control

Re:I really hoped I would get opinions from 'both sides' of the sugar issue

I have to admit, I find comments like this on a whole-life unschooling list baffling. In terms of finding ways to support the natural learning process in partnership with young children, there isn't a "sugar issue" at all. It’s a control issue - how much control do I "need" to hang onto.

That's a hard one, because we're bombarded with parenting messages about control - Laura, you seem like you're being bombarded from all sides! That's stressful, and the most natural thing in the world, under stress, is to find a way to feel in control. Its a mega-whammy and it can feel like a lose-lose.

Shifting your thinking away from control is the core of deschooling for parents. It is not possible to control what another person learns. Not about math. Not about food. Not about technology. Not about anything in the whole world. Learning is always and forever the purview of the person doing the learning.

Unschooling is about learning. Its amazing to me how often people are startled by that statement. Learning is about the flow of ideas, about connections. If there are differences of perspective, let them be about learning – what helps ideas flow freely? What helps people make connections be to care and joy?

 This is Exactly where sooooooo many parents get hung up - its the same issue with television, with games, with clothes, with money, with sleep with courtesy and responsibility. The “sides” are always the same: that parents "have to" retain a certain amount of control over the situation rather than parents Adapting to the specific needs of each individual family member to better walk at that person’s side in partnership and so support the flow of natural learning. It’s a lot of work to adapt in that way... at first. Once you get the hang of adapting it’s no more work than any other kind of parenting. Once you get the hang of it, it’s less stressful, too. Unfortunately, the transition can be too rough for a loooooot of people. I don't want to down-play that. Not every family can adapt to whole-life unschooling. It takes a lot of deschooling for parents and that can be overwhelming when children are young.

No one has to unschool. That's not a dismissive statement, it’s a gift. No one ever ever ever has to unschool. It is a choice – an ongoing choice to support natural learning as a partner rather than trying to manage it for someone else.

avoiding conflict over food

This has been sitting in the "edit me" bin for awhile - I've lost some of the original context, but it's a good summary of some of the typical food-conflict questions:

A parent  wrote:

I don't eat many sugary (refined) foods at all. I mainly snack on fruit and yogurts, eat fairly healthy dinners with meat and vegetables.

It can be really frustrating and confusing to have a child with different dietary needs than yours. Its pretty amazing how different those needs can be – and how much they change over time. If its clear that your child’s nutritional needs aren't similar to yours, look for better ways to meet his. In your other post you mentioned needing to make three different “meals” or words to that effect. There’s nothing Inherently wrong with that, its more that we've been raised with a social expectation that the cook chooses the food. It will help to step away from that idea and look to support the people in your family. Once you've stepped away from the expectation of “A Meal” its easier to plan how you’re going to budget your time so that you’re not spending more than you’d like in the kitchen. Combine meal prep with making snacks for the next day, for instance.

I was beginning to get really pissed off that just before my son and I were about to sit down to a dinner I'd spent ages cooking that my husband would pop open a bag of Monster munch

It can help to get away from making big meals and do something more mixed – do you know what a “monkey platter” is? Kind of like eating buffet-style, you provide a bunch of options and people pick and choose. It also helps to set out food before people are ravenous!Nothing sets people up to chow down on cheap snacks like having to wait while someone cooks! So get ahead of that game. If its taking you longer to cook than people want to wait, set out some snacks – crisps and veggies and biscuits and nuts right away. If no-one is hungry for the “meal” then you have food for tomorrow – hooray! You’re another step ahead! With practice, you won’t set yourself up for the big emotional drama of “they won’t eat my cooking” – bleh, who needs that never-ending baggage? It takes time to shift to another way of preparing food so its convenient for you And for your family, but when you can do that you’ll find people are more likely to eat foods that are more nutritionally dense. Here’s a link to a page on monkey platters to give you ideas:

http://sandradodd.com/eating/monkeyplatter

I frequently offer to make him more filling foods but he often turns it down. He basically seems to have a fear of new foods and has issues about eating in front of people.

Offer variations on a theme rather than new things. Don't ask "should I make?" just add new things to the buffet - slowly so that he has a chance to get comfortable. Don’t say anything, don’t call any special attention, and don’t fuss if you end up throwing away a lot of trial foods for awhile. If he likes crisps see if he’s interested in dips by having some on hand – maybe get one of those serving plates that’s divided into little sections and put out a few different dips to try. Mixed platters make a good way to offer food to more than one person at a time, too – you can put out foods everyone likes, plus new things. Introduce new foods slowly and don’t push (and experiment with making your own! yes, even crisps!).

We managed like that for 2.5 yrs no problem.

