I was asked by a friend who is relatively new to the idea of unschooling, “You don’t do any instruction? What do you do?” I replied that we live full lives, with our kids, and that we talk a lot. When asked about math or history, I replied that those topics come up along the way. Then I shared some recent examples of what we talk about and do.

That conversation got me thinking, what do we do? Every year in late Summer, I find myself exploring the question of what we do, and whether we’re doing enough. My usual response to this questioning is to begin keeping a journal, just a casual record of how we spend our days. The journal gives me a place to see what we’re doing with and for the boys, to see where we might add more and how. It also gives me some peace of mind that all the fun we have includes learning that can be explained to those who ask. So, I thought I’d share several examples from the past month or so.

The boys helped a friend move furniture into storage and prepare for their moving sale. Some of this was done with another teenage friend, solo, which meant a lot of logistics and lifting, how to get furniture out and into doors, up or down stairs, etc. Dan sold lemonade at the yard sale that followed, and used some of the money he earned to buy a cotton candy maker at the yard sale. Over the past month, every kid who has visited our house has learned how to make cotton candy.

Andy saved his money, from his allowance, birthday gifts, odd jobs, etc, for the past several months to buy a new laptop. As he was saving the money, he researched different laptops, shopping for the right features at the best price. By the time he’d saved enough money for the laptop model he wanted, it was sold out. So he looked some more, saved some more and last month bought his first laptop, complete with a carrying case and some other accessories.

Andy is preparing to attend Driver’s Ed and get his license within the next several months. He wants to learn to sign his name for his license, but until now hadn’t learned to write cursive yet. He asked me to write out a guide for him, and he began practicing cursive. Dan joined in and both boys spent a couple of days practicing their cursive. Andy now has a signature he’s happy with.

We’ve had conversations about the US Constitution, the three branches of government and the checks and balances it includes. One night, Andy asked who said “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” which led to a conversation about both Presidents Roosevelt, (Andy already knew there were two) how they were related, what wars happened on their watches. That sparked questions about how each World War started, along with when and why our country became involved. The next week, it was a story about the beginnings of a local amusement park that led us to learn about the YCC, and its place in the programs of Franklin Roosevelt, and the whole conversation came back around for more connections. We also talked about the role played by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, along with my own family’s history in Oklahoma in the 30’s. So many connections, each part of conversations shared over several days’ time.

Andy and I have had several conversations about religion and the part it plays in people’s choices and relationships, and how it influences politics. He loves to discuss the reasons behind the choices people make, especially when they differ from our own choices and lifestyle.

Dan’s been fishing a few times, each time catching a few bluegills. He does all his own baiting and hook removal. A couple of weeks ago, he and I looked up how to clean and cook that day’s catch. They cooked up pretty tasty, dredged in cornmeal. Once Will was home, he said we needed tartar sauce, so I showed them how to make tartar sauce, which was just what the fish needed.

Dan asked me to help him learn how to tie a slipknot, then he made a lasso and roped several small items around the house. He also went horse back riding at a friend’s farm, although he didn’t take his lasso with him.

We talked about height measurements and growth. I mentioned that I’d heard we start out a bit taller each day, then as the day goes on and we walk around, our spine compresses and we’re shorter at night. For the next couple of days, we tracked the boys’ height morning and afternoon to see if that’s true. We found each boy was about half an inch taller early in the day, and shorter by mid-afternoon.

The day I said, jokingly, “all mosquitoes should die” Andy explained to me that if the mosquitoes all died it would be bad for diversity and cause the animals that eat the mosquitoes to die off, breaking up the food cycle altogether.

Dan has become very interested in creating with Lego blocks, spending a couple to several hours every day building and improving on his creations, mostly vehicles, and a working model of a soda machine. For some of this, he consults with Andy who is a Lego expert, still creating new models almost every week. Increasingly, though, Dan works alone, looking up instructions and ideas online and just brainstorming, trying new things, until he’s perfected his models. Our living room looks like a Lego display at a toy store!

As I looked through my journal I saw that this month, we’ve talked about math, history, money, politics, religion, civics, science, penmanship, cooking and knot-tying which I’m sure isn’t a complete list. There were also driving lessons, swimming with friends, playing pool on our game table, (Dan is perfecting his bank shot), horseback riding, time with friends, and the how-to of moving and buying a computer.

Wow, we have been busy!

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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

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I went grocery shopping and bought some snacks for my family; chocolate cookies, sour cream & onion potato chips, rainbow sherbet, grapes and baby carrots. My 12 year old unschooler came into the kitchen and I showed her the snacks I bought. Her immediate response? “Ooooooo – grapes!!!!”.

Out of all those snacks, the grapes were the first to be finished.

What was last? The cookies.

Now I’m not saying this happens all the time…sometimes the cookies go first. And that’s okay! The point is, she chooses healthy foods on her own, without any bribery or coercion.

This was not meant to be a long post, just a little snippet of our day that i wanted to share. Here is another post I wrote about letting go of control.

