<kgharriman1@...>

Hi there :)

just for a quick intro before I post my question which I hope will contribute to general unschooling discussion on here. DH and I live in remote Australia with our four children aged 8 to 1 none of whome have been to school but DD1 has been exposed to some curriculum. I have been reading unschooling literature on and off for about four years now, since DD1 was 4, including John Holt and have just finished Sandra's Big book of unschooling (ebook) which was SO challenging and yet so refreshing! Anyway, as I return to what I feel is my real calling, after meandering the curriculum wilderness (including a longish stay with waldorf which I find to be greatly at odds much of unschooling), I have a question which I hope I am okay to ask here. I might add that I think the last four years has been a deschooling process for me, though I realise that never really ends when you have spent more than 20 years in a primary, secondary or tertiary institution.

Our four children haven't been exposed to video games. They wouldn't know what they were. We are minimal screen users here except for computer for basic internet/email functions. So, if I am to embrace unschooling more holistically, as in, not just drop the schooly stuff (which I already have many times). Is this a necessary addition to make, when its not part of our life to begin with ? I have never used them nor has DH. Would this make us not total unschoolers? I sense that video gaming is a really big part of what unschoolers do. But a prerequisite? I would love to hear some insights on this if anyone has any.
thanks so much
Kirsty

Joyce Fetteroll


On Dec 3, 2013, at 6:28 AM, <kgharriman1@...> <kgharriman1@...> wrote:

So, if I am to embrace unschooling more holistically, as in, not just drop the schooly stuff (which I already have many times). Is this a necessary addition to make, when its not part of our life to begin with ? I have never used them nor has DH. Would this make us not total unschoolers? I sense that video gaming is a really big part of what unschoolers do. But a prerequisite?

Considering the heavily pro-video games responses that the "Video games cause violence and addiction!" posts get, that seems a reasonable question to ask! :-)

What's important for unschooling isn't video games. What's important is a rich, supportive environment for kids to explore their interests in and discover new interests. So I wouldn't focus on video games. I would look at the big picture of where your own preferences may be limiting your kids' worlds and limiting their ability to explore broadly and deeply to discover what interests them.

I'll take a little detour for a minute. Sometimes the term unschooling gets confused with natural learning. Natural learning is how humans learn by exploring, trying things out to see what happens, building an understanding of how the world works. It's what we're hardwired to do. Humans will learn naturally no matter what the environment. That environment can be as spare as a dusty farm in the wilds of Africa or a US suburban home filled with all the latest technology.

Unschooling, though, is more than natural learning. It's deliberately creating a rich environment tailored to your kids interests for them to explore in as a substitute for the enriching and broadening experience that schools -- ideally -- are supposed to provide. So if parents' focus isn't on opening the world to their kids as much as they are reasonably able, then they aren't unschooling. They're allowing their kids to learn naturally, yes, but they aren't unschooling. 

Your kids will learn from what you have. But how are your own likes and dislikes limiting them in exploring more of the world they will be moving into as adults?

You and your husband had the opportunity to explore tv and other things as you grew up. For whatever reason you decided tv, the internet, games weren't something you needed much. But your kids aren't getting to decide that. You've limited their lives to what you believe is valuable.

Not all kids like games. But your kids can't discover whether they are kids-who-like-games without being able to try them. And I think the limited internet is more confining than the lack of games. Providing internet isn't something a family should put themselves into dire straits to provide! Especially when your kids are still so young. But libraries often have decent internet. I would go out of my way to make sure they have the ability to explore it often as they grow so you can make thoughtful choices about how to get more of what they're using the most.

As for games, you don't need to invest in a video game system. You can download apps for free or for a few dollars to try a variety of things out.

Rather than plunging in blindly there's a Facebook group "My unschooler is interested in ..." that may have suggestions in past threads that match your kids.  If not, you can open up a new thread.

Also the Unschooling Gamers group. You can poke through the archives or let them know you're just dipping your toes in to see if your kids like games and they'll know the right questions to ask to point you in the right directions:


Joyce

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY



>>>>>>>>Also the Unschooling Gamers group. You can poke through the archives or let them know you're just dipping your toes in to see if your kids like games and they'll know the right questions to ask to point you in the right directions:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/unschooling_gamers/


-=-=-=-=-

If you ask to join the group above please make sure you state that you are an unschooling family.
With the changes Yahoo groups made it has made it difficult for our moderators to manage the group in many ways.

In the group we discuss games and connect. There are no unschooling philosophy discussions in the group.
We certainly know games that are super cool and free for young kids and older !

