Maheswar Gunampally

Hi, 

I am Mahesh and a dad of 2 kids 3 1/2(boy) and 2(girl). 

Why I am I here : 
we are first generation immigrant family and both work(ed)* , are software engineers in Bay Area CA. Kids were always taken care by preschools and day cares, we missed them so much and wanted to live, play and learn with them. 
So we decided to take our chances as the time will never be better and I quit my job to be a full time dad. Last week marks happiest 2 months. 

Why unschooling :
Though its still not really clear what label should we attach to what we are doing, unschooling may be the closest or we are trying to achieve. I crossed path with unschooling when i was reading the book 'Drive by Dan Pink' where he talks about alternate school models, which led to another ... to another and finally to unschooling. 
So i would say its still work in progress (WIP)

Why me : 
financial, mindset, current jobs and immigration laws etc. My wife is not open the the idea of complete freedom to the kids. don't get me wrong here, I have her full support for unschooling but she does not want be the person doing it. she thinks she would 'intervene' and change the direction of whatever they are doing.   

many social stigmas 
1. stay home DAD (what? at least from the community)
2. Quit to be with kids ? (kids won't remember the so called 'sacrifice')
3. no school for kids? what will they learn and how? (these days kids are sent to       school at 3 Y in India, which is usually full day)
This is the hardest than taking care of kids. its emotional and you know they are judging you. We can not prove the success or failure of a choice at early stages. often times i change the topic and always say to myself 'it not my job to convince you'. 

Rest for later. 

What we do :

Monday - library day
tuesday - noon park day
wednesday - morning park day
thursday - swim and shopping /zoo/museum. 
friday - entertainment day... will explain. 

saturday and sunday have no specific structure, usually we end up in some type of celebrations or have guests at home or activities like hike/camp/run etc.  

rest of time we spend on playing UNO, Sorry, Watching movies or shows like diego, crative galaxy, play imaginary characters and run around the home/neighborhood. 

Questions : 
 
1. I really don't know if I am doing the best for them. My time and their time. Only attribute I can measure is the happiness. 
 
Any suggestions here ? parents with young kids please help me. what do you guys do everyday?  

2. TV and ipad - Friday is iPad day. (my son says 'I am excited about tomorrow' on every Thursday) we set time to friday just to make sure they don't need to fall back on to iPad everyday when they are bored.  

Fear of addiction ... to the medium.. does such a thing exist ? 

3. Reading  - My son can read the few words and definitely tries when he wants to. however he/we were told not to do this and follow the instructions from the teacher. (pre-school before April.)  when I ask him to try he responds 'i can do it when I am 5 or 7 etc'

there are a lot more but not significant at this time. parents with young kids and beginners help me out. what/how can i do better ?

I understand there are endless things what we could do ... it all boils down to finances. 

Dads groups are dormant and requests to join have expired couple of times. 

Thanks everyone for taking time to read this. 
Special Thanks to Sandra and other moderators if any. I am learning a lot from the discussions. 

Regards 
Mahesh

PS - not a native english speaker, i did my best to articulate my feelings and to be non repetitive. 

Sandra Dodd

-=-2 kids 3 1/2(boy) and 2(girl). -=-

As they're too young for school in California, you are doing a different sort of parenting, but it's not yet unschooling.

The problem with India is that when the grandparents put pressure, there's not much way out. At least if there's a law about school, there can be an exception to that law. And now that you're in California, the exception is to create a private school. So that might be easier for Indian grandparents than some other places' laws and terminology.

-=-My wife is not open the the idea of complete freedom to the kids.-=-

There's no such thing, so change your wording.
http://sandradodd.com/freedom
"Freedom" isn't a good model. Options. Choices. Those can work better.

-=-friday - entertainment day... will explain. -=-

Will waste your time and ours, so don't bother.

Library, park, swim/shop/zoo/museum, none of those takes all day.

-=-I really don't know if I am doing the best for them. My time and their time. Only attribute I can measure is the happiness. -=-

We don't know if you're doing the best for them, either. There is not school in the world that is "doing the best" for every student attending there.

-=-parents with young kids please help me. what do you guys do everyday? -=-

Think carefully before asking questions here. :-)
Those who don't have young kids now had young kids some years back. The people with children your age don't know more than you do. If they tell you what they're doing, what you don't know is what they will regret in five years.

Here are some stories of people's days:
http://sandradodd.com/typical

-=-TV and ipad - Friday is iPad day. (my son says 'I am excited about tomorrow' on every Thursday) we set time to friday just to make sure they don't need to fall back on to iPad everyday when they are bored. -=-

Which day is books day?

