Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 4

EU282: Teachers Turned Unschoolers (Encore)

Let’s dive into a question I get pretty regularly, and that’s whether I have podcast episodes with unschooling parents that used to be teachers.

It’s fun to ponder the why behind the question. Does it seem like a strange leap to make? To me, choosing teaching indicates an interest in children and in learning, so to dive into that even more deeply with their own children through unschooling does seem like a rather natural next step to take.

But whatever the reason behind this pretty common question, the answer is a resounding yes! On the podcast to this point, there have been 22 guests who were, or are, teachers or university professors, who study education at the post-secondary level, or even teach education courses.

In this episode, I’ve gathered a few snippets from teachers turned unschoolers sharing about their experience and how that journey came about for them. It’s so interesting!

Audio clips taken from these episodes …

EU106: Unschooling Connections with Kelly Callahan

EU054: From Teaching to Unschooling with Grace Koelma

EU243: Parenting Shifts with Sarah Peshek

EU213: Unschooling and Math with Marcella O’Brien

EU193: Unschooling Younger Kids with Martha Delmore

EU254: Finding Unschooling with Daniela Bramwell

Transcript

Read the transcript

Video

Watch the YouTube video

CONNECT WITH OUR WORK

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, and coaching!

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU333 Encore)

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We talk about the fears and doubts that come up at the start of the unschooling journey, the idea of wanting to measure success, and what to do when a child is interested in a topic that seems too grown up for them.

And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for everyone. Instead, our focus is on exploring different aspects of the situation and playing with the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves to better understand what’s up. We’re sharing food for thought through the lens of unschooling.

QUESTION SUMMARIES

We had a quick first question from Sabrina who was looking for interviews with single parents who are unschooling. Pam put together a reference page with episodes to check out.

Our second question is from Erin in New Jersey. She wonders how to get past some of the doubts she has about unschooling and the judgmental opinions of family and friends in order to trust herself. She also mentions feeling a need to measure success when it comes to unschooling and isn’t sure if that’s okay.

Our third question is from Joy in Ireland. Her eight-year-old son has a strong interest in war, weapons, fighting games, and history. Some of what he wants to watch and play is rated PG-13, which feels like it might be unsafe for him. She sees him learning so much from his interest, but worries that he might be desensitized to violence and that the more mature content could be harmful.

Our final question is from McKinzie. She is a third-generation teacher and is finding deschooling and trusting unschooling to be difficult, despite wholeheartedly agreeing with the concept. She specifically feels like teaching math and reading could be important, because she doesn’t want to “leave it to chance.”

Read the transcript here.

CONNECT WITH OUR WORK

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, and coaching!

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU328 Encore)

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We talk about navigating sibling and friend relationships, the idea of self-regulation when it comes to technology, and the journey of finding community and connection for ourselves and our children.

And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for everyone. Instead, our focus is on exploring different aspects of the situation and playing with the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves to better understand what’s up. We’re sharing food for thought through the lens of unschooling.

QUESTION SUMMARIES

Our first question is from Alison. There are shifts going on with her daughters’ relationship with each other and with their mutual friends. She wants to stand up for her younger daughter when she is being excluded and wants to help them without being pushy.

Our second question is from Belinda in Canada. Her six-year-old son wants to use the iPad more than she feels comfortable with. She believes he can’t self-regulate and wants to protect him from spending too much time on the iPad, while also wishing she didn’t feel that way.

Our final question is from Amelia in Utah. Her five-year-old daughter’s friends are all starting school and so, she’s looking for ideas about finding support and connections with other unschooling families.

Read the transcript here.

CONNECT WITH OUR WORK

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, and coaching!

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU322 Encore)

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We talk about cocooning and connecting with young teens, the mainstream concept of productivity and how we get curious about external messages of judgment, and the idea of an “ideal unschooler.”

And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for everyone. Instead, our focus is on exploring different aspects of the situation and playing with the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves to better understand what’s up. We’re sharing food for thought through the lens of unschooling.

QUESTION SUMMARIES

Our first question comes from the comments on our last Q&A YouTube video. The viewer is feeling disconnected from their young teen and worrying about the time he’s spending gaming.

Our second question from Maya is concerning the concept of productivity. She wonders why it feels difficult to release her judgments about productivity and laziness.

Our final question relates to curiosity. The listener wonders if people who are more naturally curious about a wide variety of topics make better unschoolers and whether there is something they can do to help their younger two children who seem uninterested in following those curiosity trails.

Read the transcript here.

CONNECT WITH OUR WORK

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, and coaching!

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU314 Encore)

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We explore technology and “screen time,” deschooling, connection, and validation.

And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for everyone. Instead, our focus is on exploring different aspects of the situation and playing with the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves to better understand what’s up. We’re sharing food for thought through the lens of unschooling.

QUESTION SUMMARIES

Our first question is from Ella, a new unschooling mom with three young children. As the family is deschooling, she’s noticing that the children are choosing to watch TV for a lot of the day. Her partner is uncomfortable with the situation and she wants to know about setting boundaries around TV time or how to find a balance of how her children are spending their free time.

Our second question from Tara is concerning avid video-gaming kids who used to spend more time playing outside. Tara feels stuck in a rut and like her children no longer want to do the things that they used to do. Often, when they do go outside, they love their time there, but it’s hard to get them out the door.

Our final question is from Nadia, who is trying to figure out how to support her children as they attend school at her ex-husband’s insistence. She’s wondering what her options are as she believes unschooling would be a better path for them, though it feels like she doesn’t have a choice given the circumstances.

Read the transcript here.

CONNECT WITH OUR WORK

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, and coaching!

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EU367: The Abundance Mindset

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the abundance mindset. We often find ourselves thinking about abundance versus scarcity in conversations on the podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network. In this episode, we dive into the many ways that shifting to abundance has helped us and our families with creative problem solving. We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including Four Pillars of Unschooling, coaching calls, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello, I’m Anna Brown with Living Joyfully, and today I am joined by my co-hosts, Pam Laricchia and Erika Ellis.

ERIKA AND PAM: Hello! Hi!

ANNA: Before we get started, I wanted to encourage you to check out our shop where you can find books, courses, coaching, and information about the Living Joyfully Network. And this also includes our new course, Four Pillars of Unschooling, where we explore four foundational ideas and paradigm shifts that helped us along our journey. The shop has resources and support for every stage of your journey. You can find the link in the show notes, or you can visit livingjoyfullyshop.com.

Today we’re going to be talking about the abundance mindset, how to cultivate it, and how it can help us on our unschooling journey. Erika, would you like to get us started?

ERIKA: I would! I love a mindset shift and the word abundance just feels so good to me, so I’m excited to dive into this one.

So, when we talk about abundance in our conversations on the podcast and on the Network, what we’re really talking about is a mindset. And when we’re cultivating that mindset of abundance, we open ourselves up to possibilities. We’re telling ourselves there’s plenty of time. We know that even if things don’t go as we initially imagined, that there are solutions and possibilities. It’s a feeling of keeping ourselves open.

And then the flip side of abundance is scarcity. And if we’re mentally in a place of scarcity, it can feel like there’s not enough time. We don’t have enough money. I can’t possibly do all the things that I need to do. We need to try to speed through things to get to the next thing. And so, a scarcity mindset is at play if I’m worried about the timeline of my children’s learning or if I’m feeling like a lot of pressure around making the proper decision in this moment.

And so, we end up using those two words a lot, abundance and scarcity to describe our mental states. And I think just recognizing when I’m getting stuck in that scarcity mode can help me to reframe and get to that more helpful mindset of abundance.

PAM: Yeah, I love that. It’s absolutely a mindset shift. And I think, like in your examples, it’s so great to remember that it applies to so much more than just money. Many conversations where you hear talk about scarcity and abundance mindset, they are in relation to money and income and those kinds of things. But yes, bigger picture, that same mindset shift can be so helpful to recognize, it’s a scarcity of time if you’re worried, oh, what are my kids learning? When are they going to learn this? And, oh my gosh, what if they don’t learn this?

When we shift to that lifelong learning perspective, and we recognize that, you know what? When something becomes interesting to them or important to them or just hits something that they’re wanting to accomplish or do, that’s when they can learn it and that’s when they will learn it with less effort. Or it doesn’t seem hard. It almost doesn’t seem like you’re learning, but that’s because you’ve got a reason for it. It’s become important. It’s not like, learn this now for some day. That’s hard, because, what are you going to connect that to? How’s that going to make sense?

But when you make that shift to lifelong learning, it takes that scarcity of time component away and helps you realize that there is an abundance and there’s a lifetime of it where things can bubble up along the way. So, I just find it really fun, too, when I’m stressed about something to ask if there is an abundance component to it or a scarcity component to it. Just because that starts helping me think about it in a little bit bigger picture. And that’s when there are possibilities and solutions versus the more tunnel vision that happens to me when I’m thinking scarcity.

ANNA: Yeah. And I think for me it’s really the same thing that you both just said, but it’s that energetic shift. Because, like you said, Erika, we can put it into those categories a lot. When I’m thinking about if I’m feeling some tightness or something, it’s like, ooh, what’s happening there? And then I recognize, oh, I’m bringing that scarcity energy to this. It is tunneling me in and I feel the contraction just even thinking about it. And so, that abundance is almost like the deep breath. It’s like, oh, okay, I’ve got time.

And it’s funny, because I’m glad you brought up plenty of time, because you know I say that all the time and it really is, to me, exactly abundance. It really centers me to, this is a long game. Whatever it is, even if it’s something that’s going to complete in the next week or two, it’s like this deep breath. There’s plenty of time. We’re going to work this out. And so, that energy that I bring to it is really what we’re talking about in terms of the paradigm shift today.

But there are specific things that come up that I think are fun to explore. And one of the big ones for me was the idea that everything didn’t have to come from me. I think as parents, especially when we have little kids, everything’s coming from me, food, and all the things. And so, this shift to recognizing like, oh, there’s a broader world here. There are more people in my kids’ lives. And I noticed them finding ways to make things happen that I didn’t know could happen, and I couldn’t find the path myself.

And so, that’s when, again, I realized I was tunneling in on, okay, they’re asking for something or wanting to do something, and I’m thinking there’s one path to this thing that they’re asking about. “I want to get a horse,” or, “I want to do,” whatever big idea thing they might have. And I’m thinking there’s one way. That’s tunneling me in.

And so, when I can breathe into, the world is big and abundant and there are so many different ways, then we just saw magical things happen, just interesting connections and meeting new people and things. And so, again, for me it was always about checking that energy, but recognizing that this is broader than just me having to say, oh, we don’t have the money for that, or we don’t have the time for that, or whatever might be the constraint.

ERIKA: Yeah, I, I actually was going to mention horses, because I feel like it’s just one of those potentially scary, big things that could come up. So, just imagine any kind of moment when your kid comes to you with an interest that just feels like, oh my god, we don’t have the money for this. We don’t have the time for this, or the space for this, or whatever it is. And so, I just love that. It’s not that you’re changing what you’re doing necessarily, it’s changing how you’re thinking about what you’re doing. And it’s opening that up.

And so, it really does feel like the scarcity view is that tunnel vision. I can only see that they said they want horseback riding lessons. I’m seeing that it’s going to look like this and it’s going to cost this and it’s going to take this time, and all these different things like that. There’s just that one path that I can first see and if I get stuck in, but that won’t work for us, then that’s it. That’s the end of it. And it feels like being trapped.

And so, then the abundance, and I mean, we’ve had this happen so many times in the Network where someone will bring, oh my gosh, I’m freaking out because my kid wants this. And it’s like, okay, but you’re in the scarcity mindset of, we can’t do it because of X, Y, Z. And so, switching to the abundance just feels like taking a broader view of the whole thing. Opening myself up to all the different ways that we could incorporate an interest or explore things without it costing money. Or like you’re saying, everything doesn’t have to come from me. It doesn’t mean that I have to be the one with all the answers. We could just start with being creative and exploring things and if I assume that abundance is actually there and that abundance is the reality, it just helps so much with that creativity and exploring all the different possible options.

PAM: I do think that is such a helpful step. I’m trying to think, to notice this shift, so for me it’s like I just need to notice when I’m uncomfortable about something or if you’re feeling that overwhelmed, just like you were describing there, Erika, like, oh my gosh, this is the path and we can’t do that. We can’t do that. So, it’s when I’m feeling uncomfortable, it’s like, okay, just ask myself some questions. Right? And then that’s when you remember. Because we all get stuck in that moment. I think it’s not that it never happens just because you know that there’s a difference between scarcity and abundance.

It’s like, okay, I need to find the clues for how I react to a feeling of scarcity. What does it look like for me? So that I can just be on the lookout for those little clues or triggers, or whatever you want to call them, that give you that, oh, okay, let’s just play around with this a little bit more.

Because then, yes, all that you guys were talking about. When we shift to that abundance, it is like remembering, oh, I don’t need to have all the solutions. We can have conversations. Because I have also found quite often when someone comes with an ask or I think of something and my immediate thought is thinking, oh, we can’t do that. Lack of time, lack of money, lack of like all the things. When you take that moment to have a conversation, that is often their solution to the need. Maybe it doesn’t need to look like that. We want to make it look like the way that they’re talking about, but when we can have conversations and get down to what are they wanting, like, I really want to dance. I really want to go horseback riding. You don’t have to jump to owning a horse to try out horseback riding.

So, in having those conversations, it goes back to our why not yes? Speaking of Four Pillars of Unschooling course, that’s when we can open up to the abundance, we can open up to the creative ideas, we can open up to other possible paths.
And even recognizing the first baby step. Maybe the first baby step is going and just watching people and just getting to maybe meet a few horses. And then maybe it’s finding a place where maybe it’s just a ride, booking a ride, a trail ride, and you go and do that and is that fun? And then it’s like, oh, maybe lessons. That’s something that’s a little more regular.

There are so many baby steps along the way, and then at each step you can learn a little bit more about them. And with that abundance mindset, it’s not like each step has to be this one thing on this one path. The beautiful thing about seeing the abundance is like, oh, we see this one little step and let’s try it, get our feedback, see how it goes, and look at all the other possibilities that might exist along with this. Now we’ve had this experience and we know how it feels.

I think, too, the challenge in that shift as well is the plenty of time piece. We want to deliver as fast as possible, but when we’re like, oh no, we don’t need to jump to the end in the most efficient way, that’s when we start bubbling up around trust. It’s like, oh, I trust that things will unfold, baby step by baby step in some way, in that direction, but I don’t need to presuppose what it looks like in the end.

We’re going to learn so much each step of the way that we may tweak it and end up someplace different, but someplace better that’s more related to what the person was actually wanting versus how they verbally framed it the first time they mentioned it to us.

ANNA: Digging into those needs, I think, is so important. And something that you said earlier led me on a slight bit of a tangent, but it is about how to notice the blocks or switch, and that is to then to really feel like, okay, where’s that tightness coming from? Because this could be coming from a lot of places. Sometimes it can be coming from maybe a guilt of, we don’t have the money to do that right now, and am I harming my kids or am I holding them back somehow? And it’s like, no, but we have to process that. We have to process that, like, okay. That’s where that’s coming from.

Or sometimes maybe we weren’t heard as a child, and so it’s really important for us to hear our kids and we’re feeling like we’re not hearing them, but watch for those little triggers and just give yourself some moments around that, because like Pam said, it’s then we can lean back into the baby steps of, I can hear my child and we can have a conversation and we can be taking baby steps. We don’t have to jump all the way to the end and solve it and have this one solution that’s come out of it.

