Limited interests.
cathsarwood
Before I get to my question, here is some background: I have a son aged 5 and a daughter aged 1. My son has never been in school (the legal "school age" here is 5 and most children start school at 4) and I've been learning about unschooling for about three years.
My son is rather quirky. He doesn't play like other children his age (that I know) and tends to focus on one or two interests for weeks or months at a time. I don't mean being fascinated with a topic he could dive into, like dinosaurs. I mean doing something quite repetitive and unvarying. For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS. He spends hours every day doing this. His other main interest at the moment is the washing machine. He asks to do laundry many times a day and if there is no laundry to do he puts whatever clothes he can find in the machine and twirls the drum around with his hand. He wants to do these things even when we're not at home, eg when we go to the supermarket he wants to bring the Nintendo to shout at, when he goes to Grandma's house he always wants to do her laundry.
My problem is that this really doesn't seem like a rich unschooling
life. When I first began learning about unschooling, my son was only 2 I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing all sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc but instead, as my husband put it, "his only interests are the washing machine and bellowing". I would love to do more with him but I just don't know what. If I could understand what he was getting out of these activities I would find it easier to think of other things that might interest him but I find him quite mysterious. My daughter has not yet said her first word but I find it easier to
understand, play with and communicate with her than with my son. I feel anxious and disconnected from my son.
I realise that I'm the one who needs to change, but I'm not sure what
the change needs to be. Should I be working harder to offer a wide
range of things to do, in the hope that something will catch his
interest? Or should I be more relaxed about what he is doing and trust that he must be learning something, even if it isn't clear what? Or both, or something else?
Thank you all for your time.
Catherine Woodward
My son is rather quirky. He doesn't play like other children his age (that I know) and tends to focus on one or two interests for weeks or months at a time. I don't mean being fascinated with a topic he could dive into, like dinosaurs. I mean doing something quite repetitive and unvarying. For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS. He spends hours every day doing this. His other main interest at the moment is the washing machine. He asks to do laundry many times a day and if there is no laundry to do he puts whatever clothes he can find in the machine and twirls the drum around with his hand. He wants to do these things even when we're not at home, eg when we go to the supermarket he wants to bring the Nintendo to shout at, when he goes to Grandma's house he always wants to do her laundry.
My problem is that this really doesn't seem like a rich unschooling
life. When I first began learning about unschooling, my son was only 2 I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing all sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc but instead, as my husband put it, "his only interests are the washing machine and bellowing". I would love to do more with him but I just don't know what. If I could understand what he was getting out of these activities I would find it easier to think of other things that might interest him but I find him quite mysterious. My daughter has not yet said her first word but I find it easier to
understand, play with and communicate with her than with my son. I feel anxious and disconnected from my son.
I realise that I'm the one who needs to change, but I'm not sure what
the change needs to be. Should I be working harder to offer a wide
range of things to do, in the hope that something will catch his
interest? Or should I be more relaxed about what he is doing and trust that he must be learning something, even if it isn't clear what? Or both, or something else?
Thank you all for your time.
Catherine Woodward
Schuyler
>>Should I be working harder to offer a widerange of things to do, in the hope that something will catch hisinterest? Or should I be more relaxed about what he is doing and trust that he must be learning something, even if it isn't clear what? Or both, or something else?<<
You should be working to offer things that will interest him. He's clearly interested in what he's doing, he can't help learning, help him to find more ways to play with the ideas he's playing with. He's exploring something that you don't know about, so maybe it would be learning for you to figure out what is fascinating him.
Have you seen this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_viuM_sEOOU? What about Stomp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu15Ou-jKM0? or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU25GCqE6RM.%c2%a0
I would look for things varying things that make a good noise. Noises are cool. Maybe you could go to parks with a stick and walk by fences and make that fabulous noise. Or turn a bike upside down and put cards in the spokes and then move the wheels so that you get that clicking noise. Or you could make a rubber band guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFB8f60PjIo. Oh, water in bottles and you blow over the top, or glasses with varying amounts of water that you hit with a spoon.
