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Sandra wrote

<<She's
not sneaky, she's talkative, she has a strong personality, she's not
desperate
for attention, she's not needy because we give her lots of attention,
information, opportunities, and choices.>>
***************************************

Dating is "the" topic this past week/season in fact it caused a quite a stir
in our homeschool group..
I have been talking with my son about other families and girls homeschooled
and not. Girls and boys who seek to rebel against their controlling parents
and families by using my son...

Seems a 13 yr old (mine) cannot *plan* a movie bc the other parents say
"Children are not to plan events adults do".........
In the end the movie was canceled only to reappear the following day masked
as the same event hidden from manipulating parents who's children learned from
the best. Them!

How can I.. as a parent who respects my children stand strong for 17 more
years (my youngest is 1) with puppet parenting all around me? I try to lead by
example but I feel like it is rubbing off on me in a way that is causing me
to be frustrated..

Laura




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Emile Snyder

On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 10:34 -0400, HMSL2@... wrote:
> Seems a 13 yr old (mine) cannot *plan* a movie bc the other parents say
> "Children are not to plan events adults do".........

Sorry, what does this mean? Plan formal events for a homeschooling
group (including the adults) to do? Plan events for themselves that are
activities that are reserved for adults? I'm confused.

> How can I.. as a parent who respects my children stand strong for 17 more
> years (my youngest is 1) with puppet parenting all around me? I try to lead by
> example but I feel like it is rubbing off on me in a way that is causing me
> to be frustrated..

In what ways does it feel like this is rubbing off on you?

thanks,
-emile

> Laura
>

[email protected]

In what ways does it feel like this is rubbing off on you?

thanks,
-emile>>
***************************************
Sorry for the delay.
The whole situation just makes me tired. Lacking others around me that
allow their children to be who they are and be happy with friends. My son has a
good amount of friends but this one situation (the closest homeschool one to
us) has me a bit stressed over the hurt feelings he has endured. The clicks
that form between certain parents with religious beliefs/control/forced
thinking. The phone calls,private meets and gatherings to discuss other families.
It's been a year now and I am just now seeing what's been taking place and I
don't like it. That's what is rubbing off on me or rather rubbing me across the
grain...

L





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Robyn Coburn

<<<<The whole situation just makes me tired. Lacking others around me that
allow their children to be who they are and be happy with friends. My son
has a good amount of friends but this one situation (the closest homeschool
one to us) has me a bit stressed over the hurt feelings he has endured. The
clicks that form between certain parents with religious
beliefs/control/forced thinking. The phone calls,private meets and
gatherings to discuss other families. It's been a year now and I am just
now seeing what's been taking place and I don't like it. That's what is
rubbing off on me or rather rubbing me across the grain...>>>>

One of the things that I do is avoid having school/teaching conversations or
"how to get them to..." conversations with any of the mothers in my local RL
groups. Actually I am fortunate because there is such a wide variety of
personalities and other interests in the groups that conversation rarely
flags - nor do I think so highly of myself that I believe anyone would miss
my opinion about any of their schooling or parenting choices.

It is a very odd thing, a kind of blindness, in gossipers that they somehow
believe that they will be spared the same treatment that they are dishing
out to others.

However how to counteract it? The first thing that would probably be
suggested is to find a different group. The second thing would be create
your own.

I belong to two RL groups - one a general *secular inclusive* group. The
guidelines for the group are pretty enlightened in expression. However I
don't see it as being a place for Unschooling support and thinking - that I
get mostly online. In the last 4.5 years that the group has been in
existence, and we now have over 70 families I think, there have been very
few blow ups. The key is a mandate for "at least polite toleration" of
different belief systems.

Actually the members are mostly fairly clueless about Unschooling, but this
group is not a discussion forum, but a way to facilitate park days, play
dates and activities. I have some real friends from that group. There has
been a lot of thought put in to issues like choosing which park to meet at,
and how other activities and "field trips" that provide group discounts
might best be organized (not on Park Day please).

http://www.geocities.com/djjhp/CWHNmain.htm
will take you to the site if you wanted to read the various guidelines of
the group.

The other group is a newly formed Unschooling/Child led learners group
created by an Unschooling mom to generate more congenial support, more
friends for her son, and more regularity of connection. She started simply
by creating a Yahoo group, publicizing it on all the Unschooling and other
local (to us) lists, choosing an appropriate park and a day and continuing
to turn up most of the time. Other ways to find members is to put up flyers
at libraries and places frequented by people likely open to alternative ways
of being like food co-ops, or liberal houses of worship, or arts and crafts
centers or...well I'm sure you get the idea.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smwla/ for the group description and
keywords to help people understand that this is a non-curriculum based
homeschooling play group, with the focus on mindful parenting, not academic
issues.

It can be exhausting and energy draining to be around negativity, even if
you are not an active participant in it. The internal stress generated by
the attempt to stay acceptant and positive in the face of deeply opposing
life philosophies to your own can make you grumpy without realizing it. It
takes strength to excise the negative people from ones life. I'm not very
good at doing that myself. Good luck with it.

Robyn L. Coburn



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Thank you Robyn,

I agree and do feel as you have written,even more so now.
I did make one final attempt to help one of the issues the other day. You
may remember the dating issue/tattling mom? I called her (my friend of 5 years
who began homeschooling this year) and asked that she stop bc she was getting
the boy in trouble and he was expressing fear of his mom, so much so he
stated he was going to sleep in his closet. Yelling or whatever the mom was doing
to the boy the tattling mom was the catapult and I was trying to settle
things down. (I say that because I don't know enough to say either way)

I asked her,a normally kind-hearted religious woman, "so you know that he is
getting in trouble so much so he's going to hide in his closet, your still
going to call because the word *kill* isn't allowed in your home?" "Yes,
absolutely that word is banned in my home", she said. (The boy jokingly said he
was going to kill *my son* to stir up her son because a girl her son liked
showed up at the movies with my son.) She knew it was a joke and said so days
ago but she still called the mom to cause trouble..

Needless to say, frustrated by her attempts to play blonde and her pushing
her right to cause trouble, I hung up on her. An hour later she called me to
tell me she had called the boys mom (our list owner)and said "hi, Just want
your to know they are all alive and safe and (moms name here) wants you to
know they are all fine! WHAT! I said.

I could not believe this woman who has been my friend for 5 years just made
that call to someone she's know for less than a year, that I introduced her
to, to make me look bad by making my call to her look bigger than it was. Now I
doubt there is an abuse issue but what bad parent is going to admit that
when asked? And If he was she very well may have gotten the boy in more trouble
for telling another kid............ Two days later he doesn't answer my sons
calls and has not been online so he is prob banned from speaking to him who
knows?

So that being the final straw I am walking away to breath. Im not sure Id
want to start my own group especially after this however I do have a
unschooling group online with 40+ that is slow but full of nice people( current group
above has 10). We did meet up with a mom I met at the convention last year so
we have begun to move away from the group situation.

Laura




<<It can be exhausting and energy draining to be around negativity, even if
you are not an active participant in it. The internal stress generated by
the attempt to stay acceptant and positive in the face of deeply opposing
life philosophies to your own can make you grumpy without realizing it. It
takes strength to excise the negative people from ones life. I'm not very
good at doing that myself. Good luck with it.

Robyn L. Coburn>>


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