Solé

Dear List,

I'm starting to panic a bit. So before it grows, I want to seek your
advice.

(As some of you probably remember I'm the one trying to unschool in
Germany as much as it is possible, but still sending my daughter to
school because of German law.)

We've been quite happy with this new lifestyle. It's probably common
that parents tend to panic when their children deschool and only hang
out in front of the tv or computer. I understand that they would find
a healthy middle and interest in other things and that tv and
computer must not be regarded as a bad thing.

But I wonder if she (7) will ever stop deschooling in our situation,
because she's still going to school! So I guess she needs to
"deschool" each afternoon from the school in the morning. I maybe
wouldn't start panicking if she was completely unschooled, but I'm
starting to panic because I know she'll have to be in school for a
few years until we can move :-( I'm imagining her
deschooling=watching tv everyday from now on until we move away (and
then even more time). And I'm worried that she will not go to bed in
time, she's starting to watch more and more tv and going later to bed
each day despite my offers to cuddle and read a story and brushing
teeth together and the things we had been doing which helped her
settle down in the first weeks. When she has friends over, she just
goes in front of the tv, even if THEY are saying, hey, it's boring,
let's go out and play, she goes "no, that's really interesting" or
just says nothing and keeps watching, ignoring her guests. She
doesn't say good bye to them when they are about to leave, she sits
less than half a meter away from the tv and keeps watching *sigh*.
And it's getting later and later every day, and so the program
changes... I start saying that these programs are not for children
and we could look at the information (which comes with the program if
you press a button) to see if it's going to be scary and so on, but I
guess with this behaviour I'm making it a whole lot more interesting.
When I asked about tv the other day you explained how your always
unschooled kids (or unschooled since years) would ask you to watch
scary things with you, ask for help and so on – but with never
unschooled kids, this just doesn't happen because she doesn't know
yet that she could trust me and ask for help or that I'm trying to
change, so I can't really trust her either. It's a loop I cannot
easily break out from. I dunno if it would be ok to say "you can
watch scary movies, and you can ask for help if you want" or
something, I have the feeling she'll just watch them then without
asking and then I have a child crying each night because of
nightmares :-(

It will be hard for me to try to explain my ideas in English, but
I'll try: I wonder if one can separate this issue in two parts, the
school/education part and the parenting part. I've seen a lot of
other names, gentle parenting, attachment parenting etc... it's so
much information and this list already sends sooo many emails I can
hardly handle them, that i can't start informing myself about these
other things; and I think unschooling is what I want, despite that
fact that i can't really do it right now. If I understood right,
these "other" gentle parents do use some kind of limits system and
send their kids to school – do you think that can work? Do you think
it's possible that she is "deparenting"(instead of "deschooling")
from the parenting part (over reacting to the new freedoms she has)
and that this process of healing could finish even though she still
goes to school? Do you know what I mean? <:-[ hmmm I was just
thinking that maybe it's not terrible because maybe it's two separate
things, deschooling and deparenting (or whatever one could call it),
and so maybe one thing won't affect the other. It's so hard for me to
juggle with these two things. I try to relax and whenever I panic
when she's been eating tons of chocolate, I go to the kitchen and
chop some fruits and then she takes that too and then I think "ah,
you see, just needed to chop some fruit, no wonder". But then ALL the
responsibility lies on me – of course it does anyway, but whenever
something goes wrong, I'm a bad mother (?) (according to my (new)
standarts!) It feels strange sometimes and I'm not sure how to cope
with this. As you can see, I'm highly confused... I know that this
sounds like I didn't understand that unschooling isn't just another
method to make kids do what we want. I'm not so desperately waiting
for the deschooling to be finished – I think that this deschooling
time, the healing time is a good part, but nobody wants to be healing
for years and years... if it doesnt end sometime and there is never
this True Happiness, and just Living. It's more like being constantly
on the way and not really "healing". I see her anxious, not relaxed –
so it's not that I want her to "stop watching tv", I just want her to
be happy and wonder if this can be achieved at all under our
circumstances. And of course I have doubts and I wonder if tv doesn't
just make you addicted to it, so maybe it never stops and she becomes
an addict (of tv)! Sometimes I regret that i started going this path,
but mostly I think it's worth it, so much has changed and it's
beautiful too.

So I guess I just want your thoughts on this, and maybe some opinion
on wether or not you think this can work or will always be
contradicting itself. I know I've asked this before, but I guess I
didn't get a satisfying answer to this one because of my many other
questions in my last posting, please help!

Greetings (I hope you understood what I was trying to say. Not only
am I confused, I also cannot put this into words that easily)

Johanna

Michelle Leifur Reid

On 9/22/06, Solé <solelokuai@...> wrote:
>
> But I wonder if she (7) will ever stop deschooling in our situation,
> because she's still going to school!

