Julie Ratliff

Thank you so much to everyone who wrote with advice on room cleaning with my
daughter. I put all the responses in a word document and printed them out
to give to my husband. He has questions about unschooling and many of you
wrote such beautiful things I just had to share with him. I have been
working on her room for 2 days now and it's going fine. I just set a timer
for 15 minutes and keep telling myself that I am spending time with my
daughter, not trying to teach her anything. It's been very nice. Yesterday
she sat up in her bunk bed and gave me a news broadcast from stuffed amimal
land and today she made up a song to sing and a dance to go with it to show
her appreciation. She has thanked me about 100 times and it's only been 2
days. She is so genuinely grateful it brings tears to my eyes. I'm not
sure how to put it...she is thankful without the adult baggage...she is
thankful in a way that shows that she does not expect me to clean up after
her like a servant...ugghh, not easy to put into words. I am also glad
someone wrote in asking about learning responsibility....that was also one
of my concerns. I printed out all those responses as well. I am planning
on giving Natalie a big huge room cleaning, but I think that will have to
wait for a day when she is out doing something fun with Daddy, I'm still
working to keep my cool for 15 minutes (grin). Thanks again for all the
advice.
Julie