[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: carebear-79@...

If this list believes that we as parents can counteract any of the
ill effects the television or anything else brings our children, why
don't we feel the same way about schooling?

-=-==

I think we *can* counter schooling, but here's a much better option, so
I choose that.

And I don't think that TV has all these "ill effects" you mention.
Certainly not like the ill effects of school!

Part of what school does is to make the child's world *smaller*.
Unschooling makes the child's world *bigger* (so does TV <g>), and I'll
opt for a bigger world!

So to me, it's apples and rakes---really no similarity at all.

-=-=-=-=-

Is it because unschooling is a lifestyle and parents that would send
their kids to school would
not partake in that lifestyle?

-=-=-=-

Maybe---it's that small world/big world thang again....

-=-=-==-

Is it not possible to have an enlightened home and still send our kids
to school?

-=-=-=-

Not to the extent of a mindful parenting/unschooling family. School
*will* get in the way.

But there have been several unschooling families with kids who've
decided to try school. Ask them.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Are we not truly connected if we are sending our children to school and
that is the
difference?

-=-=-=-=-=-

Well, even the formerly unschooling parents with a child in school
admit there is more of a disconnect when the child is in school. They
have to make special effort to connect with a child who's in school
8-10 hours/day. (Not that we don't every day anyway---but I can imagine
that it's pretty exhausting to deal with the school schedule too!)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

What if a child who has never been made to go to school, asks to go to
school?

-=-=-=-

What do you think? <g>

We discuss. We find out why. We see whether that need can be met any
other way(s). And we send him.

But the big difference is a child who *chooses* to go to school vs. a
child who is *made* to go to school. Whole different dynamic!

-=-=-=-=-=-

What if they see all the older kids on the school bus and want to
experience that?

-=-=-=-=-

I'd see whether my kid could ride the Big Yellow Child Sucker one
morning or the Big Yellow Child Spitter one afternoon..

-=-=-=-=-=-

As parents who trust our children we would have to support them
correct?

-=-=--

Yep.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Would everyone happily send their child off to school knowing how
damaging it can be?

-=-=-=-=-=-

Not *happily*---but yes, I could.

-=-=-=-=-

Keeping my mouth shut my whole life didn't get me the answers I needed!

-=-=-=-=-

Yeah---I'm not much on shut mouths. <g>


~Kelly

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


________________________________________________________________________
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Fetteroll

On May 19, 2007, at 12:43 AM, Kendrah Nilsestuen wrote:

> She already has to see the real
> life violence, why inundate her with even more through TV?

If *she* prefers non-violent TV shows, then you help her find them.

If she's very sensitive, meaning a commercial for the news will
bother her, you'll already know that from being with her and you'll
help her avoid those, help her gain skills so she knows she's more
powerful than a box with pictures. (Others with sensitive kids can
help with specific ideas.)

But your fear that she's going to be exposed to scarring violence on
TV is out of proportion to what happens with real kids.

At 3.5 Kat didn't flip through the channels. She watched 101
Dalmations over and over. (Which is fairly typical of that age. It's
some brain shift that happens at 3 and they crave seeing the same
thing again and again.)

As she got older, she would flip through looking for cartoons she
recognized (ones I'd introduced her to), during the day when there
are adults talking on TV which didn't even make her pause. I'd say
she treated non-cartoon shows the same way she treated adult
magazines and books: they were just things in her way not worth
noticing that she needed to get past. Typical kids -- and you'll know
if you have an atypical kid -- have a radar that draws their
attention to stuff that appeals to kids and helps them tune out the
stuff that doesn't appeal. A typical kid in a book store won't stop
and look at every book image they pass. The dark colors, the adult
faces just don't capture their interest. There's a reason kid stuff
looks like kid stuff and it isn't because adults decided that's what
kids need. Kids are smarter than that! It's because kids are
naturally, biologically attuned to big eyes, bright colors and simple
shapes. Adults have learned from kids what appeals to them.

It probably wasn't until she was 9 or 10 when she started seeking out
cartoons on her own -- *still* flipping past anything non-cartoon.
There weren't characters biting off penises at 10AM ;-) but I doubt
the style or tone would have interested her anyway. It looks closer
to adult talking shows that the shows she was looking for. (9 or 10
might be late to channel flipping. -- Oh, my goodness, she was behind
in her development! ;-) -- but there was so many other things to do
that she didn't need to seek out more TV before that any more than
she needed to seek out more books than she was already enjoying. For
unschoolers TV is just another thing to do, not a center piece to
their lives.)