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Woman #1: Hi. My name is Maggie. My kids are the three in red shirts — helps me keep track of them.
Woman #2: (Smiles) I’m Terri. Mine are in the pink and yellow shirts. Do you come here a lot?
W1: Usually two or three times a week, after we go to the library.
W2: Wow. Where do you find the time?
W1:: We home school, so we do it during the day most of the time.
W2: Some of my neighbors home school, but I send my kids to public school.
W1:: Wow – how do you do it?
W2: It’s not easy. I go to all the PTO meetings and work with the kids every day after school and stay real involved.
W1: But what about socialization? Aren’t you worried about them being cooped up all day with kids their own ages, never getting the opportunity for natural relationships?
W2: Well, yes. But I work hard to balance that. They have some friends who’re home schooled, and we visit their grandparents almost every month.
W1: Sounds like you’re a very dedicated mom. But don’t you worry about all the opportunities they’re missing out on? I mean they’re so isolated from real life — how will they know what the world is like — what people do to make a living — how to get along with all different kinds of people?
W2: Oh, we discussed that at PTO, and we started a fund to bring real people into the classrooms. Last month, we had a policeman and a doctor come in to talk to every class. And next month, we’re having a woman from Japan and a man from Kenya come to speak.
W1: Oh, we met a man from Japan in the grocery store the other week, and he got to talking about his childhood in Tokyo. My kids were absolutely fascinated. We invited him to dinner and got to meet his wife and their three children.
W2: That’s nice. Hmm. Maybe we should plan some Japanese food for the lunchroom on Multicultural Day.
W1: Maybe your Japanese guest could eat with the children.
W2: Oh, no. She’s on a very tight schedule. She has two other schools to visit that day. It’s a system-wide thing we’re doing.
W1: Oh, I’m sorry. Well, maybe you’ll meet someone interesting in the grocery store sometime and you’ll end up having them over for dinner.
W2: I don’t think so. I never talk to people in the store – certainly not people who might not even speak my language. What if that Japanese man hadn’t spoken English?
W1: To tell you the truth, I never had time to think about it. Before I even saw him, my six-year-old had asked him what he was going to do with all the oranges he was buying.
W2: Your child talks to strangers?
W1: I was right there with him. He knows that as long as he’s with me, he can talk to anyone he wishes.
W2: My children never talk to strangers.
W1: Not even when they’re with you?
W2: They’re never with me, except at home after school. So you see why it’s so important for them to understand that talking to strangers is a big no-no.
W1: Yes, I do. But if they were with you, they could get to meet interesting people and still be safe. They’d get a taste of the real world, in real settings. They’d also get a real feel for how to tell when a situation is dangerous or suspicious.
W2: They’ll get that in the third and fifth grades in their health courses.
W1: Well, I can tell you’re a very caring mom. Let me give you my number — if you ever want to talk, give me call. It was good to meet you.

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We’ve had so much going on recently that I thought it would be nice to show a week in my unschoolers lives, instead of just one day. Enjoy!

Making pillows they received for Christmas:

Playing basketball:

Going to Girl Scouts:

LOL….getting tickled:

Going to the Museum of Natural History, for the Amazon Voyage exhibit, with friends:

Helping dad make yummy sauce:

Making Gummi Bears (more in another post):

In between these pictures was a lot of playing Guitar Hero on PS2, reading the Twilight series, writing stories about fairies, playing Golden Compass on wii, phone calls from friends, internet surfing, day dreaming, playing Scattegories, going to the park with friends and much, much more.

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Let me tell you about a ten year old child that had freedom of choice. That child is my daughter Jacqueline.

I hear all the time…”If I let my kids have freedom over their food, they’ll eat chips all day” or “If I let my child have freedom over video games, they’ll play 24 hours a day”. Sure….if all they know is control and someone else making their choices for them, OF COURSE they’re going to choose to eat chips all day because they think they’ll never get the chance to eat what they want again.

Back to Jacqueline…..

A child that has freedom of choosing her own bedtime, chooses to go to be around 9:30 and gets up on her own about 7:30. There are times she stays up later or wakes up later, but she found her own bodies sleep pattern and she listens to it. When I first gave her the freedom of choosing her own bedtime, she chose to stay up really late for a while, because it was new…but that wore off and she got herself into a pattern.

A child that has freedom to eat what she wants, when she wants and how much she wants, chose today to buy a Granny Smith apple, with her money, while we were out shopping. She enjoys ice cream and candy, but she enjoys grapes and celery just as much. She is learning to listen to her body. She is able to choose healthy foods because she is able to make that choice. She wouldn’t be able to do that if I made her choices for her.

A child that has freedom to choose when she plays video games, chooses to also read, play on our trampoline and go bike riding. Video games don’t hold a special power over her because to her, they’re treated the same as other fun activities.

A child that has freedom over what she watches on TV, chooses to watch documentaries and shows about how volcanoes form. She also enjoys The Price Is Right, Hannah Montana and America’s Funniest Home Videos. She’s not a zombie, sitting in front of the screen. She’s actively listening and learning.

Start small. Say “yes” more. Play video games with your child. Model the behavior you want. A child that has freedom of choice…is a free child. Freedom! What a great gift to give a child.