But give yourself some space around that, because I think you’ll feel it in your body if you’re feeling that tightness. Or if their big idea is making you, I mean, sometimes it might make you grumpy or a little snappy, like, oh, why is there another big idea that we’ve got to do? Recognize that there’s something there that I want to figure out and give myself some space and love around, because it is hard. There’s lots going on and kids have big ideas.

And so, just recognizing that there are so many ways to support them in cultivating the big ideas, moving towards the big ideas that doesn’t involve you having to step out of your comfort zone even. And maybe you will a little bit down the road, but it’s not like you have to leap out of it the minute an idea comes. Because like you said, there are needs under that idea that we can start to play with and have conversations. That helps the person feel heard, helps them feel seen, helps them really fine tune the idea because it may just be this idea thrown out and they want to fine tune it and understand it and have a conversation about it. And so, I just wanted to make sure I watched any kind of reactions that were about me, so that I wasn’t putting that on the situation or the discussion that was happening with my child.

ERIKA: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. And I’m just thinking about how many places those triggers and messages could be coming from, just with social media and seeing other people’s lives and comparing that to our life, that could definitely trigger a feeling of scarcity or like, I should be doing it in a way that looks like this or just that comparison can cause that feeling of getting stuck there. But when the big ideas come, the more I can deep breathe myself through, it’s just conversations, it’s just exploration. We’re just being creative and cultivating that creativity and openness with that abundance mindset. That helps everyone in the family with every single thing.

It’s going to serve our children later if, when they think of something, they have that practice of not tunneling in on the one one way. It’s fun brainstorming and creatively thinking about things as a family. I feel like it’s just so valuable.

And it was making me also think that it’s super common, especially in a parent role or the adult role to feel the need to come in with a solution to solve the problem. And it’s all related, but everything doesn’t have to come from me. It just doesn’t occur to me at the beginning, because, well, I’m the parent and I’m the one with the money and so it’s really easy to accidentally come with a solution and not even almost realize that I’m doing it. And especially if they seem to have a very clear idea about what they want to do, too. It’s like, okay, we all are just tunneled in on this thing now. And it can cause this all to get stuck, I think, especially if it feels like something that’s just not doable because of money or anything else.
But yeah, just remembering that I don’t need to come with a solution. Or if I notice myself coming with a solution, I can be like, oh wait, that was a solution. This doesn’t have to be the one way. It’s all such great learning for moving through problems and moving through life.

PAM: Yeah. They really are skills, for lack of a better word, but just gaining experience with different ways to move through things. To see that, I want a horse, is the first step, not the answer. And I found if that’s the family ethos and the way we process and move through things, I found after months, years of experience, that’s how they were processing, like you mentioned. They’re taking that out into the world with them and the way that they look at things, there is more creativity. There are possibilities. And also it’s not so much about the timeline. It’s not like I need everything to be done immediately. Because they’ve had so much experience growing up with that, let’s do the thing and let’s figure out a way to make it work. And checking in with the different contexts and the different constraints that are part of getting to whatever direction you’re wanting to go. There are just so many pieces. Anna?

ANNA: I got excited because of what you just said, which was the trust. And you mentioned it earlier, that it’s an important piece. And this is why. And it’s because there’s a trust. And like you said, Erika, it’s not just the big things like the horse, it’s the little things like the popsicles ran out. It’s the little things where we develop this trust of, we are going to figure this out. And the timeline is such a perfect thing, because it may not be immediately that we can get more popsicles, but they know that I’m not going to forget about it. I’m not brushing them off. I’m not just not going to think about it because we just went to the grocery store. We’re going to keep it top of mind. We’re going to remember it. We’re going to put it on the list. We’re going to make sure. We’re going to recognize that maybe we didn’t get enough popsicles last time. It’s just going to be this idea of like, oh, okay, what I’m saying is important and valued in my family, and there’s a trust that we’ll figure it out.

So, what I think you’ll see shift when that trust develops is they’re not coming at things with such a sense of urgency. Because I think if we don’t feel heard, and this is adults and kids alike, if we don’t feel heard, we get louder and maybe a little bit more insistent and maybe bring a little bit more sense of urgency.

Like, “You don’t understand how important this is to me.” But when we develop that trust, when we follow through and we keep having the conversations and we keep moving those baby steps towards it, it changes it, because we all can do that deep breath that I talked about at the beginning and go, yeah, we’re going to figure this out. There are lots of different ways to get there. And so, the way you said it, Pam, I was like, oh, that’s it. That’s why trust is so important. It’s not about solving it immediately. It is about just knowing we are hearing each other and we’re moving in that direction.

PAM: And I’ve got to say, the popsicle example is just beautiful. Let’s walk through that just a touch. You know, the, oh man, I’d like a popsicle and we’re out of them. We can say, oh, I’ll put it on the list for next time. But maybe we grocery shopped yesterday and we didn’t get enough and we had a whole bunch of friends over and we went through them faster than we expected. And when we have that trust in the relationship and they feel comfortable sharing, their reaction can be, oh, but I really want one now. There’s that urgency. Maybe it’s hot, maybe whatever. There doesn’t need to be a reason or an excuse or anything.

But then that’s a trust piece, too, that it’ll be like, oh, I can’t go right now, but I can go later today. When we realize, oh, a week from now, next time I’m running into town isn’t going to work for them. But that’s that trust piece, that they trust us that they can share without having to get louder and louder and louder. Because if they feel like we’re not hearing them, they are going to just be like, but no, but no. And then all sorts of chaos can unfold.

But when they trust that they could say no, I can’t wait till five days from now or three days from now, or even tomorrow sometimes. But when they know there’s that trust, they’ll actually check in with themselves and, and say they can wait. Or maybe, if you’re just getting into this, maybe they will need it now. But if we can deliver it now, and now and now, and they can trust that if now is real, we will do as much as possible. I find that then they can relax because they’ve got that trust. They see that when something’s urgent, we will do as much as we can to help them in that moment. But then once that trust develops, they can check in with themselves. It’s like, okay, yeah, you know what? I had two popsicles today, tomorrow is fine, and then maybe next grocery shopping is fine. It is just super fascinating to see that develop.

But yeah, I don’t want people to expect that immediately if they’re just making that shift now, because that trust takes some time to develop and we need to show that they can trust us right through our actions.

ANNA: Okay. One quick thing, Erika, because I know you have something to say, too, but this is about the popsicle. That takes a little bit of time to develop. Here’s the energy piece that we’re talking about. So, when that happens, we don’t have enough popsicles, whatever, I can be frustrated like, okay, we literally just went to the store. Why do we not have enough popsicles? I can get frustrated or I can be like, oh my gosh, it is so hot outside. We can’t get to the store right now, but let’s crush some ice. Let’s pour some stuff on it. Let’s make something. That’s that abundance, that energy shift that for me was so important, because I could get stuck in that place of like, okay, oh my gosh, I just went grocery shopping. I don’t want to go again. You know how I feel about grocery shopping? That’s not fun for me. But that’s me tunneling in, that’s me bringing that scarcity mindset when we can have fun with it. We still may need to get the popsicles down the road, maybe even tomorrow or whatever, but I’m bringing a lightness to it and a connection to it that feels better to me and it feels better to them.

PAM: And how fun might it be to make popsicles?

ERIKA: Stick a spoon in it and let’s see what happens. Now we also have an activity to do. But right. So, it’s the trust. It’s kids trusting that we are not just shutting things down because of our fears and our scarcity and our tunnel vision. So, there’s that trust that we’re going to creatively work through things together. But I think the other part of trust for the abundance mindset is us trusting in abundance itself.

And so, that has been such a big shift for me that really does help when I’m starting to have worries and fears about things, if I can come back to trusting there’s going to be a way to move through it, trusting that there are going to be plenty of possibilities and trusting in our capability to make things happen in one way or another.

And it won’t necessarily be that original vision that I thought was going to happen, but there are abundant possibilities. That is what really, just day to day, helps me move through our lives together.

PAM: That’s so brilliant. There are so many pieces. There’s an abundance of pieces to the abundance mindset. That energy piece that we can bring. I’ll start with noticing our triggers, noticing something that that tells us, oh, it might be helpful to look at this shift to see more possibilities.

The energy we bring to it, the trust that we’re developing, the openness to all sorts of possibilities. It really is the release. To the brainstorming side of it, maybe we suggest making the popsicles and they’re like, no, I need it now. And then you’re crushing ice maybe. But releasing that pressure of scarcity that we’re feeling, that is just so key, I think, to shifting to that energy, to that trust in abundance unfolding, even if we don’t know how in the moment it’s going to unfold. But that it’s happened before.

And I think one other piece that’s so helpful is each time, especially when you’re first working at this, is to make note when it works out. It’s like, oh, I had no idea that that’s where we’d end up. Because maybe we’re starting to talk about making juice and then they think of something else they want to freeze or they want to go play in the bath now, because we’re talking about liquid things. You just never know where it’s going to go.

But I think when we can find proof that it works, we have those little reminders. It’s like, oh yeah, this helped. Because that’s just something that helped me notice my triggers a little bit faster. And to be a little bit more like, oh yes, I want to try this mindset shift, because it’s kind of fun. So, there are just so many little pieces that can be involved, and that’s why we always talk about playing with things for ourselves. See which pieces work for you, because maybe not all of the pieces are meaningful to each person. Our triggers are definitely going to be different, because there will be a lot of things from our childhood and from conventional voices that we have taken in and absorbed that we’re going to be working through.

But it’s so fun to play with because, for me, it’s goes back to curiosity. When I can be curious about where it’s going to go, that is something that helps me make that shift to, oh, okay, let’s explore here rather than tunneling into Yes/No, we can or can’t do this particular thing.

ERIKA: Yeah, I was thinking that it’s harder to get to the abundance mindset if I am having a hard time personally, so if I’m in pain or if I’m sick, or if I haven’t had enough sleep, all those self-care pieces or the hungry, angry, lonely, tired, that we’ve talked about, the HALT pieces. All of those could potentially contribute to me getting in that scarcity mindset.

So, then I feel like my job is to notice, oh, it’s that. These are my reasons. Let me try to either take care of myself or be kind to myself that this is a hard moment, but it still is going to be helpful if I can try to shift to an abundance mindset. But those are going to be the more challenging times to get to that place for me.

ANNA: Right. And I feel like our energy does really set the stage. So, being aware of that helps, because again, if we’re going to a scarcity place, you’ll see your kids going to a scarcity place, which then maybe becomes more insistent or more frustrated or wanting something a certain way because it’s feeling scarce. Like, I’ve got to hone in on this, I have to have it right now, kind of thing.

But I think you’re so right that sometimes when our capacity’s low for whatever reason, that’s hard. But that’s when we talk about narration, because I think kids are more capable than we think. If we can say, okay, I know we can solve this, but right now I’m starving and I can’t think and I’m so tired. We are going to get to this. Just narrating a little bit about what’s happening can calm their nervous system to go, okay. They hear me. They’re not helping me right this moment, but they hear me and it’s important. So, that’s a little baby step we can do when we can’t like jump to just the creativity and the abundance if there’s some capacity issues. Just talk about it, you know?

PAM: Yeah. And that’s where the trust comes in as well. When we’ve built that trust and we have been able to share, narrate, and mention if we’re not feeling well or we’re tired or whatever, that they can hear those and take them in, because they don’t feel like we’re just trying to put them off.

ANNA: Right. And I would say definitely follow up. So, if you say something like, “Okay, I’m just too tired right now, it’s really late and I want to revisit it,” write it down, put it on the whiteboard, whatever your family does to show that we are going to revisit this first thing in the morning and do it. Because that’s how we develop the trust by following through, by being there, by remembering.
And even they may have moved on. That’s okay, but you’re still there to say, “Hey, remember that thing you were talking about at 11:00 last night? Do you want to revisit it and figure out how we can do it?” And they may be like, “Oh no, I don’t care.” And that’s okay. But just, I wanted to make sure I was remembering to follow up and not just like, okay, I got them to be quiet and now I’m like not going back to that again.

PAM: Yeah. You don’t want to be just hoping that they don’t bring it up again, because that’s where you’re going to lose points in the trust. It really is all about the actions following the words. That’s where the trust is going to develop. When they know that you will follow through, then they don’t need that immediacy as much. Rather than, “I need it immediately, because if we wait six hours, you’re just going to have forgotten it.” Right? But when they can trust that we’ll come back to it, happily come back to it, so often they get it.

ANNA: Yes. Well, I loved this! It was very fun to dive into abundance and I think there is just lots to think about. Checking in with our triggers, watching the energy we’re bringing, see how it changes things. Play with it. I love that, Pam, let’s just play with it and see if it shifts anything in your house. I think that’ll be really fun.

So, thanks to you both for being here today. And thank you for listening. We hope you found it helpful on your unschooling journey. And if you enjoy these kinds of conversations, we know that you would love the Living Joyfully Network. It is such an amazing group of people connecting and having thoughtful conversations about things and teasing out all the different nuances, and I just love it so much. So, you can learn more about that at livingjoyfully.ca/network and we hope to see you all there.
PAM AND ERIKA: Bye!

ANNA: Take care!

EU365: The Independence Agenda

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika dive into a very interesting lens on parenting—the independence agenda. It’s fascinating to see how this seemingly reasonable goal of fostering our children’s independence can get in the way of not only our relationship with them, but their developing self-awareness and inner voice.

We talk about how different people really are, define the terms independence and autonomy, explore how it’s the “agenda” part of the independence agenda that is the problem, and lots more.

We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including Four Pillars of Unschooling, coaching calls, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hello! I’m Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully, and I am joined today by my co-hosts, Anna Brown and Erika Ellis. Hello to you both!

ANNA AND ERIKA: Hi! Hello!

PAM: And today we are going to dive into a very interesting lens on parenting, and that is the independence agenda. And it’s fascinating to see how this seemingly reasonable goal of fostering our children’s independence can get in the way of not only our relationship with them, but their developing self-awareness and inner voice.

But before we get started, we want to let you know there is a new course in the Living Joyfully Shop, Four Pillars of Unschooling. And note that it is not called THE Four Pillars of Unschooling. Rather, these are four of the foundational paradigm shifts that really helped us on our unschooling journeys.

And it is not to say that there are only four. Yet, if you’re newer to unschooling and actively deschooling, you’re likely wrestling with at least one of these paradigm shifts, if not all four in some ways. And if you’ve been unschooling for years, it can often be so re-energizing, re-grounding when we revisit the fundamentals of unschooling. It helps us clear the fog a little bit and just notice the beautiful unschooling in action that is unfolding in our days.

You’ll find it in our store at LivingJoyfullyShop.com. Check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you. So, Anna, would you like to get us started talking about the independence agenda?

ANNA: I would. So, I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I feel like it first crossed my radar when I had babies. I started hearing this messaging, they need to learn to self-soothe, they should sleep by themselves, and, they’ll never be independent if you don’t push them. And that messaging just really rubbed me the wrong way. Partly it went against everything I’d learned about attachment in psychology in school, and mostly because I wanted nothing more than to be connected with these amazing humans that had come into my life. For me, I realized that I was more interested in exploring interdependence and what that could mean.

I think the richness in life is our connections and relationships. We aren’t meant to be these independent silos. Learning to be in relationship felt like a much more useful skill and lens for my kids to bring into their life and for me to continue to grow in that area, because I had a lot of baggage, thinking that I had to do it all by myself and that that was the goal. And I just didn’t really want to hand that to them, because I saw the ways that it didn’t serve me. And it’s so interesting, because we start to implement this idea and even train babies towards this independence in our culture just so early, and I think it might be a little bit more intense in the US. I’m kind of curious about that from our international audience.

