Cameron Parham

Here's something exciting. I am exploring unschooling, and we have declared ourselves officially unschooling as of March 1st. I have been helped tremendously by Sandra Dodd's essays and by this discussion. One of my challenges has been that as a single mom, I must work part time as an ER doctor. Thus I really depend on my babysitter. I am so lucky to have a homeschooling babysitter with 4 boys who handles 7 kids at once very well. However, she has always rigidly schooled following a set curriculum. Now (surprise) she's burning out. Her kids are burning out, arguing, often tearful. It of course causes her problems for my kids to unschool while hers feel that way. She asked to learn more about what we are doing. I felt the book which would be the most comfortable intro for her to unschooling would be Christian Unschooling, and gave her a copy yesterday. She has devoured half of it overnight, and already has excellent questions, and is remebering the old days when she had
more fun with the (then younger) kids and did not feel pressured. Now for the problem: she has explored the idea with her husband and he is scared. He is full of all the "what if's, and oh no's, and fears; to make it worse he has had some seious recent financial setbacks and really doesn't want to revamp their lives...I am aware of books by Llewellyn, Holt, Gatto, and the Colfaxes. They have just gotten their internet turned back on today, and I can recommend Sandra Dodd's websites and this discussion. But if we want to reassure a skittish spouse who is already stressed, what is the best approach? Keeping in mind that forcing him won't work any better than forcing kids, where to begin, so he doesn't try to veto it in a kneejerk way?

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

Erica Iwamura

I'm anxiously awaiting answers to this question! I am ready to jump in feet
first and unschool. I don't even know how to approach this with my Dh
though.

Erica

On 3/9/07, Cameron Parham <acsp2205@...> wrote:
>
> Here's something exciting. I am exploring unschooling, and we have
> declared ourselves officially unschooling as of March 1st. I have been
> helped tremendously by Sandra Dodd's essays and by this discussion. One of
> my challenges has been that as a single mom, I must work part time as an ER
> doctor. Thus I really depend on my babysitter. I am so lucky to have a
> homeschooling babysitter with 4 boys who handles 7 kids at once very well.
> However, she has always rigidly schooled following a set curriculum. Now
> (surprise) she's burning out. Her kids are burning out, arguing, often
> tearful. It of course causes her problems for my kids to unschool while hers
> feel that way. She asked to learn more about what we are doing. I felt the
> book which would be the most comfortable intro for her to unschooling would
> be Christian Unschooling, and gave her a copy yesterday. She has devoured
> half of it overnight, and already has excellent questions, and is remebering
> the old days when she had
> more fun with the (then younger) kids and did not feel pressured. Now for
> the problem: she has explored the idea with her husband and he is scared. He
> is full of all the "what if's, and oh no's, and fears; to make it worse he
> has had some seious recent financial setbacks and really doesn't want to
> revamp their lives...I am aware of books by Llewellyn, Holt, Gatto, and the
> Colfaxes. They have just gotten their internet turned back on today, and I
> can recommend Sandra Dodd's websites and this discussion. But if we want to
> reassure a skittish spouse who is already stressed, what is the best
> approach? Keeping in mind that forcing him won't work any better than
> forcing kids, where to begin, so he doesn't try to veto it in a kneejerk
> way?
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>



--
"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein


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

Vickisue Gray

I'm probably not the best one to answer you about this, as we only began "officially" unschooling in the past year. Well let me say, if you ask my son, he would have school no other way! Now granted, people tell me, "Of course, unschooling works for you. Your son is gifted!" Personally, I think that's a load of balderdash. My son (and daughter who's in ps hs) love to learn. It never got crushed out of them. Both my kids, research their interests
and read all they can. One took the private to public school path. The other. those options, didn't work for.

If your spouse has concerns, have him talk to your child about what the child is doing. My son will tell you he hates math as he hangs upside down and does algebra in his head for fun. (Just don't tell him it's math, lol.) My son by age, is third grade. The evaluator told me to skip up a few grades so he doesn't get bored. Just to stock the shelves, I bought fifth grade books and the flash cards. Turns out my son already knew most of them just from watching animal planet and such. Children will learn if you make available things that intrigue their minds. Think about what you enjoyed learning and how it made you want to learn more. That's how children are.

Lol, my 16yo just said to her 9yo brother," Don't make me use my imagination on you."
It's so funny because that's all she had to say to get him to giggle and leave her alone.

There's no one and only path to learning. Why fill it with tears, fights, and boring stuff?



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

Joyce Fetteroll

On Mar 9, 2007, at 5:08 PM, Cameron Parham wrote:

> Now for the problem: she has explored the idea with her husband and
> he is scared. He is full of all the "what if's, and oh no's, and
> fears; to make it worse he has had some seious recent financial
> setbacks and really doesn't want to revamp their lives

Rather than trying to convince him, how about a family discussion on
what will help everyone feel more comfortable? What would he like to
see that the children are willing to do that will help him feel more
comfortable about the learning that's going on? Proof doesn't need to
look like worksheets. If the kids see it as *helping* dad feel
comfortable rather than fulfilling a requirement that he's set up for
them, they'll be more willing. It will probably need tweaked several
times to find something that works for everyone.

In the meantime you might direct him to my website. Being of an
engineering bent my explanations tend to appeal to men.

There's also the Secret Society of Unschooling Dads yahoogroups:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SSUDs
Subscribe: [email protected]

Joyce

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

Erica Iwamura

that will help us Joyce. my DH is an engineer so I will have him do some
reading while we're on vacation!

Erica

On 3/11/07, Joyce Fetteroll <fetteroll@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 9, 2007, at 5:08 PM, Cameron Parham wrote:
>
> > Now for the problem: she has explored the idea with her husband and
> > he is scared. He is full of all the "what if's, and oh no's, and
> > fears; to make it worse he has had some seious recent financial
> > setbacks and really doesn't want to revamp their lives
>
> Rather than trying to convince him, how about a family discussion on
> what will help everyone feel more comfortable? What would he like to
> see that the children are willing to do that will help him feel more
> comfortable about the learning that's going on? Proof doesn't need to
> look like worksheets. If the kids see it as *helping* dad feel
> comfortable rather than fulfilling a requirement that he's set up for
> them, they'll be more willing. It will probably need tweaked several
> times to find something that works for everyone.
>
> In the meantime you might direct him to my website. Being of an
> engineering bent my explanations tend to appeal to men.
>
> There's also the Secret Society of Unschooling Dads yahoogroups:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SSUDs
> Subscribe: [email protected]<SSUDs-subscribe%40yahoogroups.com>
>
> Joyce
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>



--
"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein


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

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: acsp2205@...\

But if we want to reassure a skittish
spouse who is already stressed, what is the best approach? Keeping in
mind that
forcing him won't work any better than forcing kids, where to begin, so
he
doesn't try to veto it in a kneejerk way?

-=-=-=-

Try Connections e-zine. Several article by dads in particular.

There's also the dads' egroups:

[email protected]
[email protected]

But if he's willing to learn more (to have a happy household), why
would he knee-jerk veto?



~Kelly

Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://www.LiveandLearnConference.org


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