How to talk to teenagers and young adults

A lesson or reminder for all who need it (including me).

1. Happy to see her? Say so. Show it with your face. Light up your eyes.
2. Unless it’s to offer an enthusiastic compliment, do not comment on his clothing, shoes, accessories, tattoos, hair, weight, or anything else appearance-related—especially in the first five minutes. If you don’t feel complimentary about any aspect of his appearance, go back to #1.
3. Ask what she’s been up to. Listen to the answer and then DON’T JUDGE. If you don't like the choices she is making regarding college or career or how she spends her free time, do not say so or in any way reveal it. Don’t offer advice. If you can’t think of anything else to say besides judgment and advice, simply ask what she likes or doesn’t like about what’s been going on.
4. Ask him for a movie, book, TV show, or game recommendation. Young people are often voracious consumers of media of all types, and the choices they make about what to consume are hugely varied from week to week. If he knows you at all, he is very likely to immediately think of something he’s seen or read that will be up your alley, or he’ll say, “I don’t think you would like what I’ve been reading,” and that’s a great conversation starter right there.
5. If her skills lean that way and the timing is right, ask her for help with that problem you’ve been having with your electronics, car, cat, leaky faucet, whatever. This shows that you know what her skills are and that you value them.
6. Listen, listen, listen. You are in the presence of a great mind that has matured in a completely different culture from the one you grew up in. Take a peek at his perspective on life and the world.
7. If she doesn’t seem interested in talking to you, don’t take it personally. By the time most kids turn 16, they have given up on adults' ability to really talk to them. It might take a while for her to recognize that you are worth her time. Meanwhile, find a way to set her free. “Would you like to go out to the yard and see the dog?”
8. Make yourself available for a conversation as equals whenever he gives you a chance to show what you’re made of.

Got more? Add them in the comments.

Ruled by joy

Scene: It is 10:30 p.m. We are flies on the wall of the third-floor corridor of the hotel at an unschooling conference. A wild-eyed boy who bears a charming resemblance to young Harry Potter streaks by, gabbling something about girls. He dances frantically in place as he waits for the elevator to arrive, then dives through the doors as if his very life depends on it. A few minutes later, his pursuers appear. Judging by the noise level, we assume there must be twelve of them, but no, it is only three. "Shh, it's quiet time," warns a mom who is not their mom. The volume comes down for a moment, but we hear it increasing again as the elevator carries them down to the lobby. ("Harry" went up, in case you were wondering.)

Over the last several weeks—perhaps because four unschooling or unschooling-related conferences have taken place in that time—I've been privy to a number of discussions about where one should draw the line between respect for kids and respect for other people's rights and property. I gather (but have no firsthand knowledge) that there was some minor kid-inflicted property damage at the Rethinking Education Conference down in Texas. Some people are outraged by this and blaming unschooling for it.

Even disregarding the fact that RE is not strictly an unschooling conference, I must question their logic. Do they think that 300 schooled kids or, heaven help us, 300 Shriners would have been better behaved at an event like that? *snort*

That said, I don't think it's a bad idea to ponder this issue.

"Unschooling is not unparenting."

This is something that is often said in the unschooling community. "Unschooling parents," the argument continues, "are present with their kids, and involved, and ready to step in."

Uh huh. It's not that I disagree with the people making this argument. I don't. I've seen a lot of unschooling kids and parents in action, and the level of involvement we're talking about is unparalleled.

But.

The whole truth of the matter is that most people walking into an unschooling conference would describe it with words like "chaos" and "running wild" and "irresponsible." At the talks and chats, people are "terribly disrespectful." They bring their kids, they come and go, their cellphones ring and their walkie-talkies beep. In fact, when my grandma expressed interest in coming to LIFE is Good last spring, I felt obliged to warn her off. To someone with her traditional mindset, the conference would probably be terribly unpleasant, and she would probably find a lot of evidence of unparenting.

"You have to see with better eyes than that."

That quote is one of my favorites from The Abyss. Our heroine, Lindsey, is pleading with her husband, Bud, to step away from fear and the reality he has known. She wants him to step into wonder.

And wonder is what I find at an unschooling conference. Because the "chaos" is actually a pretty sophisticated system. It's just not the system that people are used to.

All that motion in the lobby? That's 400+ people moving from point A to point B. All that conversation? That's friendship and support in action. Those kids riding the elevators and running the hallways? That's playtime and socialization. (Remember socialization? A few minutes ago, you were really worried about socialization.) Those kids in the talks and chats? They're there by invitation. And the coming and going? That's all part of an underlying acceptance that our kids' needs come first, even if it means leaving during a speech.

And notice what's missing. The kids aren't fighting. In fact, anger is virtually nonexistent. And that typical scene from the real world—the silent elevator where everyone stares at the numbers—that never happens. There are no strangers here.

And notice what's different. Adults smile at the children. Children smile at the adults. People who cry are comforted. There is lots (LOTS) of hugging. The kids strike up conversations with other kids' parents. The kids strike up conversations with the hotel employees. The kids strike up conversations with the couple who came to this hotel to get away from their kids. The kids strike up conversations with you.

