Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 44

Judgment Can Cultivate Fear and Shame in Our Children

This month we’re digging into some of the challenges of deschooling. We’ve looked at how our fears can stifle our children’s learning if we indiscriminately use our fear to control our children’s exploration. And now I’d like to dig into the downside of being quick to judgment, especially when it comes to our children.

Of course, most often we aren’t giving our opinion maliciously—we want to share our knowledge and experience, helping our children (or friend, or spouse etc) learn to avoid what we see as mistakes or bad choices. Yet we do typically expect our children to listen to us and heed our judgment. And when they don’t, we express our disappointment with any eye to provoking feelings of guilt and shame. So they learn for next time. This cycle of expectation—disappointment—shame is a conventional tool used regularly by teachers and parents in an attempt to control children’s choices and behaviour.

But does it stop there?

I don’t think so. I see fear and shame having consequences for children that reach beyond just controlling their choices to align with what we think they should do. To investigate, let’s look at this from our children’s perspective. What other messages might they receive when we pass judgment on the people and things happening around us?

I think the most obvious message is that a good portion of their world is black and white. We give them the impression that there are two ways to do things: our way and the wrong way. We also aren’t likely to be open to changing our opinion—if we were, we probably wouldn’t have been so judgmental in the first place. And that just reinforces the message.

Our children look up to us for guidance, so if we are routinely judging this and that and the other thing, our children begin to see the world through that distinctive filter as well, and soon develop a fear of being wrong in our eyes, because they know they may be next. So not surprisingly, they internalize that message and often react by actively avoiding doing things they fear will get them in trouble.

That may sound like a good thing on the surface, but it means that their choices and actions become all about us, not about them. Meaning, they are learning very little about themselves, and tons about us.

Think about that for a moment.

Through our judgment of their wishes, they learn more about us than they do about themselves, or the choice in question.

If they want to stay up later and we say, “no, it’s bedtime now,” they learn what we believe about sleep, not more about how sleep actually works for them.

If they ask for another cookie (or toy, or story at bedtime) and we say, “no, that’s enough,” they learn what “enough” means to us, not what it means to them.

If they want to go to a movie with a friend and we say, “you’re too young,” they learn our interpretation of the situation, rather than exploring the ins and outs of situation from their perspective.

In this world of black and white, our children learn to fear colouring outside the lines. And the odd time they do try it, they are shamed. Eventually many are too afraid to do anything until they are clear where those lines lie. And any exploration they do stays firmly inside. Which in turn discourages them from trying new things. And their creativity fades away.

It is specifically through our conventional parenting and teaching tools that our children are learning that thinking creatively and trying new things is scary. And then we wonder why so many young adults are not creative, even after leaving the confines of the school system.

Can you really be too old for sand angels?

Wild, isn’t it? And it’s why making the paradigm shift to treating our children in ways that cultivate their self-expression and creativity is an important step on the deschooling journey.

And here’s that reminder again: although with unschooling we are careful not to jump to judgment, that doesn’t mean we leave our children alone to figure life out. We want—and need—to be actively involved and engaged in their lives. Sharing our experiences with our children can definitely be helpful—once they trust that we are sharing with no strings attached. That we don’t think our perspective is the only “right” one.

They come to realize that we aren’t sharing our thoughts in the hopes of changing their mind. That it’s not meant as a subtle, yet manipulative, judgment of their choices. We share so they have more useful information to consider. Full stop.

Because really, nobody likes to feel judged, do they? At any age. But we do like to gather information, make connections and choices, and see how they play out.

That’s life.

That’s unschooling.

 

Our Fears Can Stifle Our Children’s Exploration and Learning

Last month we dove into the “cons” of unschooling, basically some of the reasons why an unschooling lifestyle might not be a good fit for a family.

This month, let’s assume the fit looks good and take the next step: deschooling in earnest. What are some of the challenges we may encounter? The conventional ideas we may need to question before we can fully embrace the unschooling lifestyle with our children?

Lissy exploring Sam’s Point, NY

Over the years, one of the things I’ve seen regularly interfere with the transition to unschooling is fear. It can pop up all over the place. Often it shows up when we approach the edges of our comfort zones—that’s the point, to warn us that danger may be approaching. But by whose definition of danger? That’s the big question we’ll be asking ourselves again and again.

The conventional expectation is that it’s a parent’s job to tell their children what they can and can’t do. And it can be tempting to use our fear to guide our children’s actions.

Yet our children are not us. They will have their own comfort zones. And exploring and discovering where their comfort zones lie is a important piece of not only exploring their interests, but also exploring themselves and developing a solid sense of self-awareness.

Exploring Their Outer World

If we perpetuate our fears by instilling them in our children, we may well end up stifling their curiosity and exploration of the world. How? Well, imagine they have an interest that makes us uncomfortable—that we fear isn’t “worthy.” Our fear may shine through, if not our words, our attitude and actions. For example, we show our judgment when they want to share their excitement and we act too busy to join them. And we reinforce the message when we make time for an interest that we “approve of.” They’ll eventually get our message, and their fascination with the interest we fear will likely fade.

Not only do they lose out on the experience and knowledge they may have gained pursuing that interest, if this happens a few times, they may come to believe that the things they find interesting aren’t considered “worthy.” They come to believe their parents are better judges of the world than they are, and they lose trust in themselves. They stop diving into things that catch their attention, they stop asking questions, and they start waiting until they are told which things to pursue.

And their curiosity about the world fades.

Exploring Their Inner World

With unschooling, we try not to overpower our children with our fears because we see how it directly interferes with their exploration and learning. And that goes for their inner world as well. If they don’t have the space—or even better, the active support—to explore not only their interests, but also their own comfort zones growing up, they will need to figure this out at some point as adults.

Some take this time as young adults going off to find themselves. Others hold on tighter to the expectations placed on them, though eventually it can play out as a mid-life crisis. This drive to understand ourselves is not self-indulgent, it is a human need.

And I don’t want to give the impression that unschooled young adults “have it all figured out.” What they do have is a reasonably solid understanding of themselves and they are experienced with navigating these kinds of challenges. Granted, it’s not always pleasant, but they don’t usually get thrown for long, because they are experienced at finding their way to the other side.

So, if we’re going to help our children explore and learn about themselves, we need to do the work to understand ourselves well enough that we don’t inadvertently make the process more difficult by imposing our fears onto their lives.

