Getting Beyond Unschooling

I also think it would be a mistake to equate unschooling with never doing anything resembling school. Home educated kids do many of the same things done in schools--learn to play a musical instrument, watch videos, create art, read books, compose poetry, make things out of wood, play games and sports, write, ask questions, share their opinion, solve math problems, cook--the list goes on. The difference is that as home educators we can create our most authentic life possible and learn on our own terms, in our own way, in our own time. We can put God and family before academics. We have a myriad of choices, but if we close our minds to any "schooly" methods or materials, we have effectively blocked the path to open source learning.    --  Rita Michele


Why am I quoting myself today? This is a comment I made at the Whole Life Unschooling FB group. A mother is interested in unschooling but doesn't have her husband's support. She was wondering if she could combine homeschooling and unschooling in order to appease her husband but still give her children the benefits of unschooling. Surprisingly, many members responded in the affirmative. 

Group moderator and high profile unschooling advocate Dayna Martin seemed a bit unnerved by this, perhaps because by the murky parameters of its definition, unschooling cannot be done "part-time". Naturally she thinks the ideal is radical unschooling, but she conceded that a combination of traditional homeschooling with unschooling would be better than subscribing entirely to the mainstream. She shared that her kids learn by exploring their interests and passions without engaging in anything at all "schooly", but she also supported the mother doing whatever she wanted or needed to do. She indicated that curriculum materials and structure are fine if the child wants them. However, "forcing" those things, as the dogma goes, would surely be gravely detrimental. 

To her credit, Dayna aims at a nonjudgmental, balanced response, and I am not criticizing her personally. I am intending to show the difficulty in navigating this whole issue and am suggesting making a concerted effort to get beyond it.

Obviously, with my endeavor of implementing what I find to be good in the French lifestyle and way of parenting, I am leaning more toward the importance of consistent routines so that our lives have a framework upon which to authentically grow and bloom. I am thinking of a wooden, arched trellis that was once in my yard. White roses and purple clematis would climb the trellis and be displayed in all of their glory. When strong winds damaged this structure and we had to pull it down, the flowers didn't thrive. They needed to be able to reach a higher place to get enough sun and have a sturdy foundation upon which to stretch out and take shape. How's that for an extended metaphor?

In the extremes of radical unschooling there is a tendency to reject any methods or materials that even remotely resemble school or so-called "authoritarian" parenting. As a home educator, I feel inhibited by such a mindset. I feel like my hands are tied, because we wouldn't want to put limits on our children. We must give them total and absolute freedom in all choices, in every area of life. At the risk of beating a dead horse, this is not only in opposition to the Christian parental vocation, it's simply nonsensical and irresponsible. How can one parent with confidence while being told that he or she is merely a partner and facilitator in learning and life, rather than the primary educator, as the Church teaches?

We have seen the ugly truth of what befalls our society which increasingly rejects its historical traditions. Families, churches, marriages, job security, morals, ethics, values, education, and physical and mental health have all progressively weakened. Sure, there is such a thing as too much structure. I just heard today that children have 50% less free time than they did a generation ago. They are over-scheduled and over-stimulated. As home educators, we have more control over our time and what fills our days and our children's minds, hearts, and souls. Why would we want to abdicate our God-given parental authority? Here is our chance to direct the vine toward the sun and behold the explosion of Beauty. 

Homeschooling & Parental Authority

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204740904577196931457473816
Why French Parents Are Superior by Pamela Druckerman

I have spent a lot of time on homeschooling forums and have noticed a recurrent theme. Mothers are exhausted from fighting their children about doing lessons, so they decide to give up and try unschooling. Some unschoolers report more peaceful homes as a result, while others do not. Many times I have read about unschooling parents whose children say they hate them. Is unschooling, in the long run, truly a good antidote for rebellion in children?


Unschooling can mean different things to different people, and there is a wide spectrum regarding how much freedom children are given to make their own choices and decisions. Whether this method of homeschooling works or not depends upon who you ask. But let's just look at this question of educational lessons and children who don't wish to do them. Is it because the curriculum is boring or too easy? Is it because the child is having difficulty understanding the material? Is it because the mother herself is stressed out about it, so it isn't any fun?

Whatever the details of the resistance, there is a common denominator, which is the root of the resistance itself. Human beings are born with different temperaments, and certainly some kids are more naturally compliant than others. But as I've been saying in the last couple of posts, the core issue is the general abdication of parental authority that has seized Americans. Can you imagine the Ingalls children arguing with Ma about doing their lessons? If you read the Little House on the Prairie series, you know that Ma was kind, loving, and generous with her children. She was also strict by today's standards. Children respected their parents. And Ma and Pa respected their children as persons while at the same time expecting obedience to their authority. Was Laura Ingalls lacking in joy, creativity, or originality as a result? Was her spirit crushed? I think not.

In Chosen and Cherished, Catholic homeschooling mother Kimberly Hahn tells us this:

"How are we to fear the Lord? Psalm 112 gives us the answer: 'Praise the Lord! / Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, / who greatly delights in his commandments!' (Psalm 112:1) Like the psalmist, we worship in reverence and joy: The fear of the Lord links joy to obedience. Our children's obedience gives us a paradigm for our response to our heavenly father. At first they obey from fear of consequences. That is an acceptable motivator for a young child, especially with safety issues involved. However, we look for the mature love of a child who obeys from the heart--to please us, to honor us. This obedience flows from proper respect for us." (emphasis mine)

What a difference this is from the "partnership paradigm" of unschooling! The fear of the Lord is being linked to joy, respect, and obedience. Think about this. Even if in the short term you have a more peaceful relationship with your children because you don't "force" them to do lessons (or brush their teeth, or eat meals with their family at the table, etc...), in the long run you have created an insecure relationship. You have given up the authority given to you by God. We are supposed to role model the Christian fear of the Lord to our children. By learning to obey us, they learn to obey God.