> I see the
> difference between reality and TV but I'm an adult. She is three. I
> was afraid she wouldn't know the difference, that it would impact her
> the same regardless of where she saw it.

I think adults are so worried that kids don't know that fantasy isn't
reality that they don't even consider that kids may think reality is
fantasy ;-)

I think as they grow older, it's not that they separate fantasy
*from* reality but that they that they begin to separate their
*world* into fantasy and reality, if you can see the distinction.
Santa can be part of a child's world because reality and fantasy are
still blended together. (Kat is guessing she was 10 or 11 when she
finally decided Pokemon weren't real). I suspect kids first pull out
what they can see and touch as having a special quality so rather
than separating their world into fantasy and reality they separate it
into touchable and not touchable. And though touchable has the
special quality of being (relatively) unchanging and what we'd call
real, not touchable (books, TV, words) has a different quality to it.

That doesn't mean all kids will feel the same way about "not
touchable" violence. I didn't like sad stories as a kid and still
don't as an adult. That's just something I've learned about myself by
being exposed to sad stories and having the power to avoid stories. I
don't want to be protected from them but I sure appreciate help
avoiding them! And that's something I can do for my daughter. She
doesn't want me to protect her from everything in the world that
*might* have moving skeletons and graphic horror movies. She wants
help seeing things she enjoys and avoiding the things she doesn't
want to see. But help doesn't mean me filtering. It means me giving
her information and support.

> probably the same questions that make you all want to bang your head
> against a wall

Questions don't at all make me bang my head against the wall.
Questions mean someone is turning ideas over in their head and
thinking. :-)

What makes me bang my head against the wall is when people have
already made up their mind and decided we're wrong and they're right.
When people are in that state, they're much less likely to listen to
new ideas with open minds. They read to see if someone is
understanding what they say and ignore (or filter through their own
understanding) what people are trying to explain. It's way too often
a waste of time to explain anything to them -- though I explain
because I know others are reading and may go "I finally get it!" so
the process is actually useful to other people.

> They work (with psychologists) to get into the minds of
> a children. They are a huge industry.

If getting into people's heads were easy, then there wouldn't be so
much money in it. Companies spend *billions* of dollars trying to get
people to buy their products. It wouldn't cost them billions if it
were easy! (Someone (Bob?) recently said the success rate was like 2%
or something like that.)

With children raised in mindfully parented homes I bet it's even
less ;-) But we shouldn't see commercials as dangerous but as a
source of -- very biased! -- information. It really didn't take much
discussion for my daughter to pick up how advertisers try to you
believe you need their product. (It works better to discuss
commercials aimed at adults or a niche she isn't interested in.)

Trust that your chldren are smarter than TV. Just support them and be
there for them. Talk about stuff.

> but I have lost faith in myself somewhere. Perhaps that
> is what the whole industry is aiming for?

With support, it doesn't make any difference what they're trying to
do: people are stronger than TV.

There is a mindset that children are born bad and that it needs to be
trained out of them.

With unschooling it helps loads to face children with the belief that
children are born good and need help acquiring the skills the
navigate the world. They're always doing the best they can with the
skills and knowledge and needs that they have. They just need our
help to figure out how to make even better choices.

There is also a mindset that children are weak and need protected.

I think it helps to see children as strong who need our help dealing
with the world. They have the *capacity* within them to handle it.
They just need our help tapping into it.

> If this list believes that we as parents can counteract any of the
> ill effects the television or anything else brings our children, why
> don't we feel the same way about schooling?

If children *choose* school and know they can come home anytime, if
the parents fully trust unschooling then that's a great big immunity
shot against the message that school is the only way to succeed. Kat
went to second grade for 2 months. That's how long it took for the
bad parts to outweigh the good parts for her. She *knows* from
experience that school is bogus. She's taking an art class at the
high school right now, has taken college classes, will take Calculus
at the high school in the fall. From experience she knows the
difference between learning in a class and learning from real life.
She has *no* desire to turn over all her time to the school.

For most kids they're taken way too early from their families, sent
to school where they're forced to figure out how the world works on
their own. It's not natural for a 6 yo to spend 6 hours on their own
navigating the world. There's a reason teens pull away from families:
it's when they're biologically ready to do so. But 6 yos need their
families for support. They *shouldn't* be figuring it out on their
own. Since they still need family, they tend to look for some form of
substitute in their peers when forced into school. Their
vulnerability to peer pressure (as well as messages from the world in
general) is because they don't have the nest to explore from that
they need.