Ah, yes... you've hit a developmental shift that often throws parents for a loop in big ways.

Younger toddlers are really very accommodating where food is concerned. But some time around 3 or 4 kids often enter a very very conservative stage in terms of what they eat. They gravitate toward foods that are sweet-starchy-fat for the most part. It's so very common and it's when a lot of parents move from being sanguine about food to flipping out and becoming exactly the parents they swore not to be. But you don't have to get caught in the same old parenting trap, you can choose to see the time as developmentally normal and natural. It does pass if you don't get bogged down in panic (perfectly understandable panic! but not helpful).

With younger kids, the strategy of “only good food in the house” works well up to a point. Kids are wired to have a narrow focus during the early toddler years, and have relatively adventurous palates, besides. But at 3ish their palates narrow down  - sometimes to only white or brightly colored foods - and by 4 they often have Definite Opinions about what they want you to buy. It can really push your buttons if You have very definite opinions of what children “should” eat to be healthy. Its reassuring to know that kids given a lot of freedom to say no and yes during this time are still healthy. It can help to keep your focus on health itself – look at your child, is he sparkly and energetic? Lots of curiosity? Skin and hair look good? Focus on your healthy child and rejoice. He won’t stay little forever.

Mo spent one summer living on milk, crackers and cookies – Period! It was shocking. I took lots of deep breaths, bought chewable vitamins so I wouldn't freak out, and made lots of cookies. She was robustly healthy the whole time, and continues to be healthy. Although she moved out of that stage after only a few months, she's still a very conservative eater, so much so that periodically we've had lists on the fridge of all the things she's known to eat so that George and I don't start to panic. We can look and say "oh, she eats eight different things, plus milk and juice... not so bad." Sometimes it helps to have a strategy for "talking yourself down" like that.

I totally agree it shouldn't be OK for my husband to eat them and not my son. I think they quite simply shouldn't be there so often for him to have the option all day every day.

How big of a bitch do you want to be? That sounds harsh, but it may help to clarify. Are you willing to make big divots in your relationship with your husband? To essentially turn into his parents, controlling what he eats? That won’t help your relationship, or your husband, or even your son. A home in which people are controlling and resentful about food doesn't encourage good anything, it’s no better than your own childhood experience, I promise you.

How miserably unhealthy is your husband and his family? Are they bloated with malnutrition? Lackluster, dull people with no sparkle whatsoever? If so, its well worth asking why you want to stay in those relationships. But if not, if they’re reasonably healthy by normal standards, then step back from your ideas about what people should and should not eat. Have more healthy options in the house, make nutritionally dense foods as attractive and convenient as processed foods, provide more options regularly, and get out of the way.

maternal needs

Years ago I attended a teacher training workshop where the fellow leading it had a really interesting piece of advice. He said it was valuable to know all the ignoble reasons you wanted to teach. It's easy to point to the noble reasons, after all, reasons to do with helping and uplifting people, but the other reasons, the less lovely reasons are also important because they're tied up with your own needs.

That's an idea which stuck with me, and I brought it into parenting - why did I want to be a mom? Not the pretty reasons about loving someone else but the reasons I wasn't really comfortable with. Reasons having to do with me, my ego, my desire to be powerful and in control, and my fantasies about how cool I would be, how much my kid would love me because I'm just so awesome. Not exactly pretty stuff! And it has been true that those less-than-noble reasons are bound up in my needs - and as such, they're guideposts for meeting my needs; my personal needs and my maternal needs.

It's not popular to talk about maternal needs. I think sometimes there's a fear that admitting to those will diminish us, make us something less-than. I remember how shocking it was to first read advice on an unschooling list to smell my child's head as a way to relax. It seemed weird.

There's a lot of advice "out there" about getting your grown-up woman needs met away from your kids. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but meeting your needs doesn't have to be separate... and that's where knowing the dark side of why you want to be a mom (and a home/unschooling mom besides!) can be valuable. You may find you have ways to meet some of your own needs, your personal needs, right there at home already. You're popular. You're valued - so much so your kids want you to do things for them all day long. Your kids think you're pretty cool - so cool they want to show you everything that's important to them. Those kinds of requests can feel overwhelming, so it can help to re-frame them in terms of meeting your own needs, too. It's okay to be the coolest, most valuable, most popular person in your own home. It's a good thing, even.

Force for Ultimate Good

I've been reading too many comic books.

I brought up the idea of principles - or core values or whatever I called them, Force for Ulimate Good, if you prefer - in a post recently and someone suggested that wasn't a very useful idea, that someone's principles were actually her problem.

