Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 31
March 14, 2018
EU115: The Unschooling Journey with Hema Bharadwaj, Part 2
Hema Bharawaj is an unschooling mom with two children and an amazing artist. Hema and I talk about her illustrations for my new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. She talks about the inspiration behind the images and shares wonderful stories about her own unschooling journey. Our conversation spanned almost two hours so I decided to break it into two parts to give you more time to savour her stories and insights—here’s part 2. And if you’d like to see the illustrations we’re talking about, be sure to check out the episode transcript! I added them alongside our conversation so you can see some of the aspects we reference.
Quote of the Week
“Even today, like at night, he suddenly says, “Do you want to have a cup of tea?” And I go, “Okay.” That’s my cue. It’s like, ‘I’m going to have a chat. He’s going to talk.’ I get so excited and I just change my plans immediately because it is incredible what comes up.” ~ Hema Bharadwaj
Links to things mentioned in the show
Find Pam’s new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, here: books2read.com/unschoolingjourney. The print edition is available on Amazon.
Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Part 1 of my conversation with Hema
Q&A Round Table episode 108, where we talked a lot about flow
Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird
YouTuber Lily Sing’s video, Draw My Life
Hema’s unschooling blog, The Bharadwaj Knights
Hema’s artist Facebook page and website, hemabharadwaj.com
Episode Transcript
March 13, 2018
The Journey of a Book
I wrote this in my December 2014 newsletter, in a section aptly titled, The Unschooling Journey in 2015:
I am very excited to dig more deeply into the unschooling journey next year on the blog!
For at least the last couple of years, I’ve been fascinated with Joseph Campbell’s idea of the hero’s journey. Each time I’ve come across bits and pieces of it in other contexts, I’ve been struck by how well it align with moments and feelings I recall from my own unschooling journey.
The idea of venturing forth from the common or conventional world, undertaking trials that help us more deeply understand ourselves and our lives, and returning from this mysterious adventure and reintegrating with society, seems ripe with parallels to the unschooling journey. I’m thinking that looking at the journey of learning about and choosing to live an unschooling lifestyle through the lens of the hero’s journey may reveal new insights and a deeper understanding of the process.
Though maybe not. LOL! That’s the adventure of discovery—you don’t know where your exploration may lead.
You don’t know where something might lead. And that’s okay! It doesn’t mean don’t start.
So, I began getting up early each morning while everyone else was still sleeping, sitting at the kitchen table with my journal and my copy of Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and taking notes. Chapter by chapter. Stage by stage. And then gathering my thoughts into blog posts.
I loved the boundaries of having an editorial calendar for the project: a new post each week. I also remember the most challenging section of the whole undertaking. I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around Campbell’s stage seven, ‘The Meeting with the Goddess.’ It felt different than the stages that had come before. I had some leeway in my schedule, so I decided to go to the next stage, ‘Woman as Temptress,’ to see if there were clues that would help me put it in context. I still couldn’t put my finger on it! My worry grew as I scrambled ahead to stage nine, ‘Atonement with the Father,’ desperately looking for the thread that I believed would tie things together for me.
And finally, I found it! I realized that, through stage six, the ‘Road of Trials,’ we had gained a good sense of how day-to-day, hands-on unschooling works and these next stages were tackling the more spiritual, or bigger picture, aspect of the journey—our inner work. Now we were learning to accept the value of all our experiences, to accept ourselves and our human nature, and to accept the people around us where they are on their own journey. The thread was a growing understanding and acceptance of what it means to be human.
~ pages from my journal ~
Once I hit publish on the final post of the series on June 29, 2015, I wanted to leave things to settle out for a while. If the point of the blog series was to satisfy my curiosity around unschooling through the lens of the hero’s journey, it had kinda failed. What it had actually done was fan the flames! I wanted more, but I wasn’t sure what was next. I knew my subconscious needed some time and space to play, so I kept busy with other things and waited to see what bubbled up.
Eventually, the urge to turn the series into a book arose. But I didn’t just want to publish what I’d already written; that wouldn’t satisfy my thirst for more. But how? What “more?” It occurred to me that one of the things I loved so much about The Hero with a Thousand Faces was all the stories, myths, and legends that Campbell used to illustrate the different stages. But that felt super-intimidating to me! Researching a wide range of fiction stories to find those whose connections to the unschooling journey felt enlightening? That felt like I’d be stretching myself well beyond my non-fiction writing comfort zone.
I sat with that for a while, reminding myself that stretching inspires learning and growth. And that if I didn’t like the end product, I didn’t have to publish it. That helped.
So, I started researching. And reading stories. Lots of stories. I slowly began to make progress.
One of the books that inspired me to tackle a book around the hero’s journey was Christopher Vogler’s now classic, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. The story goes that, in 1985, Christopher, a story analyst at Disney, wrote a seven-page memo describing Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey through the lens of storytelling for movies. It’s reach grew, from Disney to Hollywood, and he eventually expanded it into a book which was published in 1992. One of the things I found interesting was that Vogler distilled Campbell’s seventeen stages into twelve stages. I understood his amendments, but when it came to my own work, I always felt, ‘Who am I to fiddle with Joseph Campbell’s brilliant work?’