Most parents who send their kids to school surround their kids with a
different message than unschooling parents do. The message is that
school is necessary, that kids are imperfect as they are and need
molded into something different, that others know what is better for
them than the kids (and often the parents) do themselves. If kids
escape negative effects from that message, it's a miracle. Usually it
takes years of work and soul searching to get rid of the messages.

Unschooled kids don't have those messages to get rid of. They can see
school for what it is. Some will want to experience it. (Part of
unschooling *is* the idea that we learn better by doing than being
told what to think about something!) Some won't see anything that
draws them. But stopping them from exploring school is as damaging to
free learning as stopping them from exploring books ... and TV. But
as Kelly said, rather than just saying "Okay," it's useful to discuss
what they want to get from school. My daughter wanted to go to
kindergarten because she thought she'd be riding the Big Wheels like
she did in preschool. When she found out they didn't have Big Wheels
she decided kindergarten didn't sound all that great ;-)

Joyce

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

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: fetteroll@...

If kids escape negative effects from that message, it's a miracle.
Usually it
takes years of work and soul searching to get rid of the messages.


-=-=-=-

Yeah---why, do you think, are the self-help sections of book stores and
libraries SOOO big? <g>


~Kelly

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


________________________________________________________________________
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Ren Allen

~~I think you may of
uncovered what might of taken me years of therapy. Should I send you
some form of payment?:)~~

Give your children what your parents couldn't give you.:) That's all.
I know you already are....but now there's room for your kids to enjoy
tv without the heavy judgment. That's cool.

I could get really into the whole "inner-child" thing...but I won't.
Just picture yourself as that small, helpless child you once were. Hug
her, love her, give her the parenting you wish you would have gotten
through happy thoughts towards her and by giving your children the
childhood of their dreams. Parenting our own children differently,
gives us a huge opportunity to heal old wounds.

About the "ill-effects" of tv vs. schooling....I just don't see them
the same at all. A TV sits in your home and does absolutely nothing
without free choice. It just sits there. Like a book, like a radio,
like a spoon or a cup or any other tool. Just sits.

If we choose to utilize that tool, we can use it in a number of ways.
We can ignore the parts that don't work (or are parts that bother us),
we can turn it off, we can watch a show and have a supportive group of
people around us even if it is bothersome, we can choose to only watch
things we LOVE.:)

School doesn't give you that power or choice. You do what they say,
you do what others want, you are judged and graded and poked and
prodded and molded and judged again. TV can't do that. It's just a tool.

If schools let you come in and choose what you would utilize there and
how you would utilize it, then schools wouldn't be that damaging at
all. It's not only a world separated from the real world, you don't
even get a choice about how to use that fantasy world. School is an
ugly thing for those that aren't choosing to be there. TV is just a
TV. No ill-effects in a mindful family.

On that topic, a mindful family will get very different results from
schooling too. A child that has free choice to use or not use school
as part of their journey will not suffer the ill-effects that most
children do.

Ren
learninginfreedom.com

Ren Allen

~~Would everyone happily send their child off to school knowing how
damaging it can be?~~

Sure. Because it's more damaging to control other people's choices
than to support them in whatever their journey may be.

My nephew is going to high school this fall, after being unschooled
his entire life. My sister had a hard time understanding why he would
choose that, but he did and his family supports him. They gave him all
the information he would need, they discussed how it might impact all
of their lives and they signed him up.

He might make a different choice down the road. But whether he stays
in school and graduates as a schooled child, or chooses to come home
again, he can do so without fear of "I told you so". He has support
from a family that trusts him to make his own life
choices....unschooled or not.

Ren
learninginfreedom.com

Ren Allen

~~probably the same questions that make you all want to bang your head
> against a wall

Questions don't at all make me bang my head against the wall.
Questions mean someone is turning ideas over in their head and
thinking. :-)~~


I just wanted to second that. I have enjoyed the dialogue very
much....because it's a great back and forth of questions and sharing
information. What makes me bang my head against a wall is when someone
declares us all looneybins without really investigating the "whys" and
"hows".

