disappearing off into a fantasy land with their mates online ALL day. I feel fed up and I see much less of them than when they were at school last June.”
Dad is wondering if it’s safe/wise/possible for parents who are themselves very laid back and relaxed to unschool their kids. What if the parents lack that motivation/drive, and ‘leave it to the kids to find their own way’?
Mom is considering unschooling her 14-year-old. He hates school and has trouble with critical thinking and reading comprehension, but she wonders if it’s too late to get started.
Mom is a type A personality and avid “rule follower” who started homeschooling last year. She’d love to dive fully into unschooling but is struggling with falling back on her old beliefs and fears.
Things discussed in the episode
Pam mentioned the video game compilation episode
Anna mentioned the interview with Amy Martinez
Episode transcript
August 21, 2019
EU190: Unpacking Unschooling Memes with Sue Patterson
Sue Patterson joins me this week to dive into five popular unschooling memes. Memes can be quick, inspirational pick-me-ups, but we don’t need to stop there—we can use them as a springboard to learn more about both ourselves and unschooling. It’s so worth doing the work.
The five popular memes we discuss
1. “You cannot raise your children as your parents raised you, because your parents raised you for a world that no longer exists.”
2. “Not every place you fit in is where you belong.”
3. “I don’t have a 9-5 job. I have a “when I open my eyes to when I close my eyes” job.”
4. “The reason that kids need to learn to read so early in school is because in school kids read about doing stuff instead of doing stuff. When kids live life outside of school they actually get to do stuff, so it’s not as important to read about it in order to learn.”
5. “In the end, I am the only one who can give my kids a happy mother who loves life.”
{ taken from Sue’s Unschooling Mom 2 Mom Instagram feed }
Things mentioned in the episode
Pam’s blog post, Are You Playing the Role of Mother?
Find Sue on Instagram and Facebook.
Learn more about Sue’s membership group.
Episode transcript
August 14, 2019
EU189: Ten Questions with Amy Martinez
Amy Martinez joins me this week to talk about her family’s move to unschooling. Amy is a mother of five, who range in age from 15-29. They had time in public school, homeschooling, and ultimately moved to unschooling. Her insights on those transitions, on living in a big family, and on the connections and amazing relationships that have developed with unschooling are inspiring!
Ten Questions for Amy
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
What did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
With parents who are discovering unschooling with older kids, it’s pretty common to hear concerns like, “If I let my kids decide what to do, what to eat, or when to sleep, they’ll play video games all night long while eating only junk food!” The three youngest of your five kids were older when you moved from a school at home approach to unschooling. What was your experience?
The transition from a more conventional lifestyle with rules, expectations, and curfews to an unschooling lifestyle focused on trust, respect, discussions, and grace can be a bumpy one. We’re learning a whole new way of engaging with our children. What was that transition like for you guys?
I regularly get questions from parents with larger families about the challenge of trying to meet the many needs of everybody in the household with mutual consideration and respect. With five children, how would you answer that?
Speaking of five kids, sibling relationships in unschooling families can look really different too, can’t they?
When we connected earlier, you mentioned that you’ve learned some things from your kids about handling arbitrary societal norms and the pressure to conform. I’d love to hear more about that!
What has surprised you most about how unschooling has unfolded in your lives?
Another topic you mentioned earlier that caught my eye was how we can help our kids really feel at home, rather than like perpetual guests in our house. I’ve not heard it put that way before, but it’s definitely something I’ve thought about, especially as my kids have gotten older. Can you share more about that?
Looking back, what, for you, has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?
Things mentioned in the episode
Conference talk that Amy mentioned: A Family of Individuals
The Christian and unschooling sites I mentioned are christian-unschooling.com and The Path Less Taken
Sandra Dodd also has a page with more resources for Christian unschoolers
Episode Transcript
August 7, 2019
EU188: Our Unschooling Work with Jen Keefe
Jen Keefe joins me this week! Jen was on the podcast almost three years ago and I really enjoyed learning a bit about how their unschooling lives have grown and changed since then. We dive into what she found challenging as they moved to unschooling, how it’s been life-changing for her as well as the kids, video games, unschooling resources, the podcast she’s started, Real Women’s Work, her favourite thing about their unschooling days right now and lots more!
Questions for Jen
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
What was something you found challenging as your family moved to unschooling and how did you work through it?
With years of unschooling under your belt, what does the phrase “kids are learning all the time” mean to you now?
Unschooling can be life-changing not only for the kids, but for us as well. Has that been your experience?
Since we last spoke, you’ve started a podcast called ‘Real Women’s Work.’ I’d love to hear the story behind how that came about.
What is your favourite thing about your unschooling days right now?