Doing Our Work

When fears arise—and they will—it’s what we do with them that matters. We aren’t trying to avoid or ignore them; we want to process and learn from them. Are you prone to a deer-in-the-headlights reaction, frozen where you are, unable to think? If so, the first question is how can you move through that rush of adrenaline to gather information about the situation and begin to see some of the choices available to you? Try things out and see what helps in the moment. And remember, most situations, although they trigger fear, do not need an immediate reaction. And choices made in the throes of fear usually aren’t usually our best because we’re often suffering from tunnel vision.

To look at processing our fears, let’s go back to our comfort zones. Remember the important question I mentioned earlier? Whose definition of danger we were using that triggered our fear reaction? It can definitely be challenging to tease out which are part of our personal makeup, and which are learned behaviours that we don’t actually agree with.

For a moment, think about life at the edge of one of your comfort zones. Can you feel yourself tensing up? That’s fear. What is it that are you fearful of? Do you find yourself at the edge of your knowledge or skills on a given topic? Are you’re worried you will do something wrong if you step beyond? Do you see that as a weakness? Are you worried if others find out, you’ll feel shame? Or is that edge an expectation that you hold, maybe passed down to you from your own family? Or a belief you’ve researched and strongly hold on to?

For me, deschooling was a time when I deeply questioned myself each time I began to feel fear about something I or the children were considering. That was the crux of deschooling for me as I began considering my actions through this new lens of unschooling. I questioned just about everything: new things we were considering; existing things we did without question because they were expected; and things we avoided because that too was expected.

Without the space and support to grow both intellectually and emotionally, our children will have a harder time finding their own sense of self. And that support piece is crucial—expanding our comfort zones doesn’t mean just leaving our children to do “whatever.”

This is the real work of deschooling: understanding ourselves well enough that we don’t let our fears stifle our children’s exploration of their interests and comfort zones—their outer and inner worlds.

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More reading about comfort zones and fear …

Unschooling with Strong Beliefs—Do you have strong beliefs or principles that you choose to live by? Do you expect that your children live by them too? That’s pretty easy to accomplish when they are young, but what about when they discover that other options exist? It is possible to respect your principles while still supporting your child’s drive to explore and learn and in this post I dig into some ways to do just that.

The Fear of Leaving Curriculum Behind—At its most basic, unschooling is about learning without a curriculum. Moving to unschooling can be scary because there is comfort in curriculum—comfort that soothes our fears. And near the top of that list is a fear that our children may not learn something they need to know.

What Love Looks Like in Unschooling Families—Unschoolers can really be a confusing bunch to those looking in! On one hand, we appear to be sheltering our children from the real world by keeping them home—we’re overprotective. On the other hand, we appear to not really care about our children because we don’t enforce firm rules. Conventionally, it’s almost a given that at some point parents will explain to their kids, “I say no because I love you.” Boundaries equal love. What if freedom can equal love too?

The Transition From Childhood to Adolescence—This transition is an amazing time of growth and learning as they hone their sense of self, contemplate the kind of person they want to be, nurture their dreams for the future, and wonder how they might find their niche in the adult world.

Unschooling Doesn’t Have Report Cards

It’s pretty common for people new to the concept of unschooling to ask, “If you don’t test your children, how will you know if they’re learning?” I’ve always found that such a curious question. Just think how profoundly the education system has woven itself into our psyche to think that the only way to recognize knowledge in a person is through testing them!

When we feel the pull to present quantitative evidence to somehow “prove” unschooling is working, I think it speaks to the trust we have in ourselves. We fear that our personal observations are somehow less meaningful. That critical voice in our heads whispers, who are we to gauge our children’s learning?

Testing is touted as impartial. And yes, for a system where the grades awarded closely determine a student’s future, ensuring teachers can’t unfairly influence grades is important. But we’ve taken that system and generalized it to apply to life: we can only learn by being taught; someone else knows better than we do what we should learn; learning only counts if you can prove it on a test.

But I would argue that our observations are even more valid, because we’ve removed the artificial nature of the testing environment and are observing our children in action in the world. We see them using what they’ve learned, right in front of us: the vocabulary and knowledge they’ve picked up is peppered into their conversations, with us and others; the numeracy they’ve picked up is apparent as they calculate the cost of things they’d like to buy or the time left until we leave; the day-to-day skills they’ve picked up are obvious as they bake us a birthday cake or read their favourite website or write a note to their sibling etc. We see them learning a wide array of knowledge and skills—to a breadth and depth that exceeds the school curriculum—and using it to live in the world. What they don’t do is use it to complete a test. Somehow that seems superfluous.

The idea that testing is the only real way to “prove” knowledge gained is just another layer of distance between school and the real world. And though we may comfort ourselves with the thought that we’ve turned our children’s learning over to “experts,” it also adds a layer of distance between us and our children—we don’t feel as compelled to pay attention.

The challenge still remains though, that others are often looking for tangible “proof” from us. When friends or family start to question us, they are still expecting an answer that fits their worldview: “She’s in grade four and she got three A’s on her last report card.” Nobody questions that—it’s proof of learning all wrapped up in a pretty bow.

It’s so much more difficult to explain the intrinsic value we see for our children in the unschooling lifestyle, in terms most people will understand. “He tried scouts for a few weeks, but didn’t like how the leader regularly resorted to yelling at the kids to get them to do what they were supposed to do, so he decided to quit.”

Will they be as impressed as you that your son didn’t agree with how the children were being treated and chose not to subject himself to that uncomfortable environment? Will they see the wonderful level of self-awareness that choice displayed? Realize the number and depth of the conversations you must have had together as he processed the situation? The incredible amount of useful learning that moving through those circumstances implies? Likely not. There’s a good chance they’re thinking, they have to learn how the real world works sometime.

In my experience, it wasn’t worth sharing those kinds of examples in response to questions about learning—they often sparked more concern and questions than they answered. So, when questioned, I was more likely to reply, “It’s going great, thanks. I see them learning every day and it’s working well for us right now.” And then remind myself that I didn’t need their approval, even if it would be nice to have their support. Instead, when I was looking for helpful feedback I’d turn to people who understood our lifestyle, namely other unschoolers.

But absolutely, it can be uncomfortable to not have the tangible proof of test results and report cards to fall back on, both when you’re casting about to shore up your confidence, and when others are peppering you with questions. There are other ways to build your trust in unschooling, including thoroughly understanding how it works, but if you’re quite adamant that testing is a necessary component of the learning process, then there’s a good chance unschooling won’t be a good fit for you.

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Want to dig deeper into learning without school?

Curious About Unschooling? — What are some of the questions that are typically pondered when people begin to explore unschooling?

Seeing the Learning in All Their Activities — Seeing the learning is our work to do, not theirs—they’re already busy doing the learning! So how do we find it?