You've brought up some really great points Kendrah, things that many
of us questioned at some point in our lives. I grew up without a tv
and was taught that its influece was "wordly" and such. Growing up in
a cult religion has some iteresting effects on a person.:) I regarded
tv as a negative thing for most of my life, yet couldn't connect the
reason *I* vegetated in front of it was due to limits. I blamed the tv
for my massive attraction to it...sitting in front of it for hours as
though helpless! Nope, it was just the fact that it had been so
limited in my life, it became FASCINATING.

The TV in my children's life doesn't hold that power. Lucky for them,
I got questioned in much the same manner that you are....and because
the arguements and reasoning made so much sense, I was finally able to
rid myself of the negative attitude.

I see my four children having NO fascination with tv, unless there is
something on they really love and choose to watch. Our family has
enjoyed some rich connections surrounding tv, ones that wouldn't have
happened if I allowed my own prejudice and judgement to come between us.

The learning that has expanded our worlds from tv and video games is
amazing. I'm really grateful for the people here (and other places)
that challenged me to get out of my narrow view and expand our worlds.

Ren
learninginfreedom.com

Deb Lewis

***Wow Deb I can see you don't mince words! ***

First, I see no point in softening words when talking about violence toward
children. (spanking) And next, some people don't seem to know the
difference between
fiction and reality. Some of that might be because for years
they've heard experts talk about "violence" on TV, as if fiction was real
violence. I prefer to keep things in perspective.
I was also filling bird feeders, washing out bird baths, taking out the
trash, making food for my family and getting ready to go to work. The
situation called for brevity. <g>

***I can't control the violence
my daughter sees while out in the world. At the park the other day
she saw a lady whacking her dog around. It upset her, we discussed
it. ***

What did you say? Did you tell her to stop?
When people encounter a new situation they have to stretch themselves in new
ways to understand it. John Holt wrote that was the real test of
intelligence; how a person acts when they encounter something completely
new or unexpected. We're always processing information from our
environment. We are designed
to process all kinds of information. Unpleasant things are not alien or
even bad for our brains they are as normal as the pleasant stuff.
Unpleasant bits of information are like any other
kinds of information. They give us reason to think in new ways and they
give us something to stick new information to the next time we come up
against something unexpected or unpleasant.

***That is why I didn't want TV. She already has to see the real
life violence, why inundate her with even more through TV? ***

First, TV is not "real life violence" so you couldn't inundate her with
"even more real life violence" through TV. <g> And why would you
"inundate" anybody with anything? (except for chocolate, maybe) You won't
find unschooling advice that says "Flood your kids with TV! Overwhelm them
with adult shows!" "Give them more than what they want!" Inundate is a
loaded word. We're saying *let her watch if she wants* and you're hearing
"make her watch everything!" Or, you're imagining she'd want to watch
everything. She wont.

Really, if you don't take anything else away from this discussion, please
try to understand that we're suggesting parents open the world to their
kids, as much as possible, including TV. Give them a big life. We're not
saying, "Make them watch. "

And if you can talk with your daughter about the real life violence of a
woman whacking her dog you can talk with her
about the totally fictional depictions of violence on TV.

Your little girl, at three would probably not be interested in an adult
themed TV series or movie with depictions of violence. There's a lot of
yakity yak in those shows that it boring to kids, so the chance that she'd
choose to watch adult themed programs is pretty slim considering all the
cool stuff there is for kids. There are exceptions and my kid was one.
Around the time he was four he liked more adult themed programs. But he
didn't watch alone and we talked a lot. And he's a nice kid today, doesn't
whack dogs or stomp on ants, doesn't pinch babies.

But I don't think a three year old with a happy, interesting life is
necessarily suffering because she doesn't have TV.
I think if a kid *does* want TV it's better for them to have it than to feel
bad about their parents for keeping them from TV, or to be longing for it
and to begin to feel needy so that any chance encounter with TV becomes
total and desperate immersion in the hope of absorbing as much as possible
before it's snatched away.

Have you kept her from books for the same reason?

***I see the
difference between reality and TV but I'm an adult. She is three. I
was afraid she wouldn't know the difference, that it would impact her
the same regardless of where she saw it.***

My three year old niece has been pretending to be a baby dragon for weeks.
Before that she was pretending she was a squirrel. She wasn't really a
squirrel. She's not really a dragon *and she knows that.* Children have
no difficulty at all with the concept of fantasy. They are more likely to
change reality into fantasy than the other way around.

But no one here is recommending plunking a kid in front of a TV and walking
away. We're saying watch with them. Talk about what's on. Help them find
what *they* enjoy.

