C Johnson

I know I do not post very often, so I will reintroduce myself. My name is Chrissie and I live in Oklahoma. I have two children, 8 yro daughter and a 5 yro son whom I have been unschooling since I pulled my daughter out of kindergarten.

I have been trying to educate my mother about the way we do school. Would you mind sharing with me what some of your children are doing as teenagers or as adults so I can share the information with my mother. She has been getting more and more receptive to our unschooling lifestyle.

Thank you,
Chrissie


"All you have to decide is what to do with the time you have been given." Gandalf

---------------------------------
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[email protected]

In a message dated 7/5/05 3:02:56 PM, piscesmomx3@... writes:


> .  Would you mind sharing with me what some of your children are doing as
> teenagers or as adults so I can share the information with my mother.
>

http://sandradodd.com/teens
http://sandradodd.com/kirby
http://sandradodd.com/marty
http://sandradodd.com/holly

All mine are teens now. That first link is more other peoples' teens than
mine.



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J. Stauffer

<<< Would you mind sharing with me what some of your children are doing as
teenagers or as adults so I can share the information with my mother. >>>

My dd is 14 and has been unschooling herself for 8 years. She is a
competitive gymnast and works out 15 hours per week. She also works at the
gym as much as she can. She is very involved in 4-H. She has held pretty
much every office available. She raises goats and rabbits and auctions them
off. She uses the money to then pay for some of her gymnastics expenses,
like camp, that were beyond our means.

Most importantly, Adriane is a happy teenager. She is funny, kind, honest.
She is the kid that her friends' moms want to have around as a good
influence. She is responsible and understanding.....and she can cuss like a
sailor when she is mad <grin>.

Julie S.
----- Original Message -----
From: "C Johnson" <piscesmomx3@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 4:02 PM
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] children's future


>I know I do not post very often, so I will reintroduce myself. My name is
>Chrissie and I live in Oklahoma. I have two children, 8 yro daughter and a
>5 yro son whom I have been unschooling since I pulled my daughter out of
>kindergarten.
>
> I have been trying to educate my mother about the way we do school. Would
> you mind sharing with me what some of your children are doing as teenagers
> or as adults so I can share the information with my mother. She has been
> getting more and more receptive to our unschooling lifestyle.
>
> Thank you,
> Chrissie
>
>
> "All you have to decide is what to do with the time you have been given."
> Gandalf
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail Mobile
> Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[email protected]

> <<< Would you mind sharing with me what some of your children are doing as
> teenagers or as adults so I can share the information with my mother. >>>
>

After Holly spent a month in England with another family we've known for
years, their neighbor who lives on a houseboat on the Thames near them was talking
about Holly. He hung out with her three times, I think; met her at the
house, took the family for a ride on the river, and came to her going away party.
His name is Marco, and he's half Italian and half Irish.

Anyway, he said "In a few years Holly will be unstoppable."

The hostess mom told me she said to Marco, "In a few YEARS? Open your eyes,
man!"

I used to worry strongly about what would happen if I died, when my kids were
eight and ten and unschooled. I was very fearful of leaving the in the
lurch partway through the project. But as each has turned 14, give or take a
year, the whole worry flowed out of me regarding that child. Each of them
blossomed HUGELY right after the rough early puberty, and I think that right
at this moment any of them would make it fine without parents. I wouldn't
think the same of the schooled teens I know around me, who are suspicious and
resentful of adults, who avoid eye contact and have learned to just say what
they have to say to get adults to ignore them too.

My kids are, by contrast, direct and cheery, honest and responsible.

Often I'll look at them through the lens of something I'm reading about or
thinking, or a period movie I've watched. Could the boys be sailors or
soldiers in they were in another place and time? Easily. They would be among
the best, if they had good reason to go and do those things. Either of them,
right now, would make good parents. Holly's still a little young, at 13, but
there are times in which she'd've been in the early stages of arranged
marriages, and could she do that? Yes. She's physically young, but she's
emotionally and mentally more aware of social issues and human factors than many
adults, and she's not thinking maybe she understands it, she knows she has some
clear understandings.

She knows.