But I think in other countries, they have their own pieces as well, and I just think it’s worth thinking about, where is it coming from? Who does it serve? For me, attachment theory was a much more useful lens. I found that from that securely attached place, my girls were able to explore the world and carve out lives for themselves. And so, there’s a lot here and a lot bubbling in my mind, but I’m interested to see where the conversation goes. So, what’s coming up for you, Erika?

ERIKA: Yeah, it’s such a rich and deep topic, I think. But one of the first things that popped to mind when I was thinking of the independence agenda is just that it sounds so ableist, too. It’s just not taking into account that people are different and independence, if there’s a timeline component to it, if there’s an agenda to it, which there is. Like what you’re talking about with babies, I remember there was a timeline, it was four months sleeping on their own, that kind of thing, then that is showing that what people are believing is that all babies are the same. And so, it’s just not true. And when you have a family of individual people with their individual differences, having that timeline, agenda of independence is just not going to fit.

I was also thinking that the idea of independence feels good when it’s coming from within a person for themselves. It makes me feel capable. It makes me feel like I can make my own decisions. I can do things. That’s a good feeling, but it’s coming from inside. It doesn’t feel good to have someone else tell me, you need to be able to do that by yourself. I’m not going to help you do that. That kind of thing feels like I’m alone. What if I can’t handle it?

And so, in mainstream parenting you might hear warnings like, I’m not going to be around to do this for you in 10 years, so you better learn how to do it by yourself. But that feels kind of ominous and threatening in the moment. And I just think there’s a lot of time typically for those skills to develop. And I just want my kids to know that I will help them. If I can, that’s what I will do. And it doesn’t matter what the age is and it doesn’t matter about some kind of a timeline.

So, I feel like if they’re forced into needing to do things for themselves earlier than we were expecting, for whatever reason, that they can figure that out. But in this moment, we’re all in it together. And everyone is different.

PAM: That everyone is different piece is fundamental and, for me, that “agenda” word is so important when we talk about the independence agenda. Because, as you’re saying, Erika, independence is cool. We can feel capable. It’s like, oh cool, I can do this thing myself, etc. Independence is not a bad thing, but it’s the agenda piece.

That’s like, I know when you should be able to do that thing independently or else there’s something wrong with you. But when we can lose the conventional timetable, the agenda piece, and look at supporting our child’s choices, which will include when they want to do things independently, and just be helping them along the way, what we’re doing is we’re validating, we’re supporting, we’re normalizing their unique timetable and how it unfolds for them.

And that can surely look so different not only for different kids, even different children in the same family, just because people are different. And one might do this thing independently earlier than the other child, and then it’s the complete opposite for something else. Just because people are different and the things that each child is interested in are so different. So, you see their interests and then how they want to engage with them, when opportunities for independence arise, all those things will bubble together and they will take this beautiful, unique path to what independence means for them.

And I love your ableism point, too, Erika, and one does not even need to be labeled in any sense for there to be an artificial timeline on top of the things that they should or shouldn’t be able to do. To get to that point where you can understand that this is their life, this is their path, the way their life will unfold, and that choice for independence along it. It becomes so natural when you don’t use that as a lens, when you don’t have that independence agenda on top of it all, you see it unfold because it’s naturally what humans like to do.

ANNA: Right, but I think it’s interesting to think of this independence as a goal, because that’s where it becomes this agenda piece. It’s this goal of independence. And I really wanted to peel that back, because I feel like, again, as humans, it’s the interdependence that helps us reach the places we want to reach and do the things we want to do. It’s this idea of, especially taking kids and, okay, you need to go recreate the wheel independently. We’re not going to help you. You’re not going to get any feedback. And I’m just like, is that real life? Because I have a partner that I’ve been with since I was very young, and we do things together. I’m not independently doing everything on my own. And I feel like having those relationships makes my life richer.

And so, is independence, this silo, the goal? Because, basically, the definition of independence is you’re not receiving help. You’re able to do it on your own without help. Is that the goal? Because I think when we push that on kids, it can leave them, like you’re saying, Erika, a little bit out in the cold feeling like, this is scary. And yet maybe they have these amazing goals that actually put them off into the world. But they would get there more easily and more comfortably by getting feedback and having support and help as they go. Pam?

PAM: Yeah, I’m just excited, because what bubbled up for me there is how valuable that interdependence piece is. I just always think of a child who can dress themselves and then therefore the parent expects them to dress themselves the next time. “You can do this, you can do this. You did this last week.” Whatever it is, “You did this last week.” But context means so much. And so, we can just think of that in our lives. Some days we have more energy. Some days we’re raring to go. Some days we’re not and we need more help. So, to have that in our network, to have that in our relationships.

As adults, how hard is it to ask for help? Because we have just been trained that, I should be able to do this by myself, and then we just dig ourselves a deeper and deeper hole, because either we don’t do the thing and then we feel bad that we didn’t do the thing, or we try to do the thing and it just takes the last ounce that we have. Oh my gosh, interdependence is so much more valuable at any age!

If our child’s like, “No, I don’t feel like picking an outfit and getting dressed,” and they’re not saying that nicely. They’re probably crying and whining. Those are clues for us. Oh, there is something different today that they’re just not feeling that they’re able to do this on their own. And what a gift for us to be able to help them in those moments. That’s the team, that’s the interdependence. And at any age, any age, just to normalize asking for help when you need it, it’s just so big.

ERIKA: Yeah. That’s exactly where I was going to go next. I had made a note of “needing help is not a bad thing,” and if our kids know what it’s like to feel they need help and ask for help and receive help, that will just make such a huge difference in their lives.

And so, when you were talking about the examples of context, so, something like being able to sleep on their own, that feels like once they can achieve it, now we’re good. Now they do that. And so, it can be triggering or bring up some things for us when it’s like, and now why are they not doing this? Why are they not doing the thing? And so, looking at the context and valuing that the child can come to me and say, “I’m having a hard time sleeping by myself now,” or, “I’m having a hard time falling asleep,” that’s showing us that something else is going on.

Maybe it’s brain development and now there’s all these new thoughts that are worrying them at night. There are always a lot of things going on, deeper things going on, and so I love using that as a clue to ask, what is the context? What is changing? What is growing about the kids that these things that they used to be able to do easily, now they’re saying they need help?

ANNA: Right. And I think it just translates into our adult lives, because I think all three of us have baggage in this area where it’s hard to ask for help, because we were trained in school and in whatever, that you need to do it on your own and no cheating, no this, no whatever.

I mean, “cheating” even! To call it that! In our normal lives, we all work together. And of course we collaborate and of course if I don’t know how to do this thing, Erika, help me do this thing. Wait a minute, Pam, I forgot how to do this thing. How do I do this thing? That’s natural. That makes us all better at the work that we’re doing, to be able to share our knowledge and skills. But we all grew up in this environment where you need to be by yourself at your desk and nobody can help you. And I really just wanted my kids to have a different feel of that, that it’s okay to ask for help and that, actually, we are stronger together.

PAM: It’s human resources, whatever kinds of resources that one finds one needs in this moment, not even needs, wants. I don’t have to justify it by saying I need this. I can want some help. I shouldn’t have to have excuses for it, right?

So, yeah, I think that whole independence thing is such a trigger for people. And I think a lot of the messaging is like, well, if we don’t make them do it, they won’t ever become independent, because independence is harder than being cared for.

But to me, that’s like, well, they won’t learn the hard things. They won’t learn algebra if we don’t make them learn algebra. It is all the same messaging. But, no. When human beings have the choice, there will be moments when they want to do things, if it has meaning in their life, and timetable wise, whenever it has meaning in their life. Human beings will choose to do the harder things when it’s theirs to choose.

And the context is everything. And the people are different is everything. Because what that looks like for them is what it looks like for them. That’s their truth. Not putting my expectations or my view of shoulds on top of all that. That just muddies the water. It damages our relationship. It stops me from learning who they actually are versus my vision of who I wish they were. All those pieces just get in the way. So, independence, to me, it’s just a thing. It’s just another aspect of living and I’m just going to help them explore their independence as they want to explore it.

ERIKA: Yeah. It’s like the scarcity of time feeling, where you’re jumping ahead to the future. Like, “This 4-year-old can’t put on his shoes. This is going to be terrible in 20 years,” not realizing this expanse of time that’s going to happen between now and then. And so, it’s about not letting those future fears interfere with what you’re doing with the child in front of you who is just on their own path.

ANNA: It’s those outside voices again. And we can just question them. Where are they coming from? Who is it serving? What does it mean? Why do we want that?

Because then I think that can just give us a clue of like, okay, that doesn’t have anything to do with this child in front of me, for sure. And really not even the partner in front of me or the friend in front of me, but for sure not this child in front of me.

And I think just to touch a tiny bit on those expectations, Pam, it’s like, if we have these expectations of what it looks like, we miss the learning about the actual person, because we’ve tunneled in on this expectation that they should be able to do X, Y, Z, or they should be living alone at this age, or they should be able to do this thing by this age.

We just miss who that person actually is and what their internal timetable is, and that they may be going in a completely different direction. I just don’t think it’s linear. And so, I think we miss that when we are focusing in on this linear path that so many of us grew up with. This is the progression, this is what it looks like. And I think so many of us weren’t served by that linear path, either, because I think that in reality, humans are very swirly. We do things in a very swirly way.

ERIKA: It reminding me of the little sheet that you get at a pediatrician’s office. They really do have these. These are the skills, these are the ages. Check them off one by one. And so, it can make you feel like, uh oh, this isn’t looking too good that my kid isn’t checking them off in the correct order and at the right speed. It’s really about blocking out that external stuff.

PAM: There’s a piece that comes up for me, too, that I think is an interesting question. Because in unschooling circles, we do talk a lot about autonomy, our child’s autonomy. And it’s like, well, if I’m not looking for independence, then they don’t have autonomy. But I think it’s so fascinating to think about those two, because they are not the same. Autonomy is not the same as independence. They’re very different.

When they want to make choices for themselves, they can make a choice that doesn’t look like independence for us, yet, that’s fully autonomous, because it is fully their choice in the moment.

So, if we want to talk a little bit about the theory behind it, the theory of self-determination, “Autonomy means that you have free will. That you can stand behind your actions and their values.” In other words, no one is forcing you to do something that you disagree with. “But independence means that you don’t need or accept help.” I want you to be independent. I want you to be able to do this by yourself and that you can do this without needing other people’s help. That is so different, right?

Autonomy does not require independence at all. You can absolutely be autonomous and still dependent on others or wanting others at some time (that’s the whole context piece) to help you and support you as you’re trying to do whatever the thing is. So, you can autonomously still act in accordance to your own belief and have free will and do all those things and still have the support and care of the people around you.

And, for me, that is the adult life that I want. I want to be supported by my network, by my community, by my family, whenever I need it, without having to justify it, without having to explain it. And that’s what we talk about so much when we talk about relationships and trust and connection and understanding each other.

Because when that happens, we’re not questioning, we’re not judging. We’re just like, oh, somebody’s wanting some help. Boom. I’m there. I’ll help out. And they fully have autonomy when they’re making that choice, when they’re making that ask, when somebody notices and offers. We don’t jump in and do it for them, but we can offer, we can help, we can support. It’s so different.

ANNA: And I think when we force the independence agenda, which again is pretty common actually among mainstream families, and it’s coming from a place of love, so, “They need to know how to do their laundry.” “They need to be independent and doing their laundry. I’m not going to help them,” whatever. But what it ends up fostering, again, is this silo, like, “Well, you’re not going to help me. I’m not going to help you, and I’m not going to do this.” And so, that becomes the norm.

Because we’re teaching that independence is the value, like independence is where you have value. That’s a really dangerous, slippery slope to me. And like you said, Erika, it’s so ableist for sure. But it’s like, wait a minute. It’s so potentially damaging, I think, because it stops us from wanting to help the other person. And it could even be that we’re coming at that from kindness. Well, but we don’t want to hurt their independence, when in fact, who’s that serving? I’m curious. I have my own thoughts about it. We don’t need to get into that here, but I think it’s just really peeling that back, because is that what you want? Or do you want to foster, we help each other? We support each other as a family, as friends? Because, like you said, Pam, that’s what I want right now at 55. That’s what I want.

ERIKA: Right. And it makes so much sense. I feel like once you start thinking about it like that, if the message that my kids and my family get are that we all can ask for help and get it, that’s just great. That’s a great takeaway, because that will help them all the time. But if we’re giving them the message of, you did it by yourself, that’s so much better. That’s so much better. Like, finally you did it by yourself. I feel like that totally happened to me as a kid. And it’s common and it is from a place of mostly love and support, like, I want you to be able to feel good about yourself and do things by yourself. But then it creates a whole culture of adults who don’t know how to ask for help and push through to the point of overwhelm and stress.

And that word autonomy, I can see how people could get it confused with the independence part, just because autonomous, it kind of sounds like they’re doing things on their own. And, “I want them to have autonomy,” means they are just doing their things on their own. But it’s just a different thing. That’s not what it looks like. Autonomy is making choices and not being forced to do something that you don’t want to do. So, there is nuance and it’s so interesting.

ANNA: It really is.

PAM: That can be one of the messages when we first come to unschooling that can be confusing. It’s like, oh, I’m not supposed to help them. I’m not supposed to step in and teach them things, so I don’t know what else to do. I’m just going to step back, hands off, and expect them to figure things out on their own.

And then we started equating that independence, that autonomy, as doing it themselves versus just choosing what they want to do. And then that really gets in the way, I think, of developing the relationships with them, of being in connection, of developing that trust.

And I just want to jump back to that laundry example, because that’s a beautiful thing. I love that example, because it’s like, oh, this is something they need to know when they’re out on their own. So, I need to support them in doing that thing. And then once they learn it, they should keep doing it, because someday they’re going to be out and they’re going to have to do it for themselves all the time. So, it’s like they need all this training, like years of laundry to be able to do laundry when they’re on their own. And when you think of it through that lens, it’s funny for most people, but I mean, yes, it’s definitely out of a loving space. I want to help them, I want to support them, and we can just really get in our head with that. And I think it just does so much more damage than it helps.

Because you can go to YouTube and learn how to do some laundry in 10 minutes and boom, you’ve got something washed and with whatever machine you got in front of you and you’ve built critical thinking skills. In every episode we talk about critical thinking skills, like working through problems.

I remember a call from a laundromat from Lissy when she moved to New York City at 18. I was like, oh yeah, this is how you do that. Oh my gosh, it was a two-minute phone call. Because she was like, I have this question. This isn’t the same. Different machines, different place, different country, a whole different experience. It was totally okay. That wasn’t a failure of some sort of laundry training that I didn’t do over the previous 10 years that I was like, oh, that’s a big X in my parenting.

ANNA: How cool that she called though? Because I would say I, my mom was one of those moms that, she didn’t let us do the laundry. I think she thought we would mess it up. And so, I learned laundry on my own. There wasn’t even YouTube. We just had to trial and error it and figure it out when we were on our own. But I love that Lissy could just call and you weren’t there. You didn’t know the machine, but you could talk it through with her. Again, that’s interdependence.

It’s like, okay, you have a little bit more knowledge in this. I want to understand this, because this is a little bit different than what I’m used to. There’s no failure in that on any side, and that’s what I want to foster.

And I think there are just so many ways to support the autonomy and support the independence that’s coming from them. That’s where maybe they cross over, autonomy and independence. If that choice is them wanting to do things on their own. And so, I don’t know. I just think it’s so interesting to think about. What are we trying to do? And is this path really getting us there?

