and its related problems

...I just can't feel ok about that....it makes me so angry....I am not willing to subject my children...

If you go back through this [topic] and count the number of posts that are about the mom and how SHE feels vs. those about the kids and any problems they appear to be having, it is difficult to believe that the tv issue is about the the kids.

I used to be a tv controller, diet controller, behavior and thought controller (at least I thought I was). I was trained as a child psychologist....my poor kids *sigh*. I no longer go with that philosophy and have witnessed with my own eyes that limiting is the problem, not the solution.

You don't even have to have "smart kids" for them to effectively self- regulate. Gee whiz, our dogs do it. We have two dogs that were raised in a suburban back yard. We now live on several acres, still anytime the gate is left open, those dogs take off and are gone for hours. We have two dogs that were raised on our front porch without any fencing. They never leave our yard. If a dog can figure it out, I think a child has a pretty good shot.

Julie

Someone else: It wouldn't be. I was just using crappy terminology. :/

Making Choices! Someone happy about success wrote: I have to tell all of you that after only a couple of weeks of unlimited TV our TV has even been described as boring. It is on and then off and on and then off. It is kind of fun watching them learn to self regulate.. Sandra Dodd response: "Self regulate" means to make a rule and then follow it yourself. They're not self regulating. They're making choices. It's different. It's better!

Weeding out terminology we would prefer not to mean improves thinking.

A hundred times or more people have said "just semantics" and "stupid" about me saying "don't say teach," which I've been doing for years. Everyone someone says "taught" or "teach" they can slip back into the whole school thing and be seeing the world through school-colored glasses. If they do what it takes, mentally and emotionally, to recast their reports and then their thoughts in terms of who *learned* something, then they can start to see the world in terms of learning.

The last holdout for some people is "he taught himself..." but maybe that should be the FIRST to go. Teaching comes from someone WITH skills or knowledge passing them on to those without them. If I taught myself to play guitar, I would have had to have known how first. I sure did learn how. I told people for years that Ymelda Martinez taught me to play guitar. She got me from mystery to understanding, in one lesson, by me asking her tons of questions and her pointing out physically which angles would be better for my fingers, and how hard and how close to the frets, and how to finger pick. And I had a chord book, and my mom played guitar (a different style than I wanted to do—she did flat-picking, and I wanted to do folkie finger-picking.

I learned from everything around me, from trial and error, from watching others and asking questions.

The information was being sucked in by me, not pushed in by me or anyone else. I didn't PUT the information inside me, I drew it in.

And so with "control" and "deciding"—control implies one KNOWS the right answer and if he's not "out of control" or "lacking self control," there will be no choice; he will control himself. Decisionmaking requires lots of data and thought and freedom and discernment.

"Self-Regulation" One zen student said, "My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating." The second said, "My teacher has so much self control, he can go days without sleep." The third said, "My teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired." -=- I don't assume she can't "self-regulate,"-=- I'm glad that term was put in quotation marks. I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of "self-regulation." Regulation has to do with rules—creating and enforcing rules. I like the idea that children will find a balance. And it has helped me in moving from kneejerk what-would-my-mom-do (when my kids were babies I worked consciously to make decisions a better way) to try to avoid using phrases of children that I wouldn't use of adults. I don't say my husband self-regulates his leisure time, or that my friend self-regulates her diet or that my sister self-regulates her housekeeping. People will come here and say "I've given him freedom, when will he self-regulate?" and I think (though I've never asked) they mean "When will he somehow do what I would have made him do if I were making him do things?" Some newer unschoolers are similarly waiting for their kids to ask to learn biology, or to wake up one morning eager to write a book report. I think use of "self-regulate" comes from a lack of clarity or understanding. I'm going to keep thinking about it and notice how it's used. Anyone know where it might have come from originally? Is it a common term in any field like medical, maybe? Sandra (from "multimomma/autismhelp") Ah...I was going to say something about self-regulation. Having a child with a regulation disability, I thought if you were still interested I could share about self- regulation in medical cases. :-) Self-regulation refers to the body's ability to sense needs and, for the most part, address them automatically. So if you're getting dehydrated, you start to crave water, if your blood sugar drops, you feel hungry, if your internal temp gets too high, you start to sweat. Consciously, self-regulation consists of the choices that we make when we feel hunger, thirst, sleepiness, hot, cold, whatever. In regards to tv, reading, games, play, and learning that mentioned here, I would say that SR is just another way to address the brains needs. Need stimulation, you choose what to stim it with. Studies have shown that some people have a higher need for adrenaline, some people have lesser, for example, which is how they explain people who have serious thrill issues (ha...we've been watching a lot of Nemo lately) Part of Breanna's autism is a self-regulation dysfunction. Her brain kind of short circuits, and either she a) can't find what she needs for regulation or b) she gets stuck in a self-reg that she no longer wants, but can't stop. I'm sure those of you without exp in the autism world have still seen those in TV or movies. One obvious example is the rocking, etc. It serves a purpose for a while, stimulating and regulating the brain, but begins to interfere with walking, eating and sleeping. Sometimes the rocking happens because she needs something, but can't find a way to address that need. In her case, we've spent a long time increasing her toolbox, so to speak, so she has more ways to address her needs, and decreasing her stress so she can practice alternative stimulations. Melissa

Caren, on the UnschoolingBasics list, responded to the following doubter:

I still find it hard to believe that allowing kids full rein of electronics for months on end will actually help them learn self-control. Is there anyone that has seen the end result of it?

Not to be snarky, but... how can *you* controlling someone else teach them *self*-control? I was "disciplined" as a child - meaning someone else controlled my actions (around them, anyway) through coercion and punishment. I did *not* learn self-discipline. I learned distrust of and alienation from that parent. Perhaps most harmful, distrust of my own inner voice. It has taken years (and years and years) to regain that. "The end result" of not limiting games, TV, etc. is that my kids are learning to listen to *their own* inner guidance about how much is "too much". They are learning what *they* enjoy, not what I think they should enjoy.

And the end result, for me, is not that ultimately they'll watch or play less. It used to be, before I really understood unschooling. (and when I still demonized TV) I used to think "OK, if I "let them" watch all they want, eventually they'll tire of it and move on." Now, the phrase "let them" seems foreign to me, and I have the attitude of hoping what they're doing is bringing them joy, whether that's watching TV, gaming, building a Lego city, or playing outdoors.

It's a bit difficult to explain how that shift occurred, but the word "allowing" comes to mind. I let go, then let go some more, and in the process discovered a deeper connection with my kids than I knew was possible... and because of the inner work involved, a deeper connection with myself.

Gassho ~
Caren