carnationsgalore

I'll admit I haven't paid much attention to such threads because I
always felt my DH and I were on the same page. After a discussion
this weekend though, I learned he isn't 100% comfortable with
unschooling. He'd like to see certain things happen though he doesn't
feel a strict timeline like a school scope and sequence is necessary.

How do I balance the needs of all our family? We agree on lifestyle
and parenting issues. It's just the schooly stuff he is having a hard
time letting go of.

Beth M.

jenstarc4

>
> How do I balance the needs of all our family? We agree on
lifestyle
> and parenting issues. It's just the schooly stuff he is having a
hard
> time letting go of.
>
> Beth M.
>

It would help to know how old your kids are. I know from experience
and from reading other people's experiences that a lot of dads (and
moms) get nervous about schooly stuff somewhere in the mid elementary
years. I think this is due to the fact that school kids start to
veer off in a very different direction than an unschooled child. It
starts to become more noticable that what your unschooled child is
doing. What an unschooled child is doing, is really really different
than what a schooled child is doing.

You didn't really give a lot of information, so I'll go on
assumptions here. If the above is the case, the best thing you can
do for your kids and your husband is to really focus on "seeing" the
learning that goes on in your everyday life. Add things to your life
in new and interesting ways.

If your husband isn't worried about scope and sequence, another way
to present unschooling is by allowing him to see that your kids ARE
learning, but not in the same scope and sequence that a schooled kid
will be. It will look very very different, there is no way around
that. Scope and sequence is all about keeping kids on a certain
knoweldge based time frame and unschooling is about letting that time
frame go and knowing that knowledge is intrinsic to the learner.

People who aren't unschooling and have no concept of it, get worried
about wether or not a child knows their times tables at the age of 9
or that a child isn't reading by the age of 6 or 7. Those seem to
big trigger points for parents that aren't fully on board with
unschooling.

If the goal is learning and helping kids navigate the world, reading
is a part of that and they will pick it up along the way when they
need to or want to, same with times tables. When my oldest daughter
was around 10 or 11, she wanted to know what the hype was all about
with the times tables. I showed her, it took all of 10 min. Her
response was something like "oh, is that all!?" Really surprised by
the simplicity of something that had so much hype built up around it.

It seems that is the way it goes with all things "schooly". Without
lessons and curriculum, my children seem to pick things up as they
grow into the world, and we are sometimes left wondering why there
was so much hype about it all. Learning happens, it really does,
especially when given the freedom to let it happen naturally.

Joanna Murphy

Hi Beth--

The single most important thing that happened for my husband to further his acceptance
of unschooling in our lives (although he trusted me to make those kinds of decisions) was
going to a conference and watching a panel of grown homeschoolers, who were in reality
almost all unschooled.

I think most concerns about unschooling probably revolve around the concern that your
children won't be prepared to successfully compete for jobs, etc. I suspect it might be
easier for Moms to be satisfied seeing our kids happy and engaged in the present and
trusting that that can be a pathway to future success and happiness.

I think Dads might feel more responsibility to provide for the future, and may be more
hesitant to veer from an established path. (That thought is just a guess.) Seeing these
young people in action--some of them talking about their higher educational
experiences, some of them talking about their jobs/careers, travel or volunteer
experience--It was so reassuring i can't tell you! Even if you have to travel to get to one,
my advice would be to look for a conference with something along those lines and actually
meet people.

We are so very fortunate to have mentors around--Hi Sandra, Pam, Joyce, etc.-- We get
to see the lives they had to pioneer. Someone on another list made the comment, "The
proof is in the pudding." We have the pudding, but we have to make use of it and not
pretend it doesn't exist. We don't really have to re-invent the wheel ruts--just travel
down the imprints, shaping the road to fit our own lives.

Joanna

--- In [email protected], "carnationsgalore" <addled.homemaker@...>
wrote:
>
> I'll admit I haven't paid much attention to such threads because I
> always felt my DH and I were on the same page. After a discussion
> this weekend though, I learned he isn't 100% comfortable with
> unschooling. He'd like to see certain things happen though he doesn't
> feel a strict timeline like a school scope and sequence is necessary.
>
> How do I balance the needs of all our family? We agree on lifestyle
> and parenting issues. It's just the schooly stuff he is having a hard
> time letting go of.
>
> Beth M.
>

carnationsgalore

> It would help to know how old your kids are. I know from
> experience and from reading other people's experiences that
> a lot of dads (and moms) get nervous about schooly stuff
> somewhere in the mid elementary years.