I think that once she realizes that YOU aren't going to limit the
things that she wants to do (be it watch tv, play video games or twirl
in circles until she throws up :) ) she will start relaxing and trust
you to help her work towards her passions. And who knows, perhaps
television will be one of her passions! :) Yes; school will be a
distraction to her deschooling, but the home life that you provide is
going to be more important an influence. And you haven't been
"deschooling" for very long either, so it is going to take time!

Michelle

Mara

Johanna,
first of all, lots or virtual hugs. What you are
trying to do in Germany is very hard - I know because
I am German, but happily unschooling my children in
the States. I would love to know where in Germany you
are?
I have been working on responding to your situation
for a few days now, so here it goes:
I grew up in Germany (Dortmund) and never know there
existed such a thing as unschooling or even
homeschooling and now that I am unschooling still get
lots of questions and criticism from my German family
.
Anyways, here are some things that helped me growing
up in that system - the first 8 years I went to a
Waldorf school where they did not do grades and I had
some very wonderful experiences there. My parents
drove me to another town to attend this school and it
was well worth it. There is no cheating there, more
cooperation, more hands-on work like woodworking,
gardening, cooking, music...And in 8th grade we worked
on a play full-time for months with no other classes.
Everyone got to do what they wanted within that frame
at least. My father taught there for some time and his
classes were mostly discussions about life, whatever
the students wanted to discuss. Sometimes there are
some 'freie schulen' that at least do things a bit
more differently and fun than the public schools, and
if it has to be public, is there a 'gesamtschule' near
you? - do you have any options about the school? If
you do, why not visit them with your daughter and in
the end, have her pick one she feels she could handle?
If you are out in the boonies, that is not an option
of course, but if you can move within Germany, it
might well be worth it.
Here are some more thoughts that could help:
Once I switched school to a regular gymnasium (public
school) It helped to have my parents on my side
always. To be able to joke about the mean or drunk
teachers with them and to know that grades are totally
arbitrary and don't mean a thing about who you are or
what you (need to) know.
- Tell her if she could not finish her homework, that
you could write an excuse for her sometimes, some
family issue or other.
Sometimes when I wanted to do other things (like go on
a jugglers meeting in highschool and skip school for
it) my parents just wrote me excuses.
You could always have her miss a day here and there
and have her stay home - even the work she would miss
and have to make up is not as bad as a whole day of
school. You could make it your secret special day,
watch T.V all day together, with some ice cream or
whatever fun, or bake cookies too...Tell her you wish
it could always be like this, and some day it will,
and that school is not important but could be viewed
like some interesting adventure you have to get
through.
I had a friend in Berlin who was a single mom and had
to go on a trip to Africa (business - she was an
artist) and was able to take her daughter with her and
just had her teachers give her the material to be
covered. Maybe you just need to attend a conference
(unschooling?) somewhere and HAVE to take you
daughter...? :-)

About the t.v. watching. It does sound like she is
deschooling - or destressing after school and also
testing the new freedom. Will it go away again? Will
you really trust her to make her own choices? i think
show her as much as possible in the rest of her day
how much you value her as a person. Sit down with her
and get into her world. Really indulge her in it, talk
to her about what she is watching. If she does not
like to play with her friends when they are there,
could she maybe invite them to a movie party? Watch a
whole bunch of special movies in a row, dress up like
the theme of the movies, get comfortable with lots of
pillows, food etc. And, have fun yourself! Happiness
ultimately is something that has to come from the
inside. And in Germany, as I recall, many people do
NOT have that. All through my school days I remember a
certain gloominess and dread. This does not have to be
so where you are of course -

Maybe sometimes you could think of something that
would really give you joy, something new, some place
you would like to travel to on the weekend, and just
ask her to come along.
It is funny, now when I get back to Germany I see all
these things that were there right under my nose when
I was growing up but never went to. Beautiful medieval
castles to explore, caves, museums etc. My sons had a
wonderful time the last time we went -

When our then 13 y.o. left school he only wanted to
watch t.v. or play video games all day long for maybe
a year. He did not even want to see his friends and
had us turn them away when they came looking for him.
He did not want to go anywhere or do anything.
Now, at 15 he is the most social person. He is making
all his own choices, seeing lots of friends, spending
lots of time outdoors and is calm and relaxed and
'happy'. It made all the difference in the world.
When I first released the control of t.v. for my now 5
y.o. ( he was 4 at the time) he would watch a lot at
first and we would sit down together and had some
wonderful special times. Now he mostly could not care
less and much prefers to play or build his Legos.

