50 Ways to Bring Out Your Child’s Best
Written by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.

1. Let your child discover her own interests. Pay attention the activities she chooses. This free-time play can say a lot about where her gifts lie.

2. Expose your child to a broad spectrum of experiences. They may activate latent talents. Don’t assume that he isn’t gifted in an area because he hasn’t shown an interest.

3. Give your child permission to make mistakes. If she has to do things perfectly, she’ll never take the risks necessary to discover and develop a gift.

4. Ask questions. Help your child open up to he wonders of the world by asking intriguing questions: Why is the sky blue? Find the answers together.

5. Plan special family projects. Shared creativity can awaken and develop new talents.

6. Don’t pressure your child to learn. If children are sent to special lessons every day in the hope of developing their gifts, they may become too stressed or exhausted to shine. Encourage, but don’t push.

7. Have high expectations. But make them realistic.

8. Share your work life. Expose your child to images of success by taking him to work. Let him see you engaged in meaningful activities and allow him to become involved.

9. Provide a sensory-rich environment. Have materials around the home that will stimulate the senses: finger paints, percussion instruments, and puppets.

10. Keep your own passion for learning alive. Your child will be influenced by your example.

11. Don’t limit your child with labels. They may saddle her with a reputation that doesn’t match her inner gifts.

12. Play games together as a family.

13. Have a regular family time for reading, listening to music, talking.

14. Have reference materials available to give your child access to the world.

15. Allow your child to participate in community activities that interest her.

16. Use humor, jokes, silly stories to encourage creativity.

17. Don’t criticize or judge the things your child does. He may give up on his talents if he feels evaluated.

18. Play with your child to show your own sense of playfulness.

19. Share your successes as a family. Talk about good things that happened during the day to enhance self-esteem.

20. Provide your child with access to a home, school or public library computer.

21. Listen to your child. The things he cares about most may provide clues to his special talents.

22. Give your child a special space at home to be creative.

23. Praise your child’s sense of responsibility at home when she completes assigned chores.

24. Visit new places as a family.

25. Give your child open-ended playthings. Toys like blocks and puppets encourage imaginative play.

26. Give your child unstructured time to simply daydream and wonder.

27. Share inspirational stories of people who succeeded in life.

28. Don’t bribe your child with rewards. Using incentives to get children to perform sends a message that learning is not rewarding in its own right

29. Suggest that your child join peer groups that focus on her gifts.

30. Discuss the news to spark interests.

31. Discourage gender bias. Expose your child to both feminine and masculine toys and activities.

32. Avoid comparing your child to others. Help your child compare himself to his own past performance.

33. Be an authoritative parent.

34. Use community events and institutions to activate interests. Take trips to the library, museums, concerts, plays.

35. Give presents that nourish your child’s strengths.

36. Encourage your child to think about her future. Support her visions without directing her into any specific field.

37. Introduce your child to interesting and capable people.

38. Think of your home as a learning place. The kitchen is great for teaching math and science through cooking.

39. Share feelings. A child’s gifts can be stifled by repressed emotions.

40. Encourage your child to read.

41. Honor your child’s creations.

42. Do things with your child in his areas of interest.

43. Teach your child to trust her intuition and believe in her capabilities.

44. Give your child choices. It builds willpower and fuels initiative.

45. Show your child how to use books to further an interest. For example, “how to” books for the “hands-on” learner.

46. Set aside an area of the house for displaying creations and awards.

47. Encourage your child to tackle areas that are difficult for him. Help him learn to confront any limitations.

48. Be a liaison between your child’s special talents and the real world. Help her find outlets for her talents.

49. Introduce children’s literature that honors and develops gifts. Books like the Little Engine That could encourage a “can do” attitude.