To me, that's backwards; principles are never the problem, they're exactly what's good about our human nature because they arise out of the good in our human nature - whether we define them in words or relate to them as feelings of warmth or light or lovingkindness.

Principles aren't the same as the superego - they're not the same as rules or laws or "supposed tos" but I think that's one of the places people get stuck and either "follow"/"apply" their principles like a formula or resist and rebel against what they think are principles. Some moms get stuck with ideas like "lovingkindness" as a kind of rule in their head - a good mommy is loving and kind - and then hurt themselves spiritually, mentally, even physically, trying to follow or apply that rule to their life. It doesn't work as a rule! Applying and following principles or values doesn't work well at all - it gets you stuck in one hole or another. And that's where the Force for Ulitmate Good analogy is actually useful, and more than just a silly phrase I made up after reading too many comic books with my kid. Because if you think about Applying a Force - even a force for ultimate good - it's a lot easier to see the problem.

What makes principle or values or a Force for Ultimate Good work is when it's something that rises up inside of you and motivates you in a positive way. That voice or light or feeling rising up from within - that's a person's principles at work. But it can be difficult, if you're used to applying principles (or if you're stressed!), to tell that feeling from the kind of overwhelm or frustration which says "lock the kid in the bathroom so you can eat." That's when having thought about principles can be helpful, because you can use them as a benchmark for reasonable analysis.

Joy or happiness is often held up as one of the personal principles which will support unschooling. It's not something you can apply. It is something you can look around and say "what's creating more joy in my family?" Something what creates more joy doesn't look much like some ideal of unschooling - and that's okay. Because at it's core, unschooling is about learning and the principles which support learning. Human beings can't not learn - we learn in sorrow and despair and impossible suffering - so in that sense, unschooling is about learning our own core principles so that our kids can learn Their own core principles. We can't give them a Force for Ultimate Good, but we can create an environment in which they can express their own.

That probably all sounds a bit woo if you're juggling laundry and dishes and kids who want your time and attention ;) but it can really help to pause just long enough to let the good parts of your human nature - whatever you want to call them - rise up in the presence of your children.

truisms - "proven" strategies

proven parenting strategies

There's a fundamental problem with this premise, which is that it assumes that
rule-based parenting is proven effective when it's results are actually pretty
random. In fact, the body of evidence provided by "proven parenting strategies"
is that there are good seeds and bad seeds and it doesn't matter if you do all
the right things, some kids will turn out bad.

The problem is that conventional parenting and educational strategies are
divorced from rational analysis. Parents and teachers continue using the same
strategies and sharing them as "proven" even when they fail spectacularly. Part
of that comes from seeing child psychology and behavior as divorced from adult
psychology and behavior - children are seen as students or subjects, future
adults, future people, and as such everything known about human nature is set
aside in favor of tactics for training or educating them.

Where radical unschooling gets radical is that it applies what is known about
human nature and cause-and-effect relationships to children. There have been
educational methods, over the years, which apply those principles in classroom
situations to great effect. And there have been parents and movements of parents
who have applied such principles in the home, also to great effect. These
principles have been applied to normal kids, gifted kids, troubled kids, and
kids with a wide range of disabilities. The idea that children are human beings,
with the needs of human beings and reactions of human beings, and that adults as
well as children can learn from adult-child interactions to the betterment of
both parties has been proven true over and over. But none of that is reflected
in conventional parenting lore or common educational methodology.

it seems that parents still need to steer their kids in the right direction,
not based on biased world view...

The human brain is designed to notice patterns and there are patterns everywhere
- in speech, in social interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships
between physical characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call
"language" some we call "mathematics" some we call "ethics" and "courtesy". Kids
can't help but notice those patterns and think about them because that's what
our big convoluted brains do best.

The trouble with trying to "steer kids in the right direction" is it ignores the
human capacity to see patterns - it's the "do as I say, not as I do" fallacy.
Adults try to write knowledge onto kids to protect them from having to learn
"the hard way" - noble sentiments! but the human brain isn't a tabula rasa. It
doesn't work that way, and so kids become aware of the fundamental gaps between
what's being taught and the real patterns of real life. That's why teenagers
fight with their parents! They have enough perspective by then to see all the
ways that adults are impulsive, foolish, self-deluded, contradictory, and rude,
and contrast that with how they're told they should behave "if you want to be an
adult".

If you step back from the idea that kids need to be steered and see what they
do, they explore and respond to the patterns of their environment. Adults can
help them - and should! Unschooling is absolutely Not "hands off parenting" it's
very engaged, thoughtful parenting. Kids, like adults, don't want to be set up
to make disastrous mistakes, but they do want to make their own decisions.
Unschooling parents help by offering up other portions of the patterns around
them.

from a related discussion:
What methods [of evaluation] would you suggest, that aren't subjective?