Seeing the Learning in the Quiet Moments — Our society doesn’t look kindly upon quiet moments. They use words like lazy and apathetic. But they’re only seeing the surface, not the rich soil being cultivated underneath.

Unschooling Means Not Needing to Control Others

When it comes to “things you give up for unschooling,” I think near the top of the list you’ll find control. More specifically, controlling others. Many of us grew up being told that, “when you’re an adult you can do things your way, but now you do them mine.” And now that you’re finally the parent, that control can be hard to relinquish! That can certainly be perceived by some as a challenge/cost/con of choosing unschooling.

So much of conventional parenting and schooling is about controlling the actions and behaviour of our children in the name of teaching them the “right” way: the right facts to know; the right way to think; the right way to behave etc. The classic tools of control that are routinely used by parents and teachers include curriculum and grading, rewards and punishment, and judgment and shame.

As we learn more about how unschooling works, it becomes clear that learning blossoms when the child (or person, it’s age-independent) is actively engaged in the activity. And that engagement flows most easily when the child is pursuing something they are genuinely interested in. So for learning through unschooling to blossom, children need to be able to follow their interests and passions. That means that while support is necessary and great, direction/control is likely to get in the way.

So, instead of using control to mold our children’s knowledge, skills, and behaviours to shape them into the model adult we envision, with unschooling, we focus on helping our children develop their awareness, of both themselves and the circumstances of each situation, while they’re exploring things they find interesting in the world. We don’t perpetuate the roles of powerless child and powerful adult: we are all people, albeit with varying levels of life experience. Our children’s needs and wishes are as important as our own.

Now, deciding not to use control as a parenting tool doesn’t mean just drop it and let them do whatever they want. Those are two opposites of a wide spectrum. The journey to unschooling for parents is all about exploring different relationship tools for living and learning together.

The conventional messages that “parents know best” and that control is a successful teaching tool are pervasive. And if you’re not willing to question them, unschooling probably won’t be a good fit.

But if the idea of relaxing the presumption that you know what’s best for another person (child, spouse, friend etc) and releasing the urge to “fix” them, unschooling might be for you and your family!

Want to learn more about parenting tools that support unschooling?

Communication Instead of Discipline — Open, honest, and clear communication better supports our goal of helping our children explore the person they want to be than does control and discipline.

How Do Unschooling Children Learn to Act in Society? — Answering a reader’s question.

The Childhood We Wish We Had — Sometimes there’s a pretty stark difference between the childhood we lived and the childhood we envision for our own children with unschooling.

Unschooling Means Spending Time with Your Children

Choosing unschooling isn’t a decision to be taken lightly—though it may come together pretty quickly. When considering such a life-changing decision, it’s common practice to weigh the pros and cons. To make our list, we gather information: we read online, hit the library, ask around to see if we have a friend, or a friend of a friend, who’s knowledgeable about unschooling etc.

Over the years I’ve seen some people join various online unschooling groups, only to soon express disappointment that they aren’t finding more “balanced” information: they want to know the bad stuff (cons) along with the good stuff (pros). It seems it’s relatively easy to find people talking about the pros of unschooling, but the cons can be harder to find. (And by “cons” I don’t mean criticisms from people who don’t understanding how unschooling works.)

I know when I was first exploring unschooling everything I found seemed like great stuff to me! But then you wonder, if it’s so great, why isn’t everybody doing it?

I think the irritation comes about because, when we’re searching for “cons,” we’re typically focused on finding the potential negative outcomes for the choice in question. But the thing is, unschooling can work well for any interested child. So for parents who’ve chosen unschooling—and are engaging online—they really don’t have any negative outcomes to share.

But, unschooling is likely not a good choice for all parents. And I think that has more to do with the act of unschooling: the things we do to create a thriving unschooling environment. They aren’t likely things all parents will be comfortable doing, yet parents who have chosen unschooling don’t see them as cons. From their perspective, these actions seem more like the “costs of unschooling,” or even better, “investments in unschooling.”

So in the next few posts I’m going to talk about some of the things that might be considered cons/challenges/costs—basically things to consider when trying to decide whether unschooling might be a good fit for your family.

And it’s okay to decide against unschooling. It’s not a question of right or wrong, but of what will work well for your family. It’s not one size fits all. I think the most important realization is that you have a choice! I know it was years before I discovered that compulsory schooling did not mean my children had to spend their days in a traditional school building. Choice is key—for parenting and for unschooling.

So, first up: the commitment required to create and maintain an environment in which unschooling thrives. (Note: please don’t interpret that to mean “perfect.” I don’t think there is such a thing. Life has its ups and downs, but a solid unschooling environment is responsive to that. Helpful, even.)

I think we all know that there is a considerable amount of time and effort involved in sending children to school: getting them up, dressed, fed, and on the bus in the morning; evenings dedicated to walking children through homework and studying; managing the flow of school/teacher communication and paperwork etc. Yet not sending them to school, while it does free you from the school schedule, is by no means a “lazy” choice! Instead, all that time and effort is directed to being with your children.

That means actively engaging with them: playing games, answering questions, finding supplies, researching interests, answering more questions, managing relationships, exploring the community, bringing interesting bits of the world to their attention etc. And sometimes just being with them, sharing their joy in the activity at hand, or sitting quietly, radiating your unwavering support and love for them. In other words, actively living with them. Does the thought of that fill you with anticipation or dread?

If you really don’t want to spend your days with your children, unschooling may not be a good choice for you. Though I will say, our relationships with our children are very different with unschooling, so they may be hard to envision without having experienced them. They are not as fraught with conflict as you might imagine. In fact, I found that one of the most wonderful benefits of unschooling has been the fantastic relationships I’ve developed with my children.

To give you an idea, think of your time together on weekends, or vacations, when you’re not trying to move your children through an imposed schedule. When they are doing their thing and you’re playing with them, or doing things side by side, helping them out here and there. When you’re not at odds with each other. Those connected and enjoyable moments happen so much more often once your family has been deschooling for a few months.

That’s why we encourage parents as they begin unschooling/deschooling to treat their days like an extended vacation—drop the schedules and get to know one another. Play together. Be together. Join them where they are and move at their pace. The strong, connected, and trusting relationships that develop are so valuable to unschooling because they allow communication to flow openly, through both conversation and body language.

That’s the work of unschooling: understanding learning, understanding your children, and actively supporting them as they pursue their interests and passions.

If none of those things sound like cons to you, you might really enjoy unschooling with your family!

 

Want to read more about unschooling days?

What’s Behind a Typical Unschooling Day? — Though unschooling looks different for every family, there is a basic motif that underscores our days: being available to talk, willing to help, and supportive of their goals.