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John Holt was a teacher when he wrote How Children Fail and How Children Learn. He eventually quit teaching and became a speaker and supporter of education reform and went on to write several more books. Deciding that schools could not be reformed, he focused his energies on alternatives to conventional schooling. He founded Growing Without Schooling, America’s first homeschooling magazine and continued writing until his death in 1985.

A Conversation with John Holt (1980)
Interviewer: Marlene Bumgarner

In 1980, Marlene Bumgarner, a homeschooling parent, hosted author John Holt in her home while he was in California for a lecture tour. While he played in the garden with her two children, John and Dona Ana, she interviewed him for the bimonthly magazine Mothering.

What is your philosophy of learning?
Basically that the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we need to learn; we are good at it; we don’t need to be shown how or made to do it. made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it.

Why homeschooling?
That’s a big question. The great advantage is intimacy, control of your time, flexibility of schedule, and the ability to respond to the needs of the child, and to the inclinations. If the child is feeling kind of tired or out of sorts, or a little bit sick, or kind of droopy in spirits, okay, we take it easy, and things go along very calmly and easily. When the child is full of energy and rambunctious, then we tackle big projects, we try tough stuff, we look at hard books. And I think schools could do much more than they do in this kind of flexibility, but in fact they don’t. I want to make it clear that I don’t see homeschooling as some kind of answer to badness of schools. I think that the home is the proper base for the exploration of the world which we call learning or education. Home would be the best base no matter how good the schools were. The proper relationship of the schools to home is the relationship of the library to home, or the skating rink to home. It is a supplementary resource.But the school is a kind of artificial institution, and the home is a very natural one. There are lots of societies without schools, but never any without homes. Home is the center of the circle from which you move out in all directions, so there is no conceivable improvement in schools that would change my mind about that.

What does one do at a homeschool?
That’s what Growing Without Schooling is about, of course. What one can do depends a lot on what one’s own life is. A lot of families have small businesses or subsistence farms or crafts, or various kinds of activities that the parents are involved in, which the children are also very involved in. The children just partake in the life of the adults wherever they are,and then questions are answered as they come up. Other people may live at home and work somewhere else; they may have a more conventional kind of existence.I don’t believe in formal fixed curriculums, but it may very well be that when parents and children start off, they’re both a little nervous. They’re both wondering what they should be doing. If it makes people feel happier to have a little schedule, and to work with a correspondence school for a year or so, kind of as a security blanket, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a starting place.My advice is always to let the interests and the inclinations of the children determine what happens and to give children access to as much of the parents’ lives and the world around them as possible, given your own circumstances, so that children have the widest possible range of things to look at and think about. See which things interest them most, and help them to go down that particular road.How that’s done depends very much on the family’s circumstances and their interests, and the particular interests of the children. Some kids are bookish, some children like to build things, some are more mathematical or computerish, or artistic, or musical, or whatever.The mix is never going to be exactly the same.

Does homeschooling require that the parents spend a great deal of structured time with their children in a formal learning situation?
Homeschooling doesn’t require that parents spend a great deal of structured time. I think as parents get into this they tend to spend less time. How much time they spend with their kids depends a little on the circumstances in their own lives. Sometimes they spend a lot of time in company together just because it’s fun. Other times that’s harder for them to do. The children, though they may enjoy a lot of their parents’ company during the day,don’t need it once they get past 7 or 8.

Is the parent without background in education or experience as a teacher at a disadvantage in a homeschooling situation?
I’d say they have a very great advantage. I wouldn’t say that a person was disqualified from doing it because they had had training in education, but I would have to say that practically everything they taught you at that school of education is just plain wrong. You have to unlearn it all. I never had any of that educational training. The most exclusive, selective, demanding private schools in this country do not hire people who have education degrees. If you look through their faculties – degrees in history, mathematics, English, French, whatever – you will not see degrees in education. I think for the most prestigious private schools you could almost set it down as a fact that to have a teacher’s certificate, to have had that kind of training, would disqualify you.

Are parents talented or knowledgeable enough to teach physics or math?
Oh, well, the children don’t have to learn physics or math from you. There are plenty of people to learn from; there are plenty of books; there are plenty of extension courses. GWS will have information on that. There are plenty of other people to answer your questions. And the children don’t have to get it all from Mom and Pop. There are people who have only high schooling, or may not even have finished that, who are now teaching their children at home and doing a very good job of it.

What about the child’s social life?
As for friends – you’re not going to lock your kids in the house. I think the socializing aspects of school are ten times as likely to be harmful as helpful. The human virtues – kindness, patience, generosity, etc. are learned by children in intimate relationships, maybe groups of two or three. By and large, human beings tend to behave worse in large groups, like you find in school. There they learn something quite different – popularity, conformity, bullying, teasing, things like that. They can make friends after school hours, during vacations, at the library, in church.

What about the opportunity for youths to meet members of other backgrounds, other socioeconomic classes?
Most of the schools that I know anything about are tracked – there would be a college track, and a business track, and a vocational track. Studies have shown over the years that these tracks correlate perfectly with economic class. I think I know enough about most high schools in this country to say there is very little mingling of people from different backgrounds, different religious groups. The rich kids hang out with the rich kids, the jocks hang out with the jocks, the pointy heads hang out with the pointy heads, the greasers hang out with the greasers. Maybe there are some exceptions to that but the idea of school as a social melting pot where people of all kinds of backgrounds get together – pure mythology, folks.

