[email protected]

In a message dated 5/21/2002 3:39:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
joyberryjoy@... writes:


> Emotionally touched? I'm scratching my head on that one. I wouldn't
> tell anybody else for whom this makes sense not to use it, but in my
> family we don't get our emotional needs met by electronic equipment.


Your family has no emotional response to anything someone says on the phone
because it is coming to you over a piece of 'electronic equipment?' No
emotional response to movies? C'mon - I don't believe this for one minute.
Do you think that the "electronic equipment" is making up the content? It is
ALL coming from other human beings - some is bad, some is boring, some is
fascinating, some is amazingly wonderfully emotionally touching.

--pam


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

joyberryjoy

> Your family has no emotional response to anything someone says on
the phone
> because it is coming to you over a piece of 'electronic equipment?' No
> emotional response to movies? C'mon - I don't believe this for one
minute.
> Do you think that the "electronic equipment" is making up the
content? It is
> ALL coming from other human beings - some is bad, some is boring,
some is
> fascinating, some is amazingly wonderfully emotionally touching.
>
> --pam


Out of context. I'm not interested in debating the positive aspects
of using tv in place of time spent with another human being--if that's
your bag with your kids, as I said, fine--that's not the issue I
posted over. I specifically mentioned that we don't have a tv so that
we could talk about *other* suggestions, and yet that aspect is what
has gotten the most response. That's interesting. Is this list always
this negative or do you ever see posts actually being answered in ways
that are helpful to the poster?

Joy

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/21/2002 4:15:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
joyberryjoy@... writes:


> That's interesting. Is this list always
> this negative or do you ever see posts actually being answered in ways
> that are helpful to the poster?

You never know - some posters might even find it helpful to notice when they
are resorting to making exaggerated claims.

Saying your family doesn't get its emotional needs met from "electronic
equipment" is very insulting to those people who have been posting about
getting information, pleasure, joy, excitement, and all-around fun from their
computer and tv use.

I doubt you'd get even a "ho-hum" response from anybody if you just said,
"Okay - so what else besides computers and tv can you recommend?" And you'd
probably get a LOT more interesting ideas from people if you didn't insult
them first.

Some of my best friends don't watch tv. <g> Who cares whether they do or not?
I don't. Except sometimes they don't get the jokes people make.

--pamS
Some of what is said here may challenge you, shock you, disturb you, or seem
harsh. But remember that people are offering it to be helpful and what feels
uncomfortable to you might be just what someone else needed to hear.



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

joyberryjoy

Look, whoever you are, I didn't come on to this list to have my
comments about my family construed to be an attack on others. I doubt
as many took offense as you seem to think. As I said, read in
context, it's clear why I said what I said, in response to an earlier
comment made by a poster that if my son was feeling left out with the
arrival of the new baby, he could get emotional connection from tv
instead, AFTER I had already said tv wasn't an option and was asking
for other comments.

If you were trying to help me, thank you for your intentions. Jumping
in to point out what's "wrong" with my post asking for suggestions for
a specific problem just doesn't seem that well-intentioned.

Peace,

Joy

Tia Leschke

> Is this list always
>this negative or do you ever see posts actually being answered in ways
>that are helpful to the poster?

Actually, the posts which seem to have bothered you are just the kind that
helped me the most. If the answers aren't helpful to you, you can always
just ignore them.
Tia

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island

[email protected]

<< I specifically mentioned that we don't have a tv so that
we could talk about *other* suggestions, and yet that aspect is what
has gotten the most response. That's interesting. Is this list always
this negative or do you ever see posts actually being answered in ways
that are helpful to the poster? >>

I've never seen many people on this list nor any other unschooling
discussions who are willing to go against what they have personally
experienced and what they believe to help someone stave off that day when
they will look closely at their children without looking at them through the
filter of what some expert said. I don't see it as negative when more
experienced moms offer freely of their positive unschooling experiences to
those who are just coming to that VERY different philosophy.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/21/02 5:43:16 PM, PSoroosh@... writes:

<< Some of my best friends don't watch tv. <g> Who cares whether they do or
not?
I don't. Except sometimes they don't get the jokes people make. >>

I would care if they were afraid one of their children wasn't finding things
to do on his own, they had a new baby (second babies ALWAYS, inevitably take
time away from the firstborn--and it doesn't feel like half of it, it feels
like ALL of it), and were still figuring out unschooling.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/21/2002 7:22:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
joyberryjoy@... writes:


> Look, whoever you are, I didn't come on to this list to have my
> comments about my family construed to be an attack on others.

Sarcasm is often felt as an attack, especially in email communications. So is
phrasing such as, "Look, whoever you are,...".

It helps to ask ourselves if we'd talk like that to someone in person. If
someone made a suggestion you didn't like, one that didn't fit with your
family, would you make comments back to them like, "Look, whoever you are...
or "My family doesn't get its emotional needs met from electronic
equipment?"