Unschooling Days: Outside in the World — Family dynamics can be quite different in unschooling families. Here are three less conventional ways we work together as a family when we’re out and about in the world.

“What Will I Do Today?” — From the youngest age, children are driven to explore the world around them and learn. Let’s look at what a child’s day might look like if their curiosity isn’t constantly stifled.

 

Joy is a Beacon for Community and Growth

So far we’ve looked at the value of using joy as a beacon for learning, relationships, and work. Now let’s look at joy as a guide for finding community.

finding your community

What do I mean by community? Basically, finding like-minded people who will inspire us to continue to learn and grow as a person. And the people we would find inspiring are those who are involved in the things we aspire to do well: our interests. The things we enjoy doing. Parent, writer, programmer, photographer, game developer, chef, artist, singer, ninja. All and any of the incredible number of things that we might choose to pursue.

If you want to do something well, surround yourself with people who do it well.

Follow that interest, that joy, to find communities that connect around that topic—in person or online. And then check them out to see if they might be a good fit. If we find them frustrating or upsetting (maybe the quality of the information is low or the communication style doesn’t mesh with ours), that’s a clue to try a different community. If we feel joyful and inspired after spending time at the gathering or on the website or in the forum, that’s a clue too. A beacon that says, “take another step this way.”

There are a couple of ways to look at this idea of choosing the people in our lives.

Give yourself permission to cut negative people from your life, and surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you. ~ James Altucher

This isn’t about surrounding yourself with people who always agree with you—you want to be challenged, not stagnant. But you want to be challenged in a way that pulls you toward the person you want to be.

For example, when I began unschooling, I discovered a whole new perspective on parenting that I wanted to embody. I immersed myself at the time, and have stayed connected to my online unschooling community ever since. I stayed engaged even after I “understood” unschooling because every day it reminded me to make the better choice in each moment. And for me, that was the choice that kept me on the parenting path I wanted to take.

The suggestion to steer clear of negative people recognizes that it takes a lot more energy to “stay strong” in your convictions when you’re surrounded by people with opposing perspectives. I imagine many of you have experienced this! Unschooling is a very unconventional lifestyle and we’re often the odd ducks at family gatherings. We can find ourselves defending our choices under a barrage of questions, catching glimpses of disappointed head shakes out of the corner of our eye.

Even just every day encounters with more conventional friends can be challenging. Maybe they see us talking with our children, having a conversation about the moment and who needs what, and they label it “talking back,” even without a confrontational tone in sight. They see only the interaction, not the depth and strength of our connected relationships with our children.

It’s hard. And if we are constantly surrounded with negative feedback about our parenting—even unspoken, yet overt—we can start to question ourselves and our lifestyle choices. Fear starts to grow. “Am I a bad parent?” “Am I ruining my child?”

So surround yourself with people who continue to challenge you in a good way. Toward your personal goals. Toward growth.

Now, if we twist a few degrees, we can look at the same idea from a bit different perspective:

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. ~ Jim Rohn

Makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s basically the reason why you want to surround yourself with people who inspire you to be your best self.

But sometimes we go about our days without really registering the people we are spending most of our time with. Especially for those who are working: those encounters with clients and customers and colleagues count! We, or our spouses/partners, may find ourselves drained at the end of the day without really understanding why. And after a while, we may begin to question our lifestyle and parenting choices. It can be a cycle. (It sounds interestingly like PUPD, periodic unschoolers panic disorder, doesn’t it?)

It can be so helpful to remember to surround ourselves with those who inspire and energize us—not just when we’re down and need it immediately (the stress of cycling), but regularly. Maybe think of it as “preventative maintenance” (that’s the engineer in me coming out). Sure, it’s not likely we can (or want to) cut out work, or family, or friends we connect with over different things, but we can account for their influence by ensuring we re-energize ourselves regularly.

So play around with it and discover your equilibrium (remembering that it can change over time). Maybe for every five hours of conventional interactions you find you need to immerse yourself in thirty minutes of unconventional parenting and unschooling stories to stay focused, connected, and inspired. I know for me, diving into those stories make me smile and bring me joy. They remind me to be the person and parent I want to be.

And that is the importance of using joy as a beacon for finding community.

 

Joy is a Beacon for Building a Personal Body of Work

We’ve been talking about the “joy” in living joyfully, so let’s dive right into why I find joy such a useful guide for building a personal body of work.

I love Pamela Slim’s description of a body of work—a bigger concept than a job or even a career—from her book, Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together:

Your body of work is everything you create, contribute, affect, and impact. For individuals, it is the personal legacy you leave at the end of your life, including all the tangible and intangible things you have created.

It’s an unschooling friendly perspective: everything counts.

Michael, following his joy and building his body of work.

We actively encourage and support our children as they follow their interests and choose the things they want to do, day in and day out. And as they get older, this doesn’t stop. Our unschooling lifestyle gives our children gobs of experience in understanding themselves, the environments in which they thrive, and in choosing the things they want to do, create, build etc. And joy continues to be as useful a guide in adulthood as it was in childhood. Of course, as an adult there are often more parameters to consider, like living expenses, but analyzing situations and making informed choices is something they’ve been doing for years. It’s second nature.

I want to take a moment to make a distinction: I consider joy to be different from passion. “Find your passion” is a common rally cry lately, but I think that can just as often derail a person, leaving them in limbo until they find “the one thing.” I don’t think there is only one “perfect job” out there for anyone, and that if you don’t find it, you’re doomed to a life of drudgery. I can find joy in so many things!

For me, right now, it’s writing. Here’s a little story. Recently I was hanging out at a gym—or more correctly, in the lounge at a gym. Michael and a couple of his friends were working on their acrobatics, and I was glancing up and down, sometimes enjoying their energy and skill, and sometimes reading a book about building a writing career (For Love or Money by Susan Kaye Quinn). And then I came across a section called Joyful Writing. I was excited!

Firstly, because a year or so ago I decided on and registered the domain name for my author website: writingjoyfully. While journaling at the time, I realized, again, that focusing on joy was key. (I haven’t built that site yet, but I’m getting there.)

And secondly, because I hadn’t yet come across a writer who spoke about the value of a joyful perspective and approach. So I was reading along and came across these nuggets:

When I was in a place of joyful happiness with my work, I was insanely productive. It was precisely when I let go of the productivity hamster wheel, that I soared through the clouds of creative productivity.

And

This affirms a core belief I have about creative work: that our best stuff comes when we are most in touch with the joy of the work itself. This is not to say writing isn’t hard: plot points will vex us; character motivations will resist us; and the very words themselves will torment us as they elude our grasp.