Until May 2016. Something shifted. As I talk about in The Unschooling Journey book, it was probably sparked by something ordinary, but, in that particular moment, it made a new connection. I felt empowered to take ownership of my work in a new way. I saw where strictly sticking to Campbell’s structure was weakening my narrative around the unschooling journey and I was reminded again that the hero has a thousand faces. I realized I would be adding real value by tweaking the structure to more closely align with the unschooling journey experience. I’d finally found my voice!
Here’s what happened:
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Unschooling Journey
DEPARTURE, SEPARATION
CHOOSING UNSCHOOLING
The Call to Adventure
The Call to Unschooling
Refusal of the Call
Refusing the Call
Supernatural Aid
Finding Our Guides
Crossing of the First Threshold
Crossing the Threshold to Unschooling
Belly of the Whale
Embracing Beginner’s Mind
DESCENT, INITIATION, PENETRATION
DESCHOOLING
Road of Trials
Challenging Our Beliefs about Learning
Shifting from Control to Connection
Meeting with the Goddess
Accepting the Value of All Experiences
Woman as Temptress
Accepting Our Nature
Atonement with the Father
Accepting Others Where They Are
Apotheosis
Cultivating Kindness and Compassion
The Ultimate Boon
Unschooling with Confidence and Grace
RETURN
LIVING UNSCHOOLING
Refusal of the Return
The Trek Back
The Magic Flight
Rescue from Without
Crossing of the Return Threshold
Crossing the Return Threshold
Master of Two Worlds
Being Ourselves in the World
Freedom to Live
The Flow of Our Unschooling Lives
Wow! What a difference those seemingly small tweaks made!
That summer, I played with this next version of the book. Figuring out how to break the ‘Road of Trials’ chapter apart and how to combine the first few ‘Return’ chapters together. More writing and editing. Still researching and reading stories.
What else happened that summer? I discovered Hema Bharadwaj’s art! She attended our first in-person Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit and while Anne Ohman and I were speaking and sharing, Hema was intently listening and drawing. By the end of the weekend event, we were all admiring the art in her notebook. After returning home, she decided to make prints! Maybe because a bunch of us wouldn’t stop asking. (I now have two of her beautiful Summit-inspired prints hanging in my home.)
More subconscious bubbling, and when Hema attended our second Summit, in October 2016, I shared my newborn thoughts around the possibility of her illustrating the book. Was she interested? Yes! So, after we returned home, I sent the in-progress manuscript to her to look at. As Hema mentioned in our podcast conversation, I didn’t give her a lot of direction—I wanted to see what bubbled up for her. Here’s how she described it:
When I read your book, I found it so rich and I was like, “Oh my goodness, she has visually made this book so rich, what am I going to bring to this? I cannot possibly add to it.” And short of illustrating the actual stories and my theological inspiration and the hero’s path itself, I was wondering what would come to me. I really wondered for a little while. And I would sketch and doodle and then, all of a sudden, it became clearer to me that I am a hero right here.
So is Ravi, so are my kids; we are heroes of our path. What does that journey feel like to us? And so, it became my own, and then I was like, “Wait a second, this is becoming clearer.” So, I kind of followed my feelings towards these illustrations and they came from that space. I was not sure whether it would match your vision and I was so thrilled when you felt the same.
I was thrilled too!
So now it’s well into 2017 and I’m working on the manuscript with my editor and Hema’s working away on her illustrations. My subconscious is marinating in thoughts like, ‘this isn’t a “how to” book,’ and ‘no two journeys are exactly alike.’ I knew I wanted us—writer and reader—to take this journey together.
I think it was around this point that I began envisioning the print edition of the book as a journal—with Hema’s illustrations as colouring pages, lined pages for journaling, and some blank pages for doodling. Inspiration grew as I recalled my family’s love for the book, Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons. It’s a beautifully illustrated book presented as the journal of famed dragonologist, Dr Ernest Drake, containing all the knowledge he managed to gather about these rare and secretive beasts.
It would mean that each print copy of The Unschooling Journey would be, with its scribbled notes and doodles, a one-of-a-kind journal of its hero. YOU. A collection of the unique combination of a-ha moments and insights that have been most meaningful to you on your personal unschooling journey. It would be a place for you to go when fear or doubt creeps back, reminding you of the really important stuff you already know.
That thought still gives me goosebumps! It’s been a long time in the making, but I’m really proud of this book. And I’ve really enjoyed the unexpected but delightful twists and turns the journey has taken along the way.
Here’s how I summed up the last three years in the book:
What I’ve discovered through this project is that, while the book is (finally) done, my fascination with the unschooling journey is as strong as ever. As is so often the case, when our story begins, what we want and what we need are two very different things. When I began my unschooling journey, what I wanted was to learn how to create an unschooling learning environment for my children that would replace school. What I needed was to learn and grow as a person so I could create a fulfilling life that included my children as equal and whole human beings.
It turns out that the essence of the hero’s journey is about the exploration of what it means to be human.
It’s important that the journeys we chose to take feel meaningful to us. Those who undertake a journey from a sense of obligation will mostly be going through the motions. When we freely choose our path, our sense of self grows as we move forward. We discover that no experience is a waste of our time. That the challenges, the crises, and the transitions we find ourselves navigating all have value as we process and integrate them into our understanding of ourselves, our children, and our world.