ERIKA: Yeah. That was a thought that popped up for me, when they want some independence. That’s the other side of this conversation. Sometimes the kids are really the ones pushing independence in an area where maybe we’re not quite ready for it. And that’s where it’s autonomy again, giving them the choice of having more independence in an area where we kind of want to say, oh no, that’s fine. We’ll keep doing it for you. I’ll keep doing your laundry, because I’m just not sure about letting you do that yet. And so, yeah, just the context, the people are different. Each child is going to, if they’re given the chance to have that autonomy, they will show you what they want to be independent in and at what time. That’s them creating their own journey.

PAM: And they also give you the clues as to how much they want to celebrate that thing. If we celebrate it, because we’re super excited that they did it independently and we subtly give the message that doing it independently is better than needing or wanting help for it, that can get in the way, again, as you were talking about. But yes, they may want to do something independently and they may think it’s cool. We don’t have to be the stone wall all the time when it comes to doing something independently or not.

But we can take our clues from them. How exciting is this for them? We can validate like, oh yeah, that’s amazing. So cool. How fun. Whatever words work for them. We can meet them where they are in that choice, in that moment, and in that level of excitement without the expectation, again, that it would be the same every time, without subtly relaying the message that, okay, we now expect them to do that same thing every time. All those pieces.

Because we can be looking to outside to tell us what to do so often. So, if I’m going to follow our whole Unschooling Rules series, the rules of unschooling say, I’m not going to teach them. I’m not going to tell them. So, then I’m going to step back. So, we’re looking for that rule that says, okay, but in this situation we do X. Okay, now here’s a little bit different situation. Now we do Y. But no, it doesn’t work that that. There aren’t rules for us.

But if we just engage with the actual person in front of us in that moment, we have so many clues about how to engage with them, how to support them, how to validate them, how to meet them where they are in whatever level of excitement or frustration. We can understand who they are and just be with them. That is just so much more valuable than worrying about the rules. That’s our school mind. So, when you find yourself asking, but when they’re doing this and they’re feeling this, what should I do? Nope. Sorry. You’re going to have to just figure it out.

ANNA: But that’s back to what you said earlier where independence is not the bad word. What we’re calling into question is the agenda. The attachment to outcome. The expectations. And that’s what we’re calling into question here.

A friend recently was talking about supporting autonomy. That’s how she sees her role is as supporting her children’s autonomy. And so, they’re making choices. They’re wanting to do things and we’re supporting. So, it’s not the hands off, over here, you’re this autonomous being, doing things independently. It’s, yeah, we can be partners in that and I can support you in your individual choice and free will.

ERIKA: Right. And you can ask for help.

PAM: Yes! You can ask for help whenever you need it.

Thank you so much to both of you for this wonderful, wonderful conversation. And thank you to everyone for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this and that maybe you picked up a nugget or two that will be helpful on your unschooling journey.

Remember to check out our new course, Four Pillars of Unschooling in the Living Joyfully Shop at, not surprisingly, livingjoyfullyshop.com. We wish everyone a lovely week. Thanks so much.

ANNA: Take care.

ERIKA: Bye!

EU364: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Including Kids in Decisions

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about including kids in decisions.

There are many reasons why parents may rush through big decisions without giving children a chance to weigh in, but we’ve found that including kids in decisions provides us with useful questions and information, helps avoid dysregulation and melt downs, and results in so much learning for everyone in the family. Being a part of making important decisions now gives children experience that will help them when they have their own big decisions to make in the future.

We also explored how important validation can be as we’re talking about making changes in a family. Anna mentioned an inspirational TikTok video that is a great example of validation and we have linked that below.

It was a really fun conversation and we hope you find it helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

TikTok video from @youngmi

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, coaching, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about supporting our children’s autonomy. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ERIKA: Hello, everyone! I’m Erika Ellis from Living Joyfully, and I’m joined by my co-hosts, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia. Hello to you both!

On today’s episode of Exploring Unschooling, we are diving into another unschooling stumbling block, which is including kids in decisions. I’m really excited to talk about this one, but first I wanted to give a quick plug to the Living Joyfully Network, which has really been life-changing for me in so many ways.

On the Network, we have amazing discussions about so many topics, since our community has such a wide variety of experiences. I love the community so much, because everyone there is really learning and growing and being intentional with their families. If you’d like to learn more about the Network and check it out for yourself, you can visit livingjoyfully.ca/network or you can click the link in the show notes. We would love to meet you there.

And Pam, would you like to get us started talking about including kids in decisions?

PAM: I definitely would. This has really been a fascinating part of the unschooling journey for me and it grew out of just recognizing how capable my kids were. I mean, even before they left school, I respected their feelings and their needs. But it wasn’t until they were home and I was seeing them in action day in and day out that I came to see how truly capable they were of making choices.

So, I saw how even if I wouldn’t make the same choice, the choice that they made made great sense for them. I got more and more comfortable with them making choices for themselves, and it was just brilliant to see it in action. Once you give them the space to do that instead of jumping in with, “Oh, well why don’t you do this? Oh, why don’t you do that?” it was really amazing to see.

And then let’s peel back another layer. It hit me that the decisions that parents typically make, that impact the whole family, we’re impacting them, even though I was making a decision. And so, that thought bubbled away alongside the thought of how capable my kids were of making decisions. And I was soon drawn to involving them in more choices, not just the ones that affected only them directly.

So, the first big one that I remember was about two years into our unschooling journey, and I went back and just quickly checked the dates and it started about two years in. And that’s when the idea of moving came up for us. So, I remember thinking that this is such a big decision, not just whether to move, but where to move. And it felt uncomfortable at first to fully involve the kids in the whole process. I worried that I would feel the need to override them at some point because they just couldn’t understand the nuance of this, or that, or the other thing that was involved. But I chose to step up and realize that this was my work to do. Let’s see how it goes. Put on that investigator’s hat and get curious about it.

Even though the process of finding a new home took about a year, fully involving them was amazing. They brought great questions with them, questions I didn’t think of asking, but were actually very relevant. They brought thoughtful feedback after touring properties and houses, and even if I didn’t have the same reaction as them, theirs made sense. Because now I was capable of seeing things through their eyes, so I could see how, yeah, that might feel a little off, or that might really excite them. So, their reactions and their feedback was awesome.

Their enthusiasm inspired me to keep going when I was getting tired of this long, long search. And when they didn’t feel like participating at times, they trusted the rest of us to keep their needs top of mind at that point. Because we had been all working together. There wasn’t that power dynamic of parents and kids at that point. They trusted that they were being heard, that they were being considered.

So, all in all, it was a very meaningful experience for me. You know how we talk about understanding something intellectually, but then getting it more deeply once we have our own experience of it unfolding in our lives? Well, after that experience, I understood in my bones that kids are capable of being included, as much as they are interested in, again, not at whatever level we expect them to be participating in it, but being able to participate as much as they wanted in those big family decisions. It reached every facet of our lives. It was just so meaningful for everyone and it just helped in so many ways that we will get into in this whole conversation, but like yes, an example of it in action.

ANNA: Right! And I think what’s so interesting is that it’s really stories in our head that it’s not going to be okay. Because we start thinking, like you said, they’re not going to understand the nuances, or they’re not going to get this, or they’re going to be more self-serving in what they’re wanting.

And then when we start peeling that back, it’s so interesting, because anytime we’re making a decision, we’re all kind of self-serving and thinking of what we want. We all have our thing top of mind. And so, what I loved about it, because we actually did a similar one with moving, and people did not understand, because in our case, we ended up not moving in large part because the girls weren’t ready to move. And people did not understand that. Like, what? Why are they getting to have the say in this big decision? And I was like, well, it is their life, too.

What I found was that they weren’t coming up from a place of being difficult or whatever. We were just able to talk about what it felt like to them. And then David and I were able to say, well, here are the things we’re concerned about. Here’s the things we’d have to change if we decided to not move versus move. Here’s these pieces.

And so, I feel like we talk about narration a lot and transparency, and I think that’s a big piece of that, because we can’t hold back the information and then think that anybody’s going to make a sound decision. And so, it’s so much about that interplay of sharing information. And this really goes back, for me, to each of us having the self-awareness to understand our needs, be able to communicate our needs, and then we’re working together to solve them. That’s really the dynamic that we tried to create, the environment that we tried to create in our family.

And so, it was interesting to see it play out. And so often, with little decisions and big, I learned so much more about them. They did bring incredible insights. They learned more about me, which was interesting, too. And I think they learned more just in general about how to approach a big decision and what are the different factors, and I felt like that has served them as they’ve been making big decisions in their own lives.

ERIKA: At first, they don’t even know what big decisions there are to be made. And so, it really is just cool to get to have those experiences as they’re growing up. And I was just thinking, the mainstream expectation is just that adults get to make decisions, because they’re the ones who have the money. They’re the ones who have all the knowledge about all the parts and the kids better just not complain about whatever decision is made and go along with it.

And so, I see that play out all around me in our culture. But I also remember being a kid, and at that time I was intelligent, fully human, had my own ideas, and totally could have been a part of decision making.

And so, I think some of the reasons for not including them in decisions can be feeling like it just makes things harder. The more people you have adding into the conversation to make this big decision, it takes more time and now there are potentially more variables that are coming up. So, as an example, we have a couple of vehicles that are getting pretty old at this point, and I know at some point in the pretty near future we’re going to need to get a new family car. And it would be really easy for me to just say, I get to pick the car and I’ll just do it and then that’s that.

But I know that we spend time in the car and it’s their car. That’s their experience of traveling, too. And so, like both of you have brought up, they’ll bring up things that would never occur to me. And so, it actually helps me make a better decision when I find out the things that are important to them and the things that they think, but what about this? Like, I’m worried if we have a new car, we’re not going to have whatever the thing is that they like about the current car and if I don’t include them in the decision, I’ll never find that out. And then, it could be a problem later down the road.

And so, I think it’s wishful thinking that we would be able to make decisions on our own without including them, and that it’s all just going to be fine and they’re going to be fine and everyone will just be happy with it, because it’s important to them. These things are important, where they live, what we’re driving, what we’re eating, what our vacations look like. All of these things that feel like a whole family decision. And there’s just so much learning, like you’re talking about, for all of us.

ANNA: I think one of the things that comes to mind when you say that, and we talk about this in other contexts, too, is this idea that it’s easier. It’s easier for us to make the decision. But to me, it’s just putting the work to the back end, because then the decision is made, and now you maybe have dysregulated kids or upset kids or upset spouse if you’ve just made the decision unilaterally. And it’s like, that’s harder work to me.

The work that you were talking about, Pam, in that long process of picking the house, it maybe took a little bit longer than if you’d just done it on your own, but that was such interesting work. Nobody was dysregulated in that work. You weren’t having to care for all the feelings. I mean, having conversations to care for the feelings, but so different than a dysregulated piece that could happen at the end when somebody’s uprooted from their environment and into another situation.

I’ve just heard so many people that it was just like, yep, I’m moving. And I remember it from my childhood. I still remember my friend being torn away from me. We talk about it all the time. Anyway, it’s just so interesting to think of this as easier, but is it easier?

PAM: I love that you always bring that up, Anna. When we have conversations around these things, the time invested beforehand or after and which feels better. And, for me, my mind so often goes to, like you were saying, Erika, it’s like more irons in the fire, more aspects to consider. The context grows, the more people are allowed to contribute to the context. Yet, for me, what I lean on is that, oh my gosh, the choice that we end up making is just, through my eyes, so much better. Even for me, right? Because I have missed things, like you were talking about, and it may not even be because I don’t care about it, it’s because I didn’t even tag it as something to consider. And when they tag something, I go, oh yeah, that’s a good point. So often, yes, it makes sense through their eyes.

And also, when I can understand it and I learn more about them and they learn more about me, but so often, the stuff that they bring up is also valuable for me and applicable to me. And that, in the end, when we make that choice together, looking back, I just see so many times that’s a better choice than the one I would’ve made unilaterally. So, that’s where my mind goes. But, absolutely, having to recover from having made a choice on my own, that is a whole other can of worms, too.

ERIKA: And all the parts joining into the context is so interesting, because whether or not you hear those parts, they’re there already. They already have their opinions about things, whether or not you’re asking them. And so, I think it’s just bringing all of the needs to light to help make the decision easier.

And I was also thinking about another decision that’s coming up for us is we all, I think, want to get a treadmill. All four of us do. And yet there’s still this process of trying to figure it out. It’s going to change the way our room is laid out. Do we all really understand that and how do we feel about that?

And so, I think Josh sometimes can be like, well, we want it. Come on, let’s just get it. Are we going to order it? And I’m just like, well, we haven’t seen what the room looks like yet. And I just know from previous experience, my kids are sensitive to change. And so, that’s just all part of our decision-making process now. Really thinking about, okay, let’s make sure we all really are settled in this and understand what it means and talk about all the possibilities, because once we start brainstorming, there are tons of possibilities.

ANNA: Okay. So, I’m going to take it in a slightly different direction. And, Erika, you may have to help me with this, but what I want to take it into, because I can hear the people out there saying, but sometimes, they have these attachments to things like, we can’t change the couch, or we can’t get the new rug, or the different things. And there’s this attachment that we don’t understand.

And somebody on the Network recently shared a TikTok from @youngmi, and so, Erika, I may need you to summarize what it was about, but that piece of just how we can brush through what they are saying when they have this attachment to the couch, we’re not giving attention to what it is they love about that.

In the moment, we just kind of get frustrated, so we go to that place of frustration like, “But the couch is 20 years old and it needs to go, and this is ridiculous.” We don’t leave space for those emotions. And I just think our kids really teach us these life lessons. And that’s kind of what that TikTok was about.

But do you remember what I’m talking about? The boba tea.

ERIKA: The mom was talking about her son having a really big emotional experience about her throwing away his last sip of boba tea. She said she could get him the exact same one again, same flavor. It’s going to be the same. And he was like, but it’s not the same one. That one is gone. And he’s crying and crying on the floor, and she’s just like, I don’t get it.

Then all of a sudden, she did get it. She was like, oh, he is just realizing this fact of life for the first time, that that cup, once it’s gone, is gone and there will never be another one of those cups. And so, it’s this really heavy existential realization. And he had it for the first time.

And so, once she realized that that was what had happened, that he was having this big a-ha moment about life, she was like, oh, I get it. That was the last one of that cup and it’s gone. And that is so, so sad. And he was like, yes. Finally, you understand what I mean. And he was able to move through it.

So, that’s the kind of validation that works, to actually move through. He felt like, yes, I was able to get you to understand what is going on for me emotionally. And she really did get it. And so, her message to other parents was just like, as kids are learning about what happens in life, these are really big and heavy concepts that they’re just realizing. And so, if they’re getting really upset about something that seems so little, it might be that it really means something much bigger and they’re realizing something big about life.

And so, with the couch and moving the room and not wanting to get rid of things, some of that feels so heavy and deep to them. And so, if we just keep saying, “That doesn’t make sense, it’s old, it’s whatever. Throwing it away is no big deal.” They’re not going to feel validated by that.

ANNA: Right. Because it’s impermanence, right? We’re learning it and we’ve had decades to wrap our head around how we lose things, things go away, and we have to change things and those different pieces. But for kids, it’s very new. This is the couch that they’ve known their whole life. This is the couch that they snuggle the dog on. This is the couch that means these things.

