Alan & Brenda Leonard

> What if every parent who intended to and did send a child to kindergarten at
> 5 said "up until that time, we were unschoolers, but now it's time for him to
> go to school"?

Personally, Sandra, I'd be estatic if everyone in my neighborhood WOULD
unschool, even if only until kindergarten. Unfortunately, they don't. I
have to agree with Ned that unschooling is, to a certain extent, good
parenting. But many children don't enjoy the benefits of good parenting.
Many spend time in preschool and/or daycare, which I also wouldn't consider
unschooling environments.

I think how I feel about homeschooling changed when my son hit kindergarten
age; I felt like there was a bit more pressure to "do it right". (Hence I
came looking for a nice email list to reassure me that maybe what I was
doing WAS "right"!)

But I felt extremely isolated when my son was 3 and 4 years old. The
homeschoolers told me he was "too young", but virtually everybody had put
their kids in preschool at that age, and a fair number of the mothers I knew
had gone back to work. I didn't fit in anywhere. So I can relate to folks
who say they unschool from birth. At least they can feel that they fit in
somewhere.

brenda