Monday, April 7, 2008

unschooling myself



So, I'm officially embarking on unschooling. In so many ways it frightens me. I am struggling with what if they don't learn this, what if I don't fulfill my obligation to them as a homeschooling parent? I'm going to ease myself into it and know that my instincts are generally right on and that they keep pointing me back to unschooling. My own fear of the unknown continues to hold me back. I keep coming back to it every year and at the beginning of every year I force the kids into real schooling for some lame excuse like organization. Yes, I like organization, but it is not serving any of us for schooling purposes. I feel stressed, India and Kalib feel stressed. It's not good for any of us and you know the coolest part is as we embrace this and I see them engaging in things, I know it is the right choice. And thanks to Jennifers wonderful advice, I'm better able to see their activities as meaningful and let go of my own expectations of what I want them to do. At the end of the day, what I want is to have a loving family and happy children who are engaged in life the way they want to be. I want us to all feel free and learning comes so naturally to kids that I don't have to force it, what I have to force is letting go of the idea that I have some control over it - because I most certainly do not. I do not want someone over me telling me I have to learn things I am not interested in (though I'm interested in most everything) so why should we subject our kids to that? I know I retain most everything I read (and I read A LOT) when I'm reading things that interest me, I want the same for our kids. I just have to break myself of the idea that I actually have control over what they learn and accept how little control I actually have.

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