rules?

Does your family have family rules? I talk to my kids (oldest is almost 5) about not hurting others, but we don't have any set family rules. I'm wondering how that might look for a radical unschooling family. If you have them, what are they and how did you decide on them? Or do you find that it just doesn't jive with radical unschooling?

Here's the thing about rules: they only work when they work. The trouble comes when they Don't. When they don't you have to decide on a "what next" and that gets amazingly fraught amazingly quickly because part of the natural social wiring package is this: it feels really good to retaliate. That's important to recognize because we also have these backup systems to defend our egos by creating justification for things. And rules make a Great justification for retaliation. They broke the rule, gotta do it, it's only right. It's one of the reasons people cling so hard to ideas like "consequences" that are really just veiled punishment - or to punishment itself. It feels reeeeeeeeeally good to hurt back.

So if a rule isn't working, the way to get around the urge to retaliate is to take a great big step back from the rule and connect with the actual person breaking it. What's going on? What problem are they trying to solve? What do they want to communicate or what need isn't getting met? How can you help them with whatever it is that's so important?

Unschooling doesn't so much have a no-rules rule as a basic premise that people do things for reasons ;) Getting into the reasons and building human understanding reduces rules to what they are at their best - a little shorthand code for when everyone wants to be on the same page without thinking about it. When rules work, that's how and why they work - they make it easy not to think. And when everyone's basically on the same page in general, that's great - energy can go to thinking about other things, more interesting things.

I talk to my kids (oldest is almost 5) about not hurting others

5 is still pretty young - young enough that a rule like "no hurting" can run into a whole lot of problems. Developmentally little kids really aren't very aware of where they end and other people begin - it's something they're both growing the wiring system for and learning to comprehend at the same time. At the same time, they're still developing language skills, social awareness, social skills, impulse control, and trying to understand their own feelings and their bodies' needs all at the same time. Having a rule - or even saying "be gentle" - doesn't change any of that. Now you have a little kid, trying to learn a whole lot of things at once, maybe overwhelmed... do you see where this is going? Kid's don't set out to break rules and be bad, they have a lot going on! They don't need rules so much as assistance in dealing with all that complexity.

Sometimes that assistance can take the form of information or reminders that can "look" like rules, especially if you're looking through that particular lens: hey, don't hit! or: come and get me next time! or: stop means Stop! I think sometimes when people hear "no rules" they think unschoolers must not (or should not) say things like that - but sometimes that's exactly the kind of thing kids need to help them focus their attention in a useful direction: oh... yeah, I have options, cool. What's important to keep in mind is that when that's Not what kids need, it's up to adults to exercise our magic adult superpowers and be creative and thoughtful and flexible - because they sure as heck can't be those things very well yet. They need us to do the adulting For them, to help them out in the moment, and to show them some better options for the future. It helps them learn! Much more effectively than taking revenge on a kid who's just melted down and thrown a block at someone.