Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 36

EU069: Q&A Round Table

Anna Brown and Anne Ohman join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table!

Quote of the Week

“Unschooling is about seeing, honoring, and living in the flow of a child’s life.” ~ Anne Ohman

Listener Questions

Shelsy’s Question (from Florida, USA) [TIME: 3:04]

I’m new to unschooling (since December), but I’ve always homeschooled. My daughter is 7 and my son is 5. I’ve listened to hours of podcasts and read scores of web pages about unschooling, but I’m struggling. My son has always been an amazingly individual boy. He knows what he wants, will stop at nothing to get it, will accept no substitutions, etc. I admire his ability to know himself so deeply and to not back down from what he wants. However, he is also extremely physical. He has zero concept of personal space, he is constantly climbing on me, touching me in ways I don’t like, wanting to play roughhouse/tickling games, and hitting (or biting or scratching) when he doesn’t get his way. His primary target is his sister.

His individuality and aggression have led to tons of power struggles and conflicts over the last five years. I feel like I’m to blame because I’ve always been very physical with him when we play and my husband and I also have a difficult time controlling our tempers when our buttons invariably get pushed. I feel like he is both parroting our behaviors and vying for power. Being the youngest and most inflexible he has always tended to be forced into doing things because the rest of the family wants to do something else.

So instead of having a home filled with joy and connection, our home is filled with conflict, fighting, and yelling. I desperately want a reset button but I fear that in 5 and 7 years I’ve already done so much damage. I don’t see any forward progress and I feel full of doubt and guilt. Help!

Tracy’s Question (from Homestead, Florida, USA) [TIME: 18:28]

Hello, Pam, Anne, and Anna.

Thank you so much for this podcast and the monthly Q&A. You are a source of inspiration and encouragement. I have so many questions I have been meaning to send but today I will start with one. I will give you a little intro first.

I have 2 amazing daughters. An 8-year-old and a 4-year-old. My oldest daughter has a huge heart. She loves people. Her gift is encouragement. She can walk into any room and know who exactly needs unconditional love and a big hug. The little one is the life of the party. Her sense of humor astonishes me on a daily basis and we laugh together a lot. I could give you a huge list of all my favorite qualities each poses but there wouldn’t be enough time for other questions.

We’ve been homeschooling for 3 years. I don’t feel confident enough to call myself a unschooler but we have never used curriculum and I have been in Deschooling mode for the whole 3 years. My goal being to move towards a radical Unschooling lifestyle. The most challenging part of homeschooling for me is to be an active witness to the social challenges my daughters face.

I don’t want to sound negative but this is the only way I can think of posing my question: Do you know that kid in the playground that all the other children avoid? We’ve all seen them. They go from click to click, looking to connect and is generally received with a face of disgust. The other children tend to turn their backs in hopes that the child will get the hint or they straight out run from them. That kid is my eldest daughter. She is so friendly and brave that she doesn’t give up and usually does find another child to play with.

I decided long ago that homeschooling park days with big groups was not good for us. We stick to more one on one playdates to give other children an opportunity to see how amazing she is without the “group mentality” interfering. When she was younger, she was more willing to let me help. When I saw that the other child wanted space I would call her over or kneel by her and say something to the point of, “Do you see her body? How it’s pulled away? She’s trying to tell you she wants space. Let’s go look for another friend that might want to play.” Also, I have no problem being the friend that plays with them at the park and I do it often. But, lately I find that she doesn’t want my help. She doesn’t want me to talk her through the social challenge & just gets angry with me and insists on staying around children that obviously do not want to play with her or even be close to her. I think she has started putting together that it’s not that the children want space but that they want space from HER. It breaks my heart and the whole experience is emotionally draining for me. On good days, I’m able to keep it together but on bad days, I tend to break down in ugly ways.

I do not demonize the other children because I strongly believe that all children deserve the respect and consideration that I want for my daughters. I have directly asked the child/children (in a kind way) if my daughter has done something to hurt them or bother them & they usually say no.