And so, I think what I learned was just to slow it down. And I talk about that a lot, because I can be like, get it done. I’m like, we got a new couch, let’s get it done. Let’s change the room, let’s paint it, let’s go. And it’s like, slow it down. Give everybody space to just wrap their head around it, because these concepts that I feel like we all still mess with and think about and think about in the larger terms of life, these are new concepts for them. And maybe it’s the first time they’re having to let go of something that’s important to them.

So, I don’t know. I just love that reminder. We’ve all been there with kids with this kind of attachment, but it doesn’t mean they’re not capable of making the decision, it’s just slowing it down and giving space for all those pieces.

PAM: It’s very funny. I’m just laughing, because just a couple of days ago, Rocco said something to me, very nice. He was trying to manage something and I was like, “You know? I’m not as attached to that as I was years ago.” It can be a different kind of conversation now.

And yes, I remember watching that TikTok and I got goosebumps again as you were describing it, Erika, because it’s like, but how would we know when something’s so big to them? But it’s in their reaction. If their reaction seems out of context or bigger than you would expect or anticipate, those are our clues. Those are our clues. Not that they don’t understand what’s going on, but maybe that they more deeply understand. And just remembering that this might be their first experience of X, Y, or Z.

So, seemingly out of proportion reactions are great clues for us to, like you said, Anna, slow down, take a moment. And it’s like, oh, what could this be meaning to them? Because she was just asking herself, why is this reaction going and going and going? Why can’t we just move through this? But that’s the whole point. She stuck with it. And she finally came to that realization like, oh, because we might think, why are they stuck? Why are they saying the same thing over and over? No, don’t take that couch. No, I want my old bubble tea, or whatever. It’s like, okay, I don’t have it yet. I don’t have it yet. It’s worth the effort and the time and the space to get to the place where we have it for so many reasons. Because now we’ve learned a little bit more about them. Now we can validate them, truly validate them, and they feel seen and heard and understood.

So, then they now can often more easily move through it. They don’t have to keep defending, don’t have to keep trying to explain, to explain, please see me, please see me, please hear what I’m saying. This means something to me. When we’re not dismissive, but we’re like, okay, I’m going to keep trying, I’m going to keep trying, I’m going to keep trying to get to that spot, and then trust builds there.

More connection builds there, more openness to care when it happens the next time, in something completely irrelevant, but it’s more experience that you are building as human beings together. So, it’s just so powerful when we can take that time to invest in the relationship, if you want to put it that way.

ANNA: And I think it gets to where we talk about underlying needs, too. So, we can have this conflict with a decision up at the surface, new couch, old couch, but then underneath that, it’s like, oh, when we slow down, when we take that time, we find out, how are we going to read on that couch? That couch looks different. Then it’s like, oh, well it’s about reading. Let’s create a reading nook that solves that. We can get stuck up here, and then we miss the reasons behind it on both sides. And I want to be able to articulate what my needs are to get the new couch or to whatever it is, so that then they were like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

But if we just stay up here at the authoritarian decision or the across-the-board decision, we lose some of that. And I think that’s what’s so interesting. And so, the question I always asked myself was, what is my attachment to not having them involved? What am I scared of of having them involved? What are the expectations that I have? Because those are the questions I want to ask myself when I feel that resistance to bringing them into a decision about something. And that work really served me, because again, I think it helped us stay in this place in our relationship where we both felt heard and seen as we were making these decisions that impacted all of us.

ERIKA: Right. It’s making me think, too, about that internal and external processing part. Sometimes, if you are an internal processor and you do a lot of figuring things out inside without the narration, without telling other people what’s going on in there, it can feel frustrating to be like, “But I’ve already figured out such a good solution to this problem, you guys. I wanted you to just say, yes, that’s perfect. Let’s move on.”

I think there’s that, and then there’s also just the sense of urgency that is so easy to have once you feel like there’s something that you want to move towards, it can be hard to pull back, but I don’t need to rush it. It’s okay to include these other people. It’s okay for it to take a little extra time. Because in most cases, decisions do not have to be made and executed on the day that it’s coming up.

And then I also think that including the kids in these family decisions, even though it’s more work on the front end, like you were saying, then they have investment in the end result. And so, I’ve found that to be so valuable. When we all feel like this was our decision, so many things can go more smoothly in the future. Where if it’s like, you did that and I didn’t want you to, we’ll be dealing with the repercussions of that forever. Like, you got rid of my thing when I wasn’t ready, or you didn’t listen to me about that. And so, really like including them in the conversations, even when it can feel frustrating, because I already figured everything out in my opinion, it helps.

PAM: I think that that is a great thing to remember. I’m so glad you brought that up, Erika, because it’s so true. We can, from a very loving space, there’s something that feels out of whack and we want to try and figure out a solution and us internal processors have thought it through and thought it through and thought it through and we finally came with this awesome idea and we don’t realize that if we haven’t talked about it, if we haven’t mentioned that we’re thinking about it, this is a completely new, out-of-the-blue idea to them. And I do not like out-of-the-blue ideas that are about to happen right now. I need a little bit of processing time. I need some time to just figure out, what are the implications for me of this thing happening?

So, it’s just so funny to think about it that way and just to recognize that if we’re not sharing what we’re thinking about, we don’t even know how much processing they’ll need around things or want around things or information they’ll want or what they may think of. And if we get that initial, “Oh, yay!” and do it really fast, but then two days later, it’s like, oh, but what about this and what about this? And you’re like, well, it’s gone now.

So, like you’re saying, most things, the vast majority of bigger decisions like this, family-related decisions, are not emergencies. They are not urgent. So, giving that space and time to everyone involved, not just inside our head, is just super, super valuable, I think. And it’s such a great point that it makes it so much easier later on, because everybody’s participating in the decision. We’ve had the time to think it through and like it’s like, okay, this is just the answer. It’s almost the afterthought.

ANNA: Right. And I want to touch on the piece that you just said about emergencies, because what we found is, this was our process of making decisions together and taking everybody’s into account and thinking about all the needs, so those times where there were emergent decisions, and they happened, like serious things happened, where it’s like, “We’ve got to make this decision right now. Get in the car, go. We’ve got something happening that’s intense,” it was just not a big deal, because they just knew and they just trusted. I gave them the information that I had. “This is what I feel like we’ve got to do.” And it was like, “Okay.” Because that’s that other piece that people go, “But if you give them that, then they’re going to always be like this.” And it was just not my experience.

The experience was that it built trust. When you were talking about that earlier, Pam, it builds trust in each other and that’s what then allows on either side to operate, whether you see they’re feeling something super emergent and I need to drop everything and go see what’s happening. And so, I think that’s another piece that I felt like was a side benefit that I wasn’t really sure how it would play out until it did.

ERIKA: I think they can really tell the difference. We may try to bring a super sense of urgency, like, but I need a new couch right now, because this couch is driving me crazy! But they know we’re not dealing with an emergency here. So, yeah, I like to remember to slow down when possible.

ANNA: But I also like that reminder about the processor, not just for us, because if we’re internally processing, but to think of the audience like, okay, do I have external processors that are going to want to bounce all the ideas off of me? And so, I need to kind of be ready for that to give space? Do I have somebody that’s going to go away for three days and I need to know that they actually are thinking about it and not think, oh, they don’t care because they went away for three days to think about it? And so, really knowing each other that way, and again, bringing some narration into it can really help us not get caught off guard by that.

PAM: And to not be thrown off if, the first few times through, family decisions are a little bit bumpy, because we’re learning about each other. We’re learning that somebody needs those three days of processing or however long. We are recognizing and learning that somebody will need to talk about it a lot, a lot more than if we’ve already figured out what we think the solution is and then they just need to say, but what about this? But what about this? Oh, what about this? And just to give ourselves that space for and the energy to be able to participate in that conversation, because you know it’s important for them. But we’re not going to learn that level, that depth of each other until we try it out.

ANNA: Until you do it. Yes.

ERIKA: Exactly! Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our conversation and picked up a nugget or two for your own unschooling journey. And if you enjoy these kinds of conversations, I really think you’d love the Living Joyfully Network. You can learn more at livingjoyfully.ca/network. And if you’re looking for individualized support, whether it’s about unschooling, relationships, work, or just life, you can check out all of our coaching options at livingjoyfullyshop.com.

Have a great week everyone, and we’ll see you next time. Bye!

EU363: Deschooling

Deschooling is a bit of a buzzword in homeschooling and alternative education spaces at the moment. So, let’s dive in!

Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about the definition of the word, what that transition to unschooling can look like for parents and adults, the importance of letting go of expectations, some of the paradigm shifts that happen during deschooling, and how deschooling is something that we revisit over time as we reach new seasons in our children’s lives.

We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, coaching calls, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello, everyone! I’m Anna Brown with Living Joyfully, and today I’m joined by my co-hosts, Pam Laricchia and Erika Ellis. Hello!

PAM AND ERIKA: Hello!

ANNA: Hello! Before we get started, I wanted to encourage you to visit the Living Joyfully Shop. There you’ll find all of Pam’s books, our growing catalog of courses, and you can join our online community, and also book coaching calls with us. We are really having fun creating this one-stop shop to support you as you navigate relationships with your loved ones and deep dive into your unschooling journey. You can follow the link in the show notes or just go to livingjoyfullyshop.com.

So, today we are going to be talking about deschooling. It seems that lately it’s kind of popping up again and it’s a word that’s maybe reaching a bit of a wider audience as people start to pull away from traditional schools for a variety of reasons. But people have questions about it. So, we thought it would be helpful to talk about it again. And I know we’ve talked about it before, but just keep digging in about what it looks like, what it can help us with, how it’s an ongoing process. So, I think we all have a lot to say about this. But Erika, would you like to get us started?

ERIKA: I would, yes. So, I think deschooling really has become kind of a buzzword in homeschooling and alternative education spaces, as people are really looking at the ways that school isn’t working for their children. This word comes up. Most of the time, the word “deschooling” is referring to a process of examining schoolish assumptions and beliefs and questioning those. So, getting out of a school mindset, as well as decompressing and healing from any time that has been spent in school.

And I’ll give you a couple of examples of schoolish assumptions and beliefs that you might start to question during deschooling, so that you know what kind of things we’re talking about. So, like believing that learning can only happen in a classroom, or that reading has to be happening by a certain age, that children need to be around a bunch of other children their same age, that mistakes are to be avoided, that grades are the most important thing, that everyone should be following the same educational path, that you can’t be successful without college, that children have to be made to do things that they don’t want to do, and that there are certain topics that they need to learn at a certain age, or even that children need to be taught in order for them to learn. And so, you can see just by listening to those, that these are major mindset shifts that are happening.

Deschooling is a mental and physical transition away from school for us as parents and for our kids, and all of the thought processes and choices that are wrapped up in that transition. And I know that today, we want to dive into a few important points about deschooling. First, that it looks different for children and parents, and we can explore what that can look like.

And we also really want to emphasize, like Anna was saying, that this is not a one-and-done, checklist kind of thing, where you could check it off. Anytime a belief comes up or a new phase in our child’s life comes up, more deschooling can happen.

I heard a question recently that was something like, is it okay if I feel like we need to go back to deschooling? Is it okay that our life is still looking like this? And I think the mom was really referring to the amount of time it seemed to be taking for her child to decompress and heal from his time in school. It seemed like he wasn’t interested in the usual things, which is just so common. And so, I think it’s valuable to envision deschooling not as a phase with an end point, and to really sink into allowing that transition to take the time it does and be ready to question your beliefs and give plenty of time and space for healing along the way as things come up for your family. And I know you both probably have a lot to say about this topic, so I’m excited to see where our conversation goes.

PAM: I will say, a million things bubbled up while you’re talking there, Erika. It’s like, oh my gosh, yes.

Maybe I’ll start from the kids’ point of view, since I’m the only one who had kids in school going through this deschooling process for them. If I had to put a timeline on it, at least a year of deschooling. My kids were only in school for a handful of years. My eldest was in grade four or five, I don’t even remember, but one of those. But yes, the messages that they came home with were strong.

My daughter who enjoyed school, I was actually a little bit surprised when she said, “Yeah, sure, I would prefer to stay home. That’s great.” But she had gotten the message that she wasn’t a very good reader. And so, when she wasn’t being forced to read, it’s like, “I don’t read.” And don’t put books within 10 feet of this poor girl for those first months, because it’s like, “Oh, I don’t have to do that? Okay, I’m going to step back from that.”

I wrote a whole article, we’ll link to that, about her journey with reading. To watch her step back from that and then to come to it herself was super fascinating and interesting, to the moment when she’s like, “I’m a bookworm!” She declared that. You could just see the connection she’s making to like, “A year or so ago, I hated books. I hated reading. I would swear I couldn’t read,” all those pieces, but to give her the space to come to that, a lot of deschooling in there.

Same with my son, his challenge was writing. And I remember when he picked up a pencil. It was at least a year after he left school, he was like, “I haven’t written by hand in ages.” And it was a choice to finally pick it up, but so much trauma and crap all wrapped up in that from his school experience. Those were a little bit more obvious to me, but there is the whole host of other stuff about the environment and stuff that we might not know about. So, to give them that space to just decompress.

And we’ve got lots of stories in the archive of the podcast, even young adults talking about, “I laid on the couch for a year. I just needed to really decompress entirely,” and for us to judge, like, “Oh, your experience wasn’t that bad. Why haven’t you recovered this quickly?” It takes as long as it takes.

And that was a fascinating thing for me that ties to what you were saying, Erika, that there is no timeline. “Why is this coming back up? Why do I feel like we still have some more deschooling to do?”

For me, and I talked about it in my first book Free to Learn, which is my five biggest deschooling a-ha moments or paradigm shifts that were most valuable for me, but the light bulb moment of my initial deschooling phase was when I didn’t really care if I was done deschooling at all. It’s like, oh, this is just part of life. Stuff comes up, I’ve got another layer to peel back. Oh gee, this has been my work all along. And it’s like, oh, I haven’t really had to peel back a lot of stuff lately. I think we’re unschooling. We’re just jumping right in there. All is good. But it no longer was that checklist, another school mindset to work through. It’s like, oh, we need to do this and this and I can say I’m an unschooler when my deschooling’s done. All those messages. That’s what you’re going to be shedding for the next little while.

For my kids, because they were a little bit younger, nine and seven, and my youngest had only been in for a few months, it was really diving into play, because they had so much time at school that they had missed engaging with the things that they really liked to do at home. And I call this in my journey book “the belly of the whale transition,” because we really cocooned at home for probably at least six months to a year, just regrounding ourselves, just decompressing from all the, “We’ve got to be out there, we’ve got to do things on everybody else’s timetable.” Just exploring what our timetable looked like. I thought we’d be out doing all these things, because we can now. But no, really just to decompress and just sink into the things that we love to do while I was also peeling back all these layers.

I didn’t even realize how many questions, things that I had just absorbed of, this is the way things are. I know we have all, I’m sure, suggested many times when you come to unschooling or you decide, you know what? I want to try out this thing, to really give it that window, give it that six months to a year. Nothing’s going to happen that after a year, year and a half, five years, your kids can’t go back to school. Not to think of it as, this is a lifelong decision that we’re making to take the kids out of school. This is just something we’re trying out, but give it that window. Give yourself and your kids that window to decompress, to do some serious deschooling and just explore what does life look like instead?

ANNA: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s so huge. So, my kids never went to school, and so I would say what my experience with deschooling is much more about me, but I think it really fits for everyone, whether you’re taking your kids out or not. So much of it is about our own journey, because I was in school for a very long time and really I didn’t have a bad experience and I absorbed these different things from it. But like that checklist you went through, Erika, it’s just like, there are so many things that we don’t even realize that we’ve absorbed and taken in as the one way, the only way.