Alex Polikowsky

<char@...>

Games are not by definition part of unschooling. Personally, I don't think you need to expose them to video games and computers if you and your husband aren't using them either. Not because you are "limiting them" or "keeping them from them," but rather because we can't expose our children to everything under the sun. Many unschooled kids have never been camping because their parents don't camp, many have never traveled very far from home because that's not what their parents do, many don't have much variety in their diets because their parents have simple tastes. That doesn't mean those families aren't unschooling. However, if a kid asks for things that are then refused, that seems like something you might want to explore. Your kids are young, so are probably not as aware of video games, etc. As they get older, they will likely be interested in exploring those things, but for the time being, if you and your husband aren't that interested in them and don't feel compelled to run out and share them, I, personally wouldn't even think about it much.....as I said, much the same as the parent who is not a camper, shouldn't be worried about the fact that their child has never slept in a tent. 


With time, your kids will start wanting different things. If then you decide to ban those things from their lives or highly control them, I would start to question your own motivations.


charlene

Sandra Dodd

-=-Games are not by definition part of unschooling. Personally, I don't think you need to expose them to video games and computers if you and your husband aren't using them either. Not because you are "limiting them" or "keeping them from them," but rather because we can't expose our children to everything under the sun. -=-

I agree with this.

Then, though, if a family can easily go camping, they should. If the parents have a computer for e-mail, they have access, right there on that computer, to Google, YouTube, and all kinds of things from which their children can see other parts of the world, and other things.  If the parents aren't naturally curious, that's even MORE reason to give the children access to the connections being made by people who ARE curious.

But watching other people's videos of giraffes or of knitting is all fine, but it's not the same as playing around with puzzles and ideas oneself.   Would a family that owned board games not play them with their children?  Would parents who want to learn more about how learning through playing works not want to play, themselves, more?

Sandra

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

I think in this day and age not exposing your kids to computers is like not exposing your kids to books.
Many parents do not like to read. Should they not read or have books for their kids??

Computers  and the internet, specially if you are isolated somewhere, are a big window to the whole world!!!!!!
It is an amazing tool and to think of it as the same as camping is just not a good comparison.

 
Alex Polikowsky
 
 
 


Sandra Dodd

-=-It is an amazing tool and to think of it as the same as camping is just not a good comparison.--=-

Yes.  Camping used to have a purpose, when people travelled to places that took more than one day (before planes, trains, automobiles), and when people had livestock that needed to be moved to summer pastures.   Now camping is more often for fun.

-=-Computers  and the internet, specially if you are isolated somewhere, are a big window to the whole world!!!!!!-=-

And with multi-player games, isolated children can interact with, maybe make real-life friendships with, children in other places.

Holly is out on a road trip, by herself.  One of her stops was in Alabama, to meet and stay with someone she used to play X-Box games with (Halo, I think).  They were children then, and are in their 20's now.  She met his friends, stayed a couple of nights, had fun, and went on Lousiana, and then Texas.  :-)   There were other people she stayed with she had only known indirectly (unschoolers), and people she already knew in person.  But she had stayed in touch with some of her gaming friends, and it became an "IRL" (in real life) friendship.

Sandra


Karen

>>>>>We are minimal screen users here except for computer for basic internet/email functions. So, if I am to embrace unschooling more holistically, as in, not just drop the schooly stuff (which I already have many times). Is this a necessary addition to make, when its not part of our life to begin with ?<<<<<

I just want to point out the irony here a moment. You are using the computer to find information offered by many people from different parts of the world at different levels of their understanding about unschooling, and you are asking if we think it's a computer is a necessary addition to make in the lives of your children.

It wouldn't be any different for your children. They too would be looking for information, stimulation, challenges, ideas, and/or creative input from people from different parts of the world in different stages of whatever it is they are interested in. Just like you can't find the answers to your questions about unschooling in the limited (though I'm not saying not rich) environment of your home, so too will it become increasingly difficult for your children to explore the things that captivate their imaginations.

Is it necessary? I think you have proven that it is! :-)

>>>>>I sense that video gaming is a really big part of what unschoolers do. But a prerequisite?<<<<<

Video gaming is so much more than most people see when they are standing on the outside, looking through the window they call "screen time." I would encourage you to read a little about it. I have some favourite books I could recommend. They are not by unschoolers, but they have valuable perspectives on video games and learning nonetheless:

"Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal
"Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning" by Marc Prensky
"What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy" by James Paul Gee

Most of these authors have videos you can watch on YouTube or TED too.

I can tell you that in our home playing video games has enriched our lives in more ways than I can list. I do not see video games as a prerequisite. I do see them as invaluable tools for any child who is motivated to learn through playing games. I don't think music or books are prerequisites either, but I wouldn't want to limit access to either of those for similar reasons.

Jo Isaac

Alex wrote 'Computers  and the internet, specially if you are isolated somewhere, are a big window to the whole world!!!!!!'

I think this is an important point, especially since the OP said the family was located in isolated, rural Australia - we (also in Australia - but not rural) have found gaming/skyping to be a wonderful way to meet other unschoolers both in Australia and overseas. Kai has spent many wonderful hours playing Minecraft with other kids and talking over skype.

I too have 'met' many other unschoolers via online groups and Facebook chat, some of whom i've now met in real life, and many I hope to meet in the future :)

And just for the record, we love camping as well as gaming!

