Duane

Hi! I am new to the group and have been reading for a few weeks and I must say- I just *thought* I didn't know what I was doing...you all have confirmed it. I was really confused in the beginning, with reading all of the food posts...I was like...woah-what is this? I was confused and began to radically question everything I thought I knew.

Last year we decided to homeschool the kids. I quit my lucrative job and became a SAHM. My eldest is/was in college and I had three kids left at home who I felt desperately needed me. My son is now 16 and in school- he hated everything. He didn't do his schoolwork and it was a constant battle. My other two are girls, now almost 10 and 13 and they too hated school and was always having to stay late for detention or finishing work. Then there was the lying about homework and general misbehaving about having to get up every morning (and go to bed at night!). The youngest was also caught up in her and others appearances and only went to school for the fashion show. I didn't like who they were becoming nor who I was as a parent.

So we kept them home last year and I bought a curriculum and had them scheduled for every minute of the day. It was torture. They all wanted to go back to school. Fast forward to the beginning of this school year, I asked them all what curriculum they would like to try and do, I gave them the choice. We bought it and...they still hated it. They (the girls especially) still wanted to go back to school. I said, that's not true...if you really wanted to sit in a classroom all day and work...and then spend your evenings doing homework...you could be doing that right now...at home!

Then I gave up. Literally. I just let them do what they wanted to do. I felt like a miserable failure. Then, I began to find articles on the internet about this unschooling. I got a general idea what it was about but no real specifics. Then I found radical unschooling...and I became terrified. I have absolutely no idea exactly what I am doing. I "just" learned about "strewing"...what on earth do you strew for teenagers? If they have a specific desire I try to always say yes...but they are very few and far between. Here is my main fears: Is it really okay for them to be playing video games ALL DAY? How do I get them to pick up their mess without becoming a monster or am I a slave to them all day? How on earth will my 10 year old become a productive member of society if she can barely read and write? What about college?

I know this is a lot of questions but, no matter what I read, these things really are not specifically addressed. I just don't want to damage my kids any further. I read about all of these fabulous unschoolers and how they became brilliant and went to college and became successful people and it just does not equate for me. I see my kids in pajamas at three o'clock in the afternoon with their eyes glazed over from playing "Call of Duty" all day and try to imagine them as successful adults and it won't compute. Help!

P.S.- The only reason I have not given up and sent them all packing back to school is the fact we are all truly- the happiest people we ever have been. I know that indicates something....

Joyce Fetteroll

On Dec 19, 2010, at 8:12 AM, Duane wrote:

> I know this is a lot of questions but, no matter what I read, these
> things really are not specifically addressed.

Actually they are, just not all the time on this list. You'd need to
dig into the archives.

Or go here:

http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/

and, though not as easy to navigate when you're looking for a specific
answer but with a lot more examples and writings gathered from lists
like this:

http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Even this very specific question of " How do I get them to pick up
their mess without becoming a monster or am I a slave to them all
day?" is addressed down the right hand side of Joyfully Rejoycing.

Sorry I have to take off or I'd answer more specifically, but that
should give you plenty to read! :-)

Joyce




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plaidpanties666

The good news is that a little "doing nothing" is a great way to start out unschooling. Your kids need a break from the pressures of "education" either at school or home, to learn to be themselves again. Its pretty normal for kids, especially teens, to do a lot of vegging out for awhile, and depending on how much time each person needs, you that while can be over a year! Think of the, if you like, as on sabatical for mental health reasons.

>>> P.S.- The only reason I have not given up and sent them all packing back to school is the fact we are all truly- the happiest people we ever have been. I know that indicates something....
***********************

Ta Da! See, it works ;) Happiness is a good thing - some people hunt for it all their lives, you know. Your kids are now ahead of the game in that regard.

So, now, what do they want? Do they just want to hang out for awhile? Its okay if they do, but maybe plan some fun things to do with each kid as well as together as a family. I mean Fun things, not educational-and-fun things. What do they like? Music? Go out and see some bands. Fashion? Look for local, small scale fashion shows - ask at make-up counters in malls, local art galleries and tattoo shops if you don't know where to start with that. Small scale fashion is a fascinating, grass-rootsy scene. The hardest part of strewing for kids who've been in school or homeschooled for many years is they've lost the ability to get excited about new things And they struggle to think outside the box.

>> Is it really okay for them to be playing video games ALL DAY?