And so, while I was able to see my kids really just exploring learning, I found, for me, there was layer after layer after layer that would bubble up for me. And a lot of times it would be maybe a transition age or some kind of milestone that passed that looks a little bit different when you’re not in school and you’re not in certain environments that I would be like, okay, what’s bubbling up for me here? And have to do that work to pause and lean back into my kids. Look at what they’re doing, look at our life as it is versus how it’s comparing.

And so, I think that’s such a big piece of it, is just really understanding that it’s going to keep bubbling up, because we have been trained that this is the one way that it works and the one way that it can happen. But wow, when you can open that up even just a little bit, you see your kids healing, you see your own healing, you see generational trauma healing. It’s just so powerful to give that space, like you said, Pam, just don’t put anything on it. Just give it some space.

ERIKA: Yeah. I think it really sinks in how individual this deschooling journey would be for each child and each parent. If we’re thinking there’s a right way to do it, that’s going to be frustrating, you know? And so, for kids, you can look at that same list of beliefs and see, if a child’s been in school for a while, they’re going to be picking up on a lot of those beliefs themselves, but from their angle, from the student angle.

And so, it could be things like you were talking about of, I’m not good at this, or even as terrible as, I’m stupid or I’m not good at things. And those are really heavy messages that they may have internalized. And so, when there is that space now that they’re not being controlled, not being told to do all these things, it’s just space to start asking, who am I now? And that’s big stuff. That’s really big stuff. And so, it makes sense that it can take time. It makes sense that it might look like doing nothing. And I think that panics some parents at first, because they’re used to the school schedule and all of this activity happening and so much, where it’s so busy, never time for anything. And deschooling could look really like the opposite of that. It could look like we’re doing nothing. We’re just sitting here. They just want to watch TV.

But if you can think of it almost from a trauma lens of like, this is a healing that needs to be happening, then maybe it’s easier to give more space to that and just know that not every child is going to have that response to this transition, but some will. Everyone is different.

ANNA: And we’ve seen things in the network where people’s children, I mean four years down the road, will start remembering things or things can happen. So, it is so unique, that journey. And I think I want to just speak also briefly to, if you haven’t pulled them out yet, but you’re in this situation where something’s rubbing, which may have brought you here, to listen to this.

This is really just a call to trust yourself, because there’s some messages. Because I think all of us for different reasons, even though my kids never went to school, I thought they were going to, I got hit with these messages of, something’s not right here, something’s not going to work here. This doesn’t feel good to progress along this path that I thought was going to be okay.

And for you, Pam, I’m sure there were messages along the way. And so, I think, too, part of this is just really starting to trust in that voice inside of us. I think that’s part of the layers of deschooling too, is just getting to, you know your kids. You know them way better than any teacher, any school, any institution. You know what feels good to your family, and so that’s starting to build your why when you’re going to make a big decision to pull them out or not put them in, because sometimes it’s that, right? It’s this preschooler that I don’t think I can put them in, or they don’t want to go, or they go for a bit and then it feels terrible and they’re crying and we’re being told, oh, just leave them. They’ll be fine later on. It’s like, no, if your heart’s telling you something different, part of this is just setting aside those outside voices to really tune into what you know.

PAM: That really sounds exactly like my journey and it took a while before I discovered even the word homeschooling. I would tell my kids, sorry, you have to go to school. Let’s try and make this as fun as possible, or whatever. But for me, the root of it was, to speak to what you were talking about, Anna, was, when something didn’t feel right to me, I would just continue to question the premises. Why? Why do we have to do it? So, if the context, the constraint, is that school has to be part of our lives, how can we work with that.

So, I was working with schools, I was giving presentations to teachers, I was talking with principals, just doing all the things there. Trusting ourselves when something is not feeling right and just being, for me, open and curious. It even goes back then to why isn’t this working? Why isn’t this a fit? What’s up here? How can we play around, as we were talking about on the last episode with Kendel, how can we play with the environment?

And it was in that constant research, that constant trying to find how this might work for us, that I came across an article that mentioned homeschooling and I’m like, what the heck is that? And is that legal? Because that sounds awesome. And oh my gosh, it was not long before I found out it was legal.

It was not long before we said, let’s try this. Because that’s the piece. Just follow what you’re feeling, trust what you’re feeling, and start asking questions, because it’s okay to ask questions. We’re not going to be arrested for our thoughts. We can question those fundamental things that just feel so true, like that we only learn when somebody teaches us something. How are we going to learn something if somebody doesn’t teach us something? But my gosh, we could spend an hour talking just about that question.

But ask yourself questions. Just be open to the fact that there may be other answers than the one that we’re so used to, the one that we’ve just absorbed growing up, or the one that we were explicitly told, you have to go to school because you need to learn these things. It can really shake our foundations to start asking these kinds of questions. But, oh my gosh, it is so valuable.

It’s baby steps and it’s playing with things. Is that a possibility? We played with, oh look, yeah, we can bring them home. We can see how it goes. Rocco and I talked about that in an episode a long time ago. But that is the really interesting thing, when something doesn’t feel right, just keep at it. Keep trying to figure something out. When something’s not working for anyone in our family, for any of our kids, just keep diving into that and learn more and just grow your own web of understanding about what’s going on. It is a very interesting journey and I love the call to adventure. What is it that’s just not sitting well for us, and what can we do about that?

ERIKA: Right. Yeah. I like how you describe yours as being playful and taking these little steps. Because for me it felt more like just whooshing along, this knowledge explosion and all the big mindset shifts that happened for me in maybe the beginning year when I first started reading about unschooling. And so, it didn’t feel slow in my mind or like I was taking baby steps, but that’s why it’s the unschooling journey. It might be a different thing that gets us to start thinking about it. And so, in my case, it was that feeling of, I don’t think I can put this child in preschool. That’s step one. What happens next?

And so, I think that deschooling phase, if we can think of it like that, if we can give ourselves space to be learning without worrying about all the little details, like how’s it going to turn out and what do I need to be doing? And getting ourselves worked up in that question that I hate, which is, is it all going to work out? And just trying to stay in the moment with our process and letting our kids have their own process, so much goodness can come from that deschooling phase. So much learning, so much more connection, so much more trust. But it’s going to take putting your worrying, thinking brain, all of that stuff, to the side a bit to give all of the family members space.

ANNA: And I think acknowledging, too, that it is a big step. It’s a big step to step out of the norm, because when you said that, and I don’t like it either, is it all going to work out? kind of thing, we don’t know that about school either. And if you’re getting messages that something’s not working for your child in school, it’s probably leaning on the side of there’s going to be problems down the road.

But I think why people stay is, well, but that’s what I’m supposed to do. There’s maybe some safety in thinking it’s not all coming to us. And so, that’s part of the deschooling, too, to realize they’re on their own unique journey like you. It really is about keeping focused on the moment and what’s in front of you and what does this child need in this moment? And what do you need to heal and to reconnect?

And for us, the priority is always the relationship. So, we’ll always come back to that when we’re talking about it. But I think just give yourself that space and not walk too far down that road, because like you said, Pam, it could be five years and then you go back into a more formal environment of school or something else. And there’s no right or wrong way, no one path.

But I think the more you tune into your inner voice, that’s going to lead you and your child, again, to keep that connection strong, to get the most out of whatever the experience is. So, just listen to those niggling pieces.

But I do just want to acknowledge, I get it. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we have a Network that supports people, because it is a little scary to step outside of the norm, more so for some people than others, depending on your whole family situation, and the support you have in your life. So, it’s interesting to think about and just baby steps and taking the leap. Sometimes, it’s taking the leap. Either way, it’s okay.

PAM: Oh yeah. It depends on what lens or framework you’re thinking about. Because it does feel like a huge leap. Okay. So many things! Let’s go back to that question. I remember one of my big a-ha moments or paradigm shifts while I was deschooling was from that question, is it all going to work out? to, oh, if I focus on this moment in front of me and we work through this moment in front of me and then we have another moment and we work through that moment, it’s like, oh, but we are just compounding a bunch of moments in which we worked through things. So, we will just continue to do that however long into the future I want to worry about it. So, that really helped me get back to the moment, rather than tripping into the future. If I want everything to work out in the end, well darn it, I better make this moment work out.

Another piece that bubbled up is, I remember so much the journey of deciding to take the kids out of school. And how, oh my gosh, finally when I took them out, it felt like, okay, phew. We finally decided. We made this big leap and it felt like that was the end. We’re done now. But literally, that’s the start of the deschooling. It is like, oh my gosh, there is actually so much more. This is actually the call to adventure, okay, we’re homeschooling now. Again, keeping it light enough that it’s not like, oh my god, I have committed to my kids being home with me for their entire educational career or however you want to frame it at that time, but when you can take that pressure off and the weight of expectations that we can put on ourselves. Even though we feel like, oh, we’re done. We finally decided we did the thing. Yay. We can live now. It’s actually the beginning of the journey. I think that was another realization along the way. So fun.

And then the other thing I just wanted to mention that I learned when I was home with them and deep in this deschooling was how valuable it was to look to my kids, because they really were my guides on this journey. Yes, I talked about some of the messages that they had absorbed and that they were deschooling through, but with this space now to be themselves, to choose what they’re doing, so much of that I saw in action with them, eventually I was like, oh, but I could do that, too.

So, I was giving them all that space and then I was like, Pam, you need to do this, this, this. Get all that stuff. How am I going to fit it in? Nope, you’ve got to get this stuff done. To realize that I could look to them and see the way they were approaching their days and it’s like, oh, what a beautifully human way to go at their days. When they were doing something that they enjoyed doing, I could see that mistakes were no big deal. They were just, oh, that didn’t work. I’m going to try something else. That would’ve been the end of me. I was, okay, I can’t do that. If I’m not going to be good at that, let me go slink over here and do something else.

Because obviously, as you mentioned, I had many more years of school where I had absorbed that message in that long list you were talking about, Erika, that mistakes are bad. And so, there were just so many things that I could learn through watching my kids that really helped me in my deschooling journey. Just to notice and to realize, to open up that these things were actually questions. They weren’t definitive. They weren’t, kids can do that and adults have to do this. To realize that, oh, it’s just about being human and we all have these choices on our plate, and how cool is that?

ERIKA: Yeah. It feels like some of these beliefs are almost a little barrier between you and the person or the connection or between you and the reality of the present moment. And questioning some of them feels kind of like removing that barrier. And I feel like that can happen when the kids are still in school. If you’re feeling like your connection with your kid is not that strong connection, I feel like these beliefs might be putting these barriers in between. So, when you can notice those things and think, what am I believing right now?

It’s almost like the role of mom and the role of student/child and all of these different rules that we have internalized because of our time living in the culture. It’s like, once you realize, oh, I’m believing that learning only happens in a classroom, and so, that’s why I’m treating my child like this, like it’s the most important thing. I really like how much it increases connection and strengthens the relationship when you start questioning these beliefs.

ANNA: Okay. And something you just said there made me think about the roles. I feel like we’re handed a lot of fear or this belief that we can’t do it and that we can’t handle it, especially if our kids maybe have special needs or have some special things going on with them. No, the experts. The experts. This is just something that’s drilled into us in school and our culture.

And so, again, I think the call for me is, I am with this child 24/7. I know. And I can get resources and I can bring other things in, but I just always watch for if someone’s trying to separate you in that way. Trying to say that you don’t know your child or, oh no, they can push through that, because they need this thing. And so, just watch for that messaging. Because I think it’s so strong.

And so, a big piece of this deschooling, I think, is owning our agency, taking back that agency, like, wait a minute, I do know who I am. I know who my child is. And I’m going to advocate for them. And again, whatever that environment is, whether they stay in an environment that’s in school or not, it can really change things.

But like you saw, Pam, you can go into that environment and try to advocate, advocate, advocate, but it just has its own set of rules. And if you don’t fit right into that, it can be really hard for kids.

PAM: Yeah, it’s its own set of constraints and that’s why I spent years. How can we inside these constraints, try to make this manageable? So yeah, very interesting.

And I’m still back to the kids as guides. And another reason why, when you choose to try this out, commit to it, I think that larger window is so valuable. We say at least six months, but a year, like give really a year, like as you’ve heard us all saying about a year. About a year, just as what our experience was, not as in that’s our recommendation, but through experience that seems to be at least the minimum span.

But what it does, like you were saying, is it gives us the opportunity as we’re observing our kids and connecting with them and hanging out with them to see how learning unfolds. Because so often, we’re deschooling, as in, our kids are not going to be in a classroom. I know how they learn in a classroom. They’ve got a curriculum and a teacher who tells them. Okay. How else are they going to learn?

But we need that space to see the natural learning unfold, to give them the time to dive into their interests and the things they’re interested in, and to see the connections, to see the next interest and what they brought from that, to see like all the different things growing and how their lives are unfolding. And through that, you just see the learning that’s happening. So, you need the space for that. It helps you trust the process. It helps you understand the process.

In the last episode, Kendel talked about it, too. You can read the books and you can understand it intellectually, but what a world of difference when you actually see it unfolding with your own children. That is just a deeper understanding, because you’ve got more connections now. I had these three things that made sense from the book or from the group, wherever. But then to be able to add context to that from your own life, it really solidifies it. It becomes a truth. That is part of the deschooling process as well. Like, okay, this all makes so much sense to me and I’m going to embrace this and jump in. And now let’s actually see how it unfolds for our family.

Because that’s the other really fascinating thing is in a classroom, everybody needs to adapt to the classroom process. They have their procedures, they have their methods, and we need to adapt to that. Whereas when we’re unschooling and we have that space, we don’t have 30 kids. We’ve got our handful of kids. And all of a sudden, we see how different each child is.

And that is another beautiful part of the deschooling journey is to see what learning looks like. How do they like to learn something when they have an interest? How do they dive into it? How do they deal with frustration? That’s a fascinating thing. I think you mentioned, Erika, they won’t do hard things if we don’t make them do things. Oh my gosh.

When your kid has the space to do the things that they are actually interested in, you will see them hit hard things. You will sometimes see them move on to something else completely. You will sometimes see them push right through as hard, through tears and frustration and anger and all the pieces and still go at it. It is just beautiful to see how different it is for each child. And again, then you start to apply that to yourself, too. It can look completely different for me, my partner. It just opens your eyes to humanness, I think.

ERIKA: It feels more like seeing and getting to know your child as who they are, rather than seeing them through this school lens or student lens or the deficit focus and all the things that going to school makes us focus on. And just thinking about like the fun of all that.

I was thinking, deschooling also can be super fun. I know sometimes you talk about, when they first leave school, to just think about it as summer vacation, extended, to just keep going with that kind of mindset, because it’s like, if school didn’t exist, what would you do?

What are the things that are fun to do together? What are the things that would make you feel more connected? What are the things that your child has been just waiting to be able to do and hasn’t had the time to do? So, all of that can actually be really fun. There’s the healing and there’s all this thinking work that happens. But there’s also just the fun and love of getting reconnected and actually just doing the things that you all love to do.

ANNA: That just reminds me of maybe what you were talking about with the woman who asked the question. Sometimes we’re kind of like, is this okay? We’re having too much fun. Is this okay? And it’s like, yes, it’s okay. So, I do think that’s a piece of it.

PAM: Yeah, that’s exactly it. I said we were cocooning and for many people, that image would be somber and, oh, they’re not going out and doing things. Oh my gosh, they need to recover quickly. Yet, holy bananas. That was a lot of fun. We had so much fun. We learned so much about each other. We just had fun doing things together.

And yes, thanks for the reminder. Why it was that extended summer vacation camp was because they left in March break. So, it was a school holiday. They were home and I’m like, okay, if we’re going to do this, they don’t even need to go back. Why do they have to go back and finish this school year?