Jo




Kirsty Harriman

Many challenging and thought provoking replies. Thankyou. Just wanted to clarify question pertaining specifically to gaming, not computer use. They do use the internet for a variety of things. We just don't have games, that's all.


Kirsty

Sandra Dodd

-=- They do use the internet for a variety of things. We just don't have games, that's all.-=-

There are lots of games on the internet.  You don't even play found games?  Free games?

Would you like to?  :-)

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

-=-We are minimal screen users here except for computer for basic internet/email functions. -=-

"Minimal screen users" reveals more than you know. Word choice is a peek inside.

http://sandradodd.com/mindfulofwords

It will help you to let people tell you what they're reading from you (not reading into it; seeing your choice of words and phrases and holding them back up).

Waldorf probably hasn't worn off yet. It's beautiful, Waldorf. If we lived in the fantasy version of the gnome-filled Black Forest, it would be the PERFECT school!!! No one has ever lived there, though.

Meanwhile, outside the silk-scarf dreamworld, there are computers and they are glorious.

Sandra

Ali Zeljo

Hi Kirsty,  We don't have a gaming system at our house yet, but my kids play games on the computer all the time.  There are tons of games you can play just on the web for fun.  I remember my kids first playing a game called Poppit, where you pop balloons that are clustered by color.  And then we discovered a game called Insane Aquarium where you feed and buy fish in one mode, and fight off monsters in another mode.  My son was REALLY interested in fish and aquariums at the time, so it was a VERY exciting game for him at age 5 or 6.  He still plays it with nostalgia now that he is almost 14.  Other more complicated games require a download to the computer and Minecraft is the favorite game in our house right now.  But there are tons out there and you'd be so surprised by how engaging they are and how much you learn while playing them.  It is a whole different world!  Maybe you'd like to just check them out yourself a bit and see if you think any of your kids would be interested in them?  It seems like such a general question- do i need to introduce video games?  It would be more fun to check them out and decide if you think anyone would like them!

Warmly,
Ali


On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:10 PM, Kirsty Harriman <kgharriman1@...> wrote:
 

Many challenging and thought provoking replies. Thankyou. Just wanted to clarify question pertaining specifically to gaming, not computer use. They do use the internet for a variety of things. We just don't have games, that's all.


Kirsty


chris ester



>>>>>>On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 2:57 PM, BRIAN POLIKOWSKY <polykowholsteins@...> wrote:
 

I think in this day and age not exposing your kids to computers is like not exposing your kids to books.
Many parents do not like to read. Should they not read or have books for their kids??

Computers  and the internet, specially if you are isolated somewhere, are a big window to the whole world!!!!!!
It is an amazing tool and to think of it as the same as camping is just not a good comparison.

 
Alex Polikowsky<<<<
 

I agree with this.  If you are not a "net surfer", a good place to start is the home page of Wikipedia.  They have a different plurb about some interesting historical or other thing everyday.  

Also, the daily wiki-how is a neat place to get craft or project ideas.
chris 
__,_._,__

<kgharriman1@...>

Yes Sandra you're spot on wrt Waldorf and coming off the back of massive amounts of research, reading and trying to use waldorf at home curriculum over the last three years or so, as well as having zero screen time in our home for periods of time, its incredibly difficult for me to be okay with having them do stuff on the computer now let alone entertain the possibility of video games. 


Waldorf is beautiful, perfect and very guilt inducing (just speaking for myself here) because its just so dogmatic. The cross over with unschooling lie in the realm of mindful parenting principles, and living with joy and peace, but that's all. I have loved everything about it, except for the virtual impossibility of implementing in our home, as well as all the fears about what happens if you place your children in front of the tele! 


Yes I do net surf alot at night when kids are in bed or when they're playing for research/shopping when I am able to so. So when I say minimal screen users, I meant it in relative terms, ie. compared with sitting here all day (life with four children has never allowed for that here). I should have been more specific instead of using the more general phrase that I chose. For others, our screen time might not look minimal at all!)


Sandra in repsonse to your questions, no we have never used the computer for games. Do I want to? Well, considering I was addicted to Donkey Kong as a kid, and yearned desperately for the Pacman I never got (in the 80's) I would probably LOVE video games, personally, if I had time to spend on here. Do we want our kids to engage in gaming? I would say right now I would feel deeply uncomfortable with it. To be honest. I want our children to be out playing in the mud, which they do. That's me, and my values. Right along with Barbie, video gaming is right there smack in the middle of my discomfort zone. Right now 8 yo is yearning for a Barbie and an IPOD and I asked her what would she do if I allowed her to, she said Reading Eggs (an australian educational program which is used in schools alot now) for 2-3 hours. Clearly I have lots of of work to do in distinguising between parenting - good parenting - all of my own values and ideals and standards which I have worked hard to uphold in our home - and what the kids want! How do you untangle all that without fear of what might happen?