Sorry. I didn't realize I didn't write their ages! My dd9 will be
10 this month, and my son is 11. We also have a dd15 in public high
school. The strange thing is that two years ago, my DH was on the
same page as I was about unschooling. Then our dd asked to go to
public school and then I started doing schooly stuff with our son.
We were very relaxed, but it was still schoolish. Since my dd
decided to homeschool again, my son and I have slowly dropped
subject after subject, or at least modified it so heavily that we
were only doing the bits he found interesting. My daughter never
did get into a full homeschool routine. She was just doing things
she liked. I think my DH liked seeing the topics that the
curriculum exposed us to.

> If the above is the case, the best thing you can do for your
> kids and your husband is to really focus on "seeing" the
> learning that goes on in your everyday life. Add things to
> your life in new and interesting ways.

I think that's what he wants. He said he didn't expect us to follow
any curriculum the way it was written. He just doesn't want us to
sleep and play games all day because he feels that our children have
been learning some interesting things because of the curriculum. I
do see his point because without the curriculum, the kids stay with
the same old stuff, or at least our son does. He prefers to live in
his comfort zone, which is completely opposite of my adventure
seeking younger daughter! It makes for a kind of crazy lifestyle,
but we do seem to be doing quite well. It's just the schooly stuff
that is becoming an issue now.

I need to ask my DH but maybe he's comparing our two younger
children. Allie is always trying something new and Jeffrey just
isn't like that.

Beth M.

carnationsgalore

> The single most important thing that happened for my husband to
> further his acceptance of unschooling in our lives (although he
> trusted me to make those kinds of decisions) was going to a
> conference and watching a panel of grown homeschoolers, who were
> in reality almost all unschooled.

Hi Joanna,

I do think that would be a great thing to do. I've registered myself
and my two younger children for the Live and Learn conference in
September. My DH is planning on staying home because of our high
school student. She honestly doesn't have anyone to stay with. But
I'm still trying to figure that out because I'd absolutely love for my
DH to do the conference with us.

Beth M.

harmony

It is also easier for the parent who is with the child to see what they are doing and learning. When the working parent comes home from work and says what did you do today and you say "we hung out at the pond looking for tadpoles" it doesn't sound as good as what really happened. Discussions about lifecycles, recycling after finding garbage in the pond, landfills, gasses present in landfills, ecosystems etc....

The times my husband complains the most about our kids not being in school is when they are the most active. I am with them experiencing life and learning with them, he is not, so we see things a lot differently.
Harmony


> -------Original Message-------
> From: jenstarc4 <jenstarc4@...>
> Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: When spouses don't agree 100%
> Sent: Mar 04 '08 11:12am
>
> >
> > How do I balance the needs of all our family? We agree on
> lifestyle
> > and parenting issues. It's just the schooly stuff he is having a
> hard
> > time letting go of.
> >
> > Beth M.
> >
>
> It would help to know how old your kids are. I know from experience
> and from reading other people's experiences that a lot of dads (and
> moms) get nervous about schooly stuff somewhere in the mid elementary
> years. I think this is due to the fact that school kids start to
> veer off in a very different direction than an unschooled child. It
> starts to become more noticable that what your unschooled child is
> doing. What an unschooled child is doing, is really really different
> than what a schooled child is doing.
>
> You didn't really give a lot of information, so I'll go on
> assumptions here. If the above is the case, the best thing you can
> do for your kids and your husband is to really focus on "seeing" the
> learning that goes on in your everyday life. Add things to your life
> in new and interesting ways.
>
> If your husband isn't worried about scope and sequence, another way
> to present unschooling is by allowing him to see that your kids ARE
> learning, but not in the same scope and sequence that a schooled kid
> will be. It will look very very different, there is no way around
> that. Scope and sequence is all about keeping kids on a certain
> knoweldge based time frame and unschooling is about letting that time
> frame go and knowing that knowledge is intrinsic to the learner.
>
> People who aren't unschooling and have no concept of it, get worried
> about wether or not a child knows their times tables at the age of 9
> or that a child isn't reading by the age of 6 or 7. Those seem to
> big trigger points for parents that aren't fully on board with
> unschooling.
>
> If the goal is learning and helping kids navigate the world, reading
> is a part of that and they will pick it up along the way when they
> need to or want to, same with times tables. When my oldest daughter
> was around 10 or 11, she wanted to know what the hype was all about
> with the times tables. I showed her, it took all of 10 min. Her
> response was something like "oh, is that all!?" Really surprised by
> the simplicity of something that had so much hype built up around it.
>
> It seems that is the way it goes with all things "schooly". Without
> lessons and curriculum, my children seem to pick things up as they
> grow into the world, and we are sometimes left wondering why there
> was so much hype about it all. Learning happens, it really does,
> especially when given the freedom to let it happen naturally.
>
>