And Rocco was like, yeah, that’s true. So, we went and asked them and they didn’t. And then that’s what helped me. It’s like, okay, think of it as an extended summer vacation. We don’t need school stuff or anything, right through to the fall. I’ll worry about back to school season when that time comes around.

But that was a long enough stretch that yes, we were in it. We were enjoying ourselves. Even if it didn’t look anything at all like what I thought it would the day that I went around and ask them if they would rather stay home. “I just learned that you actually don’t have to go to school. Would you like to?” “Oh yeah.” That was a really helpful way for me to frame it.

Another way, and I think I’ve got a blog post about that, was thinking of it as a season of Saturdays. Because Saturdays are often the days when we’re not trying to get our kids up and we’re not like, oh, they’re sleeping in. They should be up doing things. Like, okay, now they’re not going to school, but they should be up doing things. So, if you had months and months of Saturdays in front of you, what would you do? And that helped me get to, as you were talking about, Erika, what are the fun things that we like to do?

We ended up going to the parks a lot in our cocooning, but it felt like a cocoon because we weren’t in the midst of a whole bunch of people. We just took our cocoon with us and we went out to the park and would just spend hours by the creek, looking at the trees, walking around. We could play at the playground in there during school hours. There was nobody there, but we could stay as long as we wanted. And we left when we wanted to leave, instead of looking at the clock and saying, okay, now we have to go.

So, whatever metaphor works to help you just release the expectations that you’re putting on yourself, and then, through that, putting on your kids. Because when I was worried and looking for things, I wasn’t as able to observe them and see what they were doing. Because I had that lens, that barrier between us, that I was looking for what I thought it should look like. I was looking for them to say, oh, I want to learn some spelling words. I remember that was when I was like, oh, what about spelling? Oh my gosh. But that all worked out. But that’s when the pieces come up for us.

But unless we’re watching them in action and we’re seeing them writing when they want to write … So, for my son, my eldest, it was not handwriting, but oh my gosh, he learned to type really fast, really quickly when he wanted to communicate online. But if I was always looking for the handwriting, because that was an issue before, so I need to take special care with that thing, I would not have noticed and realized, oh, communication’s the important thing, not whether or not he’s handwriting it. Look, he’s able to chat with people. He’s getting his ideas across. He’s picking up things from others who are writing to him, etc. I could open up my view, because I was looking and able to look at them more clearly and just see what they were doing.

ANNA: I think it’s that piece of letting go of the expectation, so that’s a piece we can watch. Like, do we have an expectation or even a vision of what it’s going to be like? Letting go of that as well, because then you can see it unfold.

But there was another piece about understanding that with reading, handwriting, some of these specific things that maybe the child is having a problem with, these are often very environmentally specific. They need you to be able to read directions in school. They need you to be able to communicate in a certain way. Because maybe now everybody has computers, but back in the day, you didn’t have computers in elementary school to communicate. And so, recognizing so much of the deficit focus, like you mentioned, which is so important, is really about the environment. So, when we change that environment, those are no longer deficits and the gifts can really rise to the top.

PAM: Totally. Gifts are the perfect way to think about it. Instead of going in with that, oh, what is it that they are having a hard time with? And I need to focus on helping them, versus looking for the strengths and the gifts and back to people are different, kids are different, the different ways that they still do things, still are totally capable of doing things. They don’t need those specific skills. Those were very much environmentally-related.

ERIKA: I think one of the tricky things about deschooling is if you’re constantly looking, like you were talking about, Pam, looking for them to ask for the activity that looks like school again. Like, I’m just waiting for things to just naturally start looking more like school again. And so, if we can look for different things instead, that would be more fun.

ANNA: Definitely. I love that. Thank you so much, both of you, for diving into this. It was fun to just take a look back and to just see how it still applies to so many things. And we just appreciate everyone that’s listening today and hope that you found it helpful on your unschooling journey or just your journey in general.

And I do want to say that if you enjoy these types of conversations, we love talking about it in the network, the Living Joyfully Network. When you’re taking that leap and it feels a little scary, it is nice to have a community around you of people who have done it, who are maybe a little bit ahead of you on their journey, who are right there with you. That can just feel so good to be around people that understand the words that you’re saying, understand what you’ve been through with your kids. So, we just really encourage you to check it out. We have a lot of fun there and I really enjoy it. So, you can learn more about that at LivingJoyfully.ca/network. We hope to see you there and just appreciate everybody. Thank you!

PAM AND ERIKA: Bye!

EU361: Siblings

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the sibling dynamic and some of the questions that come up when unschooling families navigate sibling relationships. We talk about letting go of expectations, watching out for casting our children in roles, understanding our own triggers, and how “fair” doesn’t mean “equal.”

We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, coaching calls, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

The Living Joyfully Podcast

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about Celebrating Interests. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ERIKA: Hello, everyone! I’m Erika Ellis from Living Joyfully, and we are so glad you have joined us for this episode of the Exploring Unschooling podcast. I’m joined by my co-hosts, Pam Laricchia and Anna Brown. Welcome to you both!

ANNA AND PAM: Hello!

ERIKA: Hi! So, on today’s episode, we are diving into a really popular topic, and that is siblings. So many of the questions we receive on the podcast are about sibling relationships, and it’s also a huge topic of discussion on the Living Joyfully Network.

On the Network, members can share specific challenges they’re facing and it just opens up these amazing discussions since our community has such a wide variety of experiences. I know I always take something away from our conversations that helps me see things in my own life with my family in a new way. And everyone on the Network is really being intentional and open and curious, and that just creates such a great atmosphere for learning and growing as a parent and as a human.

And so, if you’d like to learn more about the Network and check it out for yourself, visit livingjoyfully.ca/network, because we would love to meet you.

And now onto our discussion for today, Siblings. Do you want to get us started, Pam?

PAM: Absolutely. I would love to get us started. And, knowing me, I think it can be so helpful to start with exploring our expectations, because there are so many conventional messages around siblings that we need to explore so that we can let them go.

We can’t skip this stage by saying to ourselves, “I release my expectations. I know I shouldn’t have them,” because trying to bury them that way won’t last long. They will bubble up in our energy. They will bubble up in our word choice. Even if we don’t consciously recognize that we’re bringing them in, they will bubble up, because they are part of our essence right now.

So, we need to do the work to discover the expectations that we personally hold and dig into them to understand where they come from, explore the implicit messages for our kids that we are subtly communicating, and just see if they actually make sense for us.

So, for example, I think an expectation that a lot of us hold, certainly when we first have kids, is that our kids will be the best of friends. Of course, our family will get along! Of course, the kids will be nice to one another and play together and help each other out! When they grow up, they will be the best of friends. Even if we didn’t get along with our siblings, we envision it’ll be different this time. It’ll be better for our kids. I think that’s a great one to pull apart a bit and just ask ourselves some questions. Why do we think that? Do we think that the shared genetics means that they’ll naturally get along? Or is it the close proximity? They live in the same house. They know each other so well. Of course they’ll develop deep and meaningful connections that will last them a lifetime.

Does telling them, “Be nice to one another! You’re siblings!” work? So, I think it starts to seem a little bit unrealistic when we peel back the layers around the connection between being siblings and being friends, because those are actually very different things, and so much so because people are different.

That genetic connection really isn’t going to take you far, I don’t think. People are incredibly and beautifully so different, aren’t they?

ANNA: Oh my gosh. This one’s a big one for me, just for my personal journey. I have two girls, now adults, but they are pretty close in age, like less than two years. And I would say, early on, they really were the best of friends and always playing together and it had this idealistic feel, with its own bumps along the way. And then when they got to the preteen, early teen years, I saw this need for them to define themselves separately.

They’re very different, like you said. I mean, could not be more different in every way. And at that stage it just really highlighted that. They wanted people that were more in line with different aspects of themselves. There were even times where it wasn’t like fighting necessarily, but there was a little bit of that, but it was more just this distance, and so I really had to do work, and it kind of hit me by surprise, to just really let that go. They may never be friends. They may not hang out together when they’re older like that. May not ever happen. And it was only then through that releasing that I was able to actually see them and facilitate what they needed at that time.

And they have a fine relationship now. They’re not the best of friends, but we enjoy being together as a family, all of those pieces. But I know that had I really harped on that and stayed there, I think it would’ve gotten really ugly. And so, I think just watching for when these things bubble up, like you said, there’s all these external messages and they can hit us at odd and different times and understanding that we’re all different and move through things differently is just so, so important.

ERIKA: Yeah. I feel like I benefited from your learning about this, because on the Network, I was able to hear a lot about the different phases that kids go through. And so, I definitely have noticed myself clinging to those times when they are playing so well together and making each other laugh so hard. And those moments just feel so great. And so, I had some fear, as they’re getting older, like, what if they stopped doing that? How’s that going to feel for me? I was afraid of that ending.

But I feel like it’s been less scary than I was anticipating, just because I’m so actively observing who they are every step of the way. And so, the decisions that they’re making now and the choices that they make and the way they’re relating to each other now just kind of make sense to me. I see who they are and I’m not putting my wishes or expectations or this fantasy life that I could imagine ahead of who they really are in reality, in this moment, as they’re growing.

And so, I think that’ll really help as they continue to grow and as their relationship continues to change over the next years. And so, that was one part.

But I think that’s not the only expectation even that we have potentially about siblings is that they’ll be friends. It’s like, the big brother who will be the protector or there’s all these different potential things that we’ve learned about as we are growing up and what we experienced maybe with our own siblings, like, what are the dynamics? What is the older sibling supposed to be like? And what’s the little baby sibling supposed to be like?

And so, just recognizing that so many of those things are just stories and cultural ideas that don’t really have anything to do with these actual different people who are right here showing us who they are.

ANNA: And that leads to one that I want to talk about that’s related and a little bit different and that is the roles that we tend to cast people in. And our brain can just do that for a lot of different reasons that we don’t even have to go into. But it is something to watch for, because it’s like that. The big brother’s going to be this. That’s one aspect of roles, but another one is these assumptions that we make about a person. “You’re the shy one. You’re the sporty one. You’re this one.” That really pits siblings against each other, because neither is feeling heard or none are feeling heard. None are feeling seen for who they truly are. And so, that piece you were talking about, Erika, where you see them, you know them, you celebrate who they are uniquely, that is actually what creates a family that feels good, because we’re all feeling heard and seen individually, without these expectations of, we are one way, we are another way.

I read the book Siblings Without Rivalry when my girls were very young, like infant and two, because I was going to get ahead of it, right? My partner, his relationship with his brother is terrible. And so, actually, I found the book interesting, because I could see his life playing out in that book. How the roles were cast, how it was created that they would hate each other. And ultimately, they’ve found their peace to some extent as they’ve gotten older. But it’s like, oh! It was not mal-intent at all, but it’s just not giving intentionality to, how am I showing up? Am I really tuning into who this unique person is in front of me?

PAM: I love that. So, it’s something that we’ve talked about, looking at your child as an individual. What do they like? Who are they? How do they move through the world? And how deep that is. That is so important in this topic, too, in sibling relationships, to be able to see them as an individual versus a role. Because yes, that role, then it’s like, does one parent prefer the sporty one? So, now we are going to have this closer relationship. Oh, we’re introverts. We’ll stay in and sit in a room, whatever, so it just messes with all the relationships. It messes with the sibling relationships. It can mess with parent-child relationships, which then affects the sibling relationships, because then it becomes competitive.

When we start bringing roles in, we are not looking at the individual. It’s like, okay, we understand them. We’ve now got this definition for them that we can use in substitute, because it’s faster to think about sporty person than it is, this is my child that loves hockey or loves football and loves this part of it and wants to play it all the time. The individual nuances of sport are just so valuable in having a relationship with that person, in connecting with that person, and in supporting that person in the pieces that they enjoy.

And if we cast them so much in that role, we don’t think about them in the bigger picture. They may want to grow beyond it. It really makes it so hard for us to connect with the people in our family. And one thing that I love, and I guess we can link to it in the show notes, is the whole idea of a family of individuals. That idea hit me because I did a lot of processing around this, and the idea of our family as a family of individuals versus language that talks about, we are a family that does this or we are a family that does that. Not only casting the people into their own individual roles, we’re casting the family into a role that, we always get along with each other. We always do this or we are a sporty family and that poor one child that really is not interested just gets dragged along to all these events.

But that’s the great thing. Think about it through your family’s lens, the individuals that are in your family.

And for me, the a-ha moment that came out of that was recognizing that at first I was thinking about the idea of fairness. At holiday time or birthdays, they all get this number of gifts. Or if we go out, they all get this kind of thing. I spend the same amount when we travel here or we do this thing. So, when I started digging into that, it’s like, oh, they are such different people. If one of my kids wanted a baseball glove or something that supported their sport love, and then I was like, oh, I want to be fair. I don’t want them fighting over the thing. I give everybody a baseball glove, as an example, you can quickly see. The other child sticks that in the closet and it never comes out again.

So, for me, taking that idea of fair and alongside the idea that people are different, I started to realize that the question for me was more the idea of feeling equally loved. What would that look like for each child? Because when you start thinking of it through that lens, it would look very different for each child. So, in some seasons, one child will need more of your attention to actively process through a challenge that they’re going through maybe, and another child who’s loving that sport needs more of the family budget right now, because they’re traveling for games and stuff like that. And maybe another just needs more of your presence right now, because they’re embracing a cocooning season and just knowing that you’re there for them just helps them feel good.

And you can see how, in that situation, they would all feel equally loved. But how you are with them looks very, very different. And it’s that equally loved piece that helps keep that competition out of the sibling relationships. It helps them recognize that, oh, we all have value, we’re all loved, and we’re very different people, and it looks very different for each of us. So, there is just such depth to talking about sibling relationships, isn’t there?

ANNA: And we get there by seeing them as unique people and not the roles. That’s the work of how to get to that place of, what does that even feel like?

ERIKA: Right, because fair doesn’t really even make sense once you start to think that people are different. It’s not even a thing anymore.

And I feel like what’s interesting about the fairness part is it’s coming from the place of the parent showing love. That is the point of it. Like, I want to be doing a very good job as a parent, so I want to make sure that everything is fair.

And so, I grew up that way. And I made a really intentional choice to not ever bring any fairness language into my interactions with my own kids as they were growing up. And I really do think it made a big difference in their relationship. And I’m sure it’s personality-based, too. But I grew up with a lot of messages about making sure everything was equal and fair, and I see it with my mom when she interacts with my kids, like, “I can play with you for 10 minutes and then I’m going to go play with your sister for 10 minutes,” and she’ll do that without even really realizing what she’s doing, because it’s overwhelming to have both kids coming at her and she wants to make sure that they’re both getting their time. It’s coming from a place of caring about them and wanting to do a good job.

And yet then I see how, if that’s the way it is, over and over, it starts to be like, but it’s my turn. And that’s not fair. She got more minutes. And so, we just haven’t had that type of discussion with our kids. They don’t really do that. “But it’s not fair,” is not really something that we hear.

And so, I don’t think my natural state from birth would be to be competitive. I feel like I’ve always been super aware and concerned about other people’s feelings and would have wanted more of that type of relationship with my siblings, where I would’ve wanted them to get what they needed and celebrating people, all of our family, as different individuals and wanting to support each other in getting what we all needed.

But instead, it did turn more into, but now she got that, what do I get? Really making sure that we’re competing. And so, I don’t know. It does feel like something that’s learned, that fair means equal thing.