Washing machines are pretty cool, too. Maybe you could see if a local museum has a mangle. Or a washboard. Maybe you could combine music and laundry by getting him a washboard to play with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAexBL5eToE has a wonderful washboard. Or look on Craig's List for a dead washing machine to take apart so that he could see the parts of it, if that was a bit of his interest. What about going to a laundromat? A room full of washing machines and driers.
>>I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing all sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc<<Someone once wrote about going to an alternative school where the children were playing outside all day long and not sitting in a room with a computer and that she envied what her children were not. It is a costly thing that envy. It can end with you resenting your child for being something other than who you wanted them to be and end with your child having both dissatisfaction with who they are and a deep resentment toward you. It is better to let go of an image of who your child ought to be and to learn to embrace who they are. Let go of that imagined 5 year old boy and hang out with the real one in front of you.
Schuyler
----- Original Message -----
From: cathsarwood <cswoodward@...>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Sent: Monday, 7 January 2013, 7:51
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Limited interests.
Before I get to my question, here is some background: I have a son aged 5 and a daughter aged 1. My son has never been in school (the legal "school age" here is 5 and most children start school at 4) and I've been learning about unschooling for about three years.
My son is rather quirky. He doesn't play like other children his age (that I know) and tends to focus on one or two interests for weeks or months at a time. I don't mean being fascinated with a topic he could dive into, like dinosaurs. I mean doing something quite repetitive and unvarying. For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS. He spends hours every day doing this. His other main interest at the moment is the washing machine. He asks to do laundry many times a day and if there is no laundry to do he puts whatever clothes he can find in the machine and twirls the drum around with his hand. He wants to do these things even when we're not at home, eg when we go to the supermarket he wants to bring the Nintendo to shout
at, when he goes to Grandma's house he always wants to do her laundry.
My problem is that this really doesn't seem like a rich unschooling
life. When I first began learning about unschooling, my son was only 2 – I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing all sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc but instead, as my husband put it, "his only interests are the washing machine and bellowing". I would love to do more with him but I just don't know what. If I could understand what he was getting out of these activities I would find it easier to think of other things that might interest him but I find him quite mysterious. My daughter has not yet said her first word but I find it easier to
understand, play with and communicate with her than with my son. I feel anxious and disconnected from my son.
I realise that I'm the one who needs to change, but I'm not sure what
the change needs to be. Should I be working harder to offer a wide
range of things to do, in the hope that something will catch his
interest? Or should I be more relaxed about what he is doing and trust that he must be learning something, even if it isn't clear what? Or both, or something else?
Thank you all for your time.
Catherine Woodward
------------------------------------
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Karen
>>>>>For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS.<<<<<This stood out for me because it sounds like my husband. He spent more than two years thinking about the sound of dishes breaking. Almost every time we sat down to eat together he would start clinking plates and cups in various positions on the table, on each other, on the floor. I built a makeshift sound lab for him in the basement on an area of concrete floor, and he and my son set up stop motion camera and recorder and broke dish after dish purchased from second hand shops. My husband watched the videos over and over and analyzed every piece of sound graph he captured. He matched the motion from the videos to the peeks and valleys on the graphs frame by painstaking frame :-)
He works at a university in the computer science department. He wasn't doing this because it's his job. It's his job because that's what he does...with nearly everything. It's how he learned to play every note in every Rush song ever recorded. It's how he works at being top of his league in Starcraft II. It's definitely why he excels at his work.
Maybe...think of your son as a little experimenter and feed his experiments. You could find software that records and analyzes the sounds he is making. He might find that fascinating. There are a lot of cool spinning toys your son might get a kick out of. Snap circuits has one that launches a spinning disc into the air. That might surprise him. Records spin and make sound at the same time! A laundromat might be a fun trip for him, especially if you save up quite a few loads to bring with you.
