photo by Sandra Dodd
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Plan on doing most of the cleaning for awhile. Better yet, plan on doing ALL of the cleaning for awhile, and whenever someone else pitches in, you may appreciate it more. Try not to look at it as "I have to do it all!", because you don't have to do it all. There's always a choice. If you don't feel like cleaning today, then don't. Will the house get messier? Yup. Is it a big deal? Shouldn't be. ... Cleaning doesn't have to be a big deal. Don't make it a big deal and your kids may be more inclined to follow in your footsteps. —Lyle Perry |
Question: “How do you transition kids from rules and chore lists if the kids are older?” Answer: “Go gradually. Don’t enforce so much. If they say, ‘I’m tired,’ then say, ‘Go to bed.’ Don’t make a big announcement, ‘We’re now unschooling.’ Just start saying yes more. If kids can only drink one soda a day and have to go to bed at a specific time, they often grow up to have dreams of drinking lots of soda and staying up late — and don’t we want kids to have bigger, loftier dreams than that?” |
In my life I put learning first. I always ask myself, which thing will help them learn more?
Unschoolers have experiences other homeschoolers don’t have. Unschoolers know things that teachers can’t learn in or around school. Unschoolers who start early enough can have relationships with their children for which there are hardly any words. |
"Teaching" is a problem, in an unschooling light. Learning is the goal, and teaching gets in the way. |
Overly self-centered people can't do it because it requires a lot of empathy. People with too many personal problems that they haven't addressed in their own lives probably can't do it because they are too distracted by those.People who are too negative or cynical can't do it because they tend to crush interest and joy, not build it up. People who lack curiosity and a certain amount of gusto for life can't really do it.
On the other hand, we grow into it. Turns out that we parents learn, too.
So—when we are making moves, taking steps, in the direction of unschooling, turns out the trail starts to open up in front of us and we get more and more sure-footed as we travel the unschooling path.
"Kindness, grace, and generosity go a lot further toward creating warm relationships and a joyfully harmonious home than measuring out equality." —Meredith Novak |
If a person wants to live in the light of his goals and intentions, then the "better choices" need to be made in that light. The clearer you are about where you intend to go, the easier your decisions are. |
About "academic things": If the parents are really involved and busy, and inspiring and inspired, and interested and interesting, then I trust it will happen. I know it will NOT happen if the parents are cynical, negative, critical, shaming. Parents, if they're considering homeschooling, need to make it better than school or not do it. |
Whole individual learning is the ONLY way anyone can learn. Each child builds his own internal model of the universe. School tries to insert one but it can't. It just can't be done. |
I see my children living full, real lives today, right now. I don't see them as students in preparation for life, who after a number of years and lessons might be considered "completed" or "graduated." It was a long way to come, and I never even had to move. I just had to look at what I considered to be real. |
Don't spend money at first. Read, meet other families, let your children have time to do what they're interested in, or what they weren't allowed to do before because of school.