There are no methods of measuring what a person has learned which are not subjective - none whatsoever. The idea that it's possible to measure learning objectively is part of the problem, and one of the reasons so many parents, educators and administrators are opposed to the use of standardized systems of evaluation. That's why more responsive methods of education rely on a mix of different kinds of feedback, both qualitative and quantitative - feedback which allows the "teacher" to know if he or she is doing well or needs to modify his or her approach, focus, and/or goals to better meet the needs of the student(s). The greatest horror of the push toward more "objective" methods is that it prevents teachers from doing exactly that - modifying the curriculum to the real needs of the people being educated. That kind of ongoing, inherently subjective, assessment and modification is the hallmark of good teaching anywhere, under any conditions.

false truisms - money

I have a hard time with just handing money to my children for no reason what so
ever on a regular basis. I feel it teaches....

The trouble with focusing on teaching is that it ignores what and how people
really learn. There's a grand parenting myth that in order for children to learn
what's right and good, you have to be stern and strong, put your foot down, make
them work for it, make them prove they're worthy. The marvelous thing about
unschooling is you get to see that none of that is really true. You actually Can
be sweet and kind and generous and gracious to your kids without "teaching" them
to be rotten little monsters who don't give a crap about anyone but themselves.
I'll repeat the important part of that:

It's Okay to Be Nice to your Children! It won't ruin them for life.

just handing money to my children for no reason

Generosity is a reason and a darned good one. Kids don't become "spoiled" by an
abundance of generosity, they grow bitter when attention and care are replaced
with things.

I also do not pay them to do the regular chores around the house ... as a
family we all have to contribute to things.

Why did you have children? If it was to make more workers for your family
economy, then your philosophy is perfectly consistent and reasonable (and this
is why unschooling doesn't work in some environments - if children are necessary
to the financial solvency of a community it is not possible to unschool).

But if you have the luxury of valuing your children other reasons - for their
love of life, their fascination with the world, their personalities and
uniqueness, then they are already contributing to your family and your life. You
don't Have To make them earn anything else - they've already succeeded in
enriching your world.

Probably, you're thinking in terms of teaching, though, and getting stuck there.
It seems reasonable that you have to teach children to be good workers, because
they don't start out that way... except that's not the case. They Do start out
motivated and well able to learn what they need... until teaching sabotages
their learning, interrupting what they care to learn until mindless, silly tasks
are accomplished. Over time, without being taught or required to "contribute"
kids do discover the value of some of those mindless, silly tasks and start to
take them on - they Voluntarily begin to help. That's a consistent finding
across families that don't require "contributions" but are open to them.
Openness matters, for sure! Homes where kids are not Permitted to contribute are
different matters - and those are often the homes people point to when they say:
see these kids weren't made to help and they're helpless. They weren't "not
made" they were "not allowed".

I guess for me it is important for my children to know that money is earned

But it isn't always earned - and certainly money is not always earned in
proportion to work. People receive money from trusts, insurance, investments,
inheritance, spouses, grants, and gifts. And there are people who work for no
money or very little compared to what they do.

There's no correlation between making kids sing for their supper and a strong
work ethic. The laziest, most money-grubbing people I've met were raised doing
work for their parents and taught that money had to be earned. Some of the most
generous people I've met were raised with no expectations they "contribute to
the family". Which isn't to say that chores will necessarily ruin your kids -
teaching isn't learning no matter how you slice it. What kids learn from
parental expectations is personal - some will learn they are valued as good
workers, others will learn that work sucks and it's better to bilk the system
for every penny.

and that it is not easy always

This is another fantastically huge parenting myth: that it's somehow possible
for kids to learn that life is easy and they can have anything they want. There
is not a shred of reality in that myth. Really, you could bend over backwards
saying yes to everything all day long and kids would still run into a hundred
roadblocks, frustrations and disappointments. The sun will go down no matter how
hard you wish otherwise. It rains on picnics. Squirrels eat the tulips, the deer
fail to show up not matter how long you wait, and the hummingbirds eventually
fly off until next year. People get tired and are uncooperative. Bodies change
and old things no longer fit. Beloved toys and blankets wear out and fall apart.
Life is so full of hardship and disaster that parents don't need to add a single
"no" for kids to figure that out... usually by age 2. It's that obvious.

And - and! it's impossible to say yes even to all the things which are
theoretically possible. Parents aren't always as capable, creative, and have
enough energy for everything (although we're often better than we think,
especially with practice!). Parents aren't perfect - they're human beings! And
that's really fine because so are children. Never, every worry that a child will
grow up thinking life is easy.

