freerainbow@...

Hello everyone,


My name is Dominique, I'm french, living in France. My son is 9 years old. We have started homeschooling 2 years ago, then unschooling around 2 months ago. 

For the moment, I see that my son wants to play, play, play. I'm trying to create an evironment that facilitates various interests and curiosity, with books, games, videos and such.

What I observe is that when my son says he's interested in something particular, he doesn't transform, if I can say things this way. For example he wants to mahe toffees. I buy the ingredients, offer him to come back with me whenever he wants to make toffees. And he never comes back. 

He receives a letter and really want to read it and reply, but says "I'll do that tomorrow, or the day afetr". And never comes back to it. 

When I ask him, he doesn't know why, but carry on saying "I'll do that tomorrow".


I don't really understand the issue here. I feel this makes me irritated, so that I don't feel like proposing things anymore, or strewing at all. 


I would benefit from insights about this and suggestions if anyone feels like.

Thanks

Dominique

Alex & Brian Polikowsky

This child is still deschooling and the parents need to deschool.
Unschooling won't start until he has deschooled and parents expectations can be a big obstacle.



Also sometimes the idea of something is wonderful but when it comes to doing it the interest is not that great.

You know when you think or say " I would love to go hiking in Yosemite ." But you never really get things I order and go. It is just the idea that is attractive. We all have those.

What you can do now is go make the toffee. Maybe he will join you. Maybe he won't. In the end you will have some great toffee and share lovingly with him.

You have fun doing some fun things you think he may enjoy and you may see him join you even if for a few minutes! Bit don't have to be expectations about it.

Join him in whatever he is doing! Bring more of it.
Let's say he likes Legos. Get some Lego movies, books, manga,'video games, sets. Share awesome Lego YouTube videos.  
Bring more of what he is into but again with no expectations. Don't steamroll  him with them either!

While he is deschooling you can learn to have more fun with him and get to know him and deschool yourself. 

Alex Polikowsky

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 2, 2016, at 9:44 AM, freerainbow@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

Hello everyone,


My name is Dominique, I'm french, living in France. My son is 9 years old. We have started homeschooling 2 years ago, then unschooling around 2 months ago. 

For the moment, I see that my son wants to play, play, play. I'm trying to create an evironment that facilitates various interests and curiosity, with books, games, videos and such.

What I observe is that when my son says he's interested in something particular, he doesn't transform, if I can say things this way. For example he wants to mahe toffees. I buy the ingredients, offer him to come back with me whenever he wants to make toffees. And he never comes back. 

He receives a letter and really want to read it and reply, but says "I'll do that tomorrow, or the day afetr". And never comes back to it. 

When I ask him, he doesn't know why, but carry on saying "I'll do that tomorrow".


I don't really understand the issue here. I feel this makes me irritated, so that I don't feel like proposing things anymore, or strewing at all. 


I would benefit from insights about this and suggestions if anyone feels like.

Thanks

Dominique

Sandra Dodd

-=-I don't really understand the issue here. I feel this makes me irritated, so that I don't feel like proposing things anymore, or strewing at all. -=-

Please undo the thought that what you were doing was strewing.
I get to say that, because I’m the one who came up with the term “strewing” to refer to leaving something interesting out WITHOUT ATTACHMENT TO OUTCOME.

-=-For the moment, I see that my son wants to play, play, play._+_

He’s nine years old and needs time to recover from the school that caused you to take him out, and from the homeschooling that caused you to switch to unschooling.
But even if he had never been to school at all, and you were always unschooling, and he were nine, this is important: Play, play, play is what he should be doing. Nothing else. Only playing.

Jouer, un sérieux travail: http://sandradodd.com/french/playing
Ignore the list of books and videos. Even when the article was current, it made no sense to translate that part to French. :-)

-=-We have started homeschooling 2 years ago, then unschooling around 2 months ago. -=-

If you want to tell us how long you were in school, Dominique, we could help you with some advice for recovery from that. But you need to count all your years of school, AND any years you taught, including the two years you homeschooled your son before you were unschooling. That recovery takes at least one month per year of your schoolish life.