I don't know if that helps at all. For now, all I
would concentrate on is to love you daughter and be
happy with her.
Sorry if there was a lot of rambling here. You are
welcome to also write to me in German of-list
sometimes. I do have a German unschooling blog that I
have not written in much lately but intend to get
going again soon -
Here is my site: http://lebenohneschule.blogg.de

Much love and all the best,
Mara





--- Solé <solelokuai@...> wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> I'm starting to panic a bit. So before it grows, I
> want to seek your
> advice.
>
> (As some of you probably remember I'm the one trying
> to unschool in
> Germany as much as it is possible, but still sending
> my daughter to
> school because of German law.)
>
> We've been quite happy with this new lifestyle. It's
> probably common
> that parents tend to panic when their children
> deschool and only hang
> out in front of the tv or computer. I understand
> that they would find
> a healthy middle and interest in other things and
> that tv and
> computer must not be regarded as a bad thing.
>
> But I wonder if she (7) will ever stop deschooling
> in our situation,
> because she's still going to school! So I guess she
> needs to
> "deschool" each afternoon from the school in the
> morning. I maybe
> wouldn't start panicking if she was completely
> unschooled, but I'm
> starting to panic because I know she'll have to be
> in school for a
> few years until we can move :-( I'm imagining her
> deschooling=watching tv everyday from now on until
> we move away (and
> then even more time). And I'm worried that she will
> not go to bed in
> time, she's starting to watch more and more tv and
> going later to bed
> each day despite my offers to cuddle and read a
> story and brushing
> teeth together and the things we had been doing
> which helped her
> settle down in the first weeks. When she has friends
> over, she just
> goes in front of the tv, even if THEY are saying,
> hey, it's boring,
> let's go out and play, she goes "no, that's really
> interesting" or
> just says nothing and keeps watching, ignoring her
> guests. She
> doesn't say good bye to them when they are about to
> leave, she sits
> less than half a meter away from the tv and keeps
> watching *sigh*.
> And it's getting later and later every day, and so
> the program
> changes... I start saying that these programs are
> not for children
> and we could look at the information (which comes
> with the program if
> you press a button) to see if it's going to be scary
> and so on, but I
> guess with this behaviour I'm making it a whole lot
> more interesting.
> When I asked about tv the other day you explained
> how your always
> unschooled kids (or unschooled since years) would
> ask you to watch
> scary things with you, ask for help and so on – but
> with never
> unschooled kids, this just doesn't happen because
> she doesn't know
> yet that she could trust me and ask for help or that
> I'm trying to
> change, so I can't really trust her either. It's a
> loop I cannot
> easily break out from. I dunno if it would be ok to
> say "you can
> watch scary movies, and you can ask for help if you
> want" or
> something, I have the feeling she'll just watch them
> then without
> asking and then I have a child crying each night
> because of
> nightmares :-(
>
> It will be hard for me to try to explain my ideas in
> English, but
> I'll try: I wonder if one can separate this issue in
> two parts, the
> school/education part and the parenting part. I've
> seen a lot of
> other names, gentle parenting, attachment parenting
> etc... it's so
> much information and this list already sends sooo
> many emails I can
> hardly handle them, that i can't start informing
> myself about these
> other things; and I think unschooling is what I
> want, despite that
> fact that i can't really do it right now. If I
> understood right,
> these "other" gentle parents do use some kind of
> limits system and
> send their kids to school – do you think that can
> work? Do you think
> it's possible that she is "deparenting"(instead of
> "deschooling")
> from the parenting part (over reacting to the new
> freedoms she has)
> and that this process of healing could finish even
> though she still
> goes to school? Do you know what I mean? <:-[ hmmm
> I was just
> thinking that maybe it's not terrible because maybe
> it's two separate
> things, deschooling and deparenting (or whatever one
> could call it),
> and so maybe one thing won't affect the other. It's
> so hard for me to
> juggle with these two things. I try to relax and
> whenever I panic
> when she's been eating tons of chocolate, I go to
> the kitchen and
> chop some fruits and then she takes that too and
> then I think "ah,
> you see, just needed to chop some fruit, no wonder".
> But then ALL the
> responsibility lies on me – of course it does
> anyway, but whenever
> something goes wrong, I'm a bad mother (?)
> (according to my (new)
> standarts!) It feels strange sometimes and I'm not
> sure how to cope
> with this. As you can see, I'm highly confused... I
> know that this
> sounds like I didn't understand that unschooling
> isn't just another
> method to make kids do what we want. I'm not so
> desperately waiting
> for the deschooling to be finished – I think that
> this deschooling
> time, the healing time is a good part, but nobody
> wants to be healing
> for years and years... if it doesnt end sometime and
> there is never
> this True Happiness, and just Living. It's more like
> being constantly
> on the way and not really "healing". I see her
> anxious, not relaxed –
> so it's not that I want her to "stop watching tv", I
> just want her to
> be happy and wonder if this can be achieved at all
> under our
> circumstances. And of course I have doubts and I
> wonder if tv doesn't
> just make you addicted to it, so maybe it never
> stops and she becomes
> an addict (of tv)! Sometimes I regret that i started
> going this path,
> but mostly I think it's worth it, so much has
> changed and it's
> beautiful too.
>
> So I guess I just want your thoughts on this, and
> maybe some opinion
> on wether or not you think this can work or will
> always be
> contradicting itself. I know I've asked this before,
> but I guess I
> didn't get a satisfying answer to this one because
> of my many other
> questions in my last posting, please help!
>
> Greetings (I hope you understood what I was trying
> to say. Not only
> am I confused, I also cannot put this into words
> that easily)
>
> Johanna
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> (Yahoo! ID required)
>
>
mailto:[email protected]
>
=== message truncated ===