Your son sounds like an interesting little dude! Enjoy the adventure!!
Karen
I meant to add a Youtube link to my husband's dish breaking adventure. I thought it might help you see things in a different light:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nHH8N_lNZzI#!
He has many multi-year fixations that are a lot of fun to watch. If you click on his name you will see more. The squishy ball is a favourite of mine. We all found the motion of that crazy thing fascinating for a long, long time :-)
Karen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nHH8N_lNZzI#!
He has many multi-year fixations that are a lot of fun to watch. If you click on his name you will see more. The squishy ball is a favourite of mine. We all found the motion of that crazy thing fascinating for a long, long time :-)
Karen.
--- In [email protected], "Karen" wrote:
>
> >>>>>For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS.<<<<<
>
> This stood out for me because it sounds like my husband. He spent more than two years thinking about the sound of dishes breaking. Almost every time we sat down to eat together he would start clinking plates and cups in various positions on the table, on each other, on the floor. I built a makeshift sound lab for him in the basement on an area of concrete floor, and he and my son set up stop motion camera and recorder and broke dish after dish purchased from second hand shops. My husband watched the videos over and over and analyzed every piece of sound graph he captured. He matched the motion from the videos to the peeks and valleys on the graphs frame by painstaking frame :-)
>
> He works at a university in the computer science department. He wasn't doing this because it's his job. It's his job because that's what he does...with nearly everything. It's how he learned to play every note in every Rush song ever recorded. It's how he works at being top of his league in Starcraft II. It's definitely why he excels at his work.
>
> Maybe...think of your son as a little experimenter and feed his experiments. You could find software that records and analyzes the sounds he is making. He might find that fascinating. There are a lot of cool spinning toys your son might get a kick out of. Snap circuits has one that launches a spinning disc into the air. That might surprise him. Records spin and make sound at the same time! A laundromat might be a fun trip for him, especially if you save up quite a few loads to bring with you.
>
> Your son sounds like an interesting little dude! Enjoy the adventure!!
>
Schuyler
There is a cool nintendo ds game called electroplankton. You might be able to get a hold of it on ebay. There is a section of it where you can record your voice and by choosing the plankton that you wish to play back with, it will manipulate your voice in various ways. Playing it backwards, and different ways. If I could find my copy I'd tell you the options. It's like an acoustic equivalent of a fun fair mirror. Here's a copy of electroplankton being used in connection with a couple of korg electronics in very interesting ways: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP2ZVNnl1pQ. Electroplankton might give him something else to do with sound and his ds. Recording sounds and playing them back are very satisfying. You might want to look into getting him a sampler that allows him to manipulate the sound in lots and lots of ways.
Acoustics are very interesting things. Your understanding isn't really required for him to be interested in engaging with the sounds of his environment.
Schuyler
Acoustics are very interesting things. Your understanding isn't really required for him to be interested in engaging with the sounds of his environment.
Schuyler
Pam Sorooshian
> >>I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing allYou are grieving an imaginary perfect son? Try to move on to appreciating
> sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting
> museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc<<
the quirky son you have.
Maybe he'd enjoy some Bobby McFerrin - the master of mouth noises. Here is
a link to a video of Bobby McFerrin and Michael Winslow doing mouth
noises...he might enjoy it. Find more Bobby McFerrin - he's really amazing.