Yes. Really.
http://sandradodd.com/videogames/

http://sandradodd.com/teen/
(there's a link to a page on getting into college on the second, but lots more besides). Especially read the

>> How do I get them to pick up their mess without becoming a monster or am I a slave to them all day?
********************

Neither, but they need a break and you'll need to shift your perspective a little:
http://sandradodd.com/chores/

>> How on earth will my 10 year old become a productive member of society if she can barely read and write?
*******************

She's only 10, no need to be a "productive member of society" for... gosh her whole life's worth of years. She needs time to figure out who she is under the lables school stuck on her. The greatest gift you can give her is that time.

http://sandradodd.com/nest

---Meredith (Mo 9, Ray 17)

mari teaches

duane lol, my 14 yr old plays call of duty and black ops ALL the time until
he is about to pass out. he has the ps3 maybe they can become online
buddies. alfredo does best with online and not face to face he shuts down
and cant deal with it. he can but it takes lots of work and time for it. he
will never admit to it of course.

dont worry the game thing wears off, they dont sit there 24/7 playing it. at
1st they do it for many hours straight but as time goes on and they have
beaten the game, it wears off. alfredo has days now where he is on it for
hours on end and others when he cant stand to see it. it comes and goes in
waves like all things.

what i did is let them be, do what they please and how they please. they
just get so bored they come to you asking to do stuff, then you start
brainstorming great ideas of what they want to do, and how, and when they
want to do it. alfredo has chosen to do online virtual highschool, he went
from all F's and failing and they were going to repeat him to all A's and
B's and 1 C. his previous F's came from his ps learning environment it was
abusive and traumatic for him. he is gifted and has a very high iq and for
him to deliberately get F's was really crazy.
--
FREE Birthday cards
http://sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com/2010/12/cant-wait-cards-give-away_16.html

FREE childrens Progress Cards
http://sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com/2010/12/progress-cards.html

Mari
VP~ http://www.ihn-brevard.com
Independant Homeschoolers Network
http://www.facebook.com/MagicalMari
http://www.sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com
http://sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-can-home-school-how.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/workboxes
http://www.childworkboxes.blogspot.com
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/florida_trips/
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/lovemypet/
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/TeachersandParents
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/need2scream


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Nicole Willoughby

>> How on earth will my 10 year old become a productive member of society if she can barely read and write?

*******************



Ok Im honestly not trying to be snarky here but there are lots of jobs that can be done without reading and writing that are very productive. Can you imagine the world if no one came to pick up your trash every week?

However since most parents ( myself included :) ) think productive member of society to mean college and beyond I want to link you to our day in the life on Sandra Dodds page from nearly 3 years ago.

http://sandradodd.com/day/nicole

The girls are back at school this year, not because Ive "thrown my hands up ". In a nutshell its because the falling in the above link turned out to be because of a then undiagnosed  genetic heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. My heart has stopped 3 times in a bit over 2 years and I haven't been able to drive much . The girls, Courtney esp wanted to be able to do more social things and I wasn't able to get them out much.

Court has done very well accademically this year with all A's. The thing Im thrilled about though? She hasn't hesitated to question the necessity of things that happen at school, how her teachers do things, etc. because she hasn't been hearded to do things like everyone else all these years.





Nicole







--- On Sun, 12/19/10, mari teaches <mari.teaches@...> wrote:

From: mari teaches <mari.teaches@...>
Subject: Re: [unschoolingbasics] I have no idea what I am doing
To: [email protected]
Date: Sunday, December 19, 2010, 2:30 PM







 









duane lol, my 14 yr old plays call of duty and black ops ALL the time until

he is about to pass out. he has the ps3 maybe they can become online

buddies. alfredo does best with online and not face to face he shuts down

and cant deal with it. he can but it takes lots of work and time for it. he

will never admit to it of course.



dont worry the game thing wears off, they dont sit there 24/7 playing it. at

1st they do it for many hours straight but as time goes on and they have

beaten the game, it wears off. alfredo has days now where he is on it for

hours on end and others when he cant stand to see it. it comes and goes in

waves like all things.



what i did is let them be, do what they please and how they please. they

just get so bored they come to you asking to do stuff, then you start

brainstorming great ideas of what they want to do, and how, and when they

want to do it. alfredo has chosen to do online virtual highschool, he went

from all F's and failing and they were going to repeat him to all A's and

B's and 1 C. his previous F's came from his ps learning environment it was

abusive and traumatic for him. he is gifted and has a very high iq and for

him to deliberately get F's was really crazy.

--

FREE Birthday cards

http://sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com/2010/12/cant-wait-cards-give-away_16.html



FREE childrens Progress Cards

http://sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com/2010/12/progress-cards.html



Mari

VP~ http://www.ihn-brevard.com

Independant Homeschoolers Network

http://www.facebook.com/MagicalMari

http://www.sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com

http://sprinkle-of-fun.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-can-home-school-how.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/workboxes

http://www.childworkboxes.blogspot.com

http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/florida_trips/

http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/lovemypet/

http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/TeachersandParents

http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/need2scream



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

























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

Bun

I know you didn't request any book titles, but maybe you and/or your kids might enjoy Grace Llewlyn's "The Teenage Liberation Handbook." Also, it might help to meet other local unschoolers and to attend an unschooling conference. Laurie

plaidpanties666

mari teaches <mari.teaches@...> wrote:
>> what i did is let them be, do what they please and how they please. they
> just get so bored they come to you asking to do stuff

This is reeeeeaaaallllyy bad advice for someone with older kids, or kids who have been homeschooled, since they've likely learned Not to ask parents for help and advice. Depending on past experiences, they may even have been told "if you're bored, you're boring, go find something to do." or had plaints of boredom met with options of chores. It can take a lot of time and TLC to rebuild trust with older and/or homeschooled kids - and the kids in the original post have gone through both.