When Dylan was four and five he had "What if?" questions. "What if every
time we talked frogs came out our ears?"
"What if a giant bird picked me up and put me on the roof and was pecking at
me?" What if my feet were as
long as my legs?" He definitely knew frogs wouldn't come out our ears.
He knew his feet would never be as long as his legs and he knew there were
no giant birds going to take up to the roof. He was pretending and loving
the new ways he was thinking. He was thinking about how he would act in
different situations.
He was empowering himself and learning coping skills and expanding his own
mind.

***If this list believes that we as parents can counteract any of the ill
effects the television or anything else brings our children, why don't we
feel the same way about schooling?***

I've never seen ill effects from TV and my son is fifteen and has always had
access to TV and movies. I think parents *can* counter ill effects of
school but *most* parents don't think there are ill effects from school.
(from other kids, yes, but not from school) They see school as something
their child needs and they go about supporting the system of schooling.
They support the teachers and administrators and work with them to get their
kids to do what is necessary to do well in school.

If Dylan chose to go to school I'd support Dylan. I'd do whatever I could
to help him achieve his own goals, never mind the goals of the school. I'd
work with Dylan to get what he wanted rather than work against him to
accomplish what the teacher wanted or the curriculum demanded.

Unschooling parents support their children. They support the process of
their child's individual learning, not the process of schooling or
curriculum.

I didn't keep Dylan out of school to protect him, Dylan didn't want to go to
school so I listened to him. It was never my goal to limit him and I
wouldn't have limited him by preventing him from going to school if that had
been what he wanted.

Deb Lewis

Ren Allen

~~And why would you
"inundate" anybody with anything? (except for chocolate, maybe) ~~


I fully expect to be inundated with chocolate today....and some others
goodies.

Ren, turned 38 years of age this morning :)
learninginfreedom.com

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: starsuncloud@...


Ren, turned 38 years of age this morning :)

-=-=-

YES! Ren AND Rue (the twins) share a birthday today!

Happy Birthday, Ren & Rue!

I'm glad you were born!

~Kelly
________________________________________________________________________
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free
from AOL at AOL.com.

Julie Hampton

Happy Birthday
----- Original Message -----
From: Ren Allen<mailto:starsuncloud@...>
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 9:31 AM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Re: Guidance/some additional ?'s


~~And why would you
"inundate" anybody with anything? (except for chocolate, maybe) ~~

I fully expect to be inundated with chocolate today....and some others
goodies.

Ren, turned 38 years of age this morning :)
learninginfreedom.com





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

Erica Iwamura

Have a Wonderful Birthday!!!

Erica



--
They say I'm Crazy but I Have a Good Time - Joe Walsh


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

Robin Bentley

Happy, happy day, Ren & Rue. You have been two of my favorite mentors
(though you may not have known it <g>).

ORB Robin

Cameron Parham

Ren..I tentatively want to say one thing about fascination with TV. I have 3 kids and 2 enjoy TV but usually chose other activities. One has been riveted by TV since the first time he saw it at age 18 months, and I think all 3 mostly had extremely similar exposure to TV. I have wondered at this because it seems that in my family, control/access, amount of TV, etc had nothing at all to do with how much each child wanted to watch it. I do agree that limiting anything tends to increase its fascination, but I also think there are other factors and I wonder what these are. Cameron

----- Original Message ----
From: Ren Allen <starsuncloud@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 9:17:25 AM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Re: Guidance/some additional ?'s

~~probably the same questions that make you all want to bang your head
> against a wall

Questions don't at all make me bang my head against the wall.
Questions mean someone is turning ideas over in their head and
thinking. :-)~~

I just wanted to second that. I have enjoyed the dialogue very
much....because it's a great back and forth of questions and sharing
information. What makes me bang my head against a wall is when someone
declares us all looneybins without really investigating the "whys" and
"hows".

You've brought up some really great points Kendrah, things that many
of us questioned at some point in our lives. I grew up without a tv
and was taught that its influece was "wordly" and such. Growing up in
a cult religion has some iteresting effects on a person.:) I regarded
tv as a negative thing for most of my life, yet couldn't connect the
reason *I* vegetated in front of it was due to limits. I blamed the tv
for my massive attraction to it...sitting in front of it for hours as
though helpless! Nope, it was just the fact that it had been so
limited in my life, it became FASCINATING.