-pam
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Sandra Dodd
-=-I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing all sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc but instead, as my husband put it, "his only interests are the washing machine and bellowing". I would love to do more with him but I just don't know what.-=-
Two ideas that came to mind were 1) visiting a coin-operated laundry (do you have a sleeping bag, or a rug, or heavy blanket, or something that could use a larger washing machine? Or you could go in there, casually stroll about, get candy or a soda from the vending machine... and 2) dying something in the washing machine. If you run soap and bleach in the next load afterwards, you can get the dye out. If you set a timer, you can restart the wash cycle several times, so the dye stays in with the garment longer before the rinse cycle comes. Sometimes I reset it three times, for four wash cycles, and the let it rinse. Then I run the cycle again, cold water, just water without soap. Then while the newly dyed cloth is drying, I run the machine with bleach and soap.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Two ideas that came to mind were 1) visiting a coin-operated laundry (do you have a sleeping bag, or a rug, or heavy blanket, or something that could use a larger washing machine? Or you could go in there, casually stroll about, get candy or a soda from the vending machine... and 2) dying something in the washing machine. If you run soap and bleach in the next load afterwards, you can get the dye out. If you set a timer, you can restart the wash cycle several times, so the dye stays in with the garment longer before the rinse cycle comes. Sometimes I reset it three times, for four wash cycles, and the let it rinse. Then I run the cycle again, cold water, just water without soap. Then while the newly dyed cloth is drying, I run the machine with bleach and soap.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Bernadette Lynn
On 6 January 2013 21:51, cathsarwood <cswoodward@...> wrote:
Maybe he'd enjoy some musical instruments - a kazoo to shout through, or a
football rattle to whirl around. You can get tubes which you whirl around
to make a noise, they can be fun. Drums make good noises if you get nice
ones - a set of bongoes for different tones (we got some in Ikea a few
years ago which had good resonance). Or wood blocks. You can get keyboards
with recording functions built in, and some of them can play percussion
instead of notes.
My children used to love shouting in tunnels and multi-storey car parks,
for the echo. There's a park near us with a pedestrian underpass leading to
it where they could safely shout - and I could stand just outside if the
noise got too overwhelming for me. Tunnel slides are also good to shout
down, if there aren't any other people trying to use them.
Bernadette.
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> For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making============================
> different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of
> crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on
> the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS.
Maybe he'd enjoy some musical instruments - a kazoo to shout through, or a
football rattle to whirl around. You can get tubes which you whirl around
to make a noise, they can be fun. Drums make good noises if you get nice
ones - a set of bongoes for different tones (we got some in Ikea a few
years ago which had good resonance). Or wood blocks. You can get keyboards
with recording functions built in, and some of them can play percussion
instead of notes.
My children used to love shouting in tunnels and multi-storey car parks,
for the echo. There's a park near us with a pedestrian underpass leading to
it where they could safely shout - and I could stand just outside if the
noise got too overwhelming for me. Tunnel slides are also good to shout
down, if there aren't any other people trying to use them.
Bernadette.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Gwen Montoya
What about taking your son to a laundry mat? That could be really fun!! Rows and rows of washing machines.
Or what about going to an appliance store?
Gwen
Or what about going to an appliance store?
Gwen
CarenKH
=-=For about the past three months his main interest seems to be making different kinds of loud noises (eg wordless shouting, dropping a box of crayons on the floor and clattering them about, or drumming his heels on the stairs) and recording them on his Nintendo DS.=-=
I don't know if it's on the DS, but included on the DSi and 3DS there is a function called "sound" that will record, then manipulate sounds - play them backwards, speed them up, slow them down. We've had lots and lots of fun with that!
I'd help him find lots of different things to make all kinds of sounds: rocks, dried beans, beads, empty cans, Legos, pots & pans, cotton balls. Can he hear a pin drop? What about a pen? Or a hog pen? ;)
Caren
I don't know if it's on the DS, but included on the DSi and 3DS there is a function called "sound" that will record, then manipulate sounds - play them backwards, speed them up, slow them down. We've had lots and lots of fun with that!
I'd help him find lots of different things to make all kinds of sounds: rocks, dried beans, beads, empty cans, Legos, pots & pans, cotton balls. Can he hear a pin drop? What about a pen? Or a hog pen? ;)
Caren
Jill Parmer
> <<<I'd help him find lots of different things to make all kinds ofAt a petting farm, the kids and I saw an excited big pig speedily run
> sounds: rocks, dried beans, beads, empty cans, Legos, pots & pans,
> cotton balls. Can he hear a pin drop? What about a pen? Or a hog
> pen? ;) >>>
a circle around the pen, not oinking like a pig, but barking like a
dog. We all got wide eyed and looked from each other to the pig,
wondering if we'd heard that right. I imagine it could be surprising
listening to the things your son is doing.