Joseph Campbell talks about finding your bliss and following it. Not because that is what will be easy, but because that is what will be meaningful to you. Which means you will tenaciously fight your way through the tricksters, the monsters, and the many other obstacles you’ll encounter on the journey to get to the kindness, compassion, and grace that lies ahead on your path.
The unschooling journey is a splendid example of a hero’s journey that can be deeply meaningful for those who choose to embrace it.
Are you ready to embrace your unschooling journey? I hope so!
And if you’d like my company, pick up a print copy of The Unschooling Journey and make it your own. 
March 7, 2018
EU114: The Unschooling Journey with Hema Bharadwaj, Part 1
Hema Bharawaj is an unschooling mom with two children and an amazing artist. Hema and I talk about her illustrations for my new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. She talks about the inspiration behind the images and shares wonderful stories about her own unschooling journey. Our conversation spanned almost two hours so I decided to break it into two parts to give you more time to savour her stories and insights. And if you’d like to see the illustrations we’re talking about, be sure to check out the episode transcript! I added them alongside our conversation so you can see some of the aspects we reference.
Quote of the Week
“My spirit got unschooling. I got it, I had wanted that all my life but all of the parts of me that had gone through school, that had been raised by parents who were doing their best and saying, “Hey, you know, we need you to learn this and this and this, only if you learn this will you be successful in life.” All of that was getting shaken up.” ~ Hema Bharadwaj
Links to things mentioned in the show
Find Pam’s new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, here: books2read.com/unschoolingjourney. The print edition is available on Amazon.
Hema’s unschooling blog, The Bharadwaj Knights
The videos Hema mentioned, Hema’s Food Chronicles
Hema first found Sandra Dodd’s unschooling website
Jon Muth’s book, Zen Shorts
Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Hema’s artist Facebook page and website, hemabharadwaj.com
Episode Transcript
March 4, 2018
Leaving the Ordinary World Behind
Below is an excerpt from my new book The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, a weave of myths, contemporary stories, and tales from my journey. It’s not a “how to” book—no two paths through the world of unschooling have the same twists and turns—yet having a general sense of where you are on your journey can bring valuable insight as you navigate the challenges that will inevitably appear. I share this book as a field guide to the stages and characters you are likely to encounter in some form on your unschooling journey. The print edition (Amazon) is also a journal for you to document your journey alongside.
***
Here’s how Joseph Campbell describes this stage: “The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died.” (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)
My first thought was, “What?!” Don’t we now find ourselves in this new and mysterious world of unschooling, excited to be on our way? We’ve worked so hard to answer this unconventional call, discover our guides, and make our way past the three heads of Cerberus that stood at the threshold, and now, apparently, we “appear to have died?”
What’s up with that?
Interestingly, our journey has another surprise in store for us. There is one last important step the hero must take before they enter a new world, and that’s transitioning to a learning mindset, otherwise known as beginner’s mind.
Right now, you probably believe that much of your existing knowledge about the ordinary world will be applicable—even helpful—on your journey. Spoiler alert: it won’t. In fact, it’s more likely to get in your way. On this unschooling journey, you will question so much of what you think you already know. If you don’t first diligently widen your perspective, you may find yourself clinging to your existing paradigms, and feel the urge to defend them rather than being open to seeing the possibilities that this new world has to offer. You may have experienced some of those defensive feelings in the last stage.
As we begin this stage, for all our excitement about entering this new world, we’re also still fearful of letting go of the old one. We want the two worlds to mesh. We seek out compromises. “But you still teach them to read, right?”
While I understand (and remember!) this wish to keep one foot in both worlds, it takes both our feet to keep moving forward. The first step is finding the courage to lift up that second foot and leave the ordinary world behind once and for all. It is our metaphorical point of no return, the last stage of the departure phase of our journey.
Being swallowed is a popular image in stories that symbolizes a transition. It describes the hero’s figurative death in the ordinary world and their rebirth in the new one. Philosophically, it’s about shedding our preconceptions (assumptions that made sense in the ordinary world), and embracing beginner’s mind (open to learning about the new world). Campbell calls this stage the “Belly of the Whale.” It’s an apt metaphor, and this whale comes in a thousand different shapes and sizes.
Of course, there’s the classic biblical story of Jonah and the whale. Jonah, unwilling to carry out a task that God had set for him, refuses the call and makes a run for it, determined to stay in his ordinary world. He attempts to escape by setting sail on a ship, but he is eventually tossed into the sea where he is swallowed by a whale. There he reconsiders his actions and, after three days, is disgorged—reborn—committed to his new world of serving God.
In The Matrix, Neo wakes up in his battery pod after taking the red pill. His escape from this “womb” closely mimics a human baby’s birth: it’s Neo’s rebirth into his new world outside the matrix.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the role of the whale is played by the Hogwarts Express. Harry leaves his ordinary world via King’s Cross station and the magical platform nine and three-quarters. On the train, he gets his first taste of magic and realizes that he, like us at this point on our journey, knows little about the new world he’s hurtling toward. But he disembarks excited and ready to learn.