And what's that over there? It's a group of teenagers! They came here voluntarily. They make eye contact. They smile. And then, can you believe it, they take turns with a microphone and share all sorts of details about their lives.

"An old man dies. A young woman lives. A fair trade."
Hartigan (Bruce Willis) in Sin City

I'm sure things get damaged at unschooling conferences. (Zombie makeup can't be easy on the towels, for instance.) I'm sure there are people who are bothered by the noise and who feel (and I agree) that the hotel reservations people really should have warned them. But there are solutions to those problems that do not involve limiting the good stuff.

Why is adding rules and punishments to a kid's life the first, and usually only, solution people come up with? How unimaginative! What limited thinking!

Unschooling parents believe resorting to rules is a creative failure.

Here's an example. I've deliberately chosen a hypothetical situation here, not one I've ever heard about.

Problem: The hotel is unhappy because several towels were stained.
Possible solutions:
- Take up a collection.
- Trade ad space in the conference handbook for some new towels.
- Ask everybody to contribute ragged towels for next year.

The solution does not have to be a new rule, "Zombie makeup is hereby prohibited." In fact, most unschoolers would see replacing a few towels as an incredibly low cost for the fun and learning that some zombie-makeup sessions provide. And by making our kids aware of the problems that come up, by involving our kids in finding solutions to those problems, our kids learn a gazillion times more than they would from any rule.

Easy unschooling

In response to my Hidden rules post, Arun (writer and dad of two seriously cute smaller unschoolers) asked:

are you saying it doesn't get any easier???
please say it aint true!

It ain't true! But then again, it is true.

The longer we unschool, the more confident I am of our path. That makes everything easier, and the days are long gone when I had to (literally) stop to ponder my every response to MJ and Chloe in light of our new unschooling attitudes. I usually know without having to think about it much what the unschooling response to any given situation is.

But being confident of our path doesn't mean I can close my eyes and walk it. Knowing the response I want to give doesn't squash every lesser impulse. I am anal exquisitely synchronized, somewhat self-absorbed, a latent control freak, and rather mouthy. Unschooling might have given me some insight into those traits and the harm they can do to my kids, but it hasn't changed those traits. I'm still me. And every so often, especially during stressful times, I need to give my unschooling a tuneup so I can get back to a more respectful place.

But beyond that, I think one of the Best Things about unschooling is that it continually challenges us to see how much better life can be. By shedding the superficial requirements of traditional parenting—the schooling, and the rules, and the nos, and the shoulds—we discovered so much more was possible than we'd thought, in terms of relationships and family happiness and discovery and accomplishment.

And then came the time when we strove to improve our social life. We discovered a whole new world of friends and fun.

It makes me wonder about the next level. Is there more? There just might be more! Maybe I can boost us up into that next level by making a lot of small gestures (not yelling about the cap of my face cleanser) or large ones (arranging yet another unschooler roadtrip, even though Frank and I are tired and money is tight).

Bottom line: I believe in being attentive to my parenting, in continuing to assess and improve. And as life unfolds, I continue to get lots of opportunities to do that.

Hidden rules

I was innocently taking a shower the other day when I discovered that my face cleanser had been used by someone else. This is "allowed," but I felt irritated nevertheless. Upon examination, I realized the source of this irritation: there was a minute amount of cleanser on the cap. It bothered me so much that I actually considered summoning the culprit right then and there to demand that more care be taken in future.

(Ahem. Who's anal? Me? Couldn't be me.)

This kind of, um, specificity on my part is something the girls have had to live with their whole lives, and my transition to no-rules unschooling mom doesn't mean that I haven't made a whole slew of expectations mighty clear to everyone in the house. They are our hidden rules, and we've always had them.

Back in the dim time, when the girls were very small, I was feeling self-righteous about how easy the girls had it, how few rules they were expected to follow, and "we certainly ask little enough of them." To prove my point, I proceeded to write down every rule I could think of, expecting to wind up with about a dozen.

Well, folks, the list was loooooong. I probably had 50 rules that I expected these two tiny little girls to not only know but live by each and every minute of their lives. It was an eye opener: a little exercise that helped me see better.

These days, we have no rules. In theory, all of our rules were easily tossed out in favor of the application of common sense in individual situations. But those expectations of mine... Those are still around and probably not hidden well enough. And why should they be? you might ask. After all, individually they seem so harmless—things like "I expect the scissors to be returned to the drawer after use" and "I expect dishes to be carried to the sink and preferably put into the dishwasher" and "I expect the lid of my face cleanser to be left as nice as it was when I used it."

Well, there is harm. We end up with Ronnie cast as Demanding Arbiter of What Is Good Enough, and MJ, Chloe, and Frank cast as They Who Never Quite Measure Up. In other words, there's a dictator and the dictated-to. That's not what respect and acceptance look like.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to exterminate my internal Demanding Arbiter. That happens one incident at a time, with a deep breath or a bitten tongue or an "erase, erase, erase" (our longtime Get Out of Jerkiness Free card). And for every time I squelch the impulse to complain/nudge/remind/demand/scream, there are probably a dozen times (or more) when I give into it and don't even notice.