What is your philosophy about teaching reading?
I think the teaching of reading is mostly what prevents reading. Different children learn different ways. I think reading aloud is fun, but I would never read aloud to a kid so that the kid would learn to read. You read aloud because it’s fun and companionable. You hold a child, sitting next to you or on your lap, reading this story that you’re having fun with, and if it isn’t a cozy, happy, warm, friendly, loving experience, then you shouldn’t do it. It isn’t going to do any good.I think children are attracted toward the adult world. It’s nice to have children’s books, but far too many of them have too much in the way of pictures. When children see books, as they do in the family where the adults read, with pages and pages and pages of print, it becomes pretty clear that if you’re going to find out what’s in those books, you’re going to have to read from that print. I don’t think there’s any way to make reading interesting to children in a family in which it isn’t interesting to adults.

What your philosophy about math?
My approach to math is to say, What do we adults use numbers for? We use them to measure things. And we measure things so that having measured them we can do things with them, or make certain judgments about them. And so I say let children do with numbers what we do with numbers. I’m a great believer in many kinds of measuring instruments – tapes (centimeter tape, inch tapes, rolls of tapes), rulers, scales, thermometers, barometers, metronomes, electric metronomes with lights flashing on and off that you can make go faster and slower, stopwatches, things for time.Another thing is money. Kids are fascinated by money. We all say: “We’ll have to teach them all this arithmetic so that some day they can deal with money.” I think dealing with money is inherently interesting to children. I say family finances ought to be out on the table, charts on the wall: expenses, food, taxes, insurance, health care, how much this costs, how much it cost last year. I think actually, like typing, double-entry bookkeeping and basic accounting are fascinating skills, and if you’re talking about basics, those are basics.The fundamental idea of double-entry bookkeeping, the distinction between your income and expenses and assets and liabilities is one of the really beautiful inventions of the human mind. It’s fabulous the way it works, and I think families should do their finances as if they were a little teeny corporation with income and expenses and assets and liabilities and depreciation.Some kids might get to the point where they would want to be the family treasurer and keep the family books and balance the checkbook. This is all really “big adult stuff.” Let the child write out the checks that are paying the bills, instead of the harassed picture, you know, of father with his tie untied, sitting at the desk and papers all over the place. Why? This is inherently interesting, so let’s at least make this part of our life – like every other part – accessible to children. The best way to meet numbers is in real life, as everything else. It’s embedded in the context of reality, and what schooling does is to try to take everything out of the context of reality. So everything appears like some little thing floating around in space, and it’s a terrible mistake. You know, there are numbers in building; there are numbers in construction; there are numbers in business;there are numbers in photography; there are numbers in music; there are fractions incooking. So wherever numbers are in real life, then let’s go and meet them and work with them.

What subject matter do you see as essential?
None.

What about the parent who works outside of the home?
One question which often comes up is “How am I going to teach my kids six hours a day?” And I respond to that by saying, “Who’s teaching your kids six hours a day now?” I was a good student in supposedly the best schools and it was a rare day that I got five minutes of teaching… that’s five minutes of somebody’s serious attention to my personal needs, interests, concerns, difficulties, problems. Like most other kids in school, I learned that if you don’t understand what’s going on, for heaven’s sake, keep your mouth shut.

What happens when children become ill, or have an injury, etc.?
Home teachers come in for three to five hours a week. It has been found that this is perfectly sufficient. These children don’t fall behind. No child needs, or should stand, six hours of teaching a day, even if a parent were of a mind to give it. It would drive them up the wall!

How are homeschoolers evaluated when they go to enroll at the university level?
Just like anyone else. You know, there are these tests you can take… the College Boards, the SAT, and so forth. Actually, homeschoolers do exceptionally well on these things. They’re more motivated to learn what areas will be covered, and prepare for them.

Does it sometimes happen that a homeschooling student will express a desire to go to or return to traditional schooling? How do parents handle this?
Various ways. Sometimes parents have to decide (we’re the grownups) that we don’t want them to go back to that school, and then stick with it. But other times, if the children want to go, then that means they’re immune to the manipulation the schools can do with the children who don’t have a choice about whether they have to be there or not. The school loses some of its power when the children know they can quit if they want.

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Mary: Hi my name is Mary, and I really want to unschool my daughter, age 4 instead of sending her to preschool next year. She currently goes 3 mornings a week. She always seemed to like it, but is now begging me not to send her. She just sits on the floor of the classroom, refusing to participate. She won’t talk, just sits there and looks incredibly sad. This is a child who is so exuberant, happy, creative, etc outside of school, and used to be in school. She creates pages and pages of artwork a day at home, with paints, chalk, markers etc. She makes collages and structures out of recycled stuff at home. At school she wont do art! How can this be? My daughter is always so sociable, now she won’t play with the other kids at school. I do not want to crush her spirit or her individuality . Please help me. Yesterday I stayed in her classroom with her, the teachers were happy to have me, but the director of the school was against it. She didn’t throw me out, but told me i needed to leave cold turkey, and it “is her job” to be here. What??? Anyway I did mention pulling her out next year, and the looks I got, made me feel so rotten. I was told how important the learning, the interaction with peers, the transitions from one thing to the next, all this is invaluable, and you can’t duplicate it at home.

