Noemi Hiraishi

Hi,

I am too, unschooler's mother of 9yo. I too, am not good at games and don't
enjoy playing them. But I have found that there is one game that I like to
play. And when dd asks me to play a board game with her, we play that one.

But ever since I decided to become a full time mother, when dd turned 3, I
decided at that time that playing was the most important aspect of
childrenhood. So I did my best to go outside when she demanded it. And when
outside I had, have set that I will be there. I would have fun. (I am a
firm believer of what O. Fred Donaldson "Playing by Heart" writes in this
book.)

We are the only hs of our area but I am glad that I was lucky to find always
playmates for dd; I invited children to play at my place, I offered mothers
to look after their children, I opened my home to children.

To this day, playing is what dd does all day long, and that is what she
likes the most. She is healthy and I have nothing to complain about her.
(If I could wish, I wished that she read and wrote a little bit more...).
As she plays all day long, she leaves me time to my own reading!

I believe that one does not have to like playing with its children to become
a unschooler; one needs to believe that children are a learning machine and
be honest all the time.

love and peace, noemi fm Tokyo.

Retta Fontana

I always thought I was the only one who didn't like to play!! Now I know that I 'only wanna play what I wanna play.' Participating in a game is what I sometimes do, but that to me, isn't the purest form of 'playing.' I like the play definition of "frolic." I love to experiment with clay (hand building or wheel throwing) - but it's serious for me. I like to play with words too. That's probably as close as I come to frolicking. My repressive, abusive upbringing seriously damaged my ability to frolic really freely (not to mention my nervous system.) Sadly, we somewhat repressed our firstborn, a 15yo, but not as severely as his Dad and me got. I feel pretty badly about that, but he's more than making up for it now. Our 10yo is really free though.

My teacher told me that I'm not responsible for teaching the kids anything. I'm responsible for following my own joy, then they'll understand that it's ok to follow theirs. I offer them as much support as possible. Sometimes the 10you will play with my clay or pastels, or dough, whatever I'm playing with at the moment. We do lots of things together, but only what is joyful for both of us. Torture is useless - I had to write this on the fridge as a litmus test for unschooling for months. I was really in bad shape. I'm a Recovering Schooler.

I just read a great unschooler book, "And the children played" by Patricia Joudry. Her kids did nothing but play until they were 12, then they were insatiable for information. This helped me relax all over again. Funny book, good writer - 10yo loved it. That's one of our favorite ways of playing, reading funny books together. Atleast it feels like play to me, maybe because I was never read to.

I don't think there's much hope of me loosening up much more, but I keep investigating things that might inspire...

Retta


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