When unschoolers screw up

or "Why I don't ever need to impose consequences or punish"

When people hear about our say-yes, rule-free lifestyle, one of the things they have trouble wrapping their brains around is how our kids will learn to cope with obstacles, disappointments, consequences.

Yeah. At the moment, I really wish my answer were, "They won't!" But the sad truth is that they have no choice but to learn.

Recently, each of my girls has had to deal with an extreme disappointment. (It would help the narrative here if I could describe these to you, but such painful things are private.) Chloe's happened a while back, but she is still dealing with the emotional fallout. MJ's was more recent, and the scope of the emotional fallout is not yet clear. In both cases, I think it's safe to say that they feel they screwed up. I might not characterize things that way, but I know they do.

So, how do unschoolers deal with disappointments and screwups? With an astonishing degree of dignity. With some tears. With conversation and wishes and resolutions for the future. With help from family and friends. With apologies where appropriate.

Over the last few years, they have had some practice in handling disappointment, of course. They have had many small situations where things didn't go their way. They have had to struggle over, under, past, or around obstacles. They have made mistakes and dealt with consequences. I didn't have to create any of it; life just happens. But I hesitate to credit this practice with the coping ability they exhibit now. I think that might be more a factor of their environment. They have respect. They have the benefit of the doubt. They have rich friendships and healthy family relationships. And they have resources when things go wrong, people they can turn to who will help and nurture and support them, even when (especially when!) they screw up, and who will be more concerned with them than with beating them over the head with a lesson.

More alternatives to traditional parenting

101 Things To Do Instead of Yelling or Spanking

Goes with this.

Unconscious mutterings #396

Want to play? Go here.

1. Bangs :: Shaggy
2. Diaper :: Soggy
3. Coffee table :: Tired
4. Cops :: Robbers
5. Matches :: Sticks
6. 250 :: 300
7. Hurricane :: Katrina
8. Bad :: Dog
9. Confirmation :: Request
10. Fiber :: Myalgia
    (I know, I know, it's Fibro, but this is what came to mind!)

Tool of the Oracle: Your True Nature

I don't know about my true nature, but this meme from Sarah has certainly revealed the true nature of post-Katrina New Orleans, which is appropriate since today is the 5th anniversary of the storm.

Instructions:

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

My 23rd post is pretty cool, but neither it nor my 24th post had five sentences, so here are 22 and 25.

22nd post: "The storm surge exceeded 10 feet there, so just about every building is trashed."

25th post: "Our little landmarks were hit hard: Captain Humble’s (the little po’ boy place I raved about); West Marine; the Winn Dixie where we bought our provisions; the ancient, creaky swing bridge at Bayou Liberty; and even the Shell station where we’d been buying our gas."

Discovering green

So, I don't know from dark green leafy vegetables. I have been doing some research, but at this point I can't keep my kales straight from my collard greens in terms of flavors, nutrients, etc. The only thing that has really stuck with me at this point is "Variety!"

So, when Frank and I went grocery shopping the other day, I knew only enough to recognize the dark green leafy vegetable section in the produce department (and be baffled as to why the lettuces and spinach aren't in it). Pretty much at random I chose a bunch of mustard greens to go with my staple romaine (from the lettuce section). I got the mustard greens home, discovered the mustardy tang, and put just a few in my salad that night. Edible, not my favorite.

By today, a few days and several green smoothies later, the fruits and greens are getting low. The berries are gone, baby, gone, because YUM! Do Ginger and I love berries!

Driven by curiosity about what a truly green (as opposed to berry purple) smoothie would taste like (but not quite brave enough yet to go all green), today's smoothie consisted of romaine, mustard leaves (judiciously), a banana, and some aging grapes I wouldn't eat enthusiastically if I were popping them whole into my mouth.

Oh my gawd, YUM! The mustard tang is probably there, but it is blended (heh) with the fruit flavors, and the result it just light, fresh, green goodness.

Which leads me to the conclusion that I can't really go wrong with green smoothies. Which might be why they are so terribly popular with the raw crowd.