The TV in my children's life doesn't hold that power. Lucky for them,
I got questioned in much the same manner that you are....and because
the arguements and reasoning made so much sense, I was finally able to
rid myself of the negative attitude.

I see my four children having NO fascination with tv, unless there is
something on they really love and choose to watch. Our family has
enjoyed some rich connections surrounding tv, ones that wouldn't have
happened if I allowed my own prejudice and judgement to come between us.

The learning that has expanded our worlds from tv and video games is
amazing. I'm really grateful for the people here (and other places)
that challenged me to get out of my narrow view and expand our worlds.

Ren
learninginfreedom. com




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

Robin Bentley

> Ren..I tentatively want to say one thing about fascination with TV.
I
have 3 kids and 2 enjoy TV but usually chose other activities. One
has
been riveted by TV since the first time he saw it at age 18 months,
and
I think all 3 mostly had extremely similar exposure to TV. I have
wondered at this because it seems that in my family, control/access,
amount of TV, etc had nothing at all to do with how much each child
wanted to watch it. I do agree that limiting anything tends to
increase its fascination, but I also think there are other factors
and
I wonder what these are. Cameron

****

Not Ren, but I'd venture a guess that your ds learns best visually.
Images may have more impact for him. If he thinks in pictures, then
tv, and probably computer games, will appeal to how his brain works.
Limiting tv won't be as helpful as exploring it with him and
embracing his fascination.

On the other hand, if you think there are "other factors" in tv
fascination, can you tell us what you think they might they be?

Robin ORB

Meredith

--- In [email protected], Kendrah Nilsestuen
<carebear-79@...> wrote:
>I really,
honestly have believed that the media over powers me when it comes to
my children. They work (with psychologists) to get into the minds of
a children. They are a huge industry. How can little old me compete?
************************

By working towards open, two-way communication with your child.

The night before last Mo and I were visiting our neighbor's house
and she noticed their toothpaste, which happened to be a brand whose
commercial had intrigued her. In the commercial blue ice-cubes float
out of people's mouths after they brush with this toothpaste. Mo was
excited and wanted to try it, so we found her a brush. Needless to
say, blue ice-cubes did not come out her mouth.

My neighbor was somewhat surprised that I didn't use the incident as
some kind of "lesson" regarding the falseness of advertising. Mo and
I have talked about the difference between the way things are
portrayed on tv vs the way things are in life before (wrt school
looking like fun on shows for young children), so I didn't think she
needed that piece of information all over again.

Instead, when Mo asked me why the commercial showed something that
was so blatantly non-factual we talked about metaphor and different
ways to express feelings in a visual medium. That's really
interesting to her in terms of drawing cartoons, and she was
intrigued by the idea of using digital images to suggest an emotion
or sensation in the same way a cartoon uses different lines and
shapes and colors. Now she relates to the ad on the level of
disagreeing with the artist's representation. *She* would have used
little explosions.

***********************
I'd like to think my enlightened home could counteract the effects of
television, but I have lost faith in myself somewhere.
***********************

I've found that the "effects of television" are completely different
than my expectations about those effects - I didn't have tv for
years, so *all* I knew about tv, and especially advertising was the
anti-tv propaganda. But both my kids use tv in very very different
ways than I had anticipated - and I think a big part of that has to
do with my willingness to set aside my preconceptions and really
connect with my kids on this subject.

Another story - last night Ray and I were having dinner with the
same neighbor, who has out-of-town guests. All very "alternative"
and anti-tv. At one point the dinner conversation turned to
discussing world population and Ray managed to come up with a whole
bunch of facts about population density - even sat and figured some
percentages. One of the guests made a comment that he must be doing
well in school, and he replied "No Way! I hated school! I learned
that watching television." LOL!

---Meredith (Mo 5.5, Ray 13)

Sylvia Toyama

One of the guests made a comment that he must be doing
well in school, and he replied "No Way! I hated school! I learned
that watching television." LOL!

****
Andy & Dan are always sharing something they learned on TV. Usually Andy finishes up with "who said you never learn anything watching TV?"

I'm kinda worried they'll throw that gauntlet down while the inlaws are visiting this fall. Course then, the inlaws will want to know what theyr'e watching on TV. <g>

Sylvia


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[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: sylgt04@...

I'm kinda worried they'll throw that gauntlet down while the inlaws
are
visiting this fall. Course then, the inlaws will want to know what
theyr'e
watching on TV. <g>

-=-=-

And, with a smile, you can say, "Family Guy and Futurama!" <g>



~Kelly

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

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Rue Kream

Thanks, everyone :o).