My instinct says to leave now. I guess I just feel like an overprotective Mother. I guess I am afraid. Please help me, and so sorry to ramble, I am just upset. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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Queenk: You were given instinct for a reason, so don’t dismiss it. If shes not happy theres a reason. Trust your child and yourself, and you’ll come to the right decision for your family.
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April: Trust your instincts. Listen to your daughter. You see that your daughter is miserable. She says she doesn’t want to go anymore. Take her out of preschool now. She probably doesn’t do art at school because they tell her HOW to do it the correct way, and WHAT she should do and WHEN. At home she is free to do art in any which way she chooses.

Of course the preschool people would tell you it’s a mistake to take her out, they’re losing money! This is their life! They don’t want anybody to think their jobs are unnecessary. I would definitely be wary of anyone that tells you you’re not welcome to stay in the class with your child.
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Steph: Mary, you have instincts where your daughter is concerned, for a reason.

It has always amazed me, that the first things that a person is taught in a child-development class, apart from the physical requirements of caring for children, are separation-anxiety, intrinsic learning, and trust. And yet it seems to me that childcare places all over the country, are encouraging their parents and teachers to believe in “cold turkey.”

It just doesn’t agree with any of the research which they are so quick to fall back on when it suits them. And maybe I’m cynical, but it is a business. It is hard not to take it personally when someone no longer wants your services, and I think that happens all the time.

It happened last year when we took my 5yo out of the preschool that she had loved the year before. The *feel* of the teacher and the direction of the class, was just too harsh.

Believe me, they weren’t *supportive* of our decision to have her at home. But what mattered to us, is that we’d been through not trusting ourselves with our oldest daughter, and ran into all sorts of complications that could have been avoided had we just trusted our instincts-which-are-there-for-a-reason, and what we saw in her.

Like you describe your daughter, our oldest loves projects and crafts at home, and yet at school was inundated with ditto work and disapproving looks. I’ll never forget her coming home with a ditto that they had to color just like the teachers.

It had rows of children sitting at school desks. She had colored it correctly, but when she came home, she took it out and made the children into mermaids, adding tails and prettying up their outfits.
In 3 homeschooling years, she hasn’t slowed down from her projects or plans or creativity. She doesn’t hate structure or dislike anything, really. She adapts difficult situations to herself, rather than visa-versa. I think that unschooling has validated that….validated her own instincts which might be more in tact than even mine.

There are still tugs (sometimes pulls) of doubt any time big changes are in the works. I don’t know if that ever changes.

Four is a wonderful age to learn to find and follow one’s own rhythm. What a gift that would be to her.
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April: I wanted to add, that it seems to me that society tries from the moment we are pregnant to get rid of our natural instincts. There are people telling us what to do from the beginning, and doctors that tell us we better listen to them, they’ve been to school they know best. Teachers know best. Friends and family members know best. From the very beginning we are told which professionals to trust, and throw our own instincts out the window. I learned that doctors don’t always know best when I gave birth to my first daughter. Yet I still didn’t completely trust my instincts.

I quit nursing both girls early because the doc said they weren’t eating enough. I saw the negative affects of too many trips to the doc for antibiotics when my girls were sick, but I STILL thought that surely doctors would only do the right thing.

It wasn’t until I saw my daughters in a weekly playgroup, stop doing spontaneous arts and crafts because they were waiting for instructions that I finally said to heck with what everybody tells me! This isn’t right.

From now on I will try to let my instincts as their mother tell me what is right, and stop looking to other people all of the time.
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Steph: I quit nursing my oldest too early, because a hurricane stressed me out. Had I stuck with it, it would have been calming and healing for the two of us. Instead I switched to formula and dealt with gas pains and crying fits that coincidentally were not an issue with the two children I breastfed afterward.
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Sandra Dodd:
-=- She always seemed to like it, but is now begging me not to send her.-=-

Don’t ever make her go again, no more than you would leave her with a scary babysitter, or put her on a city bus with scary-looking people alone. Each hour of stress will have to be undone. Cut your losses. Keep her home now. If you paid for this school, let the money go without another thought. If you could pay to undo what’s done, it would be worth it, but you can’t.

Get her some new art supplies (GOOD ones, not cheapo stuff) and put on some happy music and make her favorite snacks and live happily together!
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Zenmomma: Mary, congratulations for listening to your daughter! Many parents are so used to listening to the experts, that they disregard the statements of a 4 year old. She is so lucky to have you.

***I really want to unschool my daughter, age 4 instead of sending her to preschool next year. She currently goes 3 mornings a week. She always seemed to like it, but is now begging me not to send her.***

My experience has been that all of us, including kids, go through stages in our lives. Maybe your daughter enjoyed what the preschool had to offer at the beginning. Now that she’s gotten her fill, or had her curiosity satisfied, she no longer needs or wants it. When my now 7 year old dd was 4, she begged to go to “real school”. And I mean begged. Daily, and with passion, reason and full explanations. So, I found her a tiny, private kindergarten (6 kids) and had her go there. She enjoyed it while she went. At the end of the year, though, she had had enough. She asked to come back home with her brother. She got what she needed and moved on.