Check out Garrison Keillor's staff of A Prairie Home Companion, he has
some amazing sound makers.
Tom Keith died in 2011, here's a tribute, and some of the sounds he
made with his mouth. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/special/tom-keith/
And Fred Newman who's working on the show now http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/about/cast/fred_newman.shtml
He has a book with CD called _MouthSounds_
Jill
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Meredith
> > >>I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing allPam replied:
> > sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting
> > museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc<<
>
> You are grieving an imaginary perfect son? Try to move on to appreciatingWhen Mo was little, she didn't want to be read to - she didn't like to cuddle at all, but also she didn't like to be read to any time, not while playing or bathing or swinging or riding in the car. I had imagined reading to my little girl, all snuggled up before bed. It helped to acknowledge that and grieve a little, and then move on to seeing Mo for who she was.
> the quirky son you have.
Lately we've discovered we both like to play hidden picture games, and play them together - all snuggled up on the couch or in bed. I get to feel all warm and fuzzy and cuddly, rather than sighing and wishing my kid would let me read to her.
---Meredith
trish52101
Do you knit or crochet or know someone who does? Felting might be a really fun washing machine activity. I felted a purse I crocheted recently and I spent the whole day starting and stopping the washing machine and checking the purse. If you don't know any yarn crafters you could pick up wool sweaters at a second hand shop and felt them.
- Trisha
- Trisha
Tam
>he puts whatever clothes he can find in the machine and twirls the drum around with his hand.>>
At playgrounds near us they often have big spinning drums that you can run in (kind of like a hamster wheel), my kids love putting things on them and spinning them round, or lying down in them and rolling, might be a fun thing like being in a giant washing machine if you could find one near you.
Tam
ehulani56
> > > >>I imagined that by the time he was 5 we would spend our days doing allI imagined a lot of things before my daughter was born. Very few of them have been our actual experience!
> > > sorts of things like drawing, building, dressing up, visiting
> > > museums,playing video games, having long conversations etc<<
> >
> Pam replied:
> > You are grieving an imaginary perfect son? Try to move on to appreciating
> > the quirky son you have.
>
I did grieve an imaginary perfect child. It took me too long a time to really see "her" instead of who I'd dreamed about, what I'd expected. And I've learned more from her than I ever could have through her unique self and her "limited" interests than if she'd been a carbon copy of me (which is what I secretly wished for). It can be so much more fun when you meet your child where he is, doing things he loves, being a part of his life. It's too easy to want them to be a part of *your* already-established life.
I have a few of Sandra's magnets on my fridge This is the one that continues to resonate with me:
"If your child is more important than your vision of your child, life becomes easier."
I find myself taking a huge deep breath whenever I read it and thinking "yes, life *does* become easier."
Robin B.
Alex
> I'd help him find lots of different things to make all kinds of sounds: rocks, dried beans, beads, empty cans, Legos, pots & pans, cotton balls. Can he hear a pin drop? What about a pen? Or a hog pen? ;)You can make a shaker sound-matching game from easter eggs or film cannisters filled with rice, coins, etc, in pairs. How about playing "Name that sound" with just things around the house? You might need an adult on each team to avoid turning around to find things broken.
>
> Caren
My mom did some radio theater when she was younger, and I was capivated when they pushed a bunch of trash cans off a table to make a sound like a little girl falling down a flight of stairs with some stuff. If you look up "foley artists" you can find more tricks like that. He might not want to sit and read it with you but you could offer to try some of that stuff out. Maybe he would like recording some audio stories, with you talking and him making various noises to "illustrate." We'd LOVE to receive a copy of something like that from family or friends.
Alex N.