50. Accept your child as he or she is.

Originally posted 1/2009

Related posts

• Why Whole Life Unschooling? (5)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• Unschooling Conferences & Gatherings (5)
• Post Tribune Unschooling Article (0)
• Learning All The Time (11)

Anyone who has spent any time at all exploring unschooling, likely knows there’s a variety of ways people define unschooling. The labels vary, depending on how far from mainstream methods a family has moved. Unschooling runs the gamut, from those who simply choose to let go of curriculum but keep more mainstream parenting methods, like bedtimes, chores, screen-time or content controls, all the way to people who have let go of all the traditional controls we’ve been told we must enforce to be responsible parents.

I’ve seen labels ranging from ‘academic unschooler’ to ‘radical unschoolers’ and, recently, even ‘rabid unschoolers‘ pop up in conversations about unschooling choices. My husband, Gary, has never liked the label radical unschooling, because for him the word radical connotes extremism, and he doesn’t feel we’re really extreme. When I use the word radical, I find myself feeling defensive about trying to explain why I’d want to be thought of as radical. So, over the years we’ve been unschooling I’ve looked for a phrase that better describes the way we live.

Although I’d prefer not to need a label for our methods, it seems we need some kind of phrase to explain it to those who ask. In recent months, I’ve begun to think of us as whole life unschoolers. I find it much more descriptive of who we are. What do I mean when I say we are whole life unschoolers? We don’t use a curriculum, have set bedtimes for our sons or assign chores. Our kids watch whatever they choose on tv, play video games of their choosing as often as they want, play whatever in-person games they wish, don’t have a curfew, eat what they want when they’re hungry.

What is it we DO? We trust, because we believe that it’s simply not possible to live even one day without learning something, that we will all learn all we need to live the life we want. Just as we trusted, and have seen happen, that our children would learn to read simply by living in a home where reading was natural and joyful, we know that they can also learn to sleep when their bodies need rest, to eat the foods their bodies need. Our boys learn how to be in relationship with others by sharing their lives with others, both in our home and in the larger world outside of it; we are their facilitators in finding their way, wherever we go. We answer questions on topics ranging from history, religion, health, science, nature, math and more. Sometimes the answer is “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” which leads to searching for answers, meandering conversations and sometimes unexpected discoveries. We also share our outlook on the world, and strive to provide good examples in the way we treat other people, including children.

It hasn’t always been this way. There was a time when we had limits and controls. We enforced bedtimes to fit our oldest son’s school schedule. When he was young I tried to force the ‘right’ diet, I limited tv shows (no Simpsons!); I even assigned chores. At the time I felt I had no choice but to listen to those around me, telling me what I ‘must’ do, even though in my heart I could see that it wasn’t working for us. It wasn’t just that those methods didn’t work for our children, they didn’t work for us as parents either. Imposed limits and demands make people unhappy, so of course, the same limits and demands make children unhappy. Being controlled certainly didn’t add to their happiness, and I wanted happy children. I was heartbroken at what that did to our relationship with our kids. Not only that, it made me ask why I was treating them this way, especially since I wasn’t convinced it was necessary to limit and control them.

When I found unschooling, I also found parents who had managed to create the family life I wanted; parents who weren’t frustrated by trying to control their children. They had happy children, who were kind and capable, and they had this without fighting or punishment. As I started to let go of my fears about how our boys would turn out if I ‘broke the rules’ I found we were all happier. And happier is good.

In our culture, there’s a pervasive belief that happiness will be ours someday. We grow up being told that someday we’ll be happy, when we’re adults it will be ‘our turn’ to have things our way. Why wait for that elusive someday? Why not be happy today? How can we help our children be happy today? Is it fair or loving to tell children they must wait for their turn to be happy? Why wouldn’t a parent want their child to be happy; to feel, to know deep in his soul, that he’s loved and celebrated and supported and completely free to revel in what brings him joy?

When I’m asked “Why whole-life unschooling?” my answer is because, ultimately, we can’t imagine any other way of living. It’s only natural when something brings as much joy, freedom and wonder as unschooling does, that we would want to extend that to all areas of our life.