That feeling of fakery and fraud that people have talked about for the past
few decades seems absent in these kids. What they don't know doesn't scare
them, and what they do know is solid.

Sandra




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J. Stauffer

<<<< Each of them
blossomed HUGELY right after the rough early puberty, and I think that right
at this moment any of them would make it fine without parents. >>>>

Hi Sandra,

Would you mind talking about that "rough early puberty"? My 12 yo son is
really having a tough time and we are haivng trouble balancing his right to
self-determination and the rest of the family's right to self-preservation.
My other kids have truly thrived with unschooling...it has been easy and
natural. With Zach, I feel that I am always being backed into a corner by
the way he treats family members to be much more controlling than I want to
be, than I am with anyone else.

Julie S.---trying to find the balance
----- Original Message -----
From: <SandraDodd@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] children's future


>
>> <<< Would you mind sharing with me what some of your children are doing
>> as
>> teenagers or as adults so I can share the information with my mother. >>>
>>
>
> After Holly spent a month in England with another family we've known for
> years, their neighbor who lives on a houseboat on the Thames near them was
> talking
> about Holly. He hung out with her three times, I think; met her at the
> house, took the family for a ride on the river, and came to her going away
> party.
> His name is Marco, and he's half Italian and half Irish.
>
> Anyway, he said "In a few years Holly will be unstoppable."
>
> The hostess mom told me she said to Marco, "In a few YEARS? Open your
> eyes,
> man!"
>
> I used to worry strongly about what would happen if I died, when my kids
> were
> eight and ten and unschooled. I was very fearful of leaving the in the
> lurch partway through the project. But as each has turned 14, give
> or take a
> year, the whole worry flowed out of me regarding that child. Each of
> them
> blossomed HUGELY right after the rough early puberty, and I think that
> right
> at this moment any of them would make it fine without parents. I
> wouldn't
> think the same of the schooled teens I know around me, who are suspicious
> and
> resentful of adults, who avoid eye contact and have learned to just say
> what
> they have to say to get adults to ignore them too.
>
> My kids are, by contrast, direct and cheery, honest and responsible.
>
> Often I'll look at them through the lens of something I'm reading about or
> thinking, or a period movie I've watched. Could the boys be sailors or
> soldiers in they were in another place and time? Easily. They would be
> among
> the best, if they had good reason to go and do those things. Either of
> them,
> right now, would make good parents. Holly's still a little young, at
> 13, but
> there are times in which she'd've been in the early stages of arranged
> marriages, and could she do that? Yes. She's physically young, but
> she's
> emotionally and mentally more aware of social issues and human factors
> than many
> adults, and she's not thinking maybe she understands it, she knows she has
> some
> clear understandings.
>
> She knows.
>
> That feeling of fakery and fraud that people have talked about for the
> past
> few decades seems absent in these kids. What they don't know doesn't
> scare
> them, and what they do know is solid.
>
> Sandra
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[email protected]

In a message dated 7/6/05 12:05:48 PM, jnjstau@... writes:


>
> Would you mind talking about that "rough early puberty"?
>

I wrote "right after rough early puberty," but I didn't mean "early puberty"
(though it was a ambiguous, sorry). I meant the rough early days of puberty.

With my kids (probably with LOTS of kids), the early days of puberty
coincided with some frustration about feeling they didn't know all that the schoolkids
their age knew. But once the throes of body growth were over, or at least
when they were accustomed to them, and their friends at school had started to
throw in the towel and envy their unschooled acquaintances, and they all had
moved into the phase where the company of other teens was more important than
"being a good kid," then there came a comfortable and confident time.

-=-With Zach, I feel that I am always being backed into a corner by
the way he treats family members to be much more controlling than I want to
be, than I am with anyone else.
-=-

If anything's happening "always," change your strategy. If what you're
saying or doing isn't working, what can you do differently? Could you mediate
between him and others? Role-play? Reason/condition/negotiate? Send him
to live with another family for a while? (He might appreciate home more
when he gets back, or might have had time to think more clearly about what he
wants/needs.)