Yesterday, the situation reached a whole new level for me and I just don’t know what to do anymore. We attend a class at a beautiful garden. From the moment we walked in, she was being rejected left and right from children that she knows. Children that she has interacted with in the past. She was extremely confused. She tried to sit with 2 children and they both made it clear that they did not want to sit with her. I called her over to me and it took some time but she came and sat with me. Shortly after, my youngest daughter went to the same 2 children and they welcomed her with smiles and she sat with them. My youngest daughter sat with them and my heart sank. I called her over. She did not want to come. I went and carried her off. We were distracting the class so I picked up our things and walked off with both of them. I could feel the tears in my throat. I told my youngest daughter, “If your sister is not welcomed to sit there then you and I cannot sit there either.” We all were upset. The 3 of us went and explored the garden on our own and when we saw the group again, we tried to rejoin but it wasn’t much different.

The wound is still fresh and I feel completely emotionally run down but it is a reality of our life. I do not want to live a completely isolated life but I just don’t know what to do with all of this anymore. I would love your perspective and guidance. How do I help my eldest daughter and my youngest daughter? How should my interaction with other children be?

Thank you.

Bridget’s Question (from Cleveland, Ohio, USA) [TIME: 40:36]

I have 6 kids (ages 18-6) we have always homeschooled. My husband and I are both educators. I have been home with the children since the first was born. We did use, what I’ve called, a relaxed eclectic approach with the first 3. I mostly focused on math and phonics. The kids basically learned to read on their own. I need to diverge a little and say I was involved in a parenting webpage that was gentle discipline, positive parenting, attachment parenting. So, I believe our homeschooling evolved out of that philosophy. I’m in Ohio and have had the luxury of attending an unschooling convention every year (except 1) since it began at a water park in our state. I admit, I first went just for the discount offered to homeschool families! However, I did find through the years, speakers who were confirming the things I’m doing here at home. So, a couple of years ago, after a convention I told the kids we were done with “school” and we have (tried) to not look back.

Here’s my hang up

Unschooling and Critical Thinking

NOTE: This is excerpted from my introduction to the podcast episode, Unschooling and Technology, but I think it stands nicely in its own as well.

EU068: Unschooling and Technology with Teri DeMarco

Teri DeMarco is an unschooling mom of three: twin 10-year-old sons and an 8-year-old daughter. I met her in person last year and when I decided to do a technology-focused episode I knew she’d be a great person to chat with!

Quote of the Week

“If you have a lens of ‘What is the educational value? What are they learning?’ that is a layer that goes in front of that relationship. And it doesn’t need to be there, because your kids will reveal to you all that they’re learning when they are in the flow of the relationship.” ~ Teri DeMarco

Questions for Teri

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you discovered unschooling?

When it comes to technology, the conventional term that gets thrown around a lot is “screen time.” I personally don’t like the term for a couple of reasons. What’s your take?

One of the first steps in pulling apart and examining the technology issue is recognizing all the learning that is happening—and all the joy and fun! What has your journey with the technology issue looked like?

If a parent is concerned about the amount of time a child is spending, say watching TV or playing video games, instead of immediately imposing limits to fit their comfort zone, how might they explore the situation to discover what’s up? There are so many possibilities, aren’t there?

Something that can unnerve parents is when their child gets angry when asked to stop playing a video game or watching TV. Fear can quickly have them interpreting that behaviour as “addicted” and blaming the technology. But when we look at the situation from the child’s perspective, things can look very different, can’t they?

One of the big aha moments for me when I was examining my attitude toward technology was the realization that my children learned so much more about weaving technology into their lives through actual experience—like they have learned so many other things through unschooling. What are some of the things you’ve seen your children learn about life with digital tech?