Sandra Dodd

-=-Clearly I have lots of of work to do in distinguising between parenting - good parenting - all of my own values and ideals and standards which I have worked hard to uphold in our home - and what the kids want! How do you untangle all that without fear of what might happen?-=-

By looking at your own children directly, not through the filter of anyone else's threats and dire predictions.
By living in this moment and not an imagined, frightening future.

If you haven't yet read through the introductory e-mails by Pam Laricchia, please do that.  Do it carefully and slowly.  It's like gold.
Free, comes in order, spaced out three or four days apart, for a few weeks.  Carefully designed and will help you overcome your fears.

It's easy to read so much so quickly that you become overwhelmed and transfer your fears to other things, and confuse the heck out of yourself.  I'm going to give you more links, and maybe you could come back to them later.   There might be others here who are already ready to read them, but I think it would be too much for you to read it all, and that Pam L's intro materials would be great for you now.

Sandra

chris ester




On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 8:13 PM, <kgharriman1@...> wrote:
 

 How do you untangle all that without fear of what might happen?

By taking a deep breath and looking at things rationally--what would happen?  Then make little changes, say yes more,  try a little, and watch and adjust.  You don't have to make big changes all at once.  Little changes and focusing on relationships with your children, with your spouse.  Every time there is a decision, stop, take a breath, and do the (often) easier thing that leads to more joy and more peace.  

I personally never found dogma easy--one size doesn't fit all and dogma tries to make everyone conform to one standard, one set of values.  
Chris



Sandra Dodd

-=-The cross over with unschooling lie in the realm of mindful parenting principles, and living with joy and peace, but that's all. I have loved everything about it, except for the virtual impossibility of implementing in our home, as well as all the fears about what happens if you place your children in front of the tele! -=-

Do you let your children color or paint with any colors they want to? Even black? Waldorf plants fears about that, too.
But I don't think Waldorf's "mindful" is the same as unschooling's. I don't think Waldorf's joy or peace are, either. The words are the same, but the intention isn't the same.

I'm a recorder player, but it's a difficult instrument. A little electric keyboard is WAY better for a child interested in music. One that takes headphones, maybe, so it doesn't bother other people.

-=- Do I want to? Well, considering I was addicted to Donkey Kong as a kid, and yearned desperately for the Pacman I never got (in the 80's) I would probably LOVE video games, personally, if I had time to spend on here.-=-

#1, you were not addicted. http://sandradodd.com/addiction
You were enjoying yourself, and someone belittled you about it.

#2, if you still feel deprivation, you still feel deprivation. That is not abundance. That is not joy.

-=- To be honest. I want our children to be out playing in the mud, which they do. That's me, and my values. -=-

That can be fun sometimes, playing in the mud. If that's their primary activity for ten years, what will they have learned? If they're doing that because there's nothing more interesting in their lives, you won't have been doing a very good job at creating a rich environment.

-=- Right along with Barbie, video gaming is right there smack in the middle of my discomfort zone. Right now 8 yo is yearning for a Barbie and an IPOD and I asked her what would she do if I allowed her to, she said Reading Eggs (an australian educational program which is used in schools alot now) for 2-3 hours.-=-

Does that mean she would "do school work" in exchange for a toy you will shame her for having?
Perhaps you should keep these things to yourself for a while, read what Pam Laricchia has written and try very hard NOT to express your negativity to your children over the next few weeks.

When you've read enough to relax, go here:

http://sandradodd.com/barbie
and don't read it to find out where we're wrong. Read it to see why people wrote it, and why I saved it, and why I sent it to you.

http://sandradodd.com/negativity (maybe save that one for January)

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

Chris Ester wrote:  "By taking a deep breath and looking at things rationally--what would happen?  Then make little changes, say yes more,  try a little, and watch and adjust.  You don't have to make big changes all at once.  Little changes and focusing on relationships with your children, with your spouse.  Every time there is a decision, stop, take a breath, and do the (often) easier thing that leads to more joy and more peace.  "

Here are some future-links for that. :-)


SEE?  TOO MUCH!
Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Sandra

<waltonmoore@...>

What if this question was about books: would I "allow" my children to only read text books and encyclopedias, but not read books just for fun? Of course not! I think most people agree that children benefit from reading whether it's a classic, a reference book, or a silly joke book, but many of those same people have a hard time extending that kind of thinking toward screens (computer/tv/handheld devices). Angela

chris ester


On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 11:12 PM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
 
 
Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Sandra


You really ought to put this on bumper stickers, pins and refrigerator magnets!  

I wish I had found this way back when I was first starting.  I thought that I was the only person in the world who saw no reason in so much of the dogma around raising children.  