Written by Sylvia Toyama

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• Unschooling Is Not… (0)
• Courier Journal Unschooling Article (0)
• 50 Ways To Bring Out Your Child’s Best (10)
• Unschooling? How Will They Learn? (5)

When my family sat down in 2006 to discuss the possibility of homeschooling the first method of learning we all agreed on was called Natural Learning, Child-led Learning, or better referred to as Unschooling. The choice to home educate was very scary for all of us to make, not because we doubted our capabilities, but because we did not know anyone who lived an unschooling life. The majority of the people we were coming in contact with followed some form of curriculum or structured schedule based on control. In the end, our final decision to unschool has been an exciting journey of love, warmth and unimaginable closeness.

Along with unschooling, being a peaceful parent were terms I had never heard or used for that matter. Up until six years ago when my youngest daughter, Chloe, then 6,was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, we would never have considered home educating our children. Kids went to a place called school and that was that. Well, little did we know at the time, that along with learning to administer insulin doses, control carbs and change a ton of our habits, we were about to embark on a whole other way of existence called unschooling.

Although we were not strict disciplinary parents, we did have bed times, reading schedules and we also assigned chores for each child. I still remember both children asking me to buy them curriculum and tell them what to do each day. In public school every choice about what to learn had been assigned. They were not given the ability to decide what they felt was interesting or important. I supported their needs as best I could by purchasing curriculum and giving them “school” assignments. However, it did not take long for the kids and I to realize that they could teach themselves, choose their interest without me leading or forcing them. They had inner gifts that they would soon discover just by being left alone.

Autumn, my daughter who will turn 18 this November has enrolled in a technical school/college credit course. She scored so high on her entrance exam that she was awarded free tuition. She recently has discovered that she enjoys painting with oils and has decided to start her own business by selling her work at local art gatherings. My youngest daughter Chloe has such an enormous love for animals and science that she has created her own youtube channel where she shares videos with those who are interested in learning about the care of small animals. Her goal as of today is to become a vet with her own television show.

Instinctively we all want to learn, some at different stages in one’s development. Since allowing my children to express themselves without judgment, they are discovering inner gifts that they probably would not have embarked on if they had been left in the school system. I’m not anti-school, anti-rules, or anti-choice, but I have learned to be more trusting, less controlling and more loving, caring and compassionate with my children. A lot of this I owe to our discussion to lead an unschooling life.

By Kimberly Sharpe

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• Post Tribune Unschooling Article (0)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• Transitioning from Unschooling to College (3)
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education (14)

It’s a Tuesday morning. As children throughout the Region are waking up, packing their bags and heading toward the school bus, Adele Schiessle turns to her children and asks them if they wanted to spend the day playing on a 6,000-square-foot indoor inflatable play area at Jump Central.

Collin, 6, and Amber, 7, agree that would be a pleasant way to start the morning. After they played on the bouncy furniture, they headed back to their home in St. John, where they spent the rest of the day watching TV, navigating XBox, working on art projects and playing games. It’s just another day in the Schiessle household, where the children learn through a branch of homeschooling called unschooling.

While the definition of unschooling varies, it generally reflects a concept of child-led learning.

For Carol Pozos’ oldest child, it meant self-taught reading at age 4.

For 18-year-old Abby Stewart of Chicago, it meant the news last week that she had won early admission to Princeton.

“It’s an awareness that learning is always happening because it’s part of living,” said Jane Van Stelle Haded of Hobart, who unschools her two children. “It’s almost trying to capitalize on whatever your children are interested in.”

Unschooled children don’t go to school, but unlike many other homeschoolers, the unschoolers don’t necessarily learn through workbooks, educational guides or study sources. Instead, the children are free to pursue what interests them. The unschooling concept has been around for decades, but it’s been slow to catch on, as initially most parents shy away from letting their children have such control over their own education.

