Claire Darbaud

2011/3/22 plaidpanties666 <plaidpanties666@...> in post: "Newbie
questions"

> -=- It can help to look for alternatives that aren't about "sides" but
> about helping people get what they need. -=-


I really need help in this... it's showing up everywhere in my life... Andri
(my husband) wants the kids back in school... I told him I would not force
him into unschooling against his will... he said he wants the kids back in
school in september. I feel lost and down. The kids said they really don't
want to go back and started crying. Andri says it's my fault for giving them
these ideas that school is a bad place...

I can tell learning about unschooling is the same thing as any learning. If
I push, if I try to force him, it will only cause him to resist more and
more... I know he is doing his best and he wants the best for his kids...
he's afraid if we let them free they will not learn anything and they will
blame him for turning into loosers...

Jolan (my 7 year old son) was unhappy at school. He is in 1st grade and not
the least interrested in learning to read. He found it too hard and started
to say things like "I can't do it, I'm not a good reader like the others"
and other things like that :-( I so don't want to force him to go back...
Avana (my 5 year old daughter) was bored to death in preschool. She wants to
read and write but it's not on the program yet... She said "school is way
too easy, it's boring and I don't have time for anything else"...

I litteraly feel dismembered between them... How can I shift my thinking?

And I can tell this is happening very often. I regularly feel torn between
my kid's conflictings wants. Like Jolan wants to go home and Avana wants to
stay where we are... or vice versa. Or they both scream and fight because
they want exclusive time with me, now...

There has to be something there I am not seeing... help...

Claire


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wtexans

===he said he wants the kids back in school in september. I feel lost and down. The kids said they really don't want to go back and started crying===

I have two suggestions:

(1) If at all possible, find a way for your family, or at least you and your husband, to get to an unschooling conference or gathering. Preferably where he can be around experienced, unschooling dads.

(2) Perhaps your husband would be willing for you all to homeschool using a curriculum -- either one you put together yourself, or a prepackaged one. Find out which areas of concern he has and target those areas.

If he's agreeable to homeschooling with a curriculum, be sure to find ways to keep him in the loop on what's going on while he's at work / away from home. Keep a blog or put pictures on Flickr and/or stick them on your fridge. Have an area in your house where it's okay for the kids to leave stuff out they've been building or painting or otherwise messing around with, so their dad can see some of the things they've been doing.

If reading is a concern, letter magnets on the fridge might be fun, and they're visible to everyone. If math is a concern, there are all sorts of fun ways to play around with math -- various "Junior" board games (Monopoly Jr., Sorry Jr., etc.), set up a play store and use toy money or made-up money (their dad can be a shopper!), and so forth.

Glenda

Joyce Fetteroll

On Mar 24, 2011, at 3:55 AM, Claire Darbaud wrote:

> Andri
> (my husband) wants the kids back in school...

> I know he is doing his best and he wants the best for his kids...
> he's afraid if we let them free they will not learn anything and
> they will
> blame him for turning into loosers...

Well, school is his *solution* to what's bothering him. It's not the
only solution.

What are his worries and fears? What are his two biggest fears? Ask
him :-) Write them down and take them seriously.

What can help him feel more comfortable day to day with unschooling?
What *little* things would feel like learning to him?

It's possible he's been worried for a long time and it's built up into
this big mass of confusion of worry which has exploded into his
solution (school) to put a stop to this massive worry that feels like
he has no control over. It would help you to break the worry down into
tackleable pieces.

What about a blog so he can feel more a part of the process and see
what's going on while he's away. There was a thread here recently
about blogging. If you search the archives here it should pop right up.

Joyce

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NCMama

===If you search the archives here it should pop right up.===

This may have been mentioned here (hey! I could do a search!) but the search function on yahoo groups didn't work for quite a long time - over a year! A search would return results up to a certain date, and none beyond that, or it would return no results, even if the subject was in the archives.

Search works now! I can't remember when it started working; but if you've searched unsuccessfully in the past, a search will probably be successful now.

I did a search for "blogging", and got these thorough (including recent!) results:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlwaysLearning/msearch?query=blogging&submit=Search&charset=UTF-8

Caren

Sandra Dodd

-=-I really need help in this... it's showing up everywhere in my life... Andri
(my husband) wants the kids back in school... I told him I would not force
him into unschooling against his will... he said he wants the kids back in
school in september.-=-

It's not common nor fully acceptable in France, at all. I think for now you should go with your husband's preference. It's true of any couple (and even more true with shared-custody divorces) that it's not up to just one person. The two need to agree. And at first, the agreement might need to come from you agreeing to school.

If school is as bad as you think, let that show itself without your narration. Let your husband see it, but don't try to make it more obvious than it is. If you set up an antagonistic situation with your husband, one of you will lose. Both of you will lose. The children will lose.

http://sandradodd.com/divorce

-=-The kids said they really don't want to go back and started crying. Andri says it's my fault for giving them
these ideas that school is a bad place...-=-

He might be right, in part.
I never recommend that parents vilify school. There are many reasons children might end up in school, and if they've been told school is the devil then that in itself will be more frightening than the school would be. Some kids love school. For some kids, school is more peaceful and stimulating than home. If parents are fighting and unhappy with each other, school might be better.

