Susan Burgess

Hi,
I am new to the group. I am not currently an unschooler, but I am working on it. I live in Alaska, have 3 kids, Cody ds 16, Kianne dd 11 and Holly dd 8. I am needing some help and advice on how to convince my husband that it's ok to begin homeschooling again. Without going into too much detail, I have homeschooled/unschooled in the past. My son was homeschooled, for the most part unschooled (we tried different things thru the years) until he started 6th grade and wanted to go to junior high. He was behind, quite a bit, went to Sylvan to "catch up" and has been in public school since. My 11 yr dd is now wanting to homeschool again. She also did a bit of it back in 1st and 2nd grade. And I believe my 8 yr old dd is dyslexic and I want her home also. She doesn't want to be, she enjoys being at school with her friends. My girls go to a Charter school, somewhat better than the regular public schools. The classes are multi-age, etc.
My husband doesn't "get" or agree with unschooling at all. He is saying right now to we need to make Kianne stick it out in school, she can't just quit. You can't quit things just because you don't like them. He went off on a rant saying " I don't like having to work, but I do it, I don't just quit; I don't like paying the bills, but I can't just quit" Good grief!!
He regrets letting Cody quit soccer and basketball when he was younger (no, he's not a huge sports guy) because he thinks he should have been made to stick to it. Cody now isn't involved in sports or anything much really except online computer games. He doesn't hang out with friends much, go to school social functions, etc. He plays computer and rides his 4-wheeler (with friends often) But he is definately not a social guy. So, my husband thinks if we had made him stick to things earlier, "got him out there", he would be doing more now.
Sorry, I know I'm getting off track! My mind is wandering and full of alot! My main concern right now is how to show my dh that it's ok for Kianne to want to change the way she learns. And to bring Holly home, at least part time, to ease her frustration with her struggles with dyslexia (possibly). My dh is a very intelligent guy and I need to find a way to present to him why this is ok. That I want our kids to make changes when they aren't happy, that I don't want them stuck in a job that makes them miserable just cuz they feel they have to do it. But he thinks they will just quit whenever the going gets rough.
Help! I hope I made some sense!
Thanks for listening if you made it through :-))
Susan


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 20, 2006, at 12:39 PM, Susan Burgess wrote:

> I want her home also. She doesn't want to be


Not wanting to be at school is probably the worst thing about school.
Why bring that home?

If she doesn't want to be home, homeschooling won't be good for her.



-=-That I want our kids to make changes when they aren't happy, that
I don't want them stuck in a job that makes them miserable just cuz
they feel they have to do it. But he thinks they will just quit
whenever the going gets rough. -=-

Maybe instead of trying to get us to help you change your family, you
could just read enough that you understand for yourself well enough
to explain to them why you want what you want. I get the feeling
you're not clear internally. We can't give you a dialog to use,
because they'll eventually ask the question you can't answer.

But to help you internalize more understanding, here are a few links
that might help.

First is one to help keep school from making you crazy in the meantime:
http://sandradodd.com/schoolchoice
Don't take school so seriously, and step away, emotionally, from
backing the school up. Don't get pro- or anti-school, just detach
more, maybe.

http://home.earthlink.net/~fetteroll/rejoycing/

These answers of Joyce's should give you lots of ways to defend your
beliefs, but I wouldn't start right away if I were you. Read all
those, but read more.

http://sandradodd.com/unschool/sparkly
http://sandradodd.com/peace/becoming
http://sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit
http://sandradodd.com/peace/newview

Sandra

JENNIFER MARTIN

well I'm no expert but you should do what your kids feel is right and if they are not having any bad influences in their present school and they want to stay there then they are old enough to know the right thing for them to an extent and if they want to stop going just beacuse they just don't want to go then leave them there but if there is a real reason then I would consider it for that child but not for all. Maybe let them finish out the school year and do some schooling this summer to get the feel for what they think and go from there. If they thrieve and love it and seem to have grown as a person then its something to consider keeping them at home. Good luck with the husband.