“I’m trying to get rid of the idea that learning happens at a certain time in a certain place,” Van Stelle said.

And while homeschooling students far exceed unschoolers in terms of numbers, the unschooling movement appears to be slowly increasing. There aren’t any statistics on unschoolers yet, but their popularity is reflected in the number of unschooling message boards on the Internet, in the abundance of unschooling clubs, in the frequency of unschooling conferences and in the slow but steady movement of unschooling into the vocabulary of educators.

Part of the increased attention on alternative education may be the rebellion against educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind. It was one of the reasons Janna Odenthal of Chesterton embraced unschooling for her child.

“The testing doesn’t do any good,” she said.

The focus on alternative schooling hasn’t been missed by the media, who have featured unschoolers on the talk show “Dr. Phil,” and in a recent report in the New York Times. In a 2003 survey by the U.S. Department of Education, the number of children educated at home nationally was 1.1 million, an increase of 29 percent from the previous study in 1999. The study didn’t ask about unschooling specifically, but homeschooling parents continue to strive for other educational methods, with unschooling becoming a more popular second to traditional homeschooling.

Ten-year-old Seth Odenthal has been unschooled since he was about 5. He went to preschool, and tried going to kindergarten, but dropped out after a few days because he preferred being at home. He even tried going to school for a few days in the first grade, and then in the second, but he continued expressing interest in staying at home, so his mother researched the unschooling methods.

“I went ahead and gave it a try, and I fell in love with the things we could do together, the flexibility in our schedule,” Odenthal said of unschooling her only child.
When Seth took an early interest in cooking and baking, Odenthal embraced his curiosity, and the two of them cook together. She even signed him up for a local cooking class. Seth never formally learned math, but Odenthal said he excels at it because it’s a natural progression from his cooking interests.

“He learns all about math and science through a lot of cooking that we do,” said Odenthal, a writer who occasionally freelances for the Post-Tribune.

The state of Indiana doesn’t require the unschoolers to do any standardized testing, and parents are allowed to give their unschooled children high school diplomas when the parents believe the children are ready to graduate. Since education laws in Indiana are loose, the unschooled parents can take different approaches to learning. But most tend to have a few commonalities.

They don’t sit at desks to learn, as the parents believe learning happens all the time. And while they aren’t taught how to read or write or do science; the children usually ask their parents enough questions that they eventually learn on their own.

“My oldest was reading on her own without being taught before she turned 5,” said Carol Pozos, who unschools her three children in her Michigan City home. “I did not do anything except read to her, and she soaked it up and was reading full sentences. I thought to myself, ‘Obviously, this works.’ ”

While Pozos has a degree in elementary education, there were many aspects of traditional schooling that disgusted her. She said many schools care more about the business and the money involved with schooling, instead of focusing on the individual needs of the child. Pozos enrolled one of her children in preschool because the child had been begging her to go to school since she was 3. But when her daughter refused to return to school halfway through the year, Pozos decided to try teaching her children herself.

Her children are 8, 7, and 4, and other than a half-year of preschool, all three have been learning at home their entire lives. They also have chores they’re required to do every morning. And once they finish their chores?

“We do whatever we want,” said 8-year-old Isabel, who spent a recent afternoon on the floor of her living room flipping through a picture book with her 4-year-old brother. On Thursday mornings, the children attend an art class, filled with unschoolers and their parents. “Books are out, and if they want to draw, they can draw,” Pozos said of the class. “If they don’t want to participate, they can go off in the corner and play.” The point, she said, is to encourage them to do whatever interests them and makes them happy and inquisitive children. The same applies to the unschooled children’s higher education and career goals.

Schiessle said she was a college graduate, and her husband wasn’t. But even after all that schooling, Schiessle still feels like her husband has more knowledge about the world than she does. “I looked back to my schooling, and yeah, I was an A honor student, but what did I know? I was just memorizing for the test. I was so focused on that grade,” Schiessle said. When she teaches her children, “They’re not being measured as a person by that absolute number.”

