Pam Hartley

Julie, I'm combining two of your posts for my own selfish convenience. ;)

> In our home, we do have family policies such as returning what
> you use or lose the privilege of using it. We are grace-oriented
> and will often say, "Hey you left this out; come put it away." But if
> a child is being repeatedly careless, then there is discussion
> and a consequence—losing the privilege of borrowing for
> awhile.

What is the consequence