I’m really not saying anything different than the others who have have posted. Trust your instincts. I’m just adding that I don’t think you have to worry over having sent her in the first place. It seems like she got what she needed, and now she needs to know that she can trust you to let her stop and move onto the next stage.
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Laurie: I was going through the same agony not long ago with my two sons, who are 6 and 8. I followed my instinct and took them out of school (even though all the voices in my head were telling me that I was overreacting). I can’t tell you how WONDERFUL it’s been and how full my heart is having them home. The other day my youngest said, “I’m glad we homeschool because now I don’t get hurt every day” (he was being victimized by a bully…at SIX!). What your daughter is experiencing is just as bad as bullies…her spirit is being broken. Listen to your heart, not the disapproving people at the preschool. You are the person who knows what’s best for you and for your little girl.
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Donna: Take her out now. Do not hesitate. I hesitated and trusted the school system with my son and he has been paying the price.

It is very hard to live with yourself when you make mistakes with your children.
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Steph: Zenmomma, what a wonderful sense of peace you have. Suitable for your screen name. Thanks for sharing what you did, because it addresses my current wrestling in such a restful way.
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Mary: You guys are absolutely wonderful! I am so touched by all of your responses. You are right, I’m going to take her out tomorrow. I guess I just needed a boost of courage, and I got one. I only signed her up for preschool bc I thought it would be fun for her, not to punish her, and that is what it has turned into. I never wanted her to be there if she didn’t want to. Zenmomma, I think you are right. She probably wanted to try out preschool bc everyone around her (friends and family) talked about how “when your a big girl you get to go to school”, when she finally was old enough it was exciting to her. She has never been in daycare or anything, so all the kids, etc, probably interested her at first. Like ZenMomma said, she has gotten her fill and has moved on. It is no longer that interesting. And April, you are right, at home she goes to her art supplies, and just creates what she wants, when she wants. At school, she comes home with a painted picture of a strawberry bc it is strawberry season, and thats the unit they were on. Maybe she didn’t want to paint a strawberry! Maybe she wanted to paint a pumpkin, but they probably didn’t have any orange paint “available”.

Sandra, you are so right, I wouldn’t leave her with anyone she didn’t want to be left with, so why does the world say you’re supposed to do this when it comes to school? I guess I have had my head in the sand, just going with the status quo. I thought preschool would be fun, and now that its not, I need to listen to her and say no, you don’t have to go back. I feel much better now. And art supplies are our forte here, we cant stop creating!!

Thanks so much everyone. I am looking forward to all the fun we will have together. I am so glad this site exists. I don’t know what I would do without it.
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Laura: Well, when I first starting reading this, I was going to offer advice, but now, getting to the bottom of the posts, instead, I’ll offer Congratulations!

Your daughter sounds like my son did years ago. He enjoyed preschool for a few months, then begged to stay home. In fact, (rather pitifully to think back on) when I said that one of the reasons for preschool was so that I would have time to myself, he offered to just stay in his room for a few hours . I took him out of preschool at that point!

He loved drawing and painting at home, but after months of preschool, he did less and less on his own. He was never a coloring book kind of kid, though. All his drawings had to be his own – he wasn’t interested in just coloring someone else’s drawings. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of what they did in preschool – coloring pictures and following someone else’s directions.

He’s been drawing his own pictures and making things out of clay for almost a decade now. He’s 13, and unschooling was *definitely* the way to go for him.
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Carol: I’m too late to offer advice – it’s all been said already!

So I’ll just say – welcome back to the world of sharing and enjoying life with your child
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Steph: ***In fact, (rather pitifully to think back on) when I said that one of the reasons for preschool was so that I would have time to myself, he offered to just stay in his room for a few hours . I took him out of preschool at that point!***
This this just breaks my heart!!! What a sweetie. So glad for your decision.
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zenmomma: **What a wonderful sense of peace you have. Suitable for your screen name. **

Thank you. I’ll keep that as my soul nourishing thought for the day. I also want to share a little off topic observation I had recently.

When I first picked my screen name as “zenmomma”, I don’t think I was very peaceful or zenlike. In fact I know I wasn’t. I was in the middle of several life-changing situations and was stressed to the limit. I think I picked that name because it was what I wished I could be. Not consciously, though. In fact, at the time I thought to myself, “What a lie. If people only knew.”

Well, low and behold! Just like they tell us not to label a kid bossy (or whatever), because she’ll live up to that label, I have found myself identifying very strongly with the zenmomma label I gave myself. It’s now a year and a half later and I no longer feel like my screen name is a lie. I have a real sense of peace and joy about life now. And I feel like I can handle the curves that life throws me with a certain sense of well-being. It is, what it is. What will be, will be.

I think that’s why it gives me such a nice feeling to hear the positive way most kids are described on these boards. Just a thought. I’ll go back on topic now.