I had a very fun day, topped off with a concert and party for Julian
Baptista (whose grandmother also shares our birthday, Ren :o)).

Listening to everyone talk about Julian, what a cool kid he is and all the
neat stuff he's done, I was thinking about something Rowan said the other
day. We were listening to an interview the Traaseths did for Minnesota
Public Radio
(http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/05/16/unschooling/?rsssou
rce=1) and we were talking about how some people just don't get it, and it's
not an easy thing to explain to people who seem to not want to get it. Rowan
said school is like a paint by number, with the lines all drawn and the
colors all chosen. Unschooling is like a blank canvas, where you paint
whatever you feel like. It was nice to spend part of my birthday
celebrating another person who isn't living a paint by number life :o).

~Rue
http://another-roadside-attraction.blogspot.com/




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Sylvia Toyama

And, with a smile, you can say, "Family Guy and Futurama!" <g>

~Kelly

****
Actually, I'm a little more concerned about the whole religion issue. The inlaws are devout Methodists -- really pretty benign as religious folks go, not of the fundamentalist persuasion -- where we're not even remotely Christian. Lately, tho, both boys have asked questions about that religion that make it clear they don't buy the Christian view. We've had a recent falling out with a local unschooling family that dumped our tribe because we as a group aren't 'Christian-friendly' enough, leaving a really bad taste in my boys' mouths about Christianity in general. And because they can see thru it, they wonder why others folks do believe it.

Sylvia ~ starting to wonder what I was thinking when I invited the inlaws to visit...


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Deb Lewis

***When the lady was smacking her dog, no I'm embarrassed to say I
didn't say anything directly to her.***

Well, don't beat yourself up over it. Mom beating isn't any better than dog
beating. <g>

***I instead tried to focus on my daughter and the feelings she was having
about it. In retrospect I
should of said something...***

It's hard to know what to say and some of what we're thinking goes like
this, "If she's willing to hit her dog what might she do to me if I speak
up?" <g> And it's natural to think about your kid first since we
have much more experience helping our kids than we have addressing random
acts of meanness by strangers.

***May I ask how you handled the mom who was spanking her child in front of
your son? ***

It was a long time ago, when Dylan was about five. I was just getting to
know some of the moms in my town who's kids weren't in school. I tend to be
blunt and I don't remember exactly what I said but it was probably
rude. Not my finest moment, but it wasn't nearly as bad as hitting a kid
and I don't regret speaking up for that kid in front of my own kid.

***I'm open to suggestions, although I realize each situation
is different.***

Right, that's part of the difficulty of dealing with these things. When I
encountered a guy smacking his dog I took the dog. I didn't wrestle the dog
away I sneaked over later and kidnapped her. (I called it "rescuing"<g>)
I was still pretty young and fearless then. We had seventeen happy years
together. <g>

But when I've been around people who
aren't being nice to their kids I've said a range of things from, "Poor
little guy, is he just tired of being in that cart?" to a mom who was
getting impatient and maybe just needed a minute to think of things from her
little kid's point of view, to "Stop that or I'll get security."

When I've seen moms getting more and more frustrated I've opened boxes of
crackers or whatever and given kids a handful. I've smilingly reminisced
about my own kid at that age. I've commented about how well their child was
coping with being where he didn't really want to be, saying something like,
"he's so little but it's easy to see he's doing the best he can." I've
offered to get the rest of the items on her list for her, or stand there
with her kid(s) while she got the rest of the items. At the park once, when
I couldn't stand the way a mom was picking at her kid I said "If you'd like
to just go visit I'll play with the kids and make sure no one gets killed."

I have distracted angry moms with happier thoughts, or distracted unhappy
kids with conversation or food, or offered help or just put myself between
mom and kid in some way. It depends on the situation. And I'm still
sometimes blunt.

***I guess I am beginning to see that my three year old is not going to get
up at midnight go turn on the tube and sit back and drink a six pack while
watching some form of filthy comedy or something else that would be
just as horrid:)***

<G> I laughed when I read that and I know you're exaggerating but that's not
too far from what some people think might happen.


Deb Lewis

Brian & Alexandra Polikowsky

Happy Birthday Rue!!!!!!!!!!! May you also get lots of chocolate!!!!!!!!!!
Alex


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