I had a lot of not fear or shame so much as I felt like maybe I was being lazy, because I wasn't working hard at making my kids do things like potty training, or reading, or writing.... 
Chris

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

My kids play a lot of video games.
BUt here is what I wrote today on our blog.



http://polykow.blogspot.com/2013/12/will-my-child-only-sit-infront-of.html
 
Alex Polikowsky
 
 
 


Joyce Fetteroll

On Dec 3, 2013, at 8:13 PM, <kgharriman1@...> <kgharriman1@...> wrote:

> Waldorf is beautiful, perfect

If your husband thought French food was beautiful and perfect, would you embrace it if he filled your home with everything you needed for French cooking? And what if he got rid of everything in your kitchen that didn't fit with French cooking? What if anytime you asked for something outside of French cooking he tensed up and said no.


> I asked her what would she do if I allowed her to, she said Reading Eggs

What if you really wanted an Italian cookbook? What if he then quizzed you about what you'd do with it and you had the feeling he didn't want the truth? He wanted to hear you say things he approved of? Might you be tempted to say you'd stick to just the chapters that were in keeping with French cooking just so you could get your hands on that Italian cookbook? If he did relent and say yes (with a deep disappointed sigh), might you when he wasn't watching (and judging), delve into the chapters that he wouldn't approve of? And might you feel guilty and afraid that he might catch you?

Would that work? Would you love French cooking? Would you feel that any other kind of cooking was obviously not worth your time because your husband had done the research and decided what was best?

What if, instead, he happily supported you in whatever you explored but he explored French cooking? And served the occasional French meal? But was perfectly okay if you didn't like it and chose to have something else?

Which approach would be most likely to draw you to French food? Which approach would feel the most like partnership? Which approach would feel the most like he loved who you were and not some ideal he could turn you into?


> as well as all the fears about what happens if you place your children in front of the tele!

Which do you think is more likely:

That we don't care about what happens when our kids watch TV?

Or that the horrible effects of TV you're reading about aren't true?


> How do you untangle all that without fear of what might happen?

By asking what really happens! :-)

You're taking the Waldorf words as truth.

It's more comforting to hold onto fears than it is to question them. But holding onto them can lead to a relationship like the French loving husband has with his wife. Examining, questioning, asking in order to separate reality from the fear that's keeping it caged can lead to the kinds of relationships that people here have with their kids.

Which would you rather have?

Joyce

Sandra Dodd

-=-You really ought to put this on bumper stickers, pins and refrigerator magnets!  -=-

It's on two magnets on my fridge, but it was from a specific little event here a few years ago called The Ace Festival.  Very small series of gatherings because Julie, James and Adam Daniel were visiting.   

It was on the bookmarks / "red cards" I distributed last summer in Lisbon/Leiden/London.    It had that in Portuguese, Dutch and English on one side, and websites for me and Joyce on the other.  

The phrase came about for a presentation Holly and I did in Quebec when she was staying with Bea Mantovani's family there for a few months and I went to visit.  I wanted to have something new and different for that day, for them to hear something I hadn't said before.  That was in 2010.  We could've used having it sooner, but it hadn't been written sooner. :-)

Sometimes people "discover unschooling" (discover their ability to read about it online) and totally neglect their kids for weeks, while they read more than they can absorb.   Or worse, they look up from their reading and say "No more rules!  Stay up as late as you want and eat anything you want!" and they go back to reading and ignoring the kids.  That is Not Good. :-)   The parents spin up a confused fantasy world about something they're not actually DOING or even learning to do.

It's kind of schoolish, the idea that the more one reads the more one knows.   Unschooling is one of those things that isn't accomplished by recitation or test-taking, but only by changing thoughts and actions, beliefs and relationships.  It's not easy, it's not quick, and it's not for everyone.

Sandra

<plaidpanties666@...>

>>How do you untangle all that without fear of what might happen?<<


It helped me to read about unschooling kids and their lives - so I'll tell you a little about my kids ;)


We live out in the hills-n-hollers of rural Tennessee, and when my stepson was little we lived on a commune with limited infrastructure. No tv (the internet was still young), rarely movies, no video games. When I had my daughter and started learning about unschooling, I was a bit dismayed at the idea of maybe needing to Get a tv... it seemed excessive - why would we need one with so much nature around? One of the ideas that helped me move past my own biases was someone on... I think it was unschooling.com at the time wrote: your children aren't you. It was kind of a shock, even though, intellectually, I knew it was true I kind of had this expectation that My dreams were so wonderful that of course my kids would naturally share them and see how lovely my dream-inspired life was. It was a shock to realize that I was actually deliberately limiting my kids to my dreams, without having ever considered theirs. Yeow. 

I took the good advice of unschoolers, though, and eased in to things: first, videos. At the time it was still the old cassettes, then dvds. Mo was little and had some very strong reactions to certain kinds of movies and shows, so that actually let me look for things which wouldn't upset her... which led me to bringing home some movies I wouldn't have expected. Like the Barbie movies - the back-woods commy in me was appalled, but Mo loved the stories of bold girls and women and friendly talking animals saving the day. Barbie and Disney movies didn't give her a warped self image, they fed her love of stories and imagery. 