How cool is that?

Joy is valuable.

And it doesn’t imply minimal effort, either. When we freely choose what we do, when we follow our interests, we don’t “take the easy way out.” Over the years, unschooling children gain oodles of experience in the joy and satisfaction of pursuing challenging things that are meaningful to them. Effort and perseverance aren’t something to be avoided.

And as unschoolers get older, they more deeply understand that everything they do is a choice. They don’t feel trapped by conventional expectations. Even if they choose something that appears conventional—like a part-time job or college—chances are they are approaching the situation from a completely different mindset. One where they understand why they choose to be there (not just because they’re expected to do it).

Maybe they take a “typical” teen job and enjoy saving or spending the income, depending on their goals. Maybe they take that low, or no, income apprenticeship and enjoy learning on the job and gaining experience. They have their own reasons for their choices. And they also know they can change their mind as circumstances or their needs change and choose to quit. They deeply understand that their life isn’t a laundry list of compulsory check-boxes. It is full of choice.

As parents, we’ve chosen the unschooling lifestyle for our family precisely because we now see these conventional expectations differently. We see the immense value in being free to choose our actions.

Living joyfully is a mindset. It reminds us to get out of our own way and engage directly with whatever we’re doing: that’s where joy sits. Jobs and hobbies, interacting with others and quiet time alone—it’s all living.

And it’s your joyful body of work to build over a lifetime.

You might also like …

The Search for Meaningful Work — As the principles of unschooling begin to spread into every nook and cranny of our lives, we discover the joy and power of making our own choices. Doing what is important to us, rather than what we’ve always been told to do, makes our actions feel so much more meaningful. We begin to ask those questions of all areas of our lives. Is what we are choosing to do with our lives meaningful? Does it bring us a sense of purpose?

 

Joy is a Beacon for Building Strong Family Relationships

I chose Living Joyfully as the name of my website because I found that joy was, and is, an unerring compass for all aspects of our unschooling lifestyle. Last time we looked at learning, so now let’s look at why joy is such a valuable touchstone for building strong and connected relationships with our children (or anyone else, for that matter).

Conventional relationships are often structured around power and control—especially parent-child relationships. The traditional assumption is that adult needs are more important than child needs. Full stop.

I imagine you’ve seen this relationship dynamic play out many times, at the grocery store, on the playground, in a friend’s home. Anywhere parents and children interact. A child asks to do or have something and their parent firmly says no. If the child asks why, they are reminded who has the control with that ubiquitous response: “Because I said so.”

So much power is wrapped up in those four words.

When power is a principal component of family relationships, it not only plays out between parent and child, it also influences sibling relationships. They will regularly tease or annoy one another as a show of their power, and use each other as leverage: “you got X for her so you have to get me one too.” And it just spirals down from there.

siblings connecting

If you’re looking for strong and connected relationships, ones based on genuine love and respect, power isn’t the way to go about it: control-based interactions tear down relationships, they don’t strengthen them. Nor are they enjoyable. Not even for the “winner,” because they can’t let their guard down lest they “lose” next time.

Instead, focusing on the joy moves relationships away from the power paradigm and toward connection. If you watch people who are genuinely connecting, you will see them treating each other with kindness and compassion in that moment. There is none of the push and pull of power struggles.

So let’s dig into an example of what “focusing on the joy” looks like. I thought I’d use a situation I’ve experienced from time to time over the years. It starts by feeling down and draggy and put upon. Sound familiar?

Soon we decide that we should take care of ourselves by insisting that we get our share of whatever it is we think will help us feel better—with our children that may be acknowledgement, attention, appreciation, help etc. The more we think about it, the more unappreciated we feel, and the more focused we get. It’s a vicious circle.

Over the years I’ve gotten better at noticing when I’m caught in this downward spiral, and whenever the realization hits, I make the effort to focus on the joy. I know, it seems paradoxical, but whenever I’m feeling needy, feeling like I need to grab more for me, if I remember to shift and focus on the joy, that needy feeling dissipates more quickly.

How?

For me, I first focus on bringing joy into my children’s lives. I love them up. I shift my focus out of my head and to their lives. What do they love to do right now? What would make them smile big? Sometimes I ask, sometimes I offer things. And we do that. Together. I sink into enjoying those things with them. And with full engagement—not complaining or worrying or planning dinner in the back of my mind. Soon I see the joy on their faces. I listen to their chatter and their laughter. It starts to rub off a bit. I’m smiling now.

Then, maybe alongside them, I start doing something I enjoy (but have been putting off for what are now starting to seem like martyrly reasons). Now I’m feeling pretty good and I’m chatting away with them too. And, all of a sudden, that needy icky goo bubble around me bursts.

Wow! With my now open and joyful perspective, things are so much clearer! Now I can see the acknowledgement and appreciation my children were giving me all along—they were just giving it to me in their ways. I was so busy looking for what I thought I needed, my filters laser-targeted on looking for me, me, me, that I couldn’t see what I was already getting.

Focusing on joy helps to quickly remove those filters and bring the real world back into view.

Not only that, it’s in this open and joyful place of relationship where people—children, spouses, and friends—are so much more likely to help us out too! Which do you react better to, genuine requests (where no is a perfectly acceptable answer) or implied demands? Smiling invitations to join in and help out, or appeals to go do something by yourself?

Focusing on bringing those in our lives as much joy as we can muster has a truly positive and beautiful effect on our relationships. It builds strong connections because we enjoy connecting. It builds trust because we truly trust the other is watching out for us and wanting our days to be joyful.

And these strong, connected relationships are fundamental to unschooling because they create a relaxed and open atmosphere where children and parents are comfortable communicating with each other, asking and answering questions, offering and accepting help. In other words, living and learning together.

Whenever I find myself mired in relationship discontent, joy is the beacon I follow.

It pulls me out of the goo every time.

You might also like …

1. A Family of Individuals — A talk I gave on 2013 about some of the ways unschooling families foster a long-term atmosphere of joy and harmony.

2. The World of Siblings and Unschooling — Answering reader questions about sibling relationships.

3. Unschooling and the Power Paradigm — What if we don’t assume power struggles between parents and kids are inevitable?

 

Joy is a Beacon for Living and Learning

Years ago I chose to name this website Living Joyfully as a loving, yet persistent, reminder to follow the joy. And this month I thought I’d dive into some of the reasons why I chose the concept of “joy” to fundamentally represent the unschooling lifestyle.