You’re looking for school. Because you don’t know what unschooling looks like, you can’t see it. It’s invisible to people who haven’t deschooled.
Because you’re pressuring your son, he can’t deschool His deschooling won’t take as long as yours will, but if you never leave him along he will never deschool.
If you don’t stop looking for school, YOU will never deschool.

-=-I'm trying to create an evironment that facilitates various interests and curiosity, with books, games, videos and such.-=-

For now, don’t—unless it’s books, games and videos that YOU like. Do it for yourself, and gradually see the sort of learning that can come incidentally—by random connections. Let your son do what he wats to do. Stop asking him to report. Stop reminding him.

-=-He receives a letter and really want to read it and reply,-=-

Did you refuse to read a letter to him? Have school and homeschooling made him afraid to read, and you’re not offering to read? Couldn’t YOU reply? (If it’s a mutual friend, or a relative.)

-=-What I observe is that when my son says he's interested in something particular, he doesn't transform,-=-

If you read something about unschooling that suggested that an interest should transform a person, make note of where you read it and never go to that source again. :-)
Perhaps you misunderstood, or are expecting too much too soon.

If this were a gardening forum, would you come and say “I planted my garden two months ago, and I keep pulling the plants up and seeing if they’re growing, and I’m getting tired of gardening”?
If there were a forum on composting, would you say “I have put food scraps, leaves, grass and dirt into a pile for two months and nothing has happened”?

http://sandradodd.com/substance.

http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange

http://sandradodd.com/readalittle

Probably the best thing you could do is to read Pam Laricchia’s introduction to unschooling. It’s a free e-book.

http://livingjoyfully.ca/exploringunschooling/

She has another book translated into French.
Libre d'apprendre: Cinq idées pour vivre le unschooling dans la joie
http://www.amazon.fr/Libre-dapprendre-id%c3%a9es-vivre-unschooling/dp/0987733389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454443300&sr=8-1&keywords=Libre+d%e2%80%99apprendre

More in French on my site:
http://sandradodd.com/french/

I know that’s a lot of input, and it will take you many weeks to look that over and try some of those ideas out. It’s the only way, though, to STOP doing school things, and to stop so completely, for a while, that you can both start back at zero, and see the world in new ways.

Sandra

teri@...

In our family, a kid who says they want to do something "tomorrow" translates to "some other day in the future, but not now."  I've had enough experience with "tomorrow" to know that this is a polite way for my kids to keep the door open, but to avoid committing to an activity or project.

Teri

semajrak@...

<<When I ask him, he doesn't know why, but carry on saying "I'll do that tomorrow".>>

Maybe he doesn't know how, or feel confident enough, to say to you, "No thanks. I'm not interested in doing that right now."   Perhaps he aims to make you temporarily happy by saying he'll do it tomorrow.  Maybe not.  

Usually, for me, when I put something off it's because I don't really want to do it.  Sometimes I start things, and find they're not very fulfilling.  I put them aside.  Sometimes I finish them later.  Sometimes not.

Sometimes, like Alex said, I like to dream of things I could do.  I'd love to paint a really big painting, but I don't have the space right now.  I used to have more space, but I didn't do it then because the dream was enough for the time being.  I might do it some day.  Likely not tomorrow.  ;-)

Look at what he *is* doing, and not at what he's not doing.  Learn to appreciate all he does do, so that when he puts another activity off you understand better why.  Don't ask him why he doesn't want to finish something.  That seems personal to me, and can come off as shaming, depending on how you are asking.  You might find this helpful:

http://sandradodd.com/finishwhatyoustart 

From that page, by Joyce Fetteroll: 

"Wanting someone to be different from who they are will be a ginormous roadblock to unschooling. On the other hand, helping someone find better ways to accomplish what *they're* trying to do will turn you toward unschooling. But you need to let go of your agenda for them, let go of what you think should be accomplished and tune into what goal the other person has."

Karen James