As always with unschooling, it’s important to be engaged with our children, whatever their interest or passion. One of the concerns I hear regularly is that parents feel disconnected from their children because they are engaged in their interests through technology. Let’s talk about some of the ways we can engage with our children “even when” they are using digital tools.

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

The Childhood Redefined conference (we’re putting together an online version right now)

Map of the many places Joseph’s video game play took him

Minecraft on YouTube: Sky Does Minecraft and Stampy Longhead

E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo

Some games: Roblox, Subnautica on Steam

Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book, Finding Flow

Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset

Unschooling Gamers Facebook group

Teri’s blog: The Urban Unschooler

Teri’s also on Facebook

Pam’s blog post diving into the mainstream mantra, “You Have to Limit Screen Time”

Pam’s article, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Video Games

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here

EU067: Deschooling with Anna Black

Anna Black is a former Montessori student and teacher, now an unschooling mom to two lovely daughters in Australia. We have a wonderful conversation, digging into conventional wisdom like, “kids need to do things for themselves,” and “fewer toys is better.” We also have a great chat about how unschooling children develop their own moral compass.

Quote of the Week

“One of the greatest things that I think unschooling has given me and our whole family is the idea that it’s actually okay to be nice to your kids.” ~ Anna Black

Questions for Anna

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you first came across the idea of unschooling?

You have a Montessori background, so I was wondering what you found appealing about the idea of unschooling at first?

What did the first few months of your journey to unschooling look like? Did you start out with some structure and then loosen up over time? Or did you treat the transition more like a vacation and not go back? What did it look like for your family?

I think one of the conventional ideas we wrestle with as we deschool is that, to foster independence, we should never do for the child what they can do for themselves. With unschooling, that logic doesn’t hold. We do things for them when they want us to, regardless of whether they could do it themselves. Can you share how you worked through that shift?

You mentioned to me earlier that one of your biggest shifts coming to unschooling was around general abundance. Can you explain what that looked like for you?

Again, you came from a Montessori background, which holds quite conventional views on children’s use of technology and the need to control access. Can you share a bit about your experience with that?

What are your children enjoying right now and how are they are exploring those interests?

How is your husband feeling about your unschooling lifestyle? Was he on board early or have you been helping him learn more about it? What’s his journey looked like to this point?

What has surprised you most about your journey so far?

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

Canada has a La Leche League and Australia has the Australian Breastfeeding Association

Sandra Dodd’s website and Always Learning email list

Meredith Novak’s podcast episode, EU029: What Learning Looks Like with Meredith Novak

Jo Isaac’s podcast episode, EU035: Redefining Success with Jo Isaac

Joyce Fetteroll’s episode, EU014: Ten Questions with Joyce Fetteroll

Steve Jobs’ quote on creativity, from a 1996 WIRED magazine interview: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity.”

Facebook groups where Anna participates: Radical Unschooling Info and Unschooling Q&A

Follow Abby’s doll, Little Winifred Rose, on Instagram

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here

EU066: Ten Questions with Pushpa Ramachandran

Pushpa is an unschooling mom of two in India. I have been reading her wonderful unschooling insights for a number of years and I love the glimpses into their unschooling lives that she shares. She’s also an experienced speech pathologist, working part-time from home.

Quote of the Week

“I can eloquently talk about it but I do not necessarily know how to do it all the time. I am still learning how to be a facilitator rather than a director.” ~ Pushpa Ramachandran

Ten Questions for Pushpa

1. Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you discovered unschooling?

2. I’d love to hear a bit about what your children are up to. What are they interested in right now and how are they pursuing it?

3. Earlier this year, you wrote a wonderful article for Families Learning Together Magazine, titled: “Natural learning: 9 things l have learned about (naturally)!” where you dig into the idea of natural learning and what it looks like. I will share the link in the show notes so people can read about all nine, but I thought we’d dive into one of them today. It’s number four, that “One thing leads to another and everything is connected.” That realization was a big piece of the unschooling puzzle for me and helped me release the pull of curriculum. How did it come about for you?