Susan Burgess <sueburgess@...> wrote: Hi,
I am new to the group. I am not currently an unschooler, but I am working on it. I live in Alaska, have 3 kids, Cody ds 16, Kianne dd 11 and Holly dd 8. I am needing some help and advice on how to convince my husband that it's ok to begin homeschooling again. Without going into too much detail, I have homeschooled/unschooled in the past. My son was homeschooled, for the most part unschooled (we tried different things thru the years) until he started 6th grade and wanted to go to junior high. He was behind, quite a bit, went to Sylvan to "catch up" and has been in public school since. My 11 yr dd is now wanting to homeschool again. She also did a bit of it back in 1st and 2nd grade. And I believe my 8 yr old dd is dyslexic and I want her home also. She doesn't want to be, she enjoys being at school with her friends. My girls go to a Charter school, somewhat better than the regular public schools. The classes are multi-age, etc.
My husband doesn't "get" or agree with unschooling at all. He is saying right now to we need to make Kianne stick it out in school, she can't just quit. You can't quit things just because you don't like them. He went off on a rant saying " I don't like having to work, but I do it, I don't just quit; I don't like paying the bills, but I can't just quit" Good grief!!
He regrets letting Cody quit soccer and basketball when he was younger (no, he's not a huge sports guy) because he thinks he should have been made to stick to it. Cody now isn't involved in sports or anything much really except online computer games. He doesn't hang out with friends much, go to school social functions, etc. He plays computer and rides his 4-wheeler (with friends often) But he is definately not a social guy. So, my husband thinks if we had made him stick to things earlier, "got him out there", he would be doing more now.
Sorry, I know I'm getting off track! My mind is wandering and full of alot! My main concern right now is how to show my dh that it's ok for Kianne to want to change the way she learns. And to bring Holly home, at least part time, to ease her frustration with her struggles with dyslexia (possibly). My dh is a very intelligent guy and I need to find a way to present to him why this is ok. That I want our kids to make changes when they aren't happy, that I don't want them stuck in a job that makes them miserable just cuz they feel they have to do it. But he thinks they will just quit whenever the going gets rough.
Help! I hope I made some sense!
Thanks for listening if you made it through :-))
Susan


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 20, 2006, at 3:55 PM, JENNIFER MARTIN wrote:

> Maybe let them finish out the school year and do some schooling
> this summer


That won't help anyone understand unschooling, to "do some schooling."

Maybe do more fun LIVING not just this summer, but tonight, tomorrow
morning, Saturday...

Enrich your homelife.

Sandra

Susan McGlohn

At 02:39 PM 3/20/2006, you wrote:
>My dh is a very intelligent guy and I need to find a way to present to him
>why this is ok. That I want our kids to make changes when they aren't
>happy, that I don't want them stuck in a job that makes them miserable
>just cuz they feel they have to do it. But he thinks they will just quit
>whenever the going gets rough.


Here's an article I wrote about quitting. Maybe if he reads it, it will
help him shift his perspective.

But I gotta tell you, that unless he *wants* to shift, it ain't gonna happen.


Does Quitting Have to be Final? by Susan McGlohn, 2003

The ongoing joke while growing up around my parents’ house was that I only
joined clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities until I could
get the team t-shirt, then I would quit. It was certainly true that I
tried a lot of different activities while growing up, from girl scouts to
cross country running to the marching band, and I had a very impressive
t-shirt collection by the time I graduated high school here in Virginia.

As an adult, it hasn’t gotten much better. I dropped out of college in the
middle of my sophomore year. I quit smoking. I quit my job when I had
children. I pulled my kids out of preschool to homeschool them. I even
joined karate a few years ago when my older children did, only to drop out
after a few months because it was too hard to attend classes with a very
active 2 year old (still have the cool t-shirt though).

So what about quitting? Isn’t that a bad thing? Won’t it make children
lazy, self-centered, and unfocused? I have heard the argument that
children must be made to finish what they start, even if they don’t want
to. I have heard that it builds character, and teaches them
perseverance. Have you ever watched a baby learning to walk? No one had
to teach that child perseverance. He falls down a thousand times, hits his
head on the coffee table, and tumbles off the foyer landing into the family
room over and over, but keeps getting back up and trying again.

We’ve all seen it before. The 4yo who sits on the side of the pool
screaming and crying through the swimming lesson making it hard for the
rest of the kids to hear….the 8yo who scowls and refuses to participate in
practice while the parent, throwing apologetic looks to the coach,
wheedles, bribes, and threatens the child in front of everyone to have a
good attitude and play. Most of the time these are activities that the
parent decided would be fun for the child, not because the child initiated
the interest or expressed any desire to participate. Then the money and
time invested are held up to the child as being more important to the
parent than the child’s abilities or interests or feelings. I have come to
realize, through my own errors, that forced participation teaches my
children only two things: resentment for the one forcing them, and a
strong dislike for the activity they are being forced to complete.

Adults quit things all the time. We call it prioritizing. We drop one
activity in order to focus on another. We also don't eat foods we don’t
like. Quitting something that is unhealthy, or that takes up too much of
our time, or that we aren’t very good at, can be a sign of maturity, of
recognizing personal limitations, of realizing that we don’t enjoy the
activity as much as we thought we would.