So, here I am on day 6 of my Increased But Not Strictly Raw Diet. (Catchy name, huh? Do you think I should trademark it?) I am having a ton of fun with it, and I'm feeling great. With the novelty and fun factor, with our super awesome houseguests this weekend keeping me high, and with it being a good time of the month, I am reluctant to attribute too much of my euphoria to the changes in my diet. But I do have one distinct physical change to report on.

I lose a lot of hair each day. I mean, a lot. My hair is thick and, um, energetic, so this loss isn't terribly noticeable to the people around me (unless they're the ones picking strands off my clothes). But I notice, and it bugs me, and I fear going bald even though bald is beautiful and even though there is No Sign that my hair loss is anything more than breakage and normal attrition. So I am very happy to report then that my hair loss has apparently stopped. I don't leave a handful of hair behind in the shower like I usually do. I'm not picking strands off my shoulders all day like I usually do. And all the stuff that's staying on my head seems softer and a bit tamer.

After six days of having ONE green meal per day. It's pretty remarkable. YMMV.

A must read

The Guy on the Plane by Jeff Sabo

The point is that so many parents never "really think about" the parenting choices they make. They don't always pause to think about what success means, what is necessary and what is arbitrary. They think of restrictions and obstacles, instead of alternatives and possibilities. They focus on the way things were or the way things should be, not on the way things are or the way they could be.

Jeff's post touches on (nails!) one of the things that initially attracted me to unschooling, and that is the "what ifs" that unschooling embraces. What if there is a different way to live and build our lives? What if all those things we've been told are so important are really the least important things in our lives? And what if we gave our kids the opportunity to do things differently?

Vegetables and me

My friend Kimberly and her family recently did a 30-day raw food challenge. Her daughter has Type 1 diabetes, and they were able to very quickly cut her insulin intake by half, and then it continued to decline! Needless to say, their story caught my attention.

And then Alyse, another friend, posted this link along with a matter-of-fact comment about how much her health has improved since she started her raw diet: "I love that I have not only healed my body from some pretty debilitating stuff, but that it goes beyond great health to great happiness - and it was the happiness that came first."

My attitude toward nutrition information is extremely skeptical. Nutritionists and the often-corporate-funded FDA have given exactly the wrong advice too many times over the years. But this was first-hand experiential information from a couple of women who are, well, no flakier than the rest of us unschoolers. (In case you can't tell, this is a compliment, K&A! lol)

But the idea of going completely raw... Well, it intimidated me. So I asked them for some advice on ways to ease into it. Kim suggested trying some ready-to-eat salads with raw nuts and picking up some Odwalla juices. Alyse suggested, among other things, the raw foodists' staple, green smoothies. I got started on Monday.

Day one: Had a Wendy's salad for dinner instead of a burger. It had chicken and cheese on it.

Day two: I took advantage of the loaded salad bar at work and had a BIG salad for lunch. Completely raw, which was actually tricky because so many of the things in the salad bar are cooked. They even blanch the broccoli! Snacked on roasted but unflavored almonds.

Day three: Our anniversary. I ate whatever I wanted. Interestingly, what I wanted most during our fancy steak-and-lobster dinner was the side vegetables. I ate so many of them that I couldn't finish my steak.

Day four: Another big salad at work, mostly romaine and spinach.

Day five (today): I had a bowl of cereal at about 11, munched on some of the aforementioned almonds at about 3, and am just finishing up a HOMEMADE salad of romaine, mustard greens, and gloriously un-blanched broccoli.

So, here's the thing. It is too soon for me to notice substantial effects from such a limited increase in raw foods. On the other hand, it has been a substantial increase in green vegetables. And what I'm noticing is:

• Carbs are less attractive (until they're attractive, and then I want them NOW).
• My appetite is reduced.
• I am craving even more greens.

And suddenly the idea of going completely raw is not so intimidating.

Texts from last night

...and the rest of yesterday, which was our 20th anniversary.

7:43 a.m. Dropped off the camper and now questing for pancakes with her hubby of TWENTY years
MJ got to NBTSC with her Oregon roomie, Sean, but Chloe still had to do the dawn train run. Then Frank and I went for breakfast at IHOP, using our Seahawks ticket stubs to get free short stacks.