4. Can you give us an idea of what unschooling is like in India? Is homeschooling in general culturally accepted? Do homeschooling regulations vary widely by state? How easy is it to connect with other unschooling families?

5. You wrote an article titled, “Being with my child” in response to a family member saying that you shouldn’t tailor-make your life around your child. Can you share some of your thoughts around the concept of “being” and what it means to you as a parent?

6. Can you share a bit about your experience around the challenges of unschooling within the Indian culture? Because, in the bigger picture, the culture in which we live definitely has an impact on our unschooling lives.

7. Can you share a bit about what your family’s journey to unschooling has looked like for your husband?

8. You also work part-time speech pathologist, and work online with clients around the world. Can you share some suggestions for an unschooling parent who might have some concerns about their child’s communication skills?

9. As unschooling parents we’re often exploring ways we might weave work and unschooling together. Can you share what that looks like for your family?

10. Looking back, what has been the most valuable outcome so far from choosing unschooling?

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

Searching online, Pushpa stumbled across Urmila Samson and Hema Bharadwaj’s blog, The Bharadwaj Knights.

Pushpa’s articles: Natural learning: 9 things l have learned about (naturally)! and Being with my child

A favourite animated movie, Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Swashikshan: Indian Association of Homeschoolers, also have an annual  meetup, a Facebook page, and a google group

Interesting YouTube channel: CookieSwirlC

Sandra Dodd’s list of unschooling-friendly therapists

Pushpa’s website: Online Speech Therapy Help

Pushpa mentioned The Hanen Centre: Helping you help children communicate

If you’d like to get in touch with Pushpa, you can email her, pushpa2812 at gmail dot com.

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here

EU065: Q&A Round Table

Anna Brown joins me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table!

Quote of the Week

“I like to peel back the layers, I don’t focus on addressing the behaviour, because it’s just a clue. Look at the clues for the underlying need. It’s typically things like needing food, too much stimulation, not feeling heard, needing space, needing connection etc. There could be things going on in the family, so watch for those. Watch for patterns to see if it’s certain times, places, individuals, activities, etc. Understanding the environmental triggers can help you and your son work to recognize the stress before it becomes an outburst.” ~ Anna Brown

Listener Questions

Amanda’s Question (from Michigan, USA) [TIME: 5:59]

I’m single mom to two people: one a 4.75-year-old and one a 17-year-old. They are both boys, the older one in school, the younger not.

I’ve read the book Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, and the idea in a lot of the studies done by Wansink and his group is that choice about what to eat and how much to eat is subtly denied to us based on things like the location of the food and the size of the portions. Another theme is that companies that profit know how to encourage us to eat more of what they want us to so that they will make more money.

I’d like to encourage opportunities for the kids to choose their activity, without limiting activities by time or number (i.e. we stopped those controls on computer game time a couple years ago). It seems that the results of the Mindless Eating studies could be applied to other activities in which we are offered an endless feed.

So, to apply this to another activity, turning off the “autoplay” function in YouTube is a way to give ourselves the moment to make a choice about the next thing we’d like to do. I’m not judging the value of the activities we are choosing or spending our time on. I love food and YouTube. But I don’t want myself or my kids to be on a constant feed motivated by profit, without regard for our well-being or our actual curiosities.

Another example would be a computer game: choice-maximizing set-up would be that each time you finish a chunk, it would say, “Would you like to continue to the next level or save and quit?” Auto-feed set-up just keeps going until you take the initiative to quit out of it. There’s no problem with playing as many levels as you want, but Mindless Eating studies would seem to show you would CHOOSE to stop sooner if it weren’t on auto-feed.

I am not confusing a “feed” with flow. When I’m in the flow, it’s a special state, but I’m in charge of it. A “feed” is when I look up and think, “I can’t believe I just spent so much time on that: what a time-waster.” It is times like that when I wish Facebook had some red Pringles (Wansink study reference). Wansink has found that this is not a matter of an individual’s self-control or lack of, but of how we set up our surroundings or how they are set up for us.