In The Hunger Games, a train also marks Katniss Everdeen’s transition from her ordinary world, District 12, to the new world of the Capitol. She arrives determined to learn all she can so that she can survive the trials of the Hunger Games arena.
What might your whale be?
stage 5: embracing beginner’s mind
Like me, you may find that your whale is your home. I found that we spent a lot of time at home as we transitioned away from our ordinary world. Home felt like a sanctuary to all of us. For me, it was a place where I was free from judging eyes, at a time when I was most vulnerable to them. For my kids—turning ten, eight, and five that year—it was a place where they could dive into their play with abandon and make up for lost time.
We still occasionally went out to visit, but I found I had less and less to contribute to conversations with friends and acquaintances. I wasn’t interested in converting friends to unschooling in any way, and though I was happy to answer any questions they had, those tapered off quickly as the conversation soon turned to the typical challenges of school and their children’s behaviour. Those things were fast fading from my life, and I found that, with fewer and fewer things in common to connect over, we naturally connected less and less. I suppose that to our extended family and friends, we did “appear to have died,” as Campbell describes.
But really, my family and I were happily cocooning deep in the belly of the whale: our basement. It was set up as a big playroom for the kids. Couches with removable pillows meant blanket forts for days on end. The walk-in closet under the stairs wasn’t Harry’s bedroom, but it was filled with shelves, which in turn were filled with games and toys. There was a large kid-height table for crafts and lots of floor space for play. A TV with game consoles. A computer with Internet access. An elaborate hamster city with cages, tunnels, and accessories. Lots of light. We spent months there, having a lot of fun!
It was natural for us to withdraw from the ordinary world, and it may be right for you as well. This time in the belly gives you the space to play with the idea that you may know little about this new world you are choosing to enter. As part of your metaphorical rebirth, you are learning to embrace the idea that we are the equivalent of young children in this new world.
But it can be hard to admit we don’t know things. Most of us have probably grown up with the idea that, as adults—as parents—we are supposed to know all the answers, yet, here we are, back to feeling the vulnerability of a child. To live with this uncertainty is challenging. Definitely uncomfortable. But knowing that it’s natural to withdraw from the ordinary world at this stage of our journey may help ease our discomfort.
During this time, I watched the kids rediscover the joyful abandon of playing to their heart’s content. I also had time to reconnect with them, and to ponder how well the conventional wisdom about children and learning that I had absorbed over the years meshed with the increasingly beautiful scenes I was seeing play out in front of me. As the gap between the worlds widened even further, I eventually chose to pick up my other foot and take that last step. I realized I had so much to learn about this new world! And that no matter my standing in my old world, I was a baby when it came to unschooling. And I was smitten.
And why is this image of rebirth so helpful to us on our journey?
Because babies are the ultimate learners. Their drive to explore their world and learn how it works knows no bounds! Not only are they insatiably curious, they also aren’t yet carrying the weight of conventional expectations. They look at the world with a beautiful sense of wonder. They live wholeheartedly, putting all their being into each moment—good and bad. And they aren’t afraid to ask questions. Boy, do they ask a lot of questions!
It’s important at this stage to make clear, unbiased observations rather than jump to judgement based on our old ways of seeing things. We will feel freer. With this fresh perspective, we begin to feel comfortable asking questions again, even if only of ourselves. The root of the word question is “quest,” and we are on a quest to understand unschooling.
And remember, our children are our guides—our shining examples of how to do this, of how to re-engage our childlike curiosity and sense of wonder. It is important that, as we enter the unschooling world, we have a real sense of leaving our ordinary world behind, and understand that we are the equivalent of newborns in this new world. Embracing beginner’s mind is the ultimate learning mindset.
***
This is an excerpt from my new book The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, a weave of myths, contemporary stories, and tales from my journey. It’s not a “how to” book—no two paths through the world of unschooling have the same twists and turns—yet having a general sense of where you are on your journey can bring valuable insight as you navigate the challenges that will inevitably appear. I share this book as a field guide to the stages and characters you are likely to encounter in some form on your unschooling journey. The print edition (Amazon) is also a journal for you to document your journey alongside. Order your copy now.
February 28, 2018
EU113: Deschooling with Megan Valnes
Megan Valnes is an unschooling mom with five children and we have so much fun diving deep into her deschooling experience. We talk about finding helpful unschooling information and groups online, the parenting paradigm shifts we make as we embrace unschooling, her experience managing the diverse needs of five children, her husband’s experience as they moved to unschooling, her favourite thing about unschooling right now, and lots more.
Quote of the Week
“Unschooling is a simple philosophy that when you read it, you are like, ‘Oh yes, that makes so much sense.’ But to actually implement it and fully integrate that philosophy into your life, it’s so different because it radically contradicts what we grew up knowing and understanding about the world. It’s like suddenly four plus four does not equal eight. Or, there is a possibility it might equal nine. Is it possible to stretch your brain out that far? Where you can think, ‘It’s a possibility what I have been doing all these years was not right?’” ~ Megan Valnes
Questions for Megan
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
After we’ve chosen unschooling for our family, the learning doesn’t stop there, does it. We’re just getting started! And while the growing amount of information about unschooling available is awesome, it also means more sifting to find the sources with solid information that connects well with us. How have you found that process unfolding for you?
