I’m doing some bonus podcasts about school and... not going.

Because it’s this time of year, and we can feel the push.

So if you’re new, this will be perfect timing. If you’re not so new, stay and listen. It’s funny how when you first start, you are so frantically trying to get your bearings that you miss at least half of what people are trying to tell you! 

So, let’s consider this podcast, Back to Basics. 

And before we get into the Basics of this Unschooling option, I want to address the overarching Basic thought that it needs to be debunked...

The kids don’t really have to go to school.

No one wants to admit that. But it’s the truth. 

If you’re listening and you haven’t made the leap yet - or if you opted for homeschooling last year and it didn’t really work out for yo... reach out. I have so many resources to help make your unschooling journey easier.

So yes, you’ve survived last year (somehow!) and but you want better than that. You know in your heart of hearts that life can be better than what it’s been up to this point. The wrangling with your kid about doing school work,  trying to spin the idea that, yes, this is all necessary despite their protests. 

It’s hard to do because you have your own doubts.
All those “necessary” classes and subjects from your own school days – long forgotten! 

Besides, no one ever asked you in your adult life about the Pythagorean Theorem or the date of the Battle of Hastings. Heck, you don’t even use your degree! Neither do I! (Talk about a waste of time and money.) YOu’ve been deputized by the kids’ school as their “Homework Police.,” making sure they memorize all those same irrelevant facts. Or you’ve taken on the homeschooling responsibility and YOU are the warden yourself. Not fun. Not engaging. Not even sure they’re learning much. 

But what are you going to do?
You used to remind yourself that this is simply what everyone must endure until they’re 18 and graduated. 

But school these days? It doesn’t look like your school days with so much emphasis on testing, the pressure and the stress. The bullying that happens has really gotten out of hand and the teachers seem incredibly frustrated. I don’t know whether the system got too big or too removed from the learner...but it has gone very wrong.
And you’re pretty sure your kids are not going to look back on these days with a lot of happy memories.

The first question that pops in people’s minds is usually,
Do regular people like me homeschool their kids?

And as soon as that question slips in, the flood of additional questions surface!

• Is homeschooling even legal here? Are their a ton of hoops to jump through?
• Would I even be qualified to do this?
• How would they make any friends?
• How would they learn anything?
• What if we can’t stand each other?

So I just want to tell you,
Yes. Regular people do homeschool their kids.

You don’t have to be doing this for religious reasons or because you’re a crunchy granola type of parent.

I was neither of these. We went to church, but it wasn’t my reason to step away from school. We ate healthy food… for the most part, and I was always looking for kinder more gentle ways to parent. I didn’t really understand why attachment parenting stopped when they became school age. I was just a regular mom from the suburbs. I had no plans to homeschool as we were trying to make school work for my little kindergartener. But as first grade rolled around, it became clear that the classroom experience was not a good situation. His enthusiasm for learning was already starting to wane. His curiosity was being squashed. His individualism and self-expression – well, there was no room for that. So I started to investigate the homeschooling option. It was the 1990’s and the landscape...looked a lot different! 

But the times have changed. And more and more moms like me (and you!) started leaving the local schools venturing into this learning no-man’s-land. Interestingly, there were plenty of people choosing home education back then and thousands more now. It’s a subculture that exists in every community. You may not see it... until you actually start.

3. Ahhh… what about socialization?

That question always rolls around. People envision lonely children at a kitchen table - but that’s not what this looks like anymore. Certainly not what unschooling EVER looked like. 

This socialization question has a lot of layers to it...some of it even carrying over from our own childhoods... insecurities or fears, things we want our kids to avoid. Or maybe we have really social kids and we can’t figure out how they’ll make enough friends to be happy. But unschooled Kids make friends through shared interests and experiences - the way any of us do who aren’t sitting in a classroom. That’s about desk proximity or shared first letter of the last name… that can’t really be the basis of a friendship. I can remember being “best friends” with someone for a year while we sat beside each other in class. And then the next year, we had no shared classes and that friendship was gone. :::poof:::

Unschooled kids aren’t missing out on anything by skipping those kinds of shallow “friendships.”

All over the country, unschoolers are getting together at parks and homes, libraries and recreation centers. They’re off on “field trips” together, meeting for “game days,” pool parties, and mid-week (gasp!) sleepovers.

4. How will they learn?

I touched on this before as it pertains to the legalities. But when we dive deeper, it’s not just about checking the box for the legal requirements. It’s about seeing that Life provides SOO many opportunities to learn.

The difference is that we start with their interests and curiosities, and then that ripples outward.

That’s why curriculum doesn’t work - many of these opportunities can’t be planned ahead of time.

It’s about being open and flexible and living in the moment and learning about what’s crossing your path.

Instead saying you can’t be bothered because you have something else - something someone else has decided is more important - that needs the focus first.  Unschoolers don’t subscribe to that kind of thinking. When you know that everyone is hardwired to learn, you can trust that learning will happen. I should point out, this reversal in thinking...to go from the Top Down Teacher-driven Make-em-do-it way to a more Learner-driven, Individualized approach to learning takes time.

We call it deschooling and I have a lot of resources that can help you. Podcast and Video playlists all about deschooling. Because it doesn’t happen over night. That’s part of the heavy lifting parents will do to undo some of the faulty thinking you might be carrying around with you. 

But when you think about learning, recognize all the ways your kids expand their knowledge, their vocabulary, their skills - it’s from the internet, books, movies, conversations with people “in-the-know,” life experiences - so many ways!  Classrooms are only ONE method - not the only way to learn!  And, you’ll probably learn a little along the way too! Learning really doesn’t have to be dull drudgery to get through – it can be exciting and fun. That’s what will make your kids (The Learners) engage! Not a stack of worksheets.

RESOURCES:

• How Do Unschooled Kids Learn Academics?
• Everything Counts E-book

There’s nothing worse than feeling you don’t have any options.

But at least in this case, that’s not true. 

You do.