What are some other things that you see on auto-feed that we could arrange to give the kids and ourselves more choice in how we spend our time?

Alisha’s Question (from California, US) [TIME: 17:24]

I have been listening to your podcast for awhile now (thanks to a friend for the referral :)) and I am so grateful for all of the information and support offered through the talks. I homeschool three children, ages 15, 14 and 9. I consider myself a relaxed homeschooler with the tendency to lean strongly to unschooling. My youngest is the force that steers me toward unschooling.

When I hear Anne O. in her talks in the Q&A episodes, I can really resonate with how she describes her son, Jacob. My youngest, from the get go, would not allow any teacherly stuff to happen. She knows what she wants and what she doesn’t want. It’s because of her that I have found solace in your podcasts. Her and I have shed many tears with my attempts to try and teach her. The moment I back off and let her lead the way, all seems to flow nicely in our household.

She’s highly sensitive and very active yet she refuses to do any outside classes/activities. We have tried to offer her fun classes either through our local community center, such as cooking (she loves to cook, but refuses to be taught or helped), gymnastics, martial arts, etc. I figure since she seems social and active and tends to get bored easily, that outside activities would help fulfill her. She refuses any of it and prefers to stay home. She loves to watch movies, occasionally she dives in and out of video games and she just loves to watch sitcoms/comedy with me. Her interests change daily but can include cooking, Legos, drawing, and playing with her toys.

My question is, should I continue to try to persuade her to take a class or two with the hopes of her finding something that she just might connect to? Or do I let her be. She does attend an indoor swimming lap pool, whenever she feels like it. Other than that, she wants nothing else. I tried to sign her up for an awesome cooking session, in a restaurant in San Francisco with a known chef, but she simply said no and that she doesn’t like classes. I am afraid that she just might miss out on things that she would otherwise not find without me seeking them out for her. I desperately want to fully unschool, and I see a huge difference when I lean into unschooling at home. The connection with all 3 of my children is so much stronger when I try to unschool. I don’t want to hinder any opportunities for her by not possibly encouraging her to try other outside activities. I hope I have made some sense!

Rain’s Question (from New York, US) [TIME: 29:01]

Hello Ladies. Thank you for your time, and answers.

My son, 9-years-old, has extreme anxiety disorder, and anger issues. Sometimes he is physically abusive friends and family and more frequently verbally abusive and disrespectful. We have chosen gentle parenting/radical unschooling. I have handled our issue in 2 ways #1 talking to him with no punishment, #2 Me yelling and sending him to his room and sometimes taking things away.

Nothing is working, I do not know what to do. Today he lost his last friend because of his name calling, this friends mother called me and made me feel like the worst parent with the worst child. I am so sad for my son, I do not know why he feels so negative so often.

Sorry it was long. Thank you for reading.

Sara’s Question (from Israel) [TIME: 39:26]

Hi there, I wanted to ask a question about video games and other so called “screen time.”

Whilst per se, I have no objection with “screens”—obviously they are a big part of my life, I am looking at one as I write this. I do worry about my children being exposed to and violent and sexually explicit things that either don’t need to be part of their life or that they might not need to know about until later when they have tools to process it. Do you/other unschooling parents monitor what is on the inside of the screens? How do you do this without interfering with children’s freedoms and interests?

The reason this is so pressing has more to do with my own experience than with current catastrophising about screens. I have a photographic memory and vivid imagination. I am still haunted by gruesome, violent or sexually violent things I saw in movies and TV I was exposed to as a child. I can recall the scenes in intense detail and it is very unpleasant for me… although it is a low scale irritation at this stage and not the abject terror I used to feel as a child, I still wish my parents had done more to keep these kinds of things away from me.

