Someone in a discussion had been asked to consider which was more important to her, health food or her child's happiness. She wrote:

Health food is not more important to me than my children's happiness. Health food is one way to promote a healthy body and the health of my children is very important to me. So is their happiness. You seem to be saying that the two priorities are mutually exclusive. I would like to find a way to promote their health without sacrificing their happiness and vice versa.

When we're trying to achieve two goals there will be times when a decision will lead towards one but away from another.

When conventional parents are faced with deciding between happiness and another goal more often than not the goal of children's happiness becomes secondary.

If you've ever made your child cry because of something else that you wanted, then your child's happiness was secondary.

One time I was upset about a spill or something and my daughter said "It seems like you care more about the rug than you do me." I, of course, said "No, of course not." And yet she was right. For that moment the fact that she was upset was less important than the need to get the spill mopped up.

And with conventional parenting that happens a *lot*. It's pretty much taken for granted that what kids want is secondary to what parents are trying to accomplish. Kids are just another task, and not particularly high priority tasks, to get done in the day.

It doesn't feel that way when you're in the middle of conventional parenting! It feels like you're spending your life doing things for the kids like good meals, clean clothes, neat house and so on. But once outside it, conventional parenting looks very very selfish from the point of view of the kids. It feels to them like all the things we're running around doing are more important than they are because the things they ask of us get put low on our list and sometimes fall off the list when we run out of time after getting all the things we "need" to get done.

We can provide healthy food and make them happy. But sometimes we'll come up against a conflict between the two -- like counting/ignoring the cookies they're eating -- and a message about good eating is going to seem more important than the delight a child is getting from the cookies.

There's plenty of time throughout the day to model what we believe to be healthy eating that we don't need to steal a moment of their happiness to give them "an important service announcement."

Joyce

Debbie Regan wrote, in 2015:

What is important for your family - peace? joy? doing fun things? well-being? growing and learning? comfort? delight?...

What can you do to enhance what's important - more flexibility? more listening? more engagement? more calm? more kindness? more fun ideas? more soft places? more interesting/happy options? more generosity? more creativity?...

From the outside, unschooling may look like no chores, no bedtimes, no education, no discipline, no structure, no limits, etc. But from the inside, it's about learning, relationships, living with real parameters, partnership, navigating turbulence, making connections, joy, curiosity, focus, enthusiasm, options, following trails, fun, growing understanding, opening doors...

"Eliminating chores" won't, of itself, bring unschooling closer. The conditions which led to and continued the imposition of 'chores', need to change. And that takes time and deschooling. Many steps in the direction of understanding about learning, of awareness of control in relationships, of relationship-building. "Eliminating chores" can be done with a few words. Getting to unschooling takes more - it requires parents to change significantly. Step by step is usually more effective than trying to leap across. More tortoise, less hare. :)

—Debbie Regan

Sandra Dodd: For a single person to dedicate himself or herself to "a cause" is all well and good, but for a parent to take one moment from his child's peaceful life to try to make theoretical peace 10,000 miles away is bad.

Robin Bentley: And filling kids' heads with the misery of others doesn't make them happier.

AlexPolikowsky: NO it does not!

Elaine G-H: I think filling adults heads with misery isn't a good thing either. It's contagious

Sandra Dodd: I know the argument, that there is no peace until all have peace, but that is a big old fallacy and foolishness. There never has been universal peace and never, ever could be.

I think Radical Unschooling attracts people who are against the system. against the mainstrean, people that like to buck at any kind of authority and that want to be totally free.

I did not come to unschooling beacuse of any of those reasons but I have seen many that did and many of those have a way of thinking that is not very clear. Instead of going towards learning and mindfulness, they are moving against of what they feel is oppression and society control (not saying those do not exist!)

If the focus is not your children, family , peacefulness and learning then things seem to get a little crazy.

—Alex Polikowsky, 2011

Any time another value comes before learning and your relationship, unschooling won't flow as well. That goes for valuing vegetarianism, college, law of attraction, or minimalism and simplicity. There are ways to find the 'yes' while holding those values, too, but it takes a lot of discussion and working things out. For example, if you value a clutter-free space, you could maybe get one of those cabinets where everything folds up when it's not being used (like a murphy bed, but it's a desk), and the space would be more clear at times. Or you could have one room that remains "stuff-free" that you can enjoy. When push comes to shove, though, and a choice has to be made, if the values the parents hold are what "win out", the unschooling in that home will suffer.

Sandra once upon a time wrote that life is about priorities. I can't remember what it was in reference to, maybe somebody worrying about McDonalds and not allowing her/his child(ren) to support a multi-national conglomerate being more important than supporting her/his families ability to make choices.

I think that with all of these things it is about priorities. If your priority is no or little television than allowing freedom of access to television isn't going to result in no or little television. My son Simon (8), who has had freedom of access to television since he was five and for whom we controlled it very little before that can and does watch television for hours. However, of late, he has been turning it off and walking away from it far more than ever before. If someone were to walk into our home who believed that television was a corrupting influence we are clearly corrupted.

There is free access to food in our house. There are two bowlfuls of starburst fruit chews on the kitchen table and carrots and celery cut up and floating in water in the fridge as per my Grandmother; there are packets of crisps in the cupboard with weetabix cereal and muesli cereal and whatever other kind of cereal; there is dried squid and sheets of nori and crackers and peanut butter and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and ice cream and, and, and… All things get eaten. At the moment Linnaea (5) and Simon are sitting in front of the television watching a video of The Flintstones eating spaghetti noodles and raw carrots and drinking kool-aid (imported) and talking to me about what "balance" means, based I would guess on the balance of a sword in "Pirates of the Caribbean". If your priority is not letting your children have certain "e numbers" in food or to be vegetarian or vegan or to eat only things without additives, than allowing food choice isn't necessarily going to end up with a family that eats the way you want them to eat. It might, but it probably won't.

If you choose to follow the unschooling lifestyle, as opposed to just being an unschooling homeschooler, than you have to accept that these people who are your children will enjoy things in ways you may not like. Yesterday Simon ate three doughnuts. He had a couple of bites of egg fried rice and a couple of bites of bagel with cream cheese, but really, he only ate three doughnuts. It drove me mad. But David (husband) said sometimes you only want three doughnuts. Tomorrow he'll eat other things. Do you think he is going to starve himself? And he was right. Today he is eating other things and yesterday he only wanted three doughnuts. And the coercion I attempted was short-sighted and mean.

If your priority is perfectly behaved children who read at an early age and who impress your friends and family with their knowledge and deportment, you may find unschooling a hard path to follow (not that any other method will necessarily get you these things). If your priority is to respect your children as people and to help them to explore the world in an engaging way than it is also important to understand that as romantic as these things sound it is hard and on bad days it is easy to note that they only ate three doughnuts or that every time you go to the store they have to buy something or that they are watching loads of television. It all depends on your priorities.

Schuyler

Factors, Problems, Odd Considerations When Parents Have Issues

Choices rather than "Have To" Principles, not Rules Parenting Issues

Title art by Holly Dodd