One of the biggest benefits of home schooling is that it allows our
children to explore the entire world, to pick up activities and look at
them, and if they don’t fit just right, put it down again and try
another. Like a person trying to build a jigsaw puzzle, and trying a
variety of pieces until they find the ones that fit, it might take our
children some time to find the activities that they enjoy and excel at.

My two oldest children have, in their few years, tried soccer, piano, art
lessons, ballet, tennis, karate, various playgroups, swimming lessons,
games clubs, volleyball, basketball, co-op classes, and a couple youth
groups. They have explored making movies, writing books and scripts,
building models, cooking and baking, computer games, woodworking, and
running various businesses of their own design. Many of their interests
wax and wane almost as often as the moon does, and a few of them are as
constant as the stars.

Sometimes it is a matter of timing. That puzzle piece might fit
eventually, when we are farther along in the assembly of the jigsaw
puzzle. Leaving room for growth and maturity before returning to an
activity can be a good thing! Most activities and interests can be put
aside for a while and picked back up again sometime in the future.

My daughter insisted she wanted to quit karate about 18 months ago. We
suggested we just "freeze" her membership at the karate school for a while,
and if she still wanted nothing to do with it in 6 months, we would
formally close the membership there. Wouldn't you know, she changed her
mind again about 4 months later, and even got a trophy in the karate
tournament that year.

She badly sprained her ankle a couple months later, and was out of karate
again for 4 months, and we froze the membership again. When she felt her
ankle was strong enough, she returned, and has been thoroughly enjoying it,
sometimes going 4 times a week when she can. She came in first place in
her age and belt division this year at the tournament.

If we had insisted that she continue because we had invested X amount of
money, or continue until a holiday or other arbitrary mark on the calendar,
she would have resented every extra moment spent there, and never returned
to it again.

Another example: Sarah begged for piano lessons when she was 7. By the
time she was 8 and a half, she hated it so much. The writing required in
the theory books was too much for her, and she didn’t want to practice
every day, so we let her quit.

This past summer my 11yo son wanted to take piano, and we found a piano
teacher through sharenet that actually comes to our house, and is very
inexpensive as far as piano lessons go, so I threw it on the table for
Sarah as well. I suggested to her that since the teacher was already
coming to the house, and we could have two lessons back to back, why not
give it just till the end of the summer. I left it totally up to
her. Guess what? She has found that she loves it now. I don't have to
tell either of them to practice; in fact, I have to ask them to stop sometimes!

But what about quitting when others depend upon us? Like in team sports or
drama productions? How can we teach our children to fulfill obligations in
these instances? If my child were truly an integral part of a team, or
had a lead part in a play, I would discuss the situation with him, and let
him know what was going to happen after he quit. Perhaps together we could
work out a solution so that others aren’t let down, but my child’s desire
to move on is also respected. Setting a date such as after the big game,
or after the play production might be acceptable.

But let’s be honest, here. Most kids who are good at sports and are key
players on a team don’t want to quit; it is the ones who are the bench
warmers, or who are awkward on the playing field and realize their time
could be better spent pursuing other interests are the ones that usually
want to quit. We have all been told, and Disney movies have been made to
prove, that no one person is the star on a team. Dropping out shouldn’t
cause the team to lose the championship unless they were going to lose
anyway. Drama clubs usually have understudies preparing for the major
roles in case of illness or accident, and minor roles are usually just
added in so that everyone gets a part and aren’t left out.

Deciding to allow our children the right to quit takes a lot of faith in
their ability to choose for themselves what their interests are. It means
making up our minds not to hold any obligations on our part against them,
such as money or time already invested. If we have purchased expensive
equipment, can we resell it and recoup some of our loss? Can we get a
refund on the remaining classes? If our child quits the team, will the
team really be without someone to take their position?

My challenge to you is to stop viewing quitting as a door closing and an
opportunity lost. Instead, it is a door opening and time being released to
be used to explore new interests and an opportunity for our children to
expand their knowledge and skills in other directions.

Yes, I quit marching band, but I remained in the orchestra and to this day
love playing my flute. Yes I quit cross-country running, but I then
joined the editing team of the school literary magazine. Yes, I quit
college, but I then graduated with honors from Katherine Gibbs Secretarial
School and was making $20K a year before my classmates were even out of
college, and I learned shorthand as well. Yes, I quit sending my kids to
school, but discovered that education was so much more than what could be
contained in a concrete building and taught between 9-3 five days a week,
ten months a year.