We don’t have a TV in our house (our choice, we don’t like it) but we do use our laptops a lot for all kinds of things, including watching some shows. As my son gets older, I’d really be interested in hearing about how people do or don’t guide their children’s usage of technologies? Is there a boundary? What is it?

Thanks a lot

EU064: Grandparents! with Sheila Baranoski

Sheila is an unschooling mom of three, grandmother to two, and author of Dear Grandma: Your Grandkids Are Unschoolers. Sheila and I really enjoyed speaking specifically to grandparents this week. We dive into some of the questions that they may understandably have when they find out their grandchildren aren’t going to school, like how they’ll learn to read, how they’ll make friends, and some ways that grandparents can foster good relationships with their unschooling grandkids.

This episode is definitely meant to be shared with grandparents!

Quote of the Week

“We, as grandparents, can be a safe place and so nurturing and enriching for our grandkids. Not that their parents aren’t safe places too, but grandparents can really hold a special place in their grandkids hearts.” ~ Sheila Baranoski

Questions for Sheila

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you discovered unschooling?

What perspective do you have that can help grandparents learn more about their grandkids’ unschooling lifestyle?

Can you give the grandparents listening an idea of what unschooling is and isn’t?

In your book, you wrote, “How children learn to read without schooling is as hard to explain as how children learn to walk without lessons.” I loved that analogy! But you try anyway because learning to read is something that grandparents understandably worry about. Can you share a bit about how your son Matt learned to read without lessons?

Another concern grandparents can have is how their grandkids will be able to make friends if they aren’t in school. Again, it’s an understandable concern, but it’s one that’s pretty easily addressed, isn’t it?

Grandparents may notice that their unschooling family gets upset or defensive if they ask their grandkids questions about what they know. Can you explain why, and how quizzing conflicts with the principles of unschooling?

Sometimes grandparents see unschooled kids behaving in ways that they would have punished. Unschooling parents are apt to take a different approach to the situation. Can you shed some light on what they are doing and why? Because they aren’t ignoring it, are they?

Can you share some things that grandparents can do to foster a good relationship with their unschooling family, and their grandkids in particular?

You also write fiction, and your protagonist is a 12-year-old unschooling boy. I’d love to hear how that came about.

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

Sheila’s unschooling book: Dear Grandma: Your Grandkids Are Unschoolers

Sheila hosts an Unschooling Book Club on Facebook

Sandra Dodd’s yahoo group: Always Learning group

Veteran unschooling parents sharing their experience: Sandra Dodd, Joyce Fetteroll, and Anne Ohman

Pam’s blog post about her daughter’s road to reading: “I can read, you know!”

Sheila’s fiction book: Cellular Spirits

Sheila’s website and blog: www.sheilabaranoski.com

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here

EU063: Gentle Parenting with Shannon Loucks

Shannon is an unschooling mom to two great kids, and they are a Canadian family transplanted in California for seven years now—an interesting adventure all on its own! She shares her perspective on unschooling and gentle parenting on her website, breakingdaylight.org, because “happy childhoods are built on peaceful parents.”

Quote of the Week

“Turning toward parenting as who I am and not a job I do affords me the freedom to be my best self at each turn of the journey.” ~ Shannon Loucks

Questions for Shannon

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you came to unschooling?

I’d love to hear about what your children are up to. What are they interested in right now and how are they pursuing it?

You wrote a wonderful article that was posted on Flo Gascon’s site about your top five fridge-worthy reminders for gentle, connected parenting. I’ll link to the post in the show notes, but I wanted to talk in-depth about a couple of them. First was your reminder to “listen more talk less.” This was such a valuable shift for me! It made a profound difference in how so many situations played out, in turn building so much trust and connection in our relationships. Can you explain what you mean by that seemingly simple idea?