Then my stepson moved in with us full time and we got his mom's agreement to pull him out of school and unschool and it seemed unreasonable to Not have tv. Living in the hills, there's no free broadcast tv - there's only satellite. So we got a satellite hook-up. That was a big help in terms of deschooling with Ray since tv had been regulated at his mom's house - it was a way for us to show we were... on his side I guess. 


For Mo, the sudden flood of new cartoons was kind of a revelation though - she started drawing Big Time, head over heels in love with all the various styles of drawing she was seeing. She drew and drew and drew, playing with different ways of expressing emotion, movement, character attributes. Pages and pages every day, of things she saw on tv, sometimes drawing the characters from one show in the style of another, sometimes bringing in characters from books or movies. It was... amazing. It reminded me of a certain kind of art curriculum, actually, where students imitate the styles of various artists and then try to create their own works in the style of particular movements - but it wasn't a curriculum, it was something she was doing out of pure fascination. That was probably the death-knell to my fears about "technology" - seeing Mo explode into drawing like that. 


We first got video games for Ray and by then the internet was a real thing, even if we only had dial-up. He got excited about playing an online multiplayer game and it was really fascinating to watch him do that. He'd been through homeschooling and public school, and had seemed to be one of those kids who had no motivation  or sense of determination... until he started playing video games. In games, he started to do something I'd never seen him do before, which was to do long, tedious tasks for a fairly abstract goal. Like levelling up a dozen different skills so that he could do a particular quest. Morgan does things like that too, although she's more emotional about it - she'll fail and fail and fail and get frustrated, cry, and give up... only to go back and try again later. 


Something I didn't realize before we had video games was how many games these days are stories - kind of like those choose-your-adventure books, but better because the players are actually making real decisions in the context of the game. Once I discovered that I started looking for games I would enjoy playing too - and I found that Mo and I both enjoy playing games cooperatively, helping each other in the game. Lately we've been playing PC games of the adventure/hidden object variety - again, story games, but with periodic puzzles and treasure-hunt scenes rather than fight scenes. Those are nice to play on the laptop, snuggled up in bed together. Despite her love of stories, Mo never liked being read to, so this is especially sweet for me - I finally get to curl up in bed with my little girl and a story... it's just an interactive story rather than a book. Playing games together also gives us a chance to talk - Mo's not much of a talker, so that's a Big Deal! The games give us conversation starters and a chance to sit side by side and chat, rather than face to face, which is really helpful. 


Mo's 12 now, Ray's 20 and it's sometimes surprising that I used to be so negative about tv, games, computers. Ray has gone from playing lots and lots of video games to woodworking, blacksmithing, travelling, working on farms, hiking, camping, being in nature. Mo spends a lot of time writing, drawing, and socializing, mostly via the internet. She also spends hours ever day on the trampoline. She still loves stories, especially graphic stories - comics and manga as well as movies and games - although recently she has started reading books. Tv, movies, the internet, and video games haven't wrecked my kids. They've made their worlds bigger - which is a good thing, living in the middle of nowhere as we do. They've discovered things which would have been much harder without those resources. They've met people online (some through games) and then gone on to meet them in person, and they both use the internet (including games) to keep up with people they've met on various travels. 


Oh! I almost forgot - one more thing I noticed about games in particular. The more computers advance, the more overlap there is between the way "serious" computers work and the way games work. That makes sense if you consider that most programmers and designers in the computer industry have played games and are creating for people who have probably also played games. But it also means that Playing games sets kids up to have a more "intuitive" understanding of the ways computers work, the same way growing up taking public transportation sets city kids up to have an intuitive understanding of buses and subways. Games are a big part of the technological "environment". 

Hema A. Bharadwaj

I love your response and detailed lay out. This is a real keeper for me. 
Fyi...I am having  trouble logging into the yahoo group and hence do not know your real name. I am responding via my gmail where i can see most of the post.

I am curious to know how you dipped into gaming yourself? Which games did you first start out with yourself? 
 I have helped my kids make money online by playong mini games... Like on Club Penguin or Moshi monsters. I have helped Raghu with many hours of just listening to his views on games he is playing. I help with apects of gaming.. A puzzle or word play etc, and some games like Zombies vs. plants. But i am unable to enjoy most of the games that Raghu is into these days. Like Minecraft... I love it but the pixelated world makes me feel wierd. I cant stare at the screen for too long. I have sat by Raghu and shared his love for it.  I wonder if i just need to find the right games for me. Maybe focus for a while on trying out different games and find a common fit for all of us?

We have a laptop and a PS3. Our Wii may not work here. We just moved from India and one of the reasons for moving was Raghu's need for gamers and related love in his life.  Gaming in India is still a luxury and not as well established as here... Especially for children.