Things mentioned in the episode
Jen’s first podcast episode
Check out Jen’s Real Women’s Work podcast, and find her on Instagram and Facebook
Jen’s new blog for unschooling and personal reflection is ponderingjen.com
Joyce Fetteroll’s website, Joyfully Rejoycing
Sandra Dodd’s website
Recent podcast episode with Talia Bartoe
Episode Transcript
Read the episode transcript here
July 31, 2019
EU187: Time and the Wild Landscape of Unschooling
I originally wrote this essay for Rosemary Magazine, for their winter issue, which had the theme, “wildschool.” I loved playing with that idea!
There’s the outer wildness of living outside the structure of compulsory school. In the world, rather than in the classroom. Kids in the grocery store in the middle of the day. Running around the local park in the middle of the week. In most places, that’s decidedly outside the box.
And then there’s the inner wildness. Learning on their own timetable. Following their curiosity and interests rather than a curriculum. Cultivating their creativity rather than encouraging conformity. The time to daydream. To ask themselves questions and contemplate possibilities. To choose what to do. To explore the edges of their comfort zones. To discover how they tick.
This way of living—of welcoming children into our lives with warmth and grace—flies counter to much of the current conventional wisdom around parent-child relationships which urges us to control their wildness so they fit neatly and quietly into our adult-centred culture. Into the box. Tamed. And many of us deeply absorbed those cultural messages growing up. They feel like truth. So, when we lift the lid and peek out, the wild world of unschooling seems almost unfathomable.
And the wildest, most subversive thing of all? Giving our children an abundance of free time.
In this essay, Time and the Wild Landscape of Unschooling, I dive into some of the beautiful ways that free time weaves through our unschooling lives and helps our children stay in touch with their wildness.
Things mentioned in the episode
Check out Rosemary Magazine
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ‘s book, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life
Milva McDonald’s podcast episode, The Gift of Time
Carol Black’s essay, On the Wildness of Children
Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, written by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire
Isaac Asimov’s essay on creativity, Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
Rachel Rainbolt’s podcast episode, The Value of Relationships
Adrian Peace-William’s podcast episode, Growing Up Unschooling
{ picture credit: Michael Laricchia, taken in Norway in 2018. }
Episode transcript
You can read the essay here.
July 24, 2019
EU186: Sparkle and Zest and Unschooling with Teresa Hess
Teresa Hess is an unschooling mom with three kids and the family—Teresa, her husband, and the kids—live in a cool co-housing community on an island in Washington state. Teresa and I had a wonderful conversation about their unschooling lives, diving into the shift to peaceful parenting, the ever-deepening spiral of mothering and self-awareness, the concept of “joy,” and lots more!
Questions for Teresa
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
What did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
A couple months ago you posted a wonderful manifesto on your blog, explaining that you are a radical unschooling family and listing some of things you believe that led you to that choice. I urge everyone to go read it! In it, you also talk about how you came to this way of parenting, and I think that’s a big shift for many people as they come to unschooling. Can you
share what that process looked like for you?
You have a beautiful blog post titled, ‘The Storm and the Ocean Mother,’ and I want to share this quote from the end of the post: “This is how I learn to be more fully myself: by mothering my children. And this is how I learn to mother my children: by being more fully myself.” I love how clearly you described that ever-spiraling cycle and it’s been my experience
as well. Can you share your thoughts about that?
You also wrote recently about learning to follow our intuitive sense of our own Joy. That’s something else that we learn in ever-deepening cycles, isn’t it? It sounds pretty simple, “follow the joy,” yet I named my website Living Joyfully more than a decade ago and I’m still discovering the depths of that phrase. Can you share some tips for people who’d like to explore the concept of joy and how it weaves so elegantly into our unschooling lives?
What’s your favourite thing about your unschooling days right now?
Things mentioned in the episode
You can find Teresa’s blog at sparkleandzest.com
And here are the blog posts mentioned, Manifesto, The Storm and the Ocean Mother, and Joy Stepping Stones
You can also find Teresa on Facebook and Instagram
Episode transcript
July 17, 2019
EU185: Deschooling with Talia Bartoe
Talia Bartoe is an unschooling mom with four young children who have never been to school. We have a wonderful conversation about her deschooling journey—as someone who excelled in school, she had no idea this would be in her future. Her excitement and gratitude for finding this path and for the beautiful connections that have blossomed with her family is contagious!
Questions for Talia
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
What did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of deschooling so far?
For me, one of the biggest surprises of moving to unschooling was how much I learned about myself along the way. And how valuable that learning has been for our family as a whole! Did you find that as well?
Can you share some tips on navigating your unschooling days with four young children?
In a recent interview you mentioned that your joy is multiplied ten-fold when you see the adventure through your children’s eyes. It’s almost like reawakening, isn’t it? Can you share a bit about this aspect of your deschooling journey?
What’s your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now?
Things mentioned in the episode
You can find Talia on Facebook and Instagram
Talia’s blog, Our Crazy Joyful Life
Talia’s interview with collectingadventures.com
Alfie Kohn’s book, Unconditional Parenting
Pam Leo’s book, Connection Parenting
Joyce Fetteroll’s website, Joyfully Rejoycing
Jennifer McGrail’s blog, The Path Less Taken
Episode transcript