10:54 a.m. Jamming at the EMP
Despite being locals who have a lot of out-of-town visitors, Frank and I had never been to the Experience Music Project. It was very cool, especially the guitar gallery, which is worth the price of admission all by itself. They have a lab where you can play instruments and sing; we spent a fair amount of time in there.

12:39 p.m. Seriously tempted by Firefly action figures and an Alien lunchbox at the Sci-Fi Museum store.
Admission to EMP also gets you into the adjacent Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. It was so fun! It was also entertaining to see how much of their collection is on loan from Paul Allen. The dude knows how to spend his money! No Firefly, Galactica, or Back to the Future materials on display, which struck us as odd. But they did have Firefly gear at the store. I resisted. Barely.

1:22 p.m. Checked into our hotel room! View of Sound, islands, ferries, Pike Place Market. Awesome sauce!
Part 1 of Frank's surprise. I used hotel points to get us a room at the Red Lion downtown. We were on the top (20th) floor with a spectacular view of a spectacular day on Puget Sound. Sailboats, parasailers, shipping traffic, and ferries on the water. Planes and helicopters of all shapes and sizes in the air. Busy tourists down on the street. Loved it!

1:51 p.m. Hey, Frank brought the wine!
Frank surprised me with a nice bottle of Merlot (my favorite). We ordered up a room-service snack and spent a blissful couple of hours eating, sipping wine, and watching the world go by.

7:28 p.m. Napped to recover from an early wakeup and a bottle of red. Now at Ruth's Chris for free dinner.
Part 2 of Frank's surprise: I used credit-card points to get gift certificates to Ruth's Chris Steak House, far and away the best place to get a really good steak but with prices that are usually out of our reach. Not last night! Although we did go over and a bit, so it wasn't purely free: we had to supplement the tip with $3 cash...

We had crab cocktail in remoulade sauce, steak, lobster, beautifully prepared asparagus and broccoli, and bread pudding dessert. Everything was SO yummy.

We realized after dinner that we were sipping our complementary anniversary champagne at about the exact moment of our anniversary. Nice!

9:49 p.m. Watching the lights and the nightlife (yes, Seattle has some). This day has been everything I hoped for.
After a lovely post-prandial stroll through the bustling city streets, we settled back in front of the window. It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful way to commemorate twenty years with my wonderful man.

Here's to the next 20!

Keeping it simple

The only experts that truly exist on Unschooling
are our children. They do it perfectly.
~ Heather Burditt

I love this. I wish I'd taken it to heart early in our unschooling, not to disregard all the great advice I received from other unschooling parents but to help quiet the doubts that came up.

Back to school... NOT

The "school year" is starting all across the country. I have grown to resent that term a bit: why should schools get to decide what constitutes a year?! But we are not immune. Washington requires homeschoolers to file a Declaration of Intent to Homeschool at the start of each school year. And I needed to know the first day of school so I would know when Emma would be rejoining us. And of course we enjoy some of the back-to-school sales (10-cent notebooks!!!). But that's about as much attention as we pay to it.

Instead of picking up schedules, finding lockers, and settling into somebody else's agenda, my kids will be off having an experience something like this. That's Peggy Pirro's description of the East Tennessee Unschooled Summer Camp, which took place last month. Not Back to School Camp (NBTSC), the camp MJ and Chloe are headed to on Tuesday, is very similar. These camps really are the happiest place on earth.

My favorite excerpt from Peggy's post:
I will say with complete confidence that not one of the parents at that camp wishes our kids were on another planet. Not one. Is it because our teens are exceptional? Well, sure they're exceptional. They're unschooled. Which means all of the schooly stuff that comes between kids and their parents, between kids and their passions, all that stuff that gets in the way of kids figuring out how to relate honestly with one another, how to respect themselves and others, and how to respond to the needs of their bodies and their minds and their imaginations, all of that stuff that gets mediated by school and by the institutionalized thinking that supports the schooling paradigm, is absent. It isn't even a part of the atmosphere.