Maybe Mari means something more like "don't worry, and don't push" by "let them be" - and that's good advice. I just want to be clear that unschooling requires more contact, engagement and support, not less. Don't wait for kids to come to you. Sit with them, be available, offer food and drinks and warm slippers and outtings and gentleness.

---Meredith

Tina Tarbutton

>
> . I "just" learned about "strewing"...what on earth do you strew for
> teenagers? If they have a specific desire I try to always say yes...but they
> are very few and far between. Here is my main fears: Is it really okay for
> them to be playing video games ALL DAY? How do I get them to pick up their
> mess without becoming a monster or am I a slave to them all day? How on
> earth will my 10 year old become a productive member of society if she can
> barely read and write? What about college?
>
>
I can understand the difficulty in strewing for the 10y/o set. I have a 10
y/o boy. I leave odd things around that he might like. Dollar store silly
putty in different colors (which always ends up mixed up into one big ball
of brown within a few days), magazines that he may or may not find
interesting, sometimes they just sit there, other times he picks them up for
a few seconds. When we go to the library, he doesn't always want to go with
me, but when he does he spends his time on the computers, so I look for
books that may interest him and sit them around. Typically they're magna
books, or books about video games. Sometimes it's new foods that find their
way to the fridge, other times it's favorite foods that I pick up to make
him happy. He's always on the lookout for new little things now. Another
somewhat strewing idea that I've done is hiding little notes (short quick I
love you's or good luck beating that next level) in his video game cases.

As for playing video games all day, my son plays them for probably 95% of
his waking hours. The rest of the time he's either out playing football
with the apartment complex kids, or he's making detailed battles with his
lego figures and action figures. At first my partner and I had a HUGE
problem with the amount of time spent on video games. Now I've started
"looking for the learning" without saying anything to him (which is a big
part of it, the not saying anything part). Do your kids look up cheat codes
and walkthroughs for their games? That's research and reading, and learning
how to search for relevant information. Do they play online with friends?
That's socialization and learning to interact with people of all ages, also
networking (an important skill typically learned later in life while job
hunting). Do they use walkthrough books and cheat code books? That's again
reading, and typically learning how to use a table of contents and index.
Another thing that recently dawned on me, when I started playing the video
games too (Assassins Creed 2 is my current favorite) is that it takes hand
strength and endurance to play those games, that will make it easier for
neater handwriting when he decides it's time to write neater (if he ever
does).

Also you'll be amazed at the things that they learn from video games when it
comes to history, strategy, and with some games, even foreign languages.
We've all been taking turns playing Assassin's Creed 2 lately, and
sometimes the characters speak in italian. Well I had a hard time hearing
everything they said so I turned on the subtitles, and we realized the
subtitles translate most of the Italian for us too! What a great benefit,
he's now interested in getting an Italian language program to try. Oh,
another skill in most of these games is map reading.

There is a lot of reading in these games, if you sit and watch you'll
probably see more than you realized. As for writing, do they type? In all
reality, in todays world, handwriting isn't that important of a skill, for
that matter spelling really isn't either I communicate mostly through email
(when not talking face to face), and thank goodness for spell check, I've
used it about 20 times just in this letter. When I do need to write a
letter to someone I always type it up and print it out. Even when I was in
college I never hand wrote my first draft, unless I had to write something
in class, and then my handwriting was horrible, and I had all of the years
of compulsory schooling.

Occasionally he asks (even at 10) about college and stuff. He asks what
things he'll need to know for college and we discuss it. Typically that
leads to a day or two of him asking for math work (which he picks up
amazingly quickly since he's interested) or asking for help with learning
how to sign his name in cursive. Then he forgets about it and goes back to
non-stop video games. I'm really not worried about it because when you
start junior college (which he'll be able to start early if he wants to)
they test you and he can take the non-credit classes until he's caught up.

When it comes to cleaning up, that's still a sticky point around here
sometimes, but it's getting loads better. I just woke up (we're night time
people here) and my kitchen, which was clean before I went to bed, is
covered in dishes. However, instead of being upset about this, I'm happy
that the dishes made it to the kitchen. I'm excited that he found and made
himself food (a skill many adult males don't even have), and I also noticed
that the dishwasher has been run, probably by him, and since it was full,
that's why the rest of the dishes weren't done. Even these little things
didn't happen overnight. When we first started radically unschooling (a
year or so ago) he refused to do a single "chore" type activity, and he only
helped when asked. Now I notice lots of little spontaneous things. Because
I ask him if he'd like something to eat or drink whenever I head towards the
kitchen, he now asks my partner and I. Last night he even cooked us all
burritos in the toaster oven, and then brought them to us. As for the mess
in the kitchen right now, well I personally don't feel like tackling it this
very moment, so I'm not, but in a few hours when everyone is awake I'll ask
if anyone minds helping, and typically they don't mind, and in 10-15 minutes
my kitchen will be clean.

I know this is a long email, sorry for that, but a year or so ago I was in
the same place you are, and I remember how scary that was. Believe me, it
does get better, and better, and better.

Tina


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