[email protected]

In a message dated 8/16/02 10:21:35 AM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:

<< By the way, they did clean up the blueberries - to a point, there are
still stains I can't seem to get out... but only after me yelling - and I
hate to do that.... yelling is the worst - and it seems so hard sometimes to
not yell in these circumstances..... It's hard to imagine anyone else here
as a "yelling, unschooler"....
>>

Waving my arms over here Heather.
I am a natural yeller. Sounds ridiculous, but I have fought long and hard to
overcome my tendency to raise my voice when under stress.
I do pretty good most of the time now, but smashed blueberries might have got
me upset....hard to say what all of the circumstances surrounding it was.
I ask my kids to eat at the table, not a hard and fast rule, but just
something I ask for to help me keep things from getting trashed.
I do think young children need a lot of supervision and when you can't give
it things can get out of hand. Unschooling does not mean letting them do
whatever they want....although when I advocate letting children choose it
probably sounds like that.
I think a huge part of it is being there with them, explaining why smashed
blueberries will ruin the carpet and asking them how we could avoid that.
Keeping art supplies available is great, but you better take into account the
developmental stage of each child and what they can handle.
I want them to get me for things beyond their developmental abilities. I need
to be with them, available, but also guiding them.
Unschooling doesn't mean give them access to whatever you've got and turn
them loose. Understanding child development is crucial to being an effective
parent in my opinion. Blueberries are probably not the best thing to leave
out when you're in the shower. Or maybe they could all come in the bathroom
and eat them while you're washing? I personally, would have waited. Waited
until they were done eating them to shower, or if they didn't care, waited to
feed them blueberries until I was done showering.
Art supplies that they can handle should be available, others should be only
where the older kids can get to them.
That doesn't mean I don't let my baby boy dabble with things. I do. But I
want to be the one getting it out and giving him access while in a high chair
or safely in my lap.
yk? I think it's easy to read here and think everyone is just turning their
kids loose. Remember there are a lot of older kids being discussed here that
can have access equally to parents.
But there are little ones not ready for access to the entire household. You
could make yourself crazy trying to be "free" and creative.
I think you're on the right track, but just try to remember that age matters
and access at young ages is hugely different than at older ages.
I hope I'm not assuming too much.....maybe I'm totally off the mark. But
that's the feel I get from your post.
Don't feel bad about losing it, or do feel bad and then let it go. No one
here is a perfect parent, I bet most of us have yelled. I do it more than I'd
like for sure.
But that's what I love about this forum. It's my touchstone for gentle
parenting, a reminder to not do the things that may come easily (yelling),
but to do better.
Most of the time it's something that we, as parents, need to do different.
Hindsights great that way isn't it? I usually can see after the fact, that if
I had done something different the event wouldn't have happened that stressed
me out in the first place.

Ren