My love affair with unschooling is well known to my regular readers, but there is something about the start of the school year that brings it all to the forefront. I am SO HAPPY that my kids aren't caught up in the school machine. I am SO HAPPY that, as much or little as they are aware of the school year, they start it off by going to a place that gives them so much joy, that inspires them, and that provides them with an environment where they can make real connections with people who put their passions first and who treat MJ's and Chloe's dreams as achievable goals.

iUnschooling tools

Not that kind of tool

Chloe hasn't really cared about having a cell phone. For the last couple of years, this was fine with me. MJ has a cell phone, and Chloe has been reachable because she is so often with MJ. But that has changed: MJ and her cell phone are down in Oregon. So, I laid down the law: Chloe, says I, I am getting you a cell phone. She resisted at first (really), but the idea began to grow on her, and off we went to shop for a phone.

After looking at the available options, the plan requirements, and so forth, she decided to chip in some of her own money and get an iPhone. She has played with friends' iPhones in the past and really enjoys them. So, that's what we've done. She's paying the extra phone cost and the $15/month data plan. I'm paying for the extra line and the family unlimited-texting plan.

So, Chloe has a new iPhone. She's been exploring available apps, building her contact list, playing games, and just generally having a blast with it. And I've been thinking about all this in an unschooling context.

First off, why didn't she want a cell phone sooner? Unschooling was a factor. Chloe and her friends have Internet access all day long. They don't need phones to communicate. And if they do, they have 24-hour access to their parents' phones.

So, why does she need one now? Well, because I said so, but also because of unschooling. She's free, so she travels. She's independent, so she travels alone. And she's building her own life, even at 16, so the time has come for her to have this tool that so many of us who have our own lives consider essential.

In the months ahead, Chloe will use this phone to let us know she has arrived in Oregon for NBTSC, made the train to come home from NBTSC, and, later, arrived in Texas* where she's starting a new job as a nanny. Then she will use it to find her way around Dallas, to discover places to go with her young charges and shop for the things she needs while she's away. She will call us with all the news, text us all the funny little comments she usually gets to share in person, and find and play games a couple of little ones enjoy.

And she will continue her unschooling. Someone asked on Facebook the other day about essential purchases for unschooling. I replied, "A wireless Internet connection." Perhaps I should have said, "A portable wireless Internet connection." It certainly seems to be an essential purchase for us now.

-------------------
* The family Chloe visited in Victoria has their primary residence in Dallas

The best sort of report card

This morning, I received the following note from the mom of the family Chloe is visiting (and possibly becoming au pair for).

Hi, Ronnie;

Before Chloe came, I tried very hard to hold back my desire to communicate directly with you. I thought you were the adult and she was the kid. But she proved me wrong. She handled everything really well, better than most adults, IMO.

We were very impressed by her. She shows maturity unusual for her age, yet her sweetness, happiness and "purity" (if you know what I mean) are so delightful and contagious.

O. [4yo son] loves her and already invites her to [stay]. He couldn't get enough of her. It is so interesting to watch him to wait patiently and impatiently outside Chloe's room while she was resting.

M. [1yo daughter] loves her and sneaked to her bed. It is so cute to watch her to be in the same bed with Chloe!

We love her. She communicates very well. She is very patient and sweet with kids. She pays attention to details and she is very proactive. When we talked "business", she is professional!

I have never met a teenager as mature, original, happy, thoughtful, confident and sweet as her. You have raised a wonderful person. I am sure we can learn a lot from her as well.

We are very happy to have her.

The Doings Report

Ah, Sunday. We are basking (suffering) in a bit of a heat wave. It hit 90 today and is forecast to be "much warmer" tomorrow. How will we ever survive????

Perhaps by imagining what it would be like tomorrow if we were in the south or southwest. :-)

Chloe is visiting friends in Victoria, BC, for a few days. They have two kids, a girl not quite 2 and a boy not quite 5. Her visit is sort of a job interview, or maybe a mutual interview. If all parties are amenable, she will be their au pair for an undetermined while. Chloe wrote her own (very business-like) emails, made her own arrangements, rode the ferry and went through customs alone, et cetera. (Does anybody know where Chloe learned to write with a formal tone? Sometimes—oftentimes—unschooling amazes even me.)

