Julie Stauffer

I do think kids that have been in school will have many questions if the
family is lucky enough to leap into unschooling. At first, my kids were
worried because they "didn't do anything all day." Because of their, albeit
brief, school experience, they believed that everything good came from
worksheets (which they despised by the way).

I think having younger siblings helps with the understanding. I pointed out
that I thought the kids could learn anything and didn't need me to decide
what they needed to know and to teach it to them. I used the baby as an
example. Who had taught her to sit up? To crawl? To walk? To talk? And
in English, yet?

The kids were OK with that until Adriane hit a bump last year with the kids
at gymnastics quizzing her on multiplication facts and laughingly pointing
out that perhaps her mother shouldn't be teaching her. Adriane wanted a
curriculum. She was scared that life was going to pass her by, she would be
a failure, all because she didn't know 6x7 at the age of 10 off the top of
her head.

We did all the standard "look what you know that they don't know", etc., but
Adriane was really scared and sad. So I dug out the old MathBlaster
computer game and got her a Spelling type computer game (she was also
worried about spelling). Adriane worked day and night until she knew most
of the multiplication stuff. I pointed out to her that she wanted to learn
something, she requested some resources and she taught herself. VOILA!!
Unschooling.

The kids now are quite comfortable.

Julie