Another important aspect of the deschooling process revolves around parenting—it turns out, helping our children’s learning thrive, means shifting our parenting paradigm from “having control over our children” to “being in connection with our children.” What has that shift looked like for you?
With five children, I imagine there are a number of different personalities at play. Can you share your experience around finding ways to meet their diverse needs?
How has the transition to unschooling been for your husband? How have you been helping him with the shift to this very unconventional lifestyle?
Right now, what’s your favourite thing about your unschooling lifestyle?
Links to things mentioned in the show
Pam’s new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, is out! You can find it on the usual retailers here: books2read.com/unschoolingjourney
Pam’s interview on Rachel Rainbolt’s Sage Family Podcast
Megan first found Sandra Dodd’s unschooling website
Megan’s Instagram, @momwifesuperstar
Episode Transcript
February 21, 2018
EU112: Q&A Round Table
Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join Pam to answer listener questions. This month we dig into questions around helping a child who feels powerless and defeated, how to support a child who left school six months ago, personal hygiene choices, and the challenge of different personalities and meeting their needs.
Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table!
Listener Questions
Katerina’s Question (from the UK) [TIME: 5:19]
Hi, reading Q&A episode 95 gave me goosebumps. Validating someone’s feelings makes so much sense. I know how I feel when I feel understood. Someone once said that to feel understood is to feel LOVED.
My 11-year-old, though, often says: “I have the worst luck in the world.” He gets frustrated often while video gaming and when he can’t do something (like his Nerf gun is jammed, his shoe laces are not cooperating etc) and his explanation is always: it is because of my luck. It breaks my heart to see him feeling so powerless and defeated. I guess what I’m asking is how to help him feel a bit more capable and “lucky.” Apart from validating, which I’m working on now.
Thank you.
Lucie’s Question (from Quebec, Canada) [TIME: 21:03]
Hello Pam and thank you so much for the podcasts you do. I have only discovered them recently and they have been very helpful and reassuring in our journey to unschooling.
I have a 10-and-a-half-year-old son named Julien who was attending our local Waldorf school. I myself am a trained Waldorf teacher and a professional gardener who now works at home growing sprouts. I live alone with my son but he sees his father quite often. He and I are very good friends.
My son has been out of school since May of 2017. He had become very unhappy at school. He showed little interest for most of the curriculum; not understanding why he had to learn what he was told to learn.
Socially, it was hard for him to connect with his peers in the school context. He was often left out, rejected or bullied. Since he was limited to making friends with the boys in his class, Julien found it difficult to find someone with the same interests or with whom he could truly connect.
He was diagnosed with dyspraxia and of course, all written work, handwork or any fine motor skill activities were a challenge for him.
As a result of that school experience, Julien felt that nobody loved him. His self-esteem was degrading and he just did not want to go to school anymore. Every morning was an ordeal: he did not want to get up, get dressed and he almost walked backwards as I dropped him off to school.
Julien has definitely been happier since he has been out of school. He is finally able to live his days at his own rhythm which is so important to him! He plays and plays a lot! He much enjoys the freedom and space he has to do what he wants to do. He is not the kind of child you can force things on.
It has now been 6 months of unschooling basically since I do not follow any curriculum. I felt that my son just needed to be free and rebuild his self-esteem. But now what, I ask myself?
My son’s interests are quite limited to a few things. I am trying to create a stimulating environment but it seems like very few of the things I bring are of interest to him. I suggest activities and outings but he responds with little enthusiasm. I would love to help him research stuff and work on a project together but none of that is happening!
He seems to be mostly happy with his limited field of interests but he also complains about being bored at times. I myself sense that he needs to broaden his horizons and be stimulated.
I am a very curious person who likes to explore and try everything! But he is not. I am a high achiever; he is not. Our interests are not the same and therefore it is not always easy to live our days together. I am really struggling right now. I am wondering if I should follow a curriculum or if he would be better off going back to school after all. It is hard for me to accept him as he is right now. I hear all these great stories about other unschoolers and ours is not like that.
And then the fears and worry creep in. I worry that he will never develop any other interests or passions. I worry that he will always be closed off to trying out new things and not learn a variety of things. And this unschooling experience is supposed to be fun right? How can I make it so? because right now, it is not.
His father is worrying even more and as a result, he tries to force ideas and specific activities on our son. He would like me to push our son to have interests ‘of value’ (besides video games) and to work on them as a research project of some sort. He said he was not pushed enough to perform as a child and he does not want his child to turn up like him.
I too want to be ‘living joyfully’ with my son. My main reason for taking Julien out of school was that he be happy again and that he rediscovers the joys of living on this earth. My deepest wish for him is that he flourishes with all his vibrant colours: colours that are his own. I want him to learn to listen to his own voice and to trust his heart. To never lose sight of who he is and to nourish and honour the great being he is.
So there it is! I hope you can make some sense out of this. I am just wondering what my role has to be now and am I failing my son’s education? I just feel I need to do more but what?
Thank you for your help and taking the time to answer the many different questions in this story.
Barbara’s Question (from South Africa) [TIME: 36:16]
What to do if your 11yo son flat out refuses to shower, brush teeth, etc. We don’t force him and have explained personal hygiene, but he just doesn’t seem to be that concerned.