Let’s start by making sure we’re on the same page regarding the definition of the word joy. I like “a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated.” For me, the idea of joy is wrapped up in the ongoing value of, and deep appreciation for, the lifestyle I’ve chosen, rather than the more fleeting happiness of things going my way in the moment. Certainly bad things happen sometimes, but that doesn’t nullify the joy.

So now let’s explore the pursuit of joy through the lens of living and learning.

After months and months (and months) of deschooling, I came to deeply understand why one of the essential ingredients of unschooling is to being free to learn. Free meaning, “free to choose.” So when my kids weren’t busy doing things, they were busy choosing what things to do next. I saw them learning like crazy and discovering cool new things, and all the while they were having fun.

I learned from watching them that joy is inherent in the process of learning something, rather than equating it with reaching a “goal.” And in fact, the “goal” was never the learning itself, it was something they wanted to accomplish and they happened to need to learn the knowledge or skill along the way. It was working fantastically well for them, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Coney Island joy! Lissy and Jacob, summer 2015.

At first, the idea of asking myself, “What would I enjoy more?” when choosing what to do at a given moment seemed rather self-indulgent. Those “shoulds” can be very loud in our heads! But with years of experience under my belt now, I can definitely say that using joy as an integral part of the decision-making process has helped me make choices that have taken me to some pretty wonderful, if unexpected, places. And most importantly, it brought engaged living into my ordinary days, rather than saving it for special occasions.

When we are exploring things that are interesting to us, joy is there, a faithful companion. Our mind is swimming with questions and we are so curious to see where they lead! And it’s in those moments when we are most likely to become deeply engaged in our activity.

What happens when we are engaged?

We are actively accomplishing something—whether it’s physical or mental.
Our full attention is in the moment with us, we are often “in the flow,” where time seems to stand still.
We are learning—real, connected learning—though we don’t notice it at the time because we are fully involved in the moment, not observing it.
And we are enjoying ourselves, though we don’t really notice that either, until time starts moving again.

We soon discover that these moments are priceless! And we want more of them. How do we find them? By choosing to do things that we think we’ll enjoy. By doing that over and over, we’ll also refine our understanding of what we enjoy, and we’ll get better at winking into engagement and being present in each moment.

Let’s look at learning itself for a moment.

The other interesting thing that comes out of unschooling’s focus on engagement is that the learning our children (and we) are doing, almost by osmosis, becomes equated with fun and joy, instead of “work.” The concept of work is so negative in our society: labour, struggle, trial. Chores? Work. Taking out the garbage? Work. Doing our taxes? Work. Work has become associated with anything that we don’t want to do, but that we feel we “have to” do.

We don’t want learning to be one of those things for our children, so with unschooling we seek to create an environment where learning is equated with fun and joy. Learning doesn’t become something they actively avoid. Not only that, by not introducing “work” into the learning equation, we keep it far away from the concept of “effort.” Unschooling children exert all kinds of effort to accomplish things they are drawn to doing. Engagement. Flow. Fun. JOY. Like the artist who concentrates for hours, exclaiming it does not feel like work. Like me and writing.

The other night Michael asked me what I was up to the next day and I said I was working. And then I immediately amended it, “Well, I’ll be writing. It doesn’t feel like work because I enjoy it.” It takes a lot of energy and effort and I’m often drained at the end of a writing session, yet it feels like a disservice to call it “work.”

When we use joy as our compass, we can challenge and push ourselves to our limits, of both physical abilities and knowledge, and at the end of it, say we had fun. Our sense of accomplishment is palpable, even if we have nothing tangible to show for it.

Watch your children in action! Day after day, they are great examples of the engagement and real learning that come along for the ride when they’re following their interests.

Pursuing joy.

Living joyfully.

 

You might also like …

1. Finding Joy — Some of the realizations I’ve made on my unschooling journey that have helped me find joy more often.

2. A Positive Outlook Isn’t Turning a Blind Eye — Living joyfully doesn’t mean life is without challenges. Here are some things I’ve learned about moving through them.

3. “What Will I Do Today?” — One of the refreshing things about living with unschooling children is their enthusiasm for life. What drives their unschooling days?

Interview: Anne’s Unschooling Journey

Hi! I’m Anne!
A bit about you …

Name?

Hi!  I Am Anne Elizabeth Ohman.

Location?

I live on 10 mountaintop acres in rural New York State.

What does your family look like?

I live in my home with my husband, our English Bulldog (Monty) and our Welsh Corgi (Roxi).  My youngest son, Sam (21, always unschooled) lives in our nearby little college city (20 minutes away), right downtown, and walks to his job as Chef de Cuisine at the best restaurant in the city.   My oldest son, Jacob (24, always unschooled) lives right next door to the library at which I am the director, in a little rural town 18 minutes away (10 minutes from Sam).  He lives there with his lovely girlfriend.  Jacob is an artist and is fulfilling his desire to learn about wines and liquors by working at a wine and liquor store.

Departure phase of the journey

How did you first hear about unschooling? What spurred you to begin exploring unschooling for your family?

I Am quite certain that unschooling was something that had been inside of me since I was a child.  I feel like I was confused and misunderstood for my entire childhood because I didn’t understand this “life” that had been presented to me.  I had always felt there was something horribly wrong with this awful thing I was experiencing called school (and yet the message to me was that there was something wrong with ME because I was just not fitting in to this awful thing I was experiencing called school).

Even before Dave and I had our children, the concept of NOT sending my (future) children to school was always present within me.  I was drawn to people who had homeschooled and asked them questions about it.  But I never allowed their answers to influence what I had felt deep within mySelf… I was really just asking questions to help piece together my own puzzle.

I remember asking my mother-in-law about her neighbors who were homeschooling their daughter.  She told me that she was with their homeschooled girl one day when they saw a school bus pass by and Julie just STARED at the school bus and didn’t say a word for a long time.  Dave’s Mom felt it was because Julie wanted to be a part of it, that she felt left out.

All I could think of, even then, was, “She was probably wondering why those children looked so sad… wondering why they had been captured and were being forced to go somewhere that was not of their choosing!”

(Sure enough, my speculations seemed pretty accurate when I saw that look on my own always-unschooled children’s faces when they saw a school bus.  It was a look of horror and confusion, not envy in the least.)

When Jacob was born, he was so sensitive, so aware, so brilliant.  From the time he was very young, I knew for sure that I would not interrupt the flow of his life and his amazing natural learning by sending him somewhere else.  It made absolutely no sense to me to do that.  It hurt my HEART to even THINK of doing that.

This is from my article I Am What I Am:

Our homeschooling method was painfully determined with my first attempt at “teaching” Jacob some “schoolwork.” He resisted. I insisted. He yelled. I yelled. He cried. I cried. And it was over. Our attempt at schooling at home had failed.