If all parties are amenable, Frank and I will have an empty nest for a while. Jeezum Pete.

My sister is in town. We had a family gathering today, and I got to visit a bit with her and her family. Loved it!

We are also enjoying a visit from MJ, who came up for the aforementioned gathering and for an orthodontic appointment. She likes it here well enough, but she is glowingly happy in her new digs/life and will return there in the next couple of days.

Frank continues prepping two sides of our house for exterior paint. We settled on two sides as an achievable/adequate goal for this summer. We'll do the other two sides next summer. He has scraped and pressure washed and is now sanding. Then primer, then paint. Colors are either decided (if everyone goes along with my green-with-blue-trim preference) or under negotiation. You be the judge.

I continue working. It seems I will finish one contract on Aug. 31 and start the next on Sept. 1. Continuity is a good thing, but I am lately engaged in detailed fantasies of extended roadtrips. Perhaps something can be arranged, since I work from home mostly anyway. It's the "mostly" that's a stumbling block: "mostly" is not the same as "always."

The girls head to camp next week Tuesday with a hundred or so of their closest friends. Camp has been restructured from two one-week sessions to one two-week session, so they won't be home (Chloe to here and MJ to Salem) until after Labor Day. Judging by chatter here and on Facebook, they and the aforementioned friends are all extremely excited. Extremely. Excited. NBTSC is evidently heaven on earth, more fun than anything else (except perhaps a good year at LIFE is Good), but we parents can only imagine since we are not invited. *sigh*

After that, Chloe comes home or heads to Victoria, depending, and MJ heads to Chautauqua.

It's really a shame how isolated and overprotected unschoolers are. Poor, deprived children.

Also next Tuesday (a week from Tuesday) marks the 20th anniversary of my wedding to Frank. Yes, 20 years. Wowza. I have Big Plans for the day, but Frank has not been apprised of these, so I'm not telling. Yet.

Frank and I attended our first Seahawks game yesterday, a preseason battle with the Tennessee Titans. The game was fine, fun, blah blah blah, but the game viewing experience was, in a word, HOT. Our seats are on the sunny side of the stadium, which is a good thing come November but which makes for a bakefest on a summer evening. We sweated it out with about 25,000 fellow fans, watched the Hawks win, and left disgruntled because the Hawks took a knee instead of going for an easy field goal that would have netted each of us a short stack of pancakes at IHOP. Very bad coaching decision that, but I bet IHOP didn't suffer much since by game's end we were all craving pancakes.

Our next game is next Saturday evening. Frank and I are thinking of staying away until about 7:30, when the shade hits our seats.

For the sake of frugality/greed for other things, I'm going to put all of our regular season tickets up for sale. Whichever games don't sell, we'll attend. If any of you have a game you'd particularly like to go to, let me know; friends and family get good prices and first dibs.

I'm off now for a sunset walk. It is *beautiful* out there now, rosy and warm and a reminder of why we put up with the gray skies all winter. Summer in the northwest is how summer was meant to be.

What I have to work on

Evidently the universe thinks I need more patience. Or evidently I do. Backing up my own feeling that I didn't exercise enough patience in recent comment discussions on my blog, I got two messages today:

This blog post: I've Walked Many Miles in Your Shoes

and this quote:

The job of the spiritual friend is to insult you. . . . If you really want liberation and you really want freedom, you need people around who are going to be provoking you to show you where it is that you still have work to do.
~ Pema Chödrön
My thanks to Jeff for the post and to Laura for bringing the quote to my attention. Oh, and thanks to the spiritual friends who brought me the message, even if it wasn't quite the message they intended for me to receive.

Chloe's school solution

"I have an idea of what learning could be like because I like to learn. I know how much fun it can be. An educational discussion is my idea of a good time. So, the fact that I don't enjoy school is an indicator of something."