Shelsy’s Question (from Florida) [TIME: 41:56]
Hi! My question is about honoring family members with different preferences and needs. My husband and I are very much introverts. We tend to stick to home and aren’t very social, but we like to go out as a family on the weekends when he doesn’t work. My son, age 6, is mostly the same. He likes doing things, but a lot of the time he prefers to be home. My daughter, 8, is extremely social. She is always wanting to be out doing things and talking to people. She is also content at home, but I know she would always prefer to be out and about.
The problem is, when I do take the kids out to do something, I often wish I hadn’t. Sometimes it’s because they fight the whole time we’re out, sometimes it’s because my son runs away from me or is mean to other kids. Sometimes it’s because they each have something totally different they want to do can’t agree on anything. I have tried so many times to do things with them and we have had so few successes (by success I mean everyone actually enjoys whatever we set out to do) that I really just don’t take them anywhere during the week anymore. Unless my husband can be with us so we can split up if things aren’t working out, it’s just too much for me.
I don’t like that. I want to do fun things with them, I want to take them places. I’m just not sure where it’s falling apart. When similar questions have been asked on the podcast before, the advice usually includes talking things through and having conversations about what everyone wants and how we can work it out. I haven’t been able to get that to work. My son doesn’t seem to want to listen. When I try to talk to him, if it’s something he thinks he doesn’t want to hear, he just runs away screaming, “Stop talking to me!” We have been able to work out compromises with him if we can get him to tell us why he wants a particular thing, we can sometimes make it work. But usually he doesn’t want to cooperate long enough to get to that point.
So, I stay home. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I worry that I’m not exposing them to enough interesting things. I tell them no a lot when they ask to do things because I’m just tired–I don’t want to go through it all again. When outings go downhill I start to doubt my choice to unschool–they certainly don’t act like the other unschooling kids mentioned on the podcast (if someone saw my kids at the park they probably wouldn’t describe them as kind and respectful.) I feel like I’m doing something wrong, but when I stay home I feel like I’m holding them back.
I’m trying to get my daughter involved in groups where she can go regularly to be social with other kids and help fill her up that way. But is it okay to stay home and only go out on weekends? How can I get to a point where doing things with them is actually fun? I had hoped that it would get better as they got older, but that hasn’t really been the case so far.
I hope this question is clear, I had a hard time finding words for it. Thanks so much for your help!
Links to things mentioned in the show
Anne’s article, Validating Our Children
Pam’s article, Unschooling Passions
Anne’s website: shinewithunschooling.com
Anna’s website: choosingconnection.com
Episode Transcript
February 14, 2018
EU111: Ten Questions with Jan Fortune
Jan Fortune home educated her four now adult children in the UK and wrote many articles and five books on unschooling and parenting. Her last book on the topic, Winning Parent, Winning Child, focuses on living with children in ways that respect their autonomy. Jan is also a novelist, poet, editor, and runs Cinnamon Press, now in its twelfth year.
Quote of the Week
“We all want the best for our children but the temptation I think to over-identify with them can be quite stultifying. I am not my child and my children have the right to shape their own lives. It’s a privilege to support that and to be part of the journey as far as you’re wanted, but I don’t produce any life but my own and therefore I shouldn’t be taking credit for that.” ~ Jan Fortune
Questions for Jan
1. Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
2. What did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
3. One of the first paradigm shifts that happens as we move to unschooling is from the conventional idea that childhood is a preparation for life in the adult world to the idea that a child’s present life is intrinsically valuable. And yet, almost paradoxically, focusing on living well in the present moment and solving today’s problems ends up being a great way to prepare for life as an adult, doesn’t it?
4. In an article you wrote for Life Learning Magazine, you dive into the building blocks of an autonomous, or unschooling, learning environment. I love the point you made about how this lifestyle transcends boundaries. And not just academic subjects, but getting to the place where there are essentially no boundaries between learning and living. Can you share some of the boundaries that melted away for you? It’s a deeper level of trust we reach, isn’t it?
5. What did you find to be the most challenging aspect of moving to unschooling?
6. In your book, Winning Parent, Winning Child, you make a great point about how consent-based parenting is not a call for parental self-surrender and martyrdom. Rather, it’s a call for engagement with our children. You talk about how there may be times when a mutual solution escapes us and we choose to put our children first, but that’s not ideal. Even though sacrifice is often held up as a virtue in society, why is simply giving in not a good long-term solution?
7. I’d like to dig into this transition to consent-based parenting a bit more. In the book, you wrote, “Consent works best when everyone in the family, adults and children alike, see themselves as free, respected people who can live the life they prefer within the family group. When this happening, adults and children can all be open to changing their wishes without ever fearing that it will mean doing something they really don’t want to do. This releases an enormous flood of innovative thinking for solving problems.”
I think that’s something that can be hard to believe until you see it in action. Can you share some tips about this transition and how it cracks opens creative problem-solving?
8. Another aspect of the transition to consent-based parenting I’d like to touch on is moving beyond the conventional idea that children will tend toward bad choices if they aren’t controlled. As we move to unschooling, we discover that what our children really lack is just experience. Especially if we’ve been parenting with rules and control for years, our children have had little experience with understanding themselves and making reasoned choices, so at first, they may behave in ways that may seem, to us at least, irrational. Yet that’s still not a sufficient justification for falling back on control and compulsion, is it? How else can we look at those situations?