PAM: Yeah, I think they don’t think children are capable of supporting each other, of taking other people’s, their siblings’, needs into account. I think they do learn to compare and that is what unlikely through our language and through our loving wish, that we treat them all equal so that they all feel equally loved. But it’s not a comparison thing. It’s not a tit for tat thing.

It really is supporting them as the individual. Like your example, Erika, is just brilliant. Ten minutes each child, because, what if one child just wanted to show her something that would take three minutes and the other one wants to get into a deep discussion that would take 15? You’ve got practically 20 minutes each way, but you’ve left one kid who showed them for two minutes and then is bored trying to keep them occupied for the next seven minutes of the 10 minutes, and then the other one feels like, oh, I didn’t get enough time, but I wanted to show you a little bit more. So, they’re both left feeling like the connection wasn’t what they were looking for just because it was equally divided. It’s fascinating.

ANNA: It really is. And I do want to say, this is going to be a little bit of a counterpoint, but because I’m thinking of my own two girls very close in age, and I’m thinking of a friend with three girls very close in age, sometimes it did mean we needed two Switches or we needed three things, and it wasn’t so much about fair is equal.

It’s more like, but wait a minute! I want to play the new thing, too! And so, I had to let go of this idea or maybe this is another expectation, that siblings are going to share. Because no, not always. Sometimes we need two things and we need three things, because we’re all wanting to engage with whatever that thing is. So, this isn’t about these perfect children that are sitting there, but there is a mindset piece to it. So, I just wanted to throw that in there.

ERIKA: Right and if they have more of an experience of like, our needs are going to get met and what I care about is important, then they’re much more likely to be expressing what they want as what they actually want. And so, if Oliver says, “Why did Maya get that? I want that,” I believe him. It’s not about competing with her. It’s like, “I also want that.” And then that totally makes sense.

PAM: Yeah. Completely. Because it’s them being themselves and wanting to engage in the things that they’re interested in.

So, yeah, if somebody got one thing, that’s the difference. If you think about a family where fair is being determined as equal, they see somebody getting something else that’s popular, it’s like, I need to have that, too, so that you’re being fair. So, it’s a power thing. And they need it. And they want it and it sits in the shelf, but I got it through that expression of, yes. I have equal power in in this family. I will get those things.

But if somebody gets something and everybody’s loving it and they want more time with it, yes. You get another one and then maybe another one, and maybe one for the parent.

ANNA: Yeah and it wasn’t the Nintendo Switch back in the day. What is that thing, Pam, that we have? A DS. Yeah. So, all four of us had the DS, David, me, and the girls, because we all wanted to engage with it. And there were moments where I was like, this is ridiculous that we have four of these. And other times where I’m like, it brought us so much joy and was so fun and it just made a lot of sense.
So, yeah, definitely that. Yeah. But can I go onto a different topic?

One of the things I wanted to talk about, because it comes up a lot with siblings, we see it on the Network and other places is when there’s conflicts. So, we have the fights or the different things happening or escalations happening. And I just wanted to really talk about, for me, I can have a justice button. And so, I really had to watch for my own triggers. What was being triggered in me? Am I worried about the younger one? Am I feeling like this one’s taking advantage? Whatever it was.

I noticed all of that was not about what was in front of me. It was a lot about my own experience as a sibling, my own experience at school with those type of dynamics. And so, I really wanted to watch for those triggers, so that I could set that aside. Because what I wanted to bring to a potential conflict or an actual conflict was this neutral observer role, a facilitator, but not someone that’s passing judgment.

So, if I hear screaming in the other room, it’s coming in like, whoa, everybody’s upset. Let’s just take a pause. What’s going on? Tell me what’s happening. I wanted to bring that kind of calm energy of, I’m not passing a judgment about it.

And that helped so much. Then I could hear them. And I want to talk about validation later. I’ll let you guys talk in just a second, but bring that energy of, I want to understand and we’re going to work this out. And you mentioned that a little bit too, Erika.

When we have that trust that I’m going to be heard, nobody’s going to be judging me, we’re going to figure this out, those conflicts can be deescalated much faster than in other environments where there’s judging and you have to defend and explain and you feel like you’re not being heard.

ERIKA: Yeah. The triggers are hard though. This is one of the really hard things, I think, about being a parent, because we’re not always or maybe ever conscious of all these different things that are trapped within us, these old wounds or old things that have happened. And so, to be unaware of that and then go into this new situation and realize, oh my gosh, I really am holding a lot of something uncomfortable about what’s happening here.

I’ve seen it play out with different parents really thinking that the older child should know better. The older child gets viewed as, well, they’re older, so they shouldn’t ever be doing this to the younger child or something. And expecting more from that older child than what makes sense for their age. And so, it helps to just be aware of the children where they are. They’re all doing the best they can, the same as we are, and just realizing that if we’re feeling something that’s so strong and heavy towards an interaction, it’s got to be something more within ourselves to peel back.

PAM: Yeah, I love that. Just noticing something’s bubbling up and it’s like, oh, maybe this feels bigger than the situation warrants.

When you have a second child, the first child just looks so much older. Even if they’re only four or they’re only five, you know? But all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, you are just so much bigger, so much more seemingly capable than this young one here. So, it’s back to expectations. We can put so many expectations on them, and maybe we’ve worked through it once or twice. “We’ve talked about this before! You don’t do that.” Meeting them where they are, and knowing and learning who they are and helping them process and move through the situation, it is just incredible. It’s night and day.

It’s so valuable to walk in without judgments or preconceived notions into a moment. Also, I think to walk in with no preconceived solution to it. If I walk in knowing, “Okay, this happened again, you should be doing this, and you should be doing that. And please remember what I said next time this happens. Do that again, please.” That’s just not how human beings tick. It’s not how they learn, memorizing someone else’s solution. It’s back to people are different. Memorizing how someone else moves most comfortably through a conflict just is not it. Sure, it’s great information to have, maybe, like, oh yeah, that’s how they like to move through it, but what works for me? I need to play with all sorts of different ways to move through it.

And I think it also becomes, again, back to the individual, for some kids being there and having the conversation together works. It helps move them through tit. I know for my kids for a while, as we were learning these tools, it was really helpful just to scatter when things got overwhelming and then I could talk to each of them individually. Because when we were together and we had moved to unschooling, there was that defensiveness, there was still a bit of that power dynamic where, “No, they don’t get to do that,” or, “I get to do that,” and it was hard to validate one child in front of somebody else. (We’ll get to validation next.) And so, to be able to talk to them individually and process individually and come up with plans, “Next time maybe, what would feel good? What might we try?”

And just to play with things and play with different ways to move through it. And that took time. That took months, years, and it doesn’t matter how long. I don’t want given amount of time. Like if I do this for this long, then this will be solved and we’ll move on to something else. Again, it’s the individual people in front of you. Some pieces of it they might pick up really quickly. Other pieces may take a lot of time for them to find their way through it, and then to be able to remember that when we’re in a heightened moment is even another step.

When we’re triggered, we know how hard it is to try and come back to this moment and be present with the other people in it, even as adults. All human beings are going to be challenged by that. To have the expectation that our kids will figure it out and then be able to do it for the rest of their lives, that’s just a pretty heavy one for them to hold.

ANNA: And so, I feel like this leads into validation from a lot of different directions, because I think when we understand our kids as unique creatures, their own people, that helps us with the validation piece. Because validation really is tuning into the individual in front of you. And it’s helpful to remember, we don’t have to agree or even understand their experience to hear and validate and show up for it.

And I’ve told this story many times before, but we had a friend over and the girls were young and screaming breaks out. I’m visiting with this old friend in one room and screaming breaks out in the other room and I go down there and she’s observing me, this friend who does not have kids.

And my oldest is like, “I hate her! I never want a sister!” The whole nine yards is coming out. Just all the big language. All the everything. And I just was calm with her. Like, “You just wish you’d never had a sister at all. You are just so angry right now and you just want her gone. You just don’t want a sister.” And just really validating those big, hard emotions. And she’s like, “Well. It’s not that. I just wish she would listen.” And she was able to move through, because I wasn’t scared by her big language. I didn’t go, “But you love her and she means well and she didn’t want to do this,” and the kind of explaining that we tend to do, because we can be protective for the young one who we love and that feels scary.

But five minutes, two minutes later, they’re back playing happily together. And my friend’s like, “What in the world just happened? How did we go from, I thought the house was going to burn down to, they’re just playing and laughing again?” And I was like, “She just needed to feel heard in that moment.” She was super frustrated. They’re young, they’re figuring things out, like super frustrated. And I could hear that, because I don’t have to take in and defend her sister. And like you said, sometimes it’s separating, so that I can validate little sister who’s like, “She is being mean, she’s doing this,” whatever it is.

But I think one of the pieces I want to get about validation when we’re talking about it with siblings is, even the hard stuff. Even the ugly stuff. Even the things like that, we need to validate and be with them, because that’s how we move through those hard emotions is by that validation.

PAM: The language that feels to us like it’s over the top, it may just be the language that they have. They’re just trying to express their emotions. But we have that nuance. So, when we can come to them and see and hear and validate, what we’re validating is the emotion, we’re validating them where they are. It’s not really about the language, right?

So, that’s how she could start to see, oh, well it’s this thing. But she needed to be heard that this thing was big for her. And they have a limited amount of language, depending on age, to be able to express that. So, they just pick the biggest words just to show. Validation is all about the other person. It is not about, “I am now saying that I agree with you. What a pain that other child is. Why did we even have them?” That’s not what we’re saying when we say, you never wanted to have a sibling, a brother or sister, whatever. It’s not what we’re saying when we’re validating.

We’re not agreeing because we validate. We are meeting them, showing them that we see them, that we see whatever it is, whatever energy that they’re having, emotion that they’re having in that moment. It just makes all the difference to feeling seen and heard. And through those conversations, that’s where they’re practicing the skills. It’s like, oh yeah, that wasn’t actually that. It was, “I wasn’t being heard.” And through a few times of that, then they can get first to the, “I’m not feeling heard,” but they need lots of time to practice that and to start identifying that, to find the nuances so they can start to recognize them, and then they can get to that place themselves. And then we meet them where they’re saying, “They’re not listening to me,” and then we work through that piece. It’s hard and it’s so beautiful, too.

ERIKA: Yeah. I feel like we’re getting to a point that I was hoping to make, which is just how often these sibling relationships are the fertile learning ground for how to interact with another human. And so, yeah, it’s challenging and they are coming without these skills, and yet here are all of these great opportunities. So, I feel like just knowing that and having that idea in my mind helps me in the moments of conflict. If I can think, this is what it’s all about. Navigating these conflicts and doing this well with them and validating them and really hearing them out and helping them learn to express themselves, helping them learn to narrate for themselves, all of those kinds of skills, it’s going to help them for the rest of their lives. Navigating conflict is not going to be something that goes away throughout life. And so, one of the values in having a sibling is these opportunities to learn some of these relating skills.

And validating is so much easier, like you were saying, when we are looking at them as individuals and not in their roles and that can tend to be a place where I get stuck, if I’m thinking, but you don’t do that. Or, but you aren’t like that, or, but you should know better. And so, I love how all these things are connected in this topic.

PAM: Yeah, I love that point, Erika. The validation looks so different for each child, more than likely, and with our partner, but we’re talking about siblings today, but yes, it is so individual, because it really helps to know the individual to be able to play with the language. Again, it’s not, here are the steps to validating. Please do that next time your child is upset. We all wish there were rules or a procedure that we could follow that works for everybody. But we are all different. We are all individuals. And it can change over time and it changes over seasons and skills and as we change as human beings.

But it’s just so fascinating to recognize the value of it. For me, it goes back to our dance metaphor in relationships. I may say a little something that just doesn’t seem to quite land, but then I say something else and I keep trying. And that may be how I’m getting more information.

I also wanted to add, and I know we’ve talked about this before with validation and we’ll link to some of our older episodes, too, but also maybe in the moment, validation isn’t about words. For a couple of my kids when things were heightened, validation was about just being with them. Just being with the energy, meeting them with that energy. You alluded to that, Anna, too, just being that grounded presence where they know, “Hey, they can stay in the room even when I’m super upset. And I’m still okay and I will get through.” There are so many messages communicated when I can just be there with them and we’ll more than likely have short, long, lots of conversations later for the processing piece. But also just processing through the energy might be something that needs to be done in silence. Any additional energy that I bring just can’t be absorbed yet. Conversation can’t be had.

So, we might think that validation must be about conversation. I just wanted to say that it’s never just one thing. What does your child need in that moment? That is the most important thing, not some sort of process somebody told you about.

ANNA: Right. It really is. So, for me, it’s watching my own self, grounding myself, and then showing up however is needed, because we’re going to get those clues. We’re going to get clues from our child. If they’re wanting a conversation about it, if they’re just wanting us to be there, if they’re wanting us to help them pull out of a situation.

Because sometimes there’s this headbutting going on and they’re just needing our help to move things along and change things up or be with them. But I feel like I get there best to see those pieces when I’m grounded, when I’ve watched for my triggers, when I’m not coming into it with that activated energy.

ERIKA: Right. “I can handle this,” is a really good feeling. And I know as the upset person, it really feels so good to have someone who can be there for it, and that it feels like, this is okay. Even this is okay.

Parenting siblings benefits from so many of the tools that we talk about. So, validation, of course, narration, definitely, remembering the HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, bringing in the context for our kids, these kinds of narration things.

And I feel like it has also helped when I reflect on past conflicts and show them how we have gotten through them. You know what I mean? This is something that has helped Oliver a lot, because he’ll be really stuck in the moment and feel so angry. And then if we can remember, “You’ve felt like this before. Do you remember that those feelings pass and that we can find a way to make things feel better?”

That memory usually helps settle his nervous system, because you can feel stuck in that moment of conflict and it can feel like you can’t escape. But, I was a kid once. I had siblings. I remember what it was like to feel so angry and so frustrated by them, and we move through it, and just using all of those skills helps so much.

ANNA: Yeah. I love that reminder, because it really is. I mean, that’s why we talk about the same things over and over again, because they apply to so many different situations. So, I’m going to give a quick shout out to the Living Joyfully Podcast, because we really talk about those tools in that specific way and just in relationships in general.

And, like you said, Erika, this is the first intense relationship for them with their sibling and with us and I think it’s made so much more valuable by our presence and by sharing these tools and by talking about things and by being that presence with them and helping them understand that. What I’ve seen with my kids, and we’ve talked about this before, is just that they take those tools that we were using to relate to each other and then use them with their friends and ultimately their partners and beyond and at work and all of these places. And I just thought, oh, these have really served them, these skills that I had to work on and figure out, too.

ERIKA: Right. And thinking of it as opportunities to use these skills also feels a lot better than hoping that these conflicts never happen and thinking that a perfect relationship is going to be the goal. If I can think more like, any conflict is going to be a chance for us to learn something new and practice these skills, that just feels so much nicer.

PAM: It really does. And holding out the idea that my destination is, “there will not be conflicts,” I think that’s another expectation we might be holding. Good to peel back and see what you think about that one. But yeah, the goal isn’t to never have conflict. It is exploring and finding the tools that work for you right now to help you navigate those moments, because yeah, that’s life.

ERIKA: Well, we have had a lot of fun diving into this topic, obviously, so thank you, Pam and Anna, and thank you to our listeners. We hope that you’ve found this conversation helpful on your unschooling journey. And if you’re looking for individualized support, whether it’s about unschooling, relationships, work, or just life, you can check out all of our coaching options at LivingJoyfullyShop.com.

Have a great week and we will see you next time! Bye!

ANNA AND PAM: Bye!