What opportunities and adventures are awaiting your kids? Why don’t you
quit and find out?


Susan M (VA)
http://radicalchristianunschool.homestead.com/index.html




"Real, natural learning is in the living. It's in the observing, the
questioning, the examining, the pondering, the analyzing, the watching, the
reading, the DO-ing, the living, the breathing, the loving, the Joy. It's
in the Joy." ~Anne Ohman






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 20, 2006, at 5:11 PM, Susan McGlohn wrote:

-=-Adults quit things all the time. We call it prioritizing. We
drop one
activity in order to focus on another. We also don't eat foods we don’t
like. Quitting something that is unhealthy, or that takes up too
much of
our time, or that we aren’t very good at, can be a sign of maturity, of
recognizing personal limitations, of realizing that we don’t enjoy the
activity as much as we thought we would.-=-


Susan, you should put that article on a page at your unschooling
site! Or is it already somewhere online?

Sandra

Susan McGlohn

At 07:28 PM 3/20/2006, you wrote:

>On Mar 20, 2006, at 5:11 PM, Susan McGlohn wrote:
>
>-=-Adults quit things all the time. We call it prioritizing. .-=-
>
>
>Susan, you should put that article on a page at your unschooling
>site! Or is it already somewhere online?


The article was also in LiveFreeLearnFree, and maybe Life Learning. I
can't remember.

It actually sounds almost too schooly to me now when I read it. I wrote
it after only one year of unschooling, and I was still "knocking the school
water out of my ears", so to speak. But for a dad who isn't there yet, it
might help.

I am in the process of making my website more unschooly. LOL! I just
updated the picture on the homepage so it reflects more of our real life,
rather than that family portrait with Grandma from a few years ago. I'm in
the process of replacing those unit study pages with real unschooling
stuff, too.

I don't know how people find time to make such cool websites, though. I
started working on it Sunday afternoon and suddenly 3 hours had zoomed by!

I'm going to eventually add some stuff about unschooling without labels,
and a few more of my articles. I would love to do a Monty Python type
graphic with all the label words spiralling down into a flushing toilet.




Susan (in VA)
wife to VegMan (aka Ted) since 12/86
momma to Sarah (10/89), Andrew (6/91), and Aaron (3/98)

"It's a small world....but a BIG life!" ~ Aaron, age 6

http://radicalchristianunschool.homestead.com/index.html



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Angela S.

Susan,
I love your post on quitting. I have always been one to try things and then
move on to something else when my interest wanes. It hasn't been a problem
for me yet. When I was in the work place, I was always a valuable employee
because I have a strong work ethic. If I found the job was no longer what I
needed at the time, I always found another one before I left the first one.


Angela ~ jack of all trades, master of none.
game-enthusiast@...

Lesa ODaniel

==We�ve all seen it before. The 4yo who sits on the side of the pool
screaming and crying through the swimming lesson making it hard for the
rest of the kids to hear�.the 8yo who scowls and refuses to participate in
practice while the parent, throwing apologetic looks to the coach,
wheedles, bribes, and threatens the child in front of everyone to have a
good attitude and play. Most of the time these are activities that the
parent decided would be fun for the child, not because the child initiated
the interest or expressed any desire to participate. Then the money and
time invested are held up to the child as being more important to the
parent than the child�s abilities or interests or feelings. I have come to
realize, through my own errors, that forced participation teaches my
children only two things: resentment for the one forcing them, and a
strong dislike for the activity they are being forced to complete.==

What a great perspective on quitting. I have often questioned how I would
handle my children quitting an activity before it's "finished", but this
reminded me of the horrible experiences I had growing up. My mother was
painfully shy (and developed agoraphobia later on) so she forced me into
many activities just for the "socialization" she thought I was lacking. It
just so happened I preferred playing alone most of the time or staying
indoors doing other activities. I had friends I could join when I wanted to,
but I just chose not to be social most of the time. She was so afraid that I
would develop what she had that she thought she'd force me to do the
opposite.

The end result was me hating being forced into these social situations
because I knew why I was there. I just stood there most of the time with my
hands in my pockets refusing to make small talk. To this day, I hate small
talk and I don't know how to do it "successfully". Even though I finished
all the activities (girl scout summer camps, dance classes, various sports,
etc.), it didn't change how I felt about them and it didn't change how I
felt about being social. Well, maybe it made me hate socializing even more
than I already did - and I'm not some hermit holed up in her house every day
:)

Lesa O'Daniel, AAHCC
Instructor, Bradley Method� of Natural Childbirth
323-541-5515
http://www.bradleybirth.com/ndweb.asp?ID=O123&Count=N

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