**Thanks for sharing what you did, because it addresses my current wrestling in such a restful way.

What are you wrestling with, Steph? Is someone asking to go to school? Or asking to come home?
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Steph: Oh, my incredibly free-spirited almost 9yo likes the idea of school again. The thing is, she has her eye on being around certain friends which may or may not even attend that school next year. We have been house-hunting and might move also. There is just nothing certain, and I dislike scrambling so. I concern myself with having “worked” to adjust my own goals and plans to our unschooling lifestyle, and now having to adjust again, and if so probably unadjust when she experiences that teachers are not “flexible” like mom.

She loves being home, and doesn’t want school to be closed to her either…and not for academic reasons at all. She wants friends that she can see often, and unfortunately because the support group has been scattered so far around our area, she hasn’t had that.

Her friends are school kids, who she doesn’t see enough because they have homework to do, etc. She is in activities, but the difference in schedule and others’ throughout the week, is affecting her. She just wants to hang out with people. We’ve talked a little about how kids in school don’t “hang out” much either, but this is her theory and she wants to follow it through. She makes plans and calls kids to invite them over, but usually has to wait weeks. We’ve also been very busy…too busy..for months.

Personally, I think that moving from a townhouse to a neighborhood house will fix most of this. We’d have more capacity and a front yard. So we’re working hard for that, and if we move to a certain area, I’ve read the support group info, and it feels more comfortable.

But then I think that most things in life can be changed drastically just by rearranging them. LOL A philosophy going back generations.

Just so much up in the air. Your post though…It truly gave me a sense of “::::::Breathe::::::::Stephanie, no matter what, it is going to be fine.” And we will be. Inside I know that, but it takes reminding to remember it moment by moment. And that is what zen teaches, yes?
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Anne O: ***it seems to me that society tries from the moment we are pregnant to get rid of our natural instincts.*** I wanted to share something along these lines. I had the final meeting last night with the library board about my grant proposal to start children’s programs. I worked so hard on that grant and when you read it, you can read my very heart and soul in it. The board needed to sign the final approval last night. I was a bit nervous because the board consists of people who are very academic-oriented. People for whom I don’t have a lot of respect, nor much in common. People who make decisions about a library in which they spend little time.

Anyway, they were speechless after reading my grant application. It was like they never even THOUGHT anyone could care about children in the way I had conveyed on my application.

After they signed the approval, I volunteered to work the desk while the librarian finished up the meeting. Jacob was with me, helping me and working on the computer next to my desk. I felt one board member’s eyes on us the whole time we were working.

Later, she came up to me and told me she couldn’t believe how I treated my child. She said it was clear that we were good friends and that I truly enjoyed him and enjoyed being with him. She said she never even thought of feeling that way toward her children…that she listened to all the negative things people said about children and applied those to her own mothering. She was guilty of saying that she couldn’t wait to get rid of the kids after a school vacation. She was guilty of signing them up for activities just to not have to be around them. She was guilty of belittling them and stifling their spirit. And she told me all of this because she never even CONSIDERED that you could be a nice, joyful mother…which she concluded I was from reading my grant application and watching me with Jacob (she is an acquaintance, also, and we often run into her while out and about in the community…me grocery shopping with my kids and them weighing the produce and figuring out how much it is going to cost…her alone, while her kids are in school).

Anyway…my point is…it saddens me that people have lost the basic faith in themselves to question what they are doing, how they are living, how they are raising their children, even when it just doesn’t feel right to them. They continue the path of *what society says I should do* instead of just saying “NO MORE” and letting the natural state of joy and happiness enter their lives by listening to their hearts.

This has been a beautiful, inspirational thread, and I honor you, Mary, for putting your concerns out there to see what the Universe would send back to you…you have blessed us all (and especially your own child).
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Steph: ***Anyway…my point is…it saddens me that people have lost the basic faith in themselves to question what they are doing, how they are living, how they are raising their children, even when it just doesn’t feel right to them.***

Just when I thought that the discussion had reached a peak. Anne, this news is fantastic, and the above is so completely the point!!
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Steph: ***I thought preschool would be fun, and now that its not, I need to listen to her and say no, you don’t have to go back. I feel much better now. And art supplies are our forte here, we cant stop creating!!***

How quickly you knew. Congratulations to you and your daughter, Mary.

Think of what your decision says to her, about how she has a voice in her life and how her presence is welcomed at home by her mom. It’s a big deal.
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Anne O: ***Congratulations!!*** Well, the grant isn’t actually awarded yet…the board just signed the required form…but thanks, as I envision and Trust it will be awarded…!
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zenmomma: **Just so much up in the air. Your post though…
It truly gave me a sense of “::::::Breathe::::::::Stephanie, no matter what, it is going to be fine.” **

And, no matter what, the way it is, is the way it is. My dh and I were discussing this very topic this morning. His brother called him yesterday and is (again) very unhappy with his life. Hard to understand for us, since he is healthy, with a roof over his head, with a loving woman at his side, able to eat, play, dream, live……To us, all the other stuff is just details. Take ‘em as they come and make what you can of ‘em. Or should I say learn what you can from them. That’s my newest take on adversity. “What am I supposed to learn from this?” Not a new idea, but new for me.
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zenmomma: Anne, Once again your post has left me with a smile (thinking of you and your wonderful children),and something to ponder during the day (wondering why all children can’t be so honored).
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Mary: well we had a beautiful day here. When I told Molly we didn’t have to go to school this morning, she was so excited. She said “I never want to go again!” My response was “thats great, then we won’t”. I could tell she was surprised, but she quickly accepted it and asked if we could make some blue play-do. Of course I said yes, and even showed her how oil and water don’t mix while we were making it. No, I wasn’t pushing learning, just making observations, and we had a great time. We even made brownies, and now she’s outside playing in the sandbox. I am totally into this life already. It is a very happy, peaceful way to live. I thank you guys for leading me gently to my own realization of it.