Fortunately for me, my family knows I'm always trying.

Rules are not allowed

A follow-up to my language post...

My kids aren't "allowed" to do anything. Or rather, they're allowed to do anything. Or rather, they're not prohibited from doing anything.

We don't have rules in our house. Okay, maybe we have a few, and they apply to all who enter here:

• No smoking in the house
• Use a coaster
• Don't burn Lego men under the eaves

I think that's about it. Except maybe "Don't threaten Ronnie's supremacy." Yeah, that's a good one.

Over the years, we have had a lot of conversations about what constitutes polite, sensible, and/or legal behavior. If one of the girls is in danger of violating social mores or another person's peace or comfort, I might offer a warning (not a threat or a "don't", but a piece of information, such as "some people are really grossed out by chewing with your mouth open") or a request ("please watch your language in front of GG"). If one of them looks like she's about to walk off a figurative or literal cliff, I might say, "Look out!" And if one of them commits or contemplates committing an act that isn't legal, I might ask, "What, are you stupid?" (Okay, not really. Okay, maybe really.) But the decisions are theirs to make.

The point is, the behavior you see from my kids, good and bad, is their own. I might occasionally feel gratified by same, and I might very occasionally feel embarrassed by same, but it isn't my behavior, and I don't take credit for it when it's good. That's all theirs.

But I'll happily bear the blame for the bad if it makes you feel better about my girls. :-)

Should

One of the things I’ve tried to do throughout our unschooling journey is to stop and question any thought that contains the word “should.” It was surprising and liberating when I realized just how many of the shoulds in my life were, upon examination, other people’s shoulds, or society’s shoulds, or just my own misconceptions or exaggerations about what constitutes proper behavior, appearance, and occupation. Initially, all these false shoulds were easily, even gleefully, abandoned. Some examples:

My kids should dress according to Hoyle (a.k.a. societal standards).
But why? To fit in, to make other people more comfortable, to avoid attention.
Who cares? Not my kids, not Frank, not me.

My kids should go to bed at a “reasonable” hour each night (even though they don’t ever have school in the morning).
But why? Uhhh…
Who cares? Not them, not Frank, not me.

My kids should sit down to meals with the family (even though we are together a lot through the day).
But why? Uhhh…
Who cares? Not them, not Frank, not me.

And the biggie:
I should bear full responsibility for my kids’ choices, to the point of taking those choices away as appropriate.
But why? Because society says so.
Who cares? Not them (they like being responsible for themselves), not Frank, not me (well, okay, sometimes me, but I do my best to stifle the controlling urges that come so naturally to me).

So, I threw out all those shoulds and many more like them. It was fun, and it was challenging. In fact, it was one of the most challenging things about beginning to unschool. I mean, Frank and I thought we were making an educational decision—the kids simply wouldn’t “do” school any more—and instead we ended up revamping our lifestyle, our assumptions, and most of our standard operating procedures. We began to question everything. “Who believes this? Is it really me, or is it society or Grandma or the next door neighbor?”

The happy results of all that questioning and revamping were impressive and became the foundation of my passionate belief in radical unschooling (RU), an approach to life and parenting that goes far beyond homeschooling. With RU, our kids became our friends. They began to trust us to be there for them in all ways, without any of the wrangling and plain bad feelings that traditional parenting techniques engender. It was a wonder.

And it still is. But lately, I've been noticing again how often I use “should” in my thoughts and speech. I think I've been backsliding from my early determination to stop letting “should” rule our lives.

Epiphany today: I use “should” regularly when what I really mean is “want to.” For example, it's Frank's birthday today, and I found myself thinking, “We should do something special for him.” How self-defeating that is! It strips out all the love and generosity that is actually contained in the thought, leaving only dry obligation. The fact is, I want to do something special for him. Where “should” is draining, limiting, tedious, “want to” is empowering, defining, motivating. “Should” is from that tense place between my shoulder blades; “want to” is from the heart. (Thanks to unschooling dad and life coach Scott Noelle for helping me place them.)

This is not to say that every should can be reframed into a want. If I say to Chloe, “I want you to wear matching socks,” it can be (and usually is) just as much about controlling her choices as “You should wear matching socks” would be. I’m not going to use my own wants as a weapon against my kids' autonomy.

But I do want to move to a place where I’m better able to recognize my own choices as being just that. The guilty thought “I should call my grandmother” becomes “I want to call my grandmother because I want her to know how much I care about her.” And the shame-filled “I should mow the lawn” becomes “I want to get the lawn mowed because I think it looks ugly when it’s shaggy.”

I also hereby renew my campaign against the false shoulds that bombard our family daily. And I'm going to stop doing the bombarding myself. I can tell I’ve been doing some of that when I open my mouth and my kids look at me with faint apprehension, like “Oh, man, what’s she going to lay on me now?” Enough of that! To help me break the should habit, they’re going to fine me a quarter every time I use a sentence with “should” in it. Here’s hoping they aren’t able to get too rich off my wayward tongue. :-)