One of the fascinating aspects of radical unschooling is getting to see the
biggest parenting "have tos" proved wrong. You don't have to be stern and hard
for their benefit, you don't have to teach them life is hard, you don't have to
teach them the benefit of work - you don't have to teach anything at all. You
can live with them as friends - you the more together, capable friend who is
graciously offering your resources to your less informed, less capable friend
who needs a lot of help for awhile. What a great friend to be! What a great
friend to have! I didn't get that good of a friend as a child, so I'm finding it
a special honor to get to be one. It's marvelous.

I also think that it is so important to learn to wait for something.

Delayed gratification is one of the many things adults think comes from teaching
which is actually developmental - and like anything developmental that means
some people learn it much sooner than others, based on unique qualities. When
kids are required to wait too often and for too long, some of them learn to be
resigned, some to be resentful, some that they aren't worthy, some that when
they grow up it will be their turn to make Others wait. A lot of that will have
to do with personality.

What you can do is set kids up to succeed and don't make them wait for things
unnecessarily when you can avoid it and help kids wait gracefully - either by
helping them find a distraction or commiserating gently and supporting their
emotions. Which one is more appropriate will depend on the child and situation.

My point is that in general my kids know that money just buys things and we
really do not need all those things to survive and be happy!

Yes, kids can learn things like that even in conventional parenting situations,
if parents are generous and engaged in other ways. Being generous and engaged
are the big things - and that's good to know if you're daunted by these crazy
radical ideas that kids can learn grace and thoughtfulness and responsibility
without being taught.

As with any situation, I think talking, talking, talking with your children
and really with them and not at them is the most important tool to helping them
see where you are coming from.

This is a piece of advice that works so well for some families and is utterly
disastrous for others. What Is important is creating an environment where
communication is open and flows both ways, but how that happens Rarely involves
lots of talking. When it does, it's a personality thing.

A big part of what makes communication work is actually stepping back from
trying to get someone else to see your point of view and considering theirs -
and that's all the more important when "they" are children. There is development
to consider and the innate power differential between a parent and a child. So
it is all the more important that parents can see a child's perspective if they
want to open up the lines of communication.

fully exposed

Q:how do you go about exposing your children to things that you value, but that
they don't immediately understand the value of--without burning out, giving up,
or resorting to methods that don't feel quite right?


The biggest, most important thing to realize is that all the exposure,
exposition and explanation in the world won't produce interest or a sense of
value. Those things only come from within. You can't Make someone else care
about what you care about, or learn what you want her to learn.

That's the problem with education itself - not you, not your kids, but education
period.

Start someplace else - how do kids learn what they need to know if no-one is
showing them what's important?

Kids learn because they are observant. I don't only mean modelling, I mean the
human brain is designed to notice patterns and there are patterns everywhere -
in speech, in social interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships
between physical characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call
"language" some we call "mathematics" some we call "music" etc. Kids can't help
but notice those patterns and think about them because that's what our big
convoluted brains do best.

Think about the things you're considering valuable in terms of education -
they're Prevalent. That's why you want your kids to know them, so they're not
lost and ignorant and helpless. I used to worry that my kid wouldn't know
anything about religion because I wasn't "exposing" her to it in any kind of
systematic way. But religious and mythological ideas are very prevalent - in
books, movies, tv shows, puppet shows, random conversations in the grocery
store. She can't avoid learning about a dozen different religions just from
going about her daily life, observing the patterns she sees.

In addition, kids learn because they are full of curiosity and wonder. That's
big. It's a marvel. Wondering is what takes people - including children - from
observation to something else, to asking questions and looking for answers. To
trying and finding out. Wondering is one of the reasons people push through
challenges - climb real mountains and metaphorical ones. You can't Give someone
that kind of motivation; it only comes from deep within. Sadly, you can take it
away, and teaching someone who doesn't really want to be taught is a proven way
of doing so.

how do you go about exposing your children to things that you value

Step back from the word "children" and replace it with "friends" - how does the
question change?

If you value something, make it part of your life. If you value music, play
music, listen to music, dance and sing. Invite the people you love to join you -
maybe they will. If you value scientific thinking, think like a scientist. If
you enjoy math, play with numbers and relationships. The catch is to live your
own values without trying to foist them off on other people - because that's not
a very good way of sharing what you love, and because personality matters. All
your singing and dancing won't make your kids musicians if they're not so
inclined - but they'll know a few things about music. If you push music at them,
they may associate what they know with drudgery and unhappiness - and then
you've failed and failed more utterly than if you never sang a note in their
presence.