ECHSA

Hi
Reading this: As I said in my previous post, many unschooling parents seem
to have children who don't struggle with choice. These children always seem
to peacefully and wisely make decisions that are in their best interests.
Limits on television watching and video games come to mind, for instance.

I also wonder - is everyone entirely honest about this? Are people saying
that people will always make good choices, left to themselves? Personally I
find that quite hard to believe...(maybe the country I live in has something
to do with it)
Regards
Cathy in South Africa

joanna514

--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., "ECHSA" <echsa@i...> wrote:
> Hi
> Reading this: As I said in my previous post, many unschooling
parents seem
> to have children who don't struggle with choice. These children
always seem
> to peacefully and wisely make decisions that are in their best
interests.
> Limits on television watching and video games come to mind, for
instance.
>
> I also wonder - is everyone entirely honest about this? Are people
saying
> that people will always make good choices, left to themselves?
Personally I
> find that quite hard to believe...(maybe the country I live in has
something
> to do with it)
> Regards
> Cathy in South Africa

I don't see anyone as "left to themselves" in an unschooling family.
I honestly have no problems with the 2 examples given (TV and
videos), but in some families, my kids choices, and amount of time
spent, might be considered unacceptable. The only choices my kids
make, that I sometimes have problems with, is dealing with other kids
or their siblings. They aren't always kind. They sometimes hurt
feelings, and we talk about it, and I usually find, someone
embarrassed another, or wasn't playing fair, or was just being grumpy.
Sometimes I'm grumpy and don't handle it all well, but we ALWAYS come
back to it later, and we discuss it again, and talk about other ways
of handling things(even for me) and we forgive ourselves and each
other for being grumpy, and not making the right choices.
I do think some people have easy going kids, and make it all sound a
little unrealistic, esp. when applying it to my life. My kids have
lots of energy and lots of passion. That's not easy to control for a
little kid. It's not always easy to control for me!
Joanna

psam ordener

> I also wonder - is everyone entirely honest about this? Are people saying
> that people will always make good choices, left to themselves? Personally
I
> find that quite hard to believe...(maybe the country I live in has
something
> to do with it)

People make choices based on their experience and on the expectations of
those dear to them. Children, a subset of people, will try things that may
not be good for them, but will ultimately respond to the behavior modeled
around them (most children; there are doubtless some who will not follow the
model). If you watch TV all day, they'll assume this is OK to do and will
want to do it too. If you're involved in meaning and interesting stuff,
they'll want to participate with you in what you're doing.

Most children won't choose to sit at a desk, day after day, filling in
worksheets. Mine would choose to be outside running around, reading a book,
creating their own world and games with Legos and other toys, or playing on
computer or video games. They do learn from all these things. Maybe they
don't know what year some war ended. Maybe they don't know what happened at
some famous battle, or who invented penicillin. If it becomes important to
them to know that, they'll learn it quickly.

Everybody makes mistakes. Children, having less experience on which to base
their decisions, might be expected to make more mistakes; having parents
close by to model good decision-making is what lets so many of them survive
<G>.

psam
psamo@...

Motherhood - not just a job, it's an Adventure!