The way to make your homelife more appealing is to be at peace with your husband. It seems wrong and odd, but whether they're in school or not, parents who love each other are more important to their longterm lives than whether they're in school or not when they're seven.

-=- He is in 1st grade and not the least interrested in learning to read. He found it too hard and started to say things like "I can't do it,-=-

Learning to read doesn't come from an interest in learning to read. It probably was too hard. He probably couldn't do it. That doesn't mean leaving school is the answer. You could say "You'll get it someday; don't worry," and do sweet, fun things with him to distract him from his fear.

-=-Avana (my 5 year old daughter) was bored to death in preschool. She wants to
read and write but it's not on the program yet... She said "school is way
too easy, it's boring and I don't have time for anything else"...
-=-

"Bored to death" is an overstatement. Overstatements harm thinking.
if she wants to read and write but it's not on the program yet, help her read and write at home. She might not be ready for it.

You might make suggestions to her about how to amuse herself in a boring situation.

-=-I litteraly feel dismembered between them... How can I shift my thinking?-=-

By not thinking of it in terms of death and dismemberment.

-=-I regularly feel torn between
my kid's conflictings wants. Like Jolan wants to go home and Avana wants to
stay where we are... or vice versa. Or they both scream and fight because
they want exclusive time with me, now...

-=-There has to be something there I am not seeing... help...-=-

They will get older quickly. Go for peace and smiles and laughter, rather than for home education right now. Find happy ways to describe going to school. Find joyful things to do when you pick them up. Find gratitude and not doom.

Sandra







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BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

My sister just put her 9 and 7 year old back in school because of her husband.
From he begining

he was worried and wanted to see the kids "doing something".
I told my sister so many times how she could  writee down everyday what the boys
were doing. If they were reading in a game then they worked on reading, things
like that. I sent her link, she read here for a while.
She said she was going to work with the kids but never did.
She never did anything. So finally her husband  and her were fighting so much
about it that she agreed and put the kids back in school last week.
 There was a local Conference last year with a great speaker, unschooling
friendly and all. They did not go.
She did not make an effort, she righ away said it was a bad day to go.
I offer to keep the kids and all.
  Her husband's worries were not taken seriously. So for the sake of their
marriage she agreed to put the kids back in school. 

Alex Polikowsky

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Jenny Cyphers

***The kids said they really don't
want to go back and started crying. Andri says it's my fault for giving them
these ideas that school is a bad place...***

My oldest daughter never got the impression that school was a bad place. She
watched shows like Arthur, which highly emphasizes how cool and fun school is.
She was never in school. She never really questioned why she didn't go to
school. The things we did instead were fun and interesting. My younger
daughter is a bit terrified of the whole idea of school. She's never been
either, but in her own thinking and understanding, it's not something she would
enjoy at all. This is mostly based on the fact that she would be going with the
neighbor kids, all of whom she finds mean and unsavory, and the thought of
having to spend all day with them sounds like a terrible idea to her.

Both of your kids have been to school. You and your husband have both been in
school. Right at this moment, you each of your own understanding of what school
is like and what you like or dislike about it. My husband liked school, he went
to school in a small town where everyone knew everyone else. I was bored in
school and never really liked it, the bigness and noise. I went to large
suburban schools where nobody really knew each other.

There have been times that my husband defended school where I didn't. He did a
lot of questioning about my choice to not send our kids to school. Probably the
biggest thing that impacted his thinking about school and my choice to unschool,
would be the neighborhood children. The way they played, the pecking order, the
bossy play, the playground style taunting, the bullying, all of that, he saw and
recognized it for what it was and where it came from.

***I litteraly feel dismembered between them... How can I shift my thinking?***

If you have 4 people, all with differing ideas and wants and needs, it might
help to step back a bit to see how and where they each connect and fit. The
goal is to find a peaceable solution. What your husband wants is to see that
his kids are going to grow up and turn into fine young adults who are thriving.
It's a noble goal, one that he shares with lots of parents. One of the worst
parents I know wants that too. What we DO as parents, all the little things,
respecting our kids and valuing what they value, is what makes all the
difference. Schools have little impact on that. I know kids in school who
thrive there and a large part of why they do, is because their parents, even
with school in the mix, respect and value their kids. I know kids in school who
don't thrive there, and by and large, those are the kids whose parents don't
respect and value their kids.

In my experience, schools play a very small part in that. It's the parents and
their attitudes that play a bigger part.

Can the conversation shift away from school and more towards parenting goals?
That will make more of a difference with or without school in the mix. Keep
school as an option of many. It IS an option. It is there and waiting.

Just like having 2 kids with different needs in the moment, work towards a goal.
If the goal is for each person to feel a bit of peace and happiness, what you
do will be different than if your goal is to get one person what they want and
then the next person. You come away feeling pulled and pushed around moving
from one person's want to the next, never really satisfying either kid happily.
It's not that they can't take turns getting what they want, but in the moment
when each wants something seemingly opposite of each other, they both want peace
and happiness. They both would assuredly like to feel happy about their
decision, their choice, their want or need.

Work together. Think about "we" the team. The team WANTS to get along and have
fun playing. It might be a bit of a shift in thinking for a while, you might
hit a snag here or there. You may have an upset kid or husband. If you keep at
it, peaceable happy goal oriented team work will prevail.







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