The other reminder I wanted to touch on was “apologize.” A couple of episodes ago I was speaking with Emma Marie Forde about a book on attachment theory and the author David Howe mentioned that even sensitive caregivers only get it right about 50 percent of the time, but that what stands out is that they actively acknowledge and repair the disconnecting moments. Your reminder to apologize meshes so clearly with that. Can you share your experience with apologizing to your children and the value you’ve seen from it?

You have a great story on your blog about your youngest son and his love for “surprise snacks.” Can you share a bit about your journey through your own expectations around food prep to get to where you came up with a beautifully creative way to make his wish for nighttime surprise snacks come true?

Now let’s talk about gaming! Technology has developed so quickly and many of us grew up with minimal access so it’s pretty unfamiliar. Not to mention, so many of the mainstream messages are negative and advocate strict control. But it’s not “just a game,” is it? I’d love to hear about your parenting journey around technology and gaming.

I’d like to chat about another conventional misconception: teenagers. So often we’re told by family and friends that things may be great now, but wait until our kids are teenagers. We can see where they’re coming from though, can’t we? If they’re trying to hold onto their teens more tightly when they’re ready for more space, or they’re discounting their teen’s perspective and insisting they do things our way—the “right” way. But it’s a different ball game when we partner with them and try to help them reach their goals, isn’t it? They are such amazing people!

A couple of months ago, you posted a piece on your blog titled, “Parenting is who I am.” One of my favourite lines was, “Turning toward parenting as who I am and not a job I do affords me the freedom to be my best self at each turn of the journey.” Can you talk about that shift away from seeing parenting as a job and what it means to you?

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

Shannon’s website: breakingdaylight.org

Shannon’s articles I mentioned: Top Five Checkpoints for Gentle Parenting, (on Flo Gascon’s website), The art of feeding (surprise snacks), It is so not “just” a game, and Parenting is who I am

Shannon’s Facebook page: Breaking Daylight

Pam’s book chat episode with Emma Marie Forde: episode 61

SelfDesign in BC, Canada

Shonda Rhimes’ book: Year of Yes

Pam’s blog post: Are you playing the role of “mother”?

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here

 

EU062: Being and Becoming film review with Anne Boie

Anne Boie is an unschooling mom of four who is actively engaged in supporting the unschooling community as a producer of Lainie Liberti’s For the Love of Learning web show, the US distribution coordinator for the film, Being and Becoming, and the producer of a new online show, Youth on Subjects of the World. Anne joins me this week to talk about Clara Bellar’s documentary film, Being and Becoming.

Quote of the Week

“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung

Questions for Anne

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how you came to unschooling?

The film starts as Clara Bellar is about to have her first child, and not long after she and her husband realize they want to nurture their son’s creativity, authenticity, and self-esteem and want him to be a free thinker. The question at the root of their quest became, “were a place and time really necessary to learn?” And that is what they seek to answer through visiting a wide range of autonomous learning, or unschooling, families. Her first stop is with Naomi Aldort and her family. It was really fun to see some old home movies of the kids and to see how their interests began at a young age and wove their way into their adult lives. One thing that stood out for me was the point she made about how important it is for us to spend time with our children—to be aware and to be present. That allows us to know who they are—their personalities, their interests, their strengths, their challenges, so we can better engage with and support them as they pursue their goals and aspirations. What stood out for you from Clara’s conversations with the Aldort family?

Clara brings out an important distinction in the film, the idea of freedom, not licence. Naomi mentions a book by that name by A.S. Neill, and I did a quick search after and found it was published back in 1966. It was a compilation of his replies to letters he received from people who had read his classic Summerhill and had questions around how the philosophy plays out “in real life.” In Summerhill, he wrote, “It is this distinction between freedom and license that many parents cannot grasp. In the disciplined home, the children have no rights. In the spoiled home, they have all the rights. The proper home is one in which children and adults have equal rights.” Naomi describes it as protecting the child’s power over themselves—their autonomy—not their power over others. But most of us have grown up enmeshed in power-based relationships so this can be a challenging shift for us, can’t it?