Not compulsory
Smaller class sizes
More respect! "Teachers treat kids like there's something wrong with them."
Conversation-based learning
Lots and lots of resources
Teachers as resources - experts in their field rather than professional teachers
Classes would provide a starting point to explore a particular subject
No required courses - "If you say a class is required, you are dismissing somebody else's opinion about what's important or interesting... You're saying that one field is more valid than another one."
Kids sign up for classes they are interested in
Suited to every learning style - accommodate students

Background: Chloe was in school K through half of 3rd, spent a term at Summerhill (a democratic/free school in England), and attended high school last year for one 6-week grading period. All the rest of the time, she's been unschooled.

Pondering paths

When I was 19, I applied for two jobs: one in childcare and one in publishing. I got the publishing job, and that set me on the path not only to my current career as a tech writer but also to Frank, MJ, Chloe, unschooling, and everything else. So, no regrets whatsoever.

But I do sometimes wonder about that other path...

Do you think if I had spent the last 20 years with little kids I would now be craving time with words?

Probably...

Valued hopes

From Lynelle's comment on my previous post: "i kind of believe that as a parent, it's actually part of my job to try to instill certain values in my kids. i try to do that through example, suggestions, sharing experiences, asking my kids questions about their thoughts and feelings and reasons, and talks."

She goes on to detail some of the values she hopes her kids will share.

I've been thinking about this a lot these past few days. What are my values? Are there things that I am SO passionate about that seeing their opposites in my kids would really bother me? For half a minute, as I ran through the list of things people often freak out about, I thought Maybe I'm exempt. I mean, religion is the biggie, and I'm not religious, so...

But there are things I feel religious about. Oh, yeah. Unschooling. Peaceful parenting. Being kind. Making fun a priority. Living a wide-sky life. Certain political and social viewpoints that I hold.

Do I hope for my kids to share those values, and have I tried to instill those values in my kids? Yes, and yes. And do I, intentionally or otherwise, make clear to my kids when they are choosing something that is contrary to those values? Yep.

I try. I hope for. I communicate.

But that's where it stops.

Let's say MJ interacts with somebody else in a way that I characterize as unkind. I might talk to her about the other person's viewpoint, about things I think she could do to make amends, about strategies for interactions with this person in the future that might have a better outcome. All of this is parenting, and it can be peaceful and kind and free from shaming or punishment. (It can also be brief. A ten-second conversation is going to tell me if she is open to discussing this with me. And if she is, a two-minute conversation might be long enough to cover all of the above.)

But if MJ reviews her own actions and is fine with them, or if she does not want to discuss it... At that point, I am left with the relationship that I have with MJ, and the relationship that I have with the person I think she hurt. I can separate those from each other. My relationship with MJ from that point is just as it usually is: accepting, respectful, taken for what is now rather than what is past (and the problematic interaction is definitely past). My relationship with the other person is whatever s/he and I need it to be, and I can respond as a sympathetic friend or sympathetic stranger or whatever is appropriate.

Beyond that, I'm helpless. MJ's relationship with this other person is none of my business. MJ's assessment of her own actions is none of my business, even and perhaps especially when I disagree with her assessment.

One more example: Let's say Chloe becomes a mother and decides that Cry It Out is what works for her family. Phew. Oh boy. First, that is really hard to imagine. Chloe ignoring a needy baby? Not gonna happen. Second, that is really hard to imagine. My poor grandbaby!

Would Chloe hear from me? Oh, yeah. I'd send her the research on the harm that CIO does, and I'd encourage her to see things from the baby's point of view. I'd volunteer to stay at her house and take care of the baby during the night. I'd probably beg.

But if none of that worked... At that point, I'm left with my relationship with Chloe and, separately, my relationship with the baby. I'm still going to want a relationship with Chloe even if she is a sadly misguided mother. And I'm going to believe that the baby needs his grandma desperately, so I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize my contact with him. And of course I'm going to be the most loving, accepting, snuggle-him-up grandma I can be.

Beyond that, I am helpless. It's none of my business.

It is easy to be respectful of our kids when we approve of what they are doing. I think being respectful when we don't really approve is where the "radical" in "radical unschooling" comes in.