As a result, our unschooling lives were born, even though at the time we did not know that the concept even existed, let alone was in practice. But for us, it was just a natural extension of the life we were already living, the life that Jacob had shown us was best and most fulfilling for him, and it turned out to be the best and most fulfilling path for all of us.  If we had never come across the word unschooling, we would have “invented” it for ourselves, as This is How Our Child Was Shining.

Did family and/or friends try to discourage you from setting out on your unschooling journey?

Right off the bat, my husband was with me on this, knowing that school would destroy our beautiful, sensitive son.  We didn’t know anything about unschooling at the time (this was pre-internet days!), but he trusted my Mama Instincts and our child was happy ~ that’s all that mattered to him.

My own family was already used to me being the “radical” one and so to see me go against the mainstream in my parenting was really no surprise to anyone.  They were probably just thinking, “Of COURSE she’s not going to do what everyone else is doing!”

Also, a very important part of the answer to this question is in the fact that I chose to create the world/community/life that I wanted my children to live in.  I surrounded my child with those who could SEE and CELEBRATE him for Who He Was.

I basically never allowed any “space” in our lives for other people to insert their opinions/judgment about our choices… I just made sure our time with other people was so filled up with the Goodness and Shine of my children (for the few times we needed to be with family members who only knew how to talk “school” to kids, we would make a list of conversation topics to bring with us, as well as games, art, music or other activities that my children loved) and yes, people seemed so drawn to that and they wanted to be in OUR flow with THOSE good feelings!

When you first started out, what were some of the things you were hoping to address by moving to unschooling?

For us, because we didn’t know unschooling was a thing, it was more that we were deliberately creating  a new way to live, deliberately creating our family life based on Joy.  And that Joy always came from Seeing, Hearing, Honoring, Respecting and Celebrating our child’s Voice, his needs and his desires.

Were there any fears you needed to overcome initially?

When I try to think about the things that other people fear in unschooling, I can see that those fears were never a part of me at all.  Fear that they’re not learning something, fear that other people will judge, fear that they won’t get into college, fear that  they’ll be “behind” in some way…

My fears in life were ANSWERED by unschooling, and so I was able to eliminate my fear and just enJOY the journey.  I didn’t project into the future… I Trusted where my children were In This Very Moment and I Trusted that what they were getting from*this* moment would lead them to the next moment… and that they would get all they needed from the world no matter where they were, no matter what they were doing, as long as they were following their own instincts and focusing on Feeling Good about themSelves.

I also think that because this was always IN me, a part of me, that I was more like, “YES! It’s about TIME someone showed me the right path!”   I Trusted HIM, my child, and his needs and desires (if not mySelf quite yet), and that Trust in my child allowed my instincts to lead me to where we needed to go.  I was swept up in this new, glorious life and just wanted to live it fully…

Initiation phase of the journey

What were some of your favourite ways to learn more about unschooling? Did you prefer to read about others’ experiences or ask questions directly? Meet up with other unschooling families in person?

Pre-internet days again: After Jacob had let us know he was not going to tolerate “being taught” anything, I still felt confused about some things.  I went to the library with him one day, looking for answers (thinking I could find them in the “parenting” section of the library) and my hand landed on John Holt’s book, “How Children Fail” in the education section.  There I was, looking for answers, and my hand landed on John Holt, without even knowing who he was at that time.

I ate up every single book he had written (and ordered old issues of his magazine), mourned the fact that he was no longer alive on this earth at the same time my child and I were, and that was it.  I didn’t need anything else…I didn’t need anyone else!!  It was me and Jacob and my husband on this exciting path, with this amazing man, John Holt, cheering us on, saying, “You GO, Jacob!!  You show them the way!!”

We moved to rural New York in 1996 and I think it was 1997 when we actually got this amazing new thing called the internet!

That’s when I found unschooling.com.  And I saw that people were actually LIVING this life that WE had been living and that it had a name.  I jumped right into that online community ~ I read a lot, wrote a lot, cried in gratitude a lot and learned a lot.

What allies did you discover along the way? What did you find helpful?

It was helpful to read of other people’s unschooling lives and take away what felt right for my family.  Because I wrote a lot at unschooling.com, I became well-known at that site.  Kelly Lovejoy did an amazing thing in 2002 and organized the first unschooling conference ever, so that we could all meet in person.  She asked me to speak at that conference and it was there that I really felt I had found my tribe, my community.

Anne’s conference job ~ driving Shining kids!

It was amazing to see my children IMMEDIATELY relax into the accepting, validating and respectful energy that was prevalent in a real-life unschooling community.    And it has been that way ever since, even now, when they are 21 and 24 and they CHOOSE to take (unpaid) vacations from their jobs to attend my unschooling conference.  Real life radical unschooling gatherings continue to be life-changing for them.

How did you choose to move to unschooling with your family? Was it a gradual process of exploring/implementing one aspect at a time, or did you make bigger leaps at once? Did the process work out reasonably well for you?

My child’s very spirit REJECTED everything that mainstream society was handing to him.  I saw that, I felt that, I honored that and I CELEBRATED that, as he was validating my own childhood confusion by not changing Who He Was in order to suit a society that didn’t feel right to him.

And so I grabbed a shovel and a lantern and we created our new path together by continuing to follow that which felt good and right to my child.

Yes, it has worked out reasonably well for us.  (I Am Grinning So Big with the loveliness of this understatement!)

How did you build trust in unschooling? Did you find that observing your children—seeing unschooling in action—helped?

There was no option for me other than to Trust in my child (because it is the child that embodies unschooling itself).  It felt scarier than hell to think about the alternative ~ forcing my child to do and be something that he was not?  Trusting in my child’s needs and desires was just such a HUGE YES in my heart because I knew His Voice needed to be respected and his Glorious Uniqueness was to be Celebrated.  The WORLD needed him to Be Exactly Who He Was and I was simply giving him a safe and sacred space to Be.

Being a witness to my children’s real-life-learning-in-action was very gratifying, but my focus was more on how they were feeling ~ this has been our compass that has always brought us to the right paths.  My children’s *Thumbs Up* signs that came from Feeling Good about themselves are all I have ever needed to continue to put one foot in front of the other (and their *thumbs down* signs were an indication to look closer at our path and see if we needed to pivot in a new direction!), not only to continue living on this glorious path, but loving it and feeling so very grateful for it!

Return phase of the journey

Do you feel comfortable moving back and forth between the two worlds?

We deliberately created a community that felt good and right to us, one that allowed my children to Shine for Being Who They Are.