I doubt> as many took offense as you seem to think. As I said, read in>
> context, it's clear why I said what I said, in response to an earlier
> comment made by a poster that if my son was feeling left out with the
> arrival of the new baby, he could get emotional connection from tv
> instead, AFTER I had already said tv wasn't an option and was asking
> for other comments.
>

She said you could worry less about the time you are spending with the new
baby because he could be happy and amused and intrigued and learn a lot and
be excited and emotionally touched -- not that he'd get his emotional
connection from tv.

"If you let him have at the computer and TV all he wants to, you can spend
more happy hours with the baby, he can spend more happy hours getting input
(even very useful science, ecology, physics, math, etc. etc.), and you can,
if you want to, worry less about how he will be amused (and intrigued, and
mesmerized, and excited, and emotionally touched)."

When people make suggestions we don't like, it is easy to just say thank you
and ignore what won't work for us. There is no need to be insulting by saying
that YOUR family doesn't get its emotional needs met by electronic equipment.


> If you were trying to help me, thank you for your intentions. Jumping
> in to point out what's "wrong" with my post asking for suggestions for
> a specific problem just doesn't seem that well-intentioned.
>

I didn't say there was anything wrong with your post asking for suggestions -
I said that your response TO one of those suggestions was insulting.

Lots of people have totally bought into the currently popular belief that
watching tv is bad bad bad. Some of us have discovered that it isn't good or
bad any more than books and magazines are good or bad - and that when we
relax about it and enjoy what we really enjoy and live consciously together
with our families, that tv is an enjoyable and educational and entertaining
part of our lives together. If other people don't want to try it, that is
their choice, of course, but the suggestion was still a good one.

--pamS


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

Fetteroll

> Is this list always
> this negative or do you ever see posts actually being answered in ways
> that are helpful to the poster?

Hopefully before any more frustration gets vented to the list, maybe some
thoughts from the moderator will help.

Most unschoolers have found that to really understand unschooling they've
had to turn many cherished ideas upside down and sometimes heart wrenchingly
had to let go of them.

Since we often closely identify with the choices we've made, having someone
suggest we question our decisions and why we're doing something can feel
like an attack. It's not intended as such. It's intended as help. Many
people *have* found it helpful to dig deeply into what may have felt like
decisions based on solid thought to uncover the ones based on comfort for
their fears.

If we don't feel comfortable questioning ourselves, we can at least
appreciate the time someone took to think about our problem and help in a
way they thought might be useful and perhaps find comfort in the fact that
our question may have prompted the exact answer someone else reading along
needed to hear.

If we insist that answers be limited to the type we want to hear, then we
not only eliminate the ones we don't want to hear, but eliminate the
creative ideas we never would have thought of.

It is perhaps a fact of life that people will happily give of their time
when they feel their time is being appreciated. People *do* recognize the
help they have to offer won't necessarily be helpful but they *are* doing
the best they can.

It is also helpful when we don't get the responses we expected, to back up
and look at how we worded our questions. Those very few things we've chosen
out of our lives to represent the sum total of what we are are all people
have to go on. If, for instance, we've expressed a question in terms of our
concerns rather than something that's bothering our children, the answers we
get will reflect that. So we can just try and express the concern more
clearly. Or think about why we originally chose to word it the way we did!

Joyce
Unschooling-dotcom moderator

zenmomma *

>>Is this list always this negative or do you ever see posts actually being
>>answered in ways that are helpful to the poster?>>

I usually notice the list getting negative when newer posters come on and
don't like what the veteran unschoolers have to say about their unschooling
experiences. Whatever. It is what it is.

I have an 8 year old daughter who craves a lot of time with other people,
especially me. She seems to get her energy in an extroverted fashion, by
bouncing ideas off of other people. She also thinks outloud. I think it is a
positive thing for her to crave my attention. She needs another being in
order to get her creative juices flowing and I'm her first choice. That's a
cool thing. She also has tons of cool stuff that could be used alone, but
she prefers to do with me.

When I know I can't be involved with her for awhile, I will often bring out
something interesting and set it out on the table. Quite often she'll get
into it with me and then let me drift off to do my own thing. She'll then
remain happily engaged in the toy or project on her own.

I've always tried to approach her need for me in positive terms. (And I'm
not saying you don't, just giving you my experience.) As she gets older, I
have noticed more and more independence. But it's not because it's something
I've tried to develop in her. It's more that she knows I'll always help her
or be with her or play with her. She knows that I'm accepting of Who She Is
right now, whether she's demanding my time or playing alone. I think that
has freed her up to venture off more on her own and to be more independent.
She knows I will not be dissappointed should she decide to be bored or needy
of me again.

As far as TV, computer or electronic media goes.....we have them, we use
them. Lots of times we use them together, sometimes we drift off to use them
alone. They're not the center of our lives nor a forbidden fruit.

Life is good.
~Mary




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