Thanks, Hema




It helped me to read about unschooling kids and their lives - so I'll tell you a little about my kids ;) 


We live out in the hills-n-hollers of rural Tennessee, and when my stepson was little we lived on a commune with limited infrastructure. No tv (the internet was still young), rarely movies, no video games. When I had my daughter and started learning about unschooling, I was a bit dismayed at the idea of maybe needing to Get a tv... it seemed excessive - why would we need one with so much nature around? One of the ideas that helped me move past my own biases was someone on... I think it was unschooling.com at the time wrote: your children aren't you. It was kind of a shock, even though, intellectually, I knew it was true I kind of had this expectation that My dreams were so wonderful that of course my kids would naturally share them and see how lovely my dream-inspired life was. It was a shock to realize that I was actually deliberately limiting my kids to my dreams, without having ever considered theirs. Yeow. 

I took the good advice of unschoolers, though, and eased in to things: first, videos. At the time it was still the old cassettes, then dvds. Mo was little and had some very strong reactions to certain kinds of movies and shows, so that actually let me look for things which wouldn't upset her... which led me to bringing home some movies I wouldn't have expected. Like the Barbie movies - the back-woods commy in me was appalled, but Mo loved the stories of bold girls and women and friendly talking animals saving the day. Barbie and Disney movies didn't give her a warped self image, they fed her love of stories and imagery. 

Then my stepson moved in with us full time and we got his mom's agreement to pull him out of school and unschool and it seemed unreasonable to Not have tv. Living in the hills, there's no free broadcast tv - there's only satellite. So we got a satellite hook-up. That was a big help in terms of deschooling with Ray since tv had been regulated at his mom's house - it was a way for us to show we were... on his side I guess. 


For Mo, the sudden flood of new cartoons was kind of a revelation though - she started drawing Big Time, head over heels in love with all the various styles of drawing she was seeing. She drew and drew and drew, playing with different ways of expressing emotion, movement, character attributes. Pages and pages every day, of things she saw on tv, sometimes drawing the characters from one show in the style of another, sometimes bringing in characters from books or movies. It was... amazing. It reminded me of a certain kind of art curriculum, actually, where students imitate the styles of various artists and then try to create their own works in the style of particular movements - but it wasn't a curriculum, it was something she was doing out of pure fascination. That was probably the death-knell to my fears about "technology&quot; - seeing Mo explode into drawing like that.


We first got video games for Ray and by then the internet was a real thing, even if we only had dial-up. He got excited about playing an online multiplayer game and it was really fascinating to watch him do that. He'd been through homeschooling and public school, and had seemed to be one of those kids who had no motivation or sense of determination... until he started playing video games. In games, he started to do something I'd never seen him do before, which was to do long, tedious tasks for a fairly abstract goal. Like levelling up a dozen different skills so that he could do a particular quest. Morgan does things like that too, although she's more emotional about it - she'll fail and fail and fail and get frustrated, cry, and give up... only to go back and try again later. 

--
Hema A. Bharadwaj
Pune, India

Meredith Novak

I totally understand about problems with yahoo - half the time I still can't get to all my groups, or reply to posts. Grrrrrrr.
 
The first kind of social game I ever tried was the Sims - back when it was just a PC game. Everyone at the commune got into it at once and played in the same... world or whatever it was. So we'd "steal" each other's "family", or sneak into their homes and rearrange their furniture - goofy things like that. That was the first time I realized that playing video games could be a social activity.
 
 I still didn't quite "get" games though, until I found the Myst series. This was another set of PC games - an early prototype of what has now become the "adventure" genre, where you move around a "world" solving various puzzles as a character in a story.
 
 Around the same time, Mo made friends with a fellow we met at a party - he was hiding in a corner playing Pokémon on his Gameboy and she sat down next to him and talked video games for awhile for about a year he came over one day a week and played video games with her - Pokémon and Barbie games
 
 
 

From: Hema A. Bharadwaj <hbonda@...>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 9:47 AM
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: the need or not to introduce video games to your children
 
I love your response and detailed lay out. This is a real keeper for me. 
Fyi...I am having  trouble logging into the yahoo group and hence do not know your real name. I am responding via my gmail where i can see most of the post.

I am curious to know how you dipped into gaming yourself? Which games did you first start out with yourself? 
 I have helped my kids make money online by playong mini games... Like on Club Penguin or Moshi monsters. I have helped Raghu with many hours of just listening to his views on games he is playing. I help with apects of gaming.. A puzzle or word play etc, and some games like Zombies vs. plants. But i am unable to enjoy most of the games that Raghu is into these days. Like Minecraft... I love it but the pixelated world makes me feel wierd. I cant stare at the screen for too long. I have sat by Raghu and shared his love for it.  I wonder if i just need to find the right games for me. Maybe focus for a while on trying out different games and find a common fit for all of us?

We have a laptop and a PS3. Our Wii may not work here. We just moved from India and one of the reasons for moving was Raghu's need for gamers and related love in his life.  Gaming in India is still a luxury and not as well established as here... Especially for children.