Anne, I loved reading about the bond you have with your son. It sounds wonderful, full of respect and love. I often wonder why I am the only one at the grocery letting my child weigh foods, find items on the shelf, etc. The world is in such a hurry isn’t it? Its nice to read about everyones family.
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zenmomma: Mary, I’m so happy for you both. It *is* a wonderful, happy, peaceful way to live. Welcome. And as Anne would say….Namaste. (I just love that, Anne!)
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April: Well, low and behold! Just like they tell us not to label a kid bossy (or whatever), because she’ll live up to that label, I have found myself identifying very strongly with the zenmomma label I gave myself

That is wonderful Mary (zenmomma), and I totally agree with you. We tend to live up to how we label ourselves, so it would be nice to label everybody as kind, patient, loving, and perfect just the way they are!

Mary, I’m so glad for you!! Doesn’t it feel freeing to know that this is the direction that you’re taking and it’s OKAY!!?
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Ren: Oh I wish I had found this thread earlier. I am trying so hard to transform myself from a Mom whose first instinct is to yell into a “zenmomma” (insert smile here) I just love how you labeled yourself…and IT WORKED! I am going to see myself as a calm, loving, joyful person and FAKE it if I have to until my brain gets it. I was proud of myself today because when one of the kids was doing something irritating I was able to inject some humor…it felt sooooo good. Anne, you are an inspiration! Nuff said.
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The message? I believe it’s two-fold.

1: If someone had to bribe me to do something, my first thought would be “It must be unpleasant if you have to bribe me to do it”. When my daughter Shawna was in school, they were always trying different bribes/rewards to make her read more. It wasn’t working and the more they tried, the more she hated reading. “We’ll give you candy if you finish that book!”. She read the book, but stopped when they candy ran out. “We’ll give you a prize”. She read for the prize and then stopped when the prizes ran out. They didn’t realize (or didn’t care) they were sending her a message that reading is so horrible that she would only want to do it for candy and prizes.

I’ve always enjoyed reading and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want my kids to enjoy it also….but only if they wanted to.

Fast forward to right now. The years that she has been out of school, she’s had the freedom to read if she wants to. There are no bribes. Just shelves and shelves of interesting books for her to read, when she’s ready and if she chooses. Nowadays, she reads for 3-4 hours a day, because she enjoys it. Ask her what her favorite activities are and reading is always in the top three. It took about a year of deschooling for her to get to that point. It took me backing off and letting go. It took me trusting her. If I forced her to read, how would she ever have the chance to do it on her own? How would she ever know if she enjoyed it, if she wasn’t given the chance to?

One of her friends came over last summer (a schooled friend) and my daughter was very excited to tell her about a book she had just read. Her friend said “You have to read in the summer??!!” My daughter was confused and caught off guard. Her friend went on to ask “What are you getting for reading that book?” My daughter said that she read the book because she enjoyed it. Her friend looked at her like she had two heads.

2: Food and candy were often used as bribes when my girls were in school. Pizza, chocolate, candy and ice cream were used time and time again to get the students to learn something that the school assumed the students would not want to learn on their own. I believe this sets them up with an unhealthy view of food. If a child has their candy controlled and then used as a reward, how else will they react other than trying to eat as much as possible when they have the chance? You see those kids at birthday parties, standing by the chips or candy, eating as much as possible. I’ve had children come to my house and finish a whole bowl of m&m’s that were meant for everybody. It’s sad. Don’t schools (and parents who do this) see that their giving that candy or pizza too much power?

Not only do I never use food as a bribe, my girls don’t have their food controlled. It didn’t happen overnight though…it took lots of discussions and modeling on my part to get to this point, but I now have two daughters with a healthier outlook of food than most adults I meet.

When we first adopted them, my middle daughter was that child hovering near the chips at a birthday party. She was the one who gorged herself on candy in fear there would be no more. So when a parent says “If I let them, they’ll eat candy all day”, I agree because if a child has their candy controlled and doled out only as rewards, yes, they will try to eat as much as they can get. Can you blame them?

But…if children are given the freedom to learn things as they come up naturally in life, there’s no need to bribe them with the promise of a reward to force them to learn something when they’re not ready. I believe that rewards motivate students to get rewards, not to learn.

PS: We’re almost done unpacking here at the new blog. If you help us tell others that we’ve moved, you could win an amazon.com gift certificate! Just a way of saying thanks!

*originally written in 2006-updated in 2009*

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