Our community is our nearby little college city and everyone has known us since we moved here (when Jacob was 6 and Sam was 2).  We tend to share so much of ourSelves with our community, valuing our connection with various people, and we always knew these people were so happy to see us and that they enJoyed our Presence.  The grocery store, the library, the liquor store, the restaurants… some of these are the very places where my sons have worked in the past and/or work now as young adults because the owners/employees of these places have not only had intelligent, interesting conversations with them from the time they were little, but have often sought them out for their thoughts on various topics (the librarian, in particular, would often seek out 6-[and-up]-year-old Jacob to ask what HE thought of a book she had read, and his very first job was at the library shelving books)!

We were also active in our community, creating and building connections in other ways.  I began a Parent/Child Story Time at our little rural library and my boys (then ages 8 and 10) enjoyed working with me on that.  The three of us also volunteered at our local Fair Trade Store.  And when Jacob was 7, he wanted to do charity work, so for 3 years I was his driver as he delivered hot meals to homebound senior citizens.

We created the world we wanted to live in and yes, sometimes there were some people “out there” who were difficult to be around, but we would get re-connected and re-centered back at our home on our wooded acreage and then be ready for more connections with our ever-expanding world.

When others ask you questions about your unschooling lifestyle, do you usually feel their curiosity or their judgement? Do you find yourself defending your choices?

I am really good at sensing how much to say to people and how much to withhold!  My boys have become very good at that, as well.  One of the most satisfying connections in my life has been when I can sense that a person NEEDS me to drop the word “Unschooling.”  So many times, I have literally FELT them relax into that word and because of their “Yes” reaction, I have known to continue to hand them more and more about it…

I haven’t ever wanted to be in a position where I would need to defend our life together and our choices and so I have not ever been in that position.  Our unschooling life is not a battle that needs me to defend it.  It is a Joy.  It is a Gift.  We focus on the living of it and we have seen how that is enough to spread Good Feelings to those around us.  Living in that Joy doesn’t allow space for judgement and therefore, there is no need to defend anything.

What, for you, was the most valuable thing to come from your journey to unschooling?

This question brought tears of gratitude and Joy as I sit here now, age 52, breathing in those words, “Most Valuable,” having my grown children’s lives flash before me.  It’s all so deeply beautiful and precious.  I can’t even begin to answer this question, but maybe a little story about our lives now will be suffice.

When I was working at the library yesterday, I heard a lawn mower start up.  I knew it was Jacob and his girlfriend (whom I love dearly), Hannah, next door.  I went outside and yes, they were mowing their new lawn for the first time!  It was really adorable (to me, anyway!).

However, the grass was very long because we had been gone the previous week to my unschooling conference.  And it was wet because, well, rain.  So it was difficult to mow. And the landlord had left them a lawnmower that was circa 1950’s, so it was no surprise that it broke down, leaving a the lawn that looked like someone with long hair had taken a razor and did a horrible chop job on one portion of their head.

Hannah came to me, feeling upset, feeling the judgment of the neighbors and the other tenants in their house about their lawn, feeling like they had let the landlord down by not mowing it  in time… And now their lawnmower was broken and she and Jacob had very full work days coming up and also, it was supposed to be raining for the next several days.

She and Jacob went to their jobs.  Dave and I were going to go out to dinner when I was done with the library.  I met him in town and said, “Our kids need us.”  I explained the situation to him.  He called the restaurant, changed our reservation time.  We drove to a hardware store, bought a lawn mower and a gas can.  We bought gas, drove to Jacob and Hannah’s house and mowed, swept, bagged and fixed up their lawn so that it was beautiful.

I knew one thing and I needed to act on it: my kids were feeling bad about themselves.  It has always been important to me to help my kids get to a place where they can feel GOOD about themselves again.  With the lawn mowed (and a new mower that they are excited about), they wouldn’t be worried about what the neighbors or the landlord was thinking about them… and THAT frees them up to be following the paths that feel right and good, which hold even more Goodness for them.

This morning, Dave needed help putting the cap back on his pick-up truck.  Even thought it was very early in the morning and they both had long days at work ahead of them, I texted Jacob and Hannah and Asked For Help.  Jacob woke up Hannah and they were here within a half hour.

As I’ve been answering these lovely questions, appreciating you, Pam, for allowing me to share and to write, I have also been texting with Sam about his new Vision for his life… one that has become more important and necessary for him to follow ever since he got back from my unschooling conference where he was UPLIFTED and was validated, again, that living In His Shine is exactly where he needs to Be.   Along with THAT conversation, there have been three other tangent conversations going on, about other adventures, other frustrations, other pleasure in life.

::sigh::

Most Valuable.

And It Is All So Very Good.

 *****

Thank you, Anne, for taking the time to delve into your unschooling journey and share your thoughts and experiences with us. I deeply appreciate it and It Is All So Very Good.

I first came across Anne’s joyful unschooling writing on unschooling.com (in 2002 as we began unschooling), heard her speak at Live and Learn, and was the first person to join her Shine with Unschooling email list back in 2004. A couple of years later I’d begun contemplating hosting a conference in Canada when Anne happened to mention that she’d like to visit the Toronto area. Thus the Toronto Unschooling Conference was launched in 2006 and continued for six wonderful years.

We’ve developed a wonderful friendship over the years and I love that she continues to share her unschooling experience with others, even though her children are now adults. She has such a beautiful, intimate, and powerful way of writing and speaking about unschooling and the deep love and respect she has for her children—for all children—shines brightly through her words. If you’re interested, you’re welcome to check out her Shine with Unschooling email list.

*****

The road so far …

Departure phase of the journey

Call to adventure: We discover unschooling and excitedly imagine the possibilities.

Refusal of the call: The many implications of choosing unschooling hit. Do we commit?

Supernatural aid: Our children guide us on our unschooling journey.

Crossing of the first threshold: Confronting the guardians who claim to protect us.

The belly of the whale: Transitioning to a learning mindset.

Initiation phase of the journey

The road of trials: The heart of deschooling.

The meeting with the goddess: Seeing the value in all experiences.

Woman as the temptress: Accepting our nature.

Atonement with the father: Accepting others where they are.

Apotheosis: Moving to compassion.

The ultimate boon: Unschooling with confidence and grace.

Return phase of the journey

Refusal of the return: Will we choose to step back out of our unschooling bubble?

The magic flight: Finding a safe place in the ordinary world.

Rescue from without: When the ordinary world comes knocking.

The crossing of the return threshold: Integrating your new perspective into everyday life.

Master of the two worlds: Seeing possibilities everywhere.

Freedom to Live: Embracing the flow of life.