Traditional school does teach children to memorize complex mathematics scenarios and scientific equations, and Schiessle said if her children decide they want to go to college, she’ll buy the books to help them learn the advanced information that they may not necessarily learn through her. But only if they want to go to college and want to learn about algebraic equations and the periodic table.

And some do. To prepare for the SAT college admission tests, 18-year-old unschooler Abby Stewart bought some test prep books and took some old subject matter tests. She posted knockout scores: an overall SAT of 2,350 out of 2,400. Not all unschoolers or home-schoolers have Abby’s scores, but on another popular college admission test, the ACT, test-takers who identified themselves as home-schoolers have scored a notch above the national average for the last decade. This year, they averaged 22.4 on a 36-point scale compared with a national average of 21.2.

At Harvard University, admissions director Marlyn McGrath Lewis said, unschoolers without transcripts can submit college admission scores, and then “tell us what they have done in the way of academic preparation for college, and we’ll take it from there.” But just like traditional schoolers, not all unschoolers want college.

Pozos said she’d be happy if her children went to college, but she’s also be happy if they didn’t, as long as her children were happy with their decision. “I’m not one of those people who says, ‘I want my son to be a doctor and my daughter to be an attorney.’ I just want them to be happy. If Armand wants to be a stay-at-home dad, and Isabel wants to be a marine biologist, that’s just fine.”

Isabel, who was listening as her mother explained the philosophy, turned and asked her, “What’s a marine biologist?” Pozos answered, teaching her child without her daughter ever knowing she was being lectured.

Some children, however, aren’t as inquisitive as Isabel, making unschooling difficult, said Marilyn Haring, professor of educational studies at Purdue University. She said that while the unschooling movement is valuable because it questions aspects of traditional schooling, it is not without problems.

“With regard to unschooling, I believe this is best described as utopian,” Haring said in an e-mail. “A miniscule few youngsters may have the high intelligence and motivation to inquire broadly and also learn how to learn. The vast majority, however, have no idea what might be learned and why it is important.”

Schiessle contended unschooling parents can still guide their children without forcing education upon them. She often reads books to her children about a variety of topics, from ancient Egypt to farming, and if her children express an interest, they can explore that idea further. “It’s not that I don’t lead, but I don’t make the decisions for them,” Schiessle said. “I look at it like I’m their guide. I’m there for guidance for everything.”

Related posts

• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• Why Whole Life Unschooling? (5)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• One Family’s Journey To Unschooling (6)
• Unschooling? How Will They Learn? (5)

The Unprocessed Child is a work of nonfiction about a child raised with no coercion and no curriculum. Laurie Chancey spent her childhood immersing herself in topics of her own choosing. She was never forced to learn something simply because tradition and/or society said it was necessary. No one was looking over her shoulder to make sure she was learning the “proper” subjects.

Having never seen a textbook or taken a test, never used workbooks or any type of teaching techniques, Laurie scored in the top 10% of the state of Louisiana on her college entrance exam. She enrolled in college when she was eighteen, and graduated summa cum laude three and a half years later. Laurie is a bright adult, but her IQ is not why she did so well. She spent her life learning to learn and it’s something that now comes easily to her.

The Unprocessed Child was written by her mother Valerie Fitzenreiter, and is full of examples of raising a child with respect and dignity. It is the first book written about a radically unschooled child who has now reached adulthood and is a responsible member of society.

Questions about the radical unschooling lifestyle are answered on topics ranging from socialization, parental responsibility, self-discipline, chores, bedtimes and much more. The book shows that it is not only possible to befriend your child, but that it is highly preferable to the struggles that so many parents go through with their children. It proves that school is not necessary for learning, socializing or motivation.

Click to purchase

Related posts

• Valerie Fitzenreiter And Laurie Chancey Interview (2)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• Unschooling In The News (3)