Clara visits with the Fadel-Renau family in France, and the dad likened school to a “school of thought.” That lessens some of its power, doesn’t it? It reminds us that the compulsory education system as we know it has only been around for a hundred-odd years, so it’s more of the new experiment on the block—humans have been living and learning for thousands of years. His point was to do what suits your family’s needs but not to do it blindly, to realize that sending your children to school is a choice. It’s so easy to forget how new, in the grand scheme of things, the school system we have really is, isn’t it?

I meet Arno and Andre Stern a few years ago when they came to Montreal, Canada, and it was fun to hear from them in the film. I loved Andre’s point that people often mistakenly assume that a child who is free lives in chaos. Arno, his dad, made the point that, “Freedom arises out of structure, not out of chaos. A child knows there are limits—not restrictions, limits.” As I thought about that more, I realized it can be hard for people who’ve never been free to control their own days to imagine that children—people—when given the freedom of choice, will explore their personal need for structure and routine. They will find the ways they prefer to do things and make those choices more consistently—not chaos. And that there are natural limits to things, though they vary by individual—many people just rarely encounter them because the restrictions they’ve had to live with have made their world even smaller than those natural limits. They haven’t often explored the edges of their comfort zones, where we find it’s totally okay to say “no thanks” to going further. It’s like parents thinking, “if I let them eat sweets that’s all they’ll ever eat,” or “if I don’t restrict TV, they’ll watch it all day every day.” What did you think of their point that freedom does not equal chaos? Has that been your experience?

Clara ends the film by saying, “After all these encounters, the path is only beginning. I no longer need to understand everything. I can see that it’s about letting everyone simply live their own life so that they’re being and becoming their best.” It definitely takes a while to get that place of trust, doesn’t it? That place where we don’t need to know all the answers—to understand everything—before we start down this path?

What piece stood out most for you from the film?

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

The film’s website: Being and Becoming

Lainie Liberti’s For the Love of Learning show

The Rethinking Everything conference

Naomi Aldort’s website: authenticchild.com

André Stern’s website: andrestern.com

Arno Stern’s website: arnostern.com

Anne Boie on Facebook

Anne’s Youth on Subjects of the World online show: the website and the Facebook page

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here

EU061: Book Chat with Emma Marie Forde

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and which eventually led her and her husband John to choose unschooling for their family.

This week, Emma and I have a great chat about David Howe’s book, Attachment across the Lifecourse: A Brief Introduction.

Quote of the Week

“Intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person’s life revolves, not only when he is an infant or toddler or a child but throughout his adolescence and his years of maturity as well, and on into old age. From these intimate attachments, a person draws his strength and enjoyment in life and, through what he contributes, he gives strength and enjoyment to others. These are matters about which current science and traditional wisdom are one.” ~ David Howe

Attachment across the Lifecourse: A Brief Introduction , by David Howe

The book is a fascinating journey into attachment theory. And not just in relation to young children, but how the attachment behaviours we develop play out over our lifetime, as well as how they can change if we choose to do the work to make sense of our previous experiences and learn to see situations from the perspectives of others.

Part 1 of the book looks at the key conceptual components of attachment theory, part 2 looks at the four main attachment patterns (secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized) and how they manifest at various stages over a lifetime, and part 3 looks at some of the questions and controversies that attachment theory has given rise to.

David Howe writes that, “Sensitively responsive parents who can tune into, and see the world from their child’s point of view are likely to have securely attached children.” And in turn that, “Securely attached children are the most likely to develop emotional intelligence, good social skills, and robust mental health.”

Emma and I chat about the value of developing secure attachment patterns with our children—meaning strong and connected relationships—and how they not only support the development of a child’s emotional health, but also create the safe and supportive environment in which their learning can thrive. It’s where the rubber of attachment meets the road of unschooling. That made sense in my head, at least.