In a discussion on food controls, Joyce wrote, "We all have issues about something. They go deep and are tangled up around other stuff but working at them bit by bit can make them better." (here)
I posted this to the Always Learning list October 20, 2009, and Shan suggested I put it on its own page for future expansion.
I want to use it as a jumping off place to bring together some bits and pieces of posts, chats and questions over the past few weeks.Some people cling to their issues because they've labelled themselves and made a little secret fort (which they keep announcing) to hide in, and nurse their glorious wounds. There were a few years when I was learning about the effects of alcoholism on the non-drinking children and relatives of the alcoholics, and because I went to a meeting every week and helped other people understand it I was very definitely the Adult Child of an Alcoholic. I was vigilant and self-conscious in the choices I made, seeing them all in that light.
I had discovered I had a big issue, and I worked through it. I'm still an adult child of an alcoholic, but now the thought comes to mind two or three times a year, maybe, if someone else doesn't bring it up.
I could have lived there. I could have used it as an excuse for reactive and irrational behavior, but in working through it bit by bit, I also started to see what was a natural part of me and not caused by my mother's inconstant and unreliable presence, or by my feeling that if I helped her pay her phone bill, and let her borrow my car, somehow the alcoholism would be gone.
Because I had children, I consciously worked on those issues so the problem wouldn't be passed on to them, too.
Other parents have other issues, about abuse or neglect or bereavement or religion or guilt or higher education or class or race or body image. For the purposes of unschooling, those are the things the parents need to deal with directly and quickly, with professional help if necessary (at least indirect professional help—books, groups, webpages) to get clear what is a natural part of you and what is odd emotional rashes and baggage.
Meanwhile, while the issues are being examined, be attentive and sweet to your children. That might be one of your best healing tools. It helped me immensely, and I've seen it help some others. Don't justify reactionary treatment of your children by saying "Well, I was raped so they will be"; "I overate so they will"; "I was forced to go to church so they will never see the inside of a church ever."
When a parent's choices are based on being the same or being the opposite of parents or of anyone else, they're reacting. Sometimes in a healing phase that can help. It can help to have role models. It can help to have bad examples, marked like crime scenes in our memories, to remind us. Let the reactions be part of a temporary healing phase, though. Let reactions be a stepping stone toward mindful actions.
When the issues are identified and dealt with, let them fade into occasional memory, not constant reminder. Don't label yourself in ways that hurt your children. Don't declare yourself to have a handicap and keep that for life as a "get out of jail free" card that you play when you were irresponsible and want to whine, "Yeah, but..." and not be a mindful adult.
Unschooled kids can't have irresponsible parents and still have the full benefit of unschooling. Being a good unschooling parent involves being a good person, a good parent. Unschooling can't work unless the parent is there, whole and attentive and not screwing it up.
Sandra
Claire Horsley wrote that beginning unschoolers should know...
Something about relationships being at the heart of a wonderful and peaceful unschooling life. About the way connecting with your child through little daily events forms the basis for something big—a profound and deeply enriching connection for both parent and child.I think one of the best skills an unschooling parent can possess is the ability to be open. Open to other ways of doing things, other timeframes, open to admitting they made a mistake, open to change. Unschooling will only really fly if the parents face up to and deal with their shizz so it is not passed on. Parents stand between school and their kids, but also between their kids and the hurts of previous generations. If they can stop those hurts being passed on, who knows what their kids can do!
Claire
January 2011 AlwaysLearning
I had written, of someone's husband's childhood issues:
He needs to look at his childhood as something he does NOT want to repeat, and make choices that provide better situations. He should not use it as an excuse to be the same way.Someone wrote:
Please also suggests ways to make this happen. If it is not an unschooling question please ignore.One should no more try to make something happen in a spouse's learning than in a child's. If someone asked "How do you make a child read?" or "How do you make a child like history?" the answer would be simple. You don't. You make it interesting, You make it casual. You back off as soon as they're uncomfortable. You don't risk ruining their interest forever by trying to "make" them do something, or learn something.
If one's childhood is an issue, then recovery to the extent of using it to inform one's decisions now, with children, is important. TOTAL and complete "recovery" from childhood hurts isn't necessary; probably isn't even possible.
How one decides to act toward, be with, think about and respond to children happens inside a person with a history, a person who had a childhood. Will childhood hurt be passed on to new children? Sad childhood memories can be seen as the things NOT to do, and healing can flow, but that can't be forced by anyone else. If it's not part of the thoughts and decision making of each parent, it won't work as well as it could.
Sandra