Jeff & Diane Gwirtz

> You know, I read this, and the rest of your response, and I think that is so
> great. But I don't understand it. The bones of it. Do you just get up in
> the morning and say, "what do you want to do today?" Or do you just get up in
> the morning? All summer, I let the boys pretty much do what they wanted, I
> asked them to practice their music everyday, and read 30 min. a day. They
> did that, and then played with their Dragon Ball Z action characters the rest
>
Dragon Ball Z - Ds was really into that for awhile. He and his
friends wrote all kinds of role-playing scenarios around it.

Sometimes we get up and have specific things we have to do that day -
like on Wednesdays we deliver Meals on Wheels and on Thursdays , ds
has guitar lessons. Sometimes we talk about what he wants to do -
for instance if he wants to go to the library, etc. Most of the time
we just get up. You can't tell our summer from the rest of the year,
except that the phone quits ringing for ds when the other kids go
back to school. He enjoys this because he knows he'll have
uninterrupted time for what he wants to do. Everything seems to go
in spurts here. Ds spent days playing Civilization II on the
computer. Then he started reading _The Odyssey_ and spent hours on
that. This week he spent hours playing his guitar and working on
geometry, algebra, and physics. I never know from one day to the
next what he might really throw himself into.

Now that I've said all that, let me point out that this is our 4th
year of homeschooling which became unschooling after a few months.
He has had plenty of time to deschool which meant a lot of playing
video games, watching tv, and staring into space for him. My dh
often had more faith than I did that his motivation would kick back
in. I used to walk into his room when he was playing video games and
he would say, "I'm sorry - I know I should be doing something more
constructive." I'd laugh and respond, "Why, aren't you enjoying
yourself?" He finally saw it all start to work and we all breathed a
big sigh of relief. He still plays video games once in awhile during
the day, but most of the time, he wants to use the time while his
friends are at school for other things.

I don't know how long your children have been out of ps or away from
structured unschooling. Understand that it takes time and a lot of
patience. Just for a time, try not to do anything educational.
Just have fun. You'll find out just how hard it is not to learn
anything.

Diane from KS
jagwirtz@...