9. In another article you wrote for Life Learning Magazine, titled, ‘As If…On Not Turning Our Children Into Byproducts of Our Philosophy,’ you talk about something I think is really important. I want to read a short quote from it:
“There is a temptation to want to prove that our home-educated children, and especially those who have real control over their own learning are more successful, more polite, let’s face it, just more… than their school-going, coerced counterparts. There is a real danger of advertising our learning style, and the alternative life style that is often a byproduct of it, by pointing to the product. Children, however, are not products; they are real, autonomous, human people, making their own mistakes on their own learning adventures; living out their learning for their own sakes, and not to provide examples for their mother’s most recent workshop talk.”
Even for parents who don’t chose to share more publicly about their family’s unschooling adventures, it’s still so valuable to shift away from the conventional mindset that our children are products turned out at the “end of our job” as parents. I think breaking this invisible tether between us and our children as builder and product, is a crucial step in our ability to see them as separate and whole human beings. Has that been your experience as well?
10. Looking back, what has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?
Links to things mentioned in the show
Jan’s book, Winning Parent, Winning Child
Jan’s article, ‘The Building Blocks of an Autonomous Learning Environment,’ published in Life Learning Magazine
Jan’s article, ‘As If… On Not Turning Our Children Into Byproducts of Our Philosophy,’ published in Life Learning Magazine
Jan’s blog on Medium
Episode Transcript
February 7, 2018
EU110: Unschooling Dads & Music with Alan Marshall
Alan Marshall is an unschooling dad, a professional musician, and a university professor in the music department. We dive into his family’s journey to unschooling, his eldest’s transition to junior high, ways to approach music lessons and practice, advice for dads just starting out with unschooling, and lots more.
Quote of the Week
“Actually, I would discourage, particularly someone starting to do music and most other arts, from doing practice. I would say, ‘don’t practice.’ And really, I think the problem is formal practice. Like, ‘I’m going to sit down now, and I’m going to practice the piano for an hour because it’s my practice time.’ Because I think that just doing that is pretty doomed to be counterproductive. In my opinion, as a musician, and somebody who wants to help people who want to learn about music, that has discouraged a lot more music-making than it’s helped.” ~ Alan Marshall
Questions for Alan
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
How did you discover unschooling and how did your family’s choice to embrace unschooling unfold?
You’ve been unschooling for almost a decade now. What has surprised you most so far about how unschooling has unfolded in your lives?
Your eldest chose to go to junior high school a couple of years ago. How did she find the transition, and have found it challenging to weave school and your unschooling principles together?
You’re also a university professor, teaching music, and I’d love to dive into that with you. When a child expresses interest in music or an instrument, so often the first thing parents jump to is lessons. Piano lessons. Guitar lessons. Violin lessons. In your experience, is that the best first step?
When a child has expressed an interest in an instrument and parents have rented or purchased one, the conventional advice is for us to strongly encourage them to practice regularly, if not daily. Yet that can soon be met with growing resistance. What are your tips for navigating that situation?
In the bigger picture, how do you see unschooling and learning music—or any other art—weaving together?
As an unschooling dad, what piece of advice would you like to share with dads who are considering or just starting out on this journey?
Links to things mentioned in the show
Alan’s on Facebook, and participates in the Radical Unschooling Info FB group
Episode Transcript
January 31, 2018
EU109: Unschooling Stories with Sylvia Woodman
Sylvia Woodman joins me on the podcast this week, sharing some of her wonderful unschooling stories. Her children, ages thirteen and eleven, have never been to school. We chat about how she discovered unschooling, ways to create an environment in which natural learning thrives, how unschooling has been healing and liberating, technology, and lots more.
Quote of the Week
“What I also didn’t understand is that what they were able to read was not connected to what they were able to understand. They had very big vocabularies, they could understand very sophisticated content, but they weren’t necessarily going to go to a reference book to learn more. They had other resources available to them. They had podcasts, they had YouTube, they had voice-to-text if they wanted to communicate with people; they had lots of other ways of getting to the same place.” ~ Sylvia Woodman
Questions for Sylvia
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
How did you discover unschooling and how did your family’s choice to move to unschooling come about?
One of the cornerstones of deschooling is learning how to create an environment in which natural learning flourishes. That’s definitely a process, not a single, giant step. Can you share an idea or an action that you found really helpful along the way?
One of the things that can trip us up as we shift away from the idea of curriculum to natural learning and following our children’s interests, is thinking of learning as “child-led.” How can that concept get in the way of understanding what unschooling looks like in practice?
Moving to unschooling can also be a catalyst for healing from our own childhood. Has that been your experience?
I know you have lots of stories around how technology has enhanced your unschooling. I was hoping you could share a couple of them with us.
Eventually, what we learn through unschooling expands far beyond how children learn, doesn’t it?
Right now, what’s your favourite thing about your unschooling lifestyle?