Which day is cloth day?

I hope one of these days coming up is the day when you stop arbitrarily depriving your children.

http://sandradodd.com/screentime/

-=-Fear of addiction ... to the medium.. does such a thing exist ? -=-

Do you hope people here will say "yes, it exists—you're right to make your children wait excitedly for days"?
Or do you hope people will say you're wrong?
It won't matter if five people or five hundred people disagree with you or agree. You should look at your children directly, decide what it is you want from life, learn about what kind of damage can be done (to relationships, trust, learning) and make more mindful, direct, clear decisions.
http://sandradodd.com/parentingpeacefully

-=-parents with young kids and beginners help me out. what/how can i do better ?
-=-

Why do you want advice from parents with young kids, and beginners?

For doing better, here are some starting places:
http://unschoolingsupport (start with the introduction, then Learn Nothing Day... go in that order, bottom up, if they haven't been reversed yet)

http://sandradodd.com/beginning
http://sandradodd.com/help

Sandra

Juliet Kemp

> *** 1. I really don't know if I am doing the best for them. My time and their
> time. Only attribute I can measure is the happiness.***

Happiness is good!

There are some thoughts here about happiness and prioritising it that
you might find useful:

http://sandradodd.com/priorities

> *** Any suggestions here ? parents with young kids please help me. what do you
> guys do everyday? ***

I have a 3 yr old. Most of the time we do whatever has his interest at
that time. (Currently popular: playdough and modelling clay, various
iPad apps, YouTube videos about the planets, playing at
mama-and-baby-animals, and a whole bunch of other things.)

Sometimes I'll suggest something I think he might like (visit a friend,
bike ride, go to the Science Museum, watch a particular programme, a
cool new app), or give him something I've found or ordered that I
thought he might enjoy (play food, a big box of new Playdoh, cool
stickers). Sometimes I'm right, occasionally I'm not :)

Sometimes we have errands to run. Sometimes I have to find creative ways
to make that more fun. Sometimes we go to playgroups or swimming or
whatever. Some things happen on certain days -- e.g. the Monday
playgroup only happens every other Monday -- and some things fit well on
certain days. But that doesn't mean that we *have* to go to Monday
playgroup if Leon really just wants to stay home that day.

You can follow your kids' interests and wishes. (Though obviously with
two that's harder than just one -- you need to get more creative meeting
everyone's needs!)

> *** 2. TV and ipad - Friday is iPad day. (my son says 'I am excited about
> tomorrow' on every Thursday) we set time to friday just to make sure they
> don't need to fall back on to iPad everyday when they are bored.
>
> Fear of addiction ... to the medium.. does such a thing exist ?***

Does your fear exist? I guess it does.

Does iPad addiction exist? Nope. Not in healthy happy kids. Maybe in
unhappy kids who have a need to escape. But unschooled kids are free to
choose what they *want* to do when they want to do it -- assuming you
don't screw that up by, say, telling them they can only do something at
a particular time.

iPads are amazing tools. There is SO MUCH you can do with an iPad. So
much to learn, so much fun to have. Why would you restrict that? Your
son looks forward so much to Fridays -- wouldn't it be better if he
looked forward just as much to *every* day?

You say "falling back on iPad when they're bored". Why is that bad? If
whatever they're doing on the iPad is more fun than everything else
around them, why shouldn't they do the fun thing? When it's not fun --
when building Lego or chasing each other round the garden or whatever is
more fun -- then they'll do that instead.

If you think they're doing *anything* (not just something that happens
to be on the iPad -- and as above, that covers a lot of things!) because
they lack other options, then it's your job to provide other fun things.
Lay out the train tracks, or suggest a game that they love (Leon will
drop pretty much anything to play acrobatics with me; unfortunately
that's time-limited by my stamina :) ) or start building something
yourself. (And then don't be hurt or sad if they don't want to do that.
They have choices, and they're choosing what they want! That's good!)

> *** 3. Reading - My son can read the few words and definitely tries when he
> wants to. however he/we were told not to do this and follow the
> instructions from the teacher. (pre-school before April.) when I ask him
> to try he responds 'i can do it when I am 5 or 7 etc'***

Is that something he's heard from someone else? You could gently reply
with "you can do it whenever you're ready" -- but maybe stop asking him
to try, and wait for him to want to try. He's been told he shouldn't
try; it may take a while before he's comfortable to try again.

(LOADS of cool stuff about natural reading learning here:
http://sandradodd.com/reading

)


Juliet