Sandra




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Elizabeth Hill

**

My kids are, by contrast, direct and cheery, honest and responsible.**

My kid (11) is too. And I'll add in "affectionate". This seems to be a fine combination for charming grandparents. Because, undoubtedly, the grandparents thought that homeschooling would lead to "being different" in a stigmatized and unpleasant way. (I'm sure this was a big boogeyman fear for them.) Instead I provide them with a grandchild who is nicer and happier than average, and more comfortable talking to adults. This seems to please them. :-)

Betsy

Nanci Kuykendall

>I used to worry strongly about what would happen if
>I died, when my kids were eight and ten and
>unschooled. ...........
> Each of them blossomed HUGELY right after the rough
>early puberty, and I think that right at this moment
>any of them would make it fine without parents. I
>wouldn't think the same of the schooled teens I know
>around me, who are suspicious and resentful of
>adults, who avoid eye contact and have learned to
>just say what they have to say to get adults to
>ignore them too.

On our (ahem) interesting recent family camping trip,
which we take each year pretty much solely so that our
family can see the other extended families' children
that we seldom get to see, there was some interesting
similar conversation about "teens" by the other
adults. There were the typical meant to be amusing
comments about this or that person's uncomfortable
teen years, with no mention given to WHY they might
have been angry, or angsty or "difficult." There
followed the typical comments about this quality being
"universal" to all teens all over the world to be
cagey and sly and at emotional war with their parents.
I kept my mouth shut, as that was the best response
in that setting with those people.

Some of these same adults are the ones who forced
their very well behaved 8 and 10 year old girls into
bed at an arbitrary time, crying, during a holiday
camping trip with seldom seen relatives they wanted to
see. The 8 year old, who has more sauce in her than
her older sister, would climb in my lap and whisper to
me about wanting to stay up or steeling herself to not
be moved. I was sympathetic, but unable to help her
escape. The reason given was that they "looked
exhausted" and their parents "won't have them being
cranky" the next day. Cranky and crying at bedtime is
preferable I guess. Of course the adults were all
tired too, staying up too late to visit, and several
of them drinking far too much, but no one ordered them
to stop or go to bed. My own boys (7 and 8) stayed up
as late as the wanted, as usual, and were not any more
or less cranky than anyone else.

>My kids are, by contrast, direct and cheery, honest
>and responsible.
>Sandra

This also brought to mind the overall bearing of my
aforementioned neices over the recent holiday:
reticent to talk to adults, hesitant to express their
desires, and in particular the case of the 8 year old,
usually looking forlorn and moody. I had to coax her
to share her thoughts and needs, in whispers, when I
could tell she wanted something. I'm so sad for them
and wonder what it will be like as they get older and
more independent and able to assert themselves.

Nanci K.

Nanci K.

With Zach, I feel that I am always being backed into a corner by
> the way he treats family members to be much more controlling than
I want to
> be, than I am with anyone else.
>
> Julie S.---trying to find the balance

That's me as well Julie. My 8 year old is high functioning
autistic, (or whatever label of the week, we don't really care
except to help him and us understand himself and his needs.) I end
up having to give him more structure, but he's not able to ask for
it in so many words as other people's kids have. He's very verbal,
but he has typical fuzzy high functioning autistic communication
problems with abstracts, social communication, awareness of his
needs and feelings, appropriateness with others verbally and
physically, stopping when someone says stop, and so forth. He's
just happier and more balanced and better able to cope with the rest
of us with a bit more structure than I am comfortable giving him. I
constantly wrestle with myself about not wanting to "go there" but
him needing me to.

Nanci K.

Burton Bunch

*****There followed the typical comments about this quality being
"universal" to all teens all over the world to be
cagey and sly and at emotional war with their parents.******



We had this happen at a family birthday party/reunion with many of the teens
sitting in with the group. When the above comment and others like it were
made I spoke up to say how very cool and unlike that I found my teenager to
be. It was just enough to make the conversation stop momentarily and head
back more in a positive vein even though I ultimately got the "you are just
lucky then" speech and the roll of the eyes to indicate the tough stuff was
yet to come.

Jin



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Nanci Kuykendall
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 15:54
To: [email protected]
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] children's future



_____



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