Links to things mentioned in the show
My talk for the 2018 Canadian Online Homeschooling Conference is out February 7th and free for 48 hours
Grace Llewellyn’s book, The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
Sylvia attended La Leche League meetings
Sylvia’s on Facebook, is an admin with the Unschooling Q&A FB group, and helps with the Radical Unschooling Info FB group
Episode Transcript
January 24, 2018
EU108: Q&A Round Table
Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join Pam to answer listener questions. This month we dig into questions around the challenge of meeting the needs of everyone in the family, the conventional idea that you shouldn’t do things for your children that they can do for themselves, the interplay of releasing control over food and the real constraints of a food budget, and ways to help our children deal with negative comments.
Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table!
Listener Questions
Alaina’s Question (from the UK) [TIME: 7:45]
Hi! I have a question about balance, which I am sure is something that all families have difficulty with sometimes!
We are an unschooling family of four. The two boys, aged seven and four, have never been to school. However, I was previously a primary school teacher so my need to deschool has been great, and is still on going (probably unending!). We are a neuro-diverse family, with highly sensitive, spirited children who find some forms of communication difficult.
Our main challenge at the moment is in balancing all the needs of our family. My older son is keen to spend time in museums and galleries and taking part in activities related to his interests. It is important for him to have time to explore exhibits and information closely, with a lot of talk with myself and/or his Dad. However, his brother is not in a place where these things are of interest, and he has an overwhelming need to run and climb and shout that is not appropriate in these sorts of spaces.
Similarly, my younger son has a need to control what is being done at home, he cannot tolerate his brother watching documentaries on the television, or reading books with me. He is unable to verbalise his reasons for this, although I think it could partly be about wanting my attention, and does not seem to understand explanations of why his brother finds these things important. We manage it as best we can with lots of options for him (we have a garden with lots of equipment, an indoor swing and trampoline, a range of tablets and Lego which he loves), but often it doesn’t seem to matter what he is doing he still needs to manage what his older brother is doing as well.
I try hard to split my time between them, or find things that will work for both of them, but this seems to be getting harder to juggle with the need to also feed them and do a little housework (I already outsource as much as I can by hiring a cleaner). I also need to balance my own mental health as I struggle with anxiety. We do not have family near enough to rely on regularly, although my parents do as much as they can to support us, and friends are currently unable to take one or the other of the boys as they find their needs to challenging to fit in with their own children.
I do worry that by acquiescing to my younger son’s need to manage and control how our time is spent may be setting him up for difficulty in later life, but I am aware that this may well be due to my need to deschool further in this area. Not acquiescing leads to destructive hour-long meltdowns, which is distressing for everyone, and I feel not part of who he is (in general he is a loving and gentle child). It feels like when he is not able to control the situation he experiences real fear. At the same time, I am concerned that his older brother is missing out on the things he feels are valuable, and he has told me he often feels I care more about what his brother wants than what he wants.
My husband tries hard to help this balance. Relaxing bedtime has really helped because it means we have more time in the evening with two adults around. However, he works long hours, often at weekends as well as all week, and has a long commute, so cannot be around as much as the rest of us need him!
I often feel that what our family actually needs is a major review of how we are living, in regards to my husband’s work and where in the country we live. I am hoping you can help me with some more ideas for short term solutions, however. Or at least reassurance that it does get easier! I am dreading the shorter, darker, wetter days when we will find it harder to get into nature as things seem to be worse on those days.
Amy’s Question (from Oregon) [TIME: 34:13]
I am becoming acquainted with radical unschooling philosophy. I have often read that you should not do something for child if they can do it themselves. Also, that kids benefit from doing regular chores/responsibilities. Based on the principles of radical unschooling, what do you think a parent should do if a child does not want to do something they are able to do for themself (as an example, putting their clothes…I have a 2 and 4 y/o). Same thing for doing chores, what if a child does not want to do a chore or to help with household tasks?
Thanks in advance, I love your podcast.
Del’s Question [TIME: 49:20]
We are an unschooling family with 3 young children – the oldest being 6. I have been really inspired by your podcasts and website to embrace the idea of allowing my children a whole lot more control over their own eating. Everything I have read and heard around this now makes perfect sense, but I feel like I need to get my head around what it is going to look like for us a little more, before I take the leap in that direction.
The part that I find the most overwhelming and confusing at the moment, is how this is going to work within the restraints of our relatively strict food budget. We eat a fairly good whole food diet, but a lot of “ingredients” have to be rationed in order for them to last the time that they need to. In your own experiences with giving your children “food freedom” and control of their own eating, how did the practical aspects of budget play out for you? I understand that this is more or a consideration while my children are young, than it will be when they are older and have a wider understanding of money, cost and availability etc. But for now, I am not quite sure the best way to approach this.
For example, there are certain foods that the children would love to snack on, such as dried fruit and cheese, but if they constantly eat it on its own then our available amount for the month will very quickly be used up. Whereas if I mostly use it as an ingredient to make other things, then this gives us much more food for the month. Once these ingredients are all used up then not only will they not have those to eat on their own, but I also will have very little to work with to make them/us anything too. I have tried explaining the need to make things last, but I can tell they are not at a stage where this means much to them – especially when they want the thing they want. I don’t want to constantly be saying “no” to them, but I am pretty sure that these things are going to be asked for a lot.
I love listening to all your opinions, and I want to thank you in advance for your wonderful insight! 