Instead, what we have in America are parents who live in fear of the anger, disappointment, and negative behavior of their children. The bottom line is that however you are teaching your homeschooling lessons, the lessons themselves are ultimately not the problem. The problem is that you have given up your authority, or you never had any in the first place, and your child knows it. The solution is not to stop teaching lessons. If we are going to homeschool, we must be willing to try different approaches and materials until we figure out what will click best, and we have to work at the art of teaching with wisdom, faith, and patience. As Charlotte Mason advocated, develop the habit of obedience in your children and set out a bountiful feast of ideas.

If you read the article Why French Parents Are Superior linked above, you'll get some good ideas on how you can begin to establish your parental authority. It is our responsibility to do so. I am alarmed that many Catholic unschoolers have told me that unschooling is so very Catholic! How? When I hear Christian homeschoolers gushing over the likes of radical unschooling guru Sandra Dodd, it makes me cringe. It's a subtle deception that is simply not in line with the Christian parental vocation. Words like freedom, peace, and joy are being used to tempt parents away from doing the right thing. In fact, it bears a disturbing resemblance to the New Age deception that I have also been writing about.

Undoing Unschooling

I spent a considerable amount of time looking on the internet yesterday for information regarding how to detox from unschooling. I found next to nothing, no matter what key words I employed. Naturally there is a lot of information out there about how to "deschool" and "deprogram" from the effects of institutionalized education. Parents find that they have to deeply question their notions about what education means when they begin to homeschool, and if children have been pulled from the school system, they need time to decompress and to figure out what their interests are and what to do with their time. All of that makes sense.

But what if you need to undo the effects of unschooling? In many ways I have followed unschooling principles in my parenting, even before I actively researched this philosophy and purposefully worked it into our household. I was attracted to the promise of increased joy and creativity, a more relaxed and natural way of living. Ironically, this led me to an interest in the French concept of la joie de vivre, finding deeper meaning through living with more formality, elegance, and passion. Between the French lifestyle and becoming Catholic, I found myself longing for tradition, which is not something often advocated in the unschooling world.

So I am now onto ideas gleaned from French parenting. One hot button topic in unschooling is "food freedom". Children know when they are hungry and what their bodies need, so they should be allowed free choice concerning when and what to eat. French children, on the contrary, eat what is put before them. There is no snacking save at 4:00 p.m., similar to the English tea time. Families eat at table together, and there isn't a separate category of kid foods, like we have in America. Children aren't forced to eat everything on their plates, but they must try what has been prepared. Since French people don't graze all day, they are actually hungry at meal times. Including the children. And so they eat what is on their plates! Simple as that. Why is this so hard for us?

Just now, having not even eaten breakfast yet, my daughter began to open a piece of chocolate. The radical unschooling mother would have allowed this. But non. I did not. Eat a real breakfast, I said. Now she has an apple. Yesterday I made an omelette for lunch, which Beezy helped with by cracking the eggs and whisking them. She wanted just cheese in the omelette. I wanted broccoli, which she likes, so I added it, and also onions, which she doesn't like. I didn't mention that I was putting onion in. I used only a little and cut the pieces very small. She ate her entire portion and didn't even notice the onions! She was hungry because she had not been snacking.

This reminds me of a friend of Beezy's who has visited at our house. I was telling her dad that she had told me she didn't like vegetables, so I asked him for ideas about what foods she likes. He looked at his daughter and said, "You eat what's put in front of you. You know that." During dinner when she didn't want to eat her vegetables, I reminded her what her father had said, and she ate her meal without complaint. She wasn't the least bit upset by it, either.

Another story is a funny one from my own family growing up. My brother was a super finicky eater, and he had gotten alarmingly skinny. My mom took him to the doctor. The doctor set down a rule that my mom must follow. The kids were to eat whatever she cooked, and after dinner, the kitchen was closed. If you didn't eat your dinner, you didn't get to have something else later. After a couple of weeks, my brother was eating everything. This doctor was brilliant! It was his fault that the kitchen was closed, so my brother was mad at the doctor, not my mom. And my mom had the resolve to stick to the plan, because good mothers know what is best for their children, a truth that radical unschoolers would deny.

I have found myself feeding what amounts to an entire meal to my child at bedtime. This will not do. I think a small bedtime snack is fine, but it should not be a time to make up for not eating enough all day long. The bottom line is this: I am no longer going to make special food for children, neither my own nor anyone else's. They will at least try everything on their plates. I am going to cook with healthy ingredients that I enjoy, whether or not my child thinks she likes them. I am not a short order cook, and neither are you. Take charge of meal times! Sit down for dinner together as a family on most days of the week! Do not prepare special kid foods!! Do not allow snacking and grazing all day! But your family is too busy with extracurricular activities to sit down to dinner together, you say? Non, non, non, amie. Then you cut out those activities. Family time should be your priority, not wrestling, ballet, or gymnastics.

When my books come in that I mentioned in the last post, I will share the advice found therein and my own experiences, and together we can undo the unschooling/American lifestyle damage, if that is your wish.
Start today with baby steps. Start with developing good eating habits that will last a lifetime and provide precious, irreplaceable family memories.