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 22, 2006, at 7:22 PM, Solé wrote:

> But I wonder if she (7) will ever stop deschooling in our situation,
> because she's still going to school!

She needs what she needs. You can't rush her into needing or wanting
something different!

I watched a *lot* of television when I was a kid. (Read books and
played with friends too. Did homework.) But I did watch several hours
of TV after school and in the evening. It was relaxing after the
stress of school. And my parents didn't say anything -- didn't add to
the stress. (Probably because I got good grades and they figured why
tamper with what was working? ;-) Now I watch very little. I don't
have the stress in my life that i needed to relax from.

I learned loads from TV. It fed an interest in history (through
movies) that school tried really hard to crush with it's dry history
books. It fed an interest in science and science fiction. It fed an
interest in character based story telling. And trivia with game
shows. (I had forgotten how many game shows I used to watch!)

> And I'm worried that she will not go to bed in
> time,

These all sound like bad consequences you're trying to prevent. Help
her explore. Be supportive. Give her some information to help her
decide but leave the decision up to her. If she's grumpy the next
day, do give her feedback that you don't want to be treated that way.
Sympathize with her feelings. Help her work through it. She's
exploring limits.

> I start saying that these programs are not for children

Which, you're right, says "I don't trust you. You can't handle this."
To many kids that's a challenge to test themselves against.

Treat it as you would about a program you don't think she'd find
interesting. Give her information to help her decide if she wants to
try. If she wants to try it, be with her.

> so I can't really trust her either

The more you do trust her, the faster she'll be able to trust you.

Don't trust her to make the right decisions. Trust her to need to
explore. Yes, she's probably testing *your* boundaries too! It's
perfectly normal.

> I dunno if it would be ok to say "you can
> watch scary movies, and you can ask for help if you want" or
> something, I have the feeling she'll just watch them then without
> asking and then I have a child crying each night because of
> nightmares

Has this happened?

I think you're still thinking in terms of how you can get her to make
the reasonable, rational decisions that you know are right.

But she needs to explore first. Talk about the *possible*
consequences (she might not have nightmares, for instance, she might
not be grumpy the next day) and brainstorm some solutions. If she has
nightmares, she could come into bed with you. Give her tools so she
feels more powerful. Then she won't feel like she needs to keep
testing the same things, seeking a way to feel competent and powerful.

It's very typical for people who have advanced in martial arts to
want to defuse situations where they might end up in a fight. When
you know you can beat someone to a pulp there isn't a reason to
try! ;-) If she knows you're there to support her through the
consequences and she doesn't have to figure out how to do it on her
own, she won't need to keep testing those particular waters,
searching for competence.

> but whenever
> something goes wrong, I'm a bad mother (?) (according to my (new)
> standarts!)

No. See it as her exploring. And see it as you learning to make
better choices too.

Testing limits involves risking consequences. But consequences can be
learned from too. *Not* just learning to avoid the consequence but
learning to deal with them. The lesson learned from a scratched knee
isn't to learn how to stop doing things that will scratch knees. The
lessons can be how to treat a scratched knee, how to make a better
jump to land in a way that won't hurt. Being grumpy after a too late
night watching TV can be a time to learn about what will help
grumpiness, because sometimes we do need to function on little sleep.
(Like moms need to do sometimes! ;-)

But do let her see that *everyone's* explorations in the family are a
privilege, not a right. None of us has a right to make the family
suffer while we try things out. Approach that as a given, rather than
a rule. Her meeting of her needs and wants can't come at the expense
of the others in the family, but you're there to help her find ways
to meet her needs *and* help others meet their needs too. If for
instance she wants to be loud when the baby wants to nap, approach it
as "I'm trying to meet two needs here, your need to play and his need
to sleep. Can you help me figure out ways to do that?" Make her part
of the solution rather than turning her into the problem.

> And of course I have doubts and I wonder if tv doesn't
> just make you addicted to it, so maybe it never stops and she becomes
> an addict (of tv)!

I have several posts on my website about TV (and "addiction"). They
might be helpful. Scroll down to the bottom on the left and there are
links:

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


Joyce

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