Thanks, Hema




It helped me to read about unschooling kids and their lives - so I'll tell you a little about my kids ;)  We live out in the hills-n-hollers of rural Tennessee, and when my stepson was little we lived on a commune with limited infrastructure. No tv (the internet was still young), rarely movies, no video games. When I had my daughter and started learning about unschooling, I was a bit dismayed at the idea of maybe needing to Get a tv... it seemed excessive - why would we need one with so much nature around? One of the ideas that helped me move past my own biases was someone on... I think it was unschooling.com at the time wrote: your children aren't you. It was kind of a shock, even though, intellectually, I knew it was true I kind of had this expectation that My dreams were so wonderful that of course my kids would naturally share them and see how lovely my dream-inspired life was. It was a shock to realize that I was actually deliberately limiting my kids to my dreams, without having ever considered theirs. Yeow.  I took the good advice of unschoolers, though, and eased in to things: first, videos. At the time it was still the old cassettes, then dvds. Mo was little and had some very strong reactions to certain kinds of movies and shows, so that actually let me look for things which wouldn't upset her... which led me to bringing home some movies I wouldn't have expected. Like the Barbie movies - the back-woods commy in me was appalled, but Mo loved the stories of bold girls and women and friendly talking animals saving the day. Barbie and Disney movies didn't give her a warped self image, they fed her love of stories and imagery.  Then my stepson moved in with us full time and we got his mom's agreement to pull him out of school and unschool and it seemed unreasonable to Not have tv. Living in the hills, there's no free broadcast tv - there's only satellite. So we got a satellite hook-up. That was a big help in terms of deschooling with Ray since tv had been regulated at his mom's house - it was a way for us to show we were... on his side I guess.  For Mo, the sudden flood of new cartoons was kind of a revelation though - she started drawing Big Time, head over heels in love with all the various styles of drawing she was seeing. She drew and drew and drew, playing with different ways of expressing emotion, movement, character attributes. Pages and pages every day, of things she saw on tv, sometimes drawing the characters from one show in the style of another, sometimes bringing in characters from books or movies. It was... amazing. It reminded me of a certain kind of art curriculum, actually, where students imitate the styles of various artists and then try to create their own works in the style of particular movements - but it wasn't a curriculum, it was something she was doing out of pure fascination. That was probably the death-knell to my fears about "technology&quot; - seeing Mo explode into drawing like that. We first got video games for Ray and by then the internet was a real thing, even if we only had dial-up. He got excited about playing an online multiplayer game and it was really fascinating to watch him do that. He'd been through homeschooling and public school, and had seemed to be one of those kids who had no motivation or sense of determination... until he started playing video games. In games, he started to do something I'd never seen him do before, which was to do long, tedious tasks for a fairly abstract goal. Like levelling up a dozen different skills so that he could do a particular quest. Morgan does things like that too, although she's more emotional about it - she'll fail and fail and fail and get frustrated, cry, and give up... only to go back and try again later.  -- Hema A. Bharadwaj
Pune, India

Pam Sorooshian

If you're the one playing, the motion is less likely to bother you than if you're sitting on the side, watching. Once you've played a bunch, then you're more likely to be able to watch without the motion bothering you.

-pam

Hema A. Bharadwaj

Meredith! Now i know your name. And of course i have read your posts many times and learnt much! 

 I liked Sims... I remmebr that on the Nintendo DS. And as i read about 'Myst' and your description of it.... i realised the kind of game i want to find... Smething like Eliza Thornberry, a character going around the world. I always enjoy solving puzzles and other such with Raghu. So puzzles, around the world, quizzes, word play... All rolled into one perhaps? 

I am hoping to surprise the kids with a game by Christmas.... that Ravi and I will enjoy playing with them on the PS3... At this point that is the only gaming console that works for us. I could start a thread on unschooling gamers.

Ravi is otherwise on a Mac, raghu is on a PC laptop and I am on an Ipad. We could pick up PC games in a while when we get our comps sorted out. 

Thank you, hema




--
Hema A. Bharadwaj
Pune, India

Hema A. Bharadwaj

Pam, i thought so too. But as i played i realised the parts that make me crazy.... The maps and eye coordination and the speed with which cars or characters move. I could do super mario car racing on the wii. That i found fun. But when raghu moves around in say Skyrim or GTA and other PS3 games and even in Minecraft... I find the movement in space and jerky movements make me feel tired and even nauseus sometimes. 

But i will make a list of games i like. Then figure out the best bits from each and see which ones the kids also love. And then ask on the unschoolinggamers group for suggestions. I think that may not be in the scope of this group.

Actually they love it any time i play :-) but for a long while now i have not enjoyed Raghu's choices. I mean for me to play. I sit and watch and chat and help him with word definitions, meanings etc. 

Glad that there are so many options and ways to get into gaming actively with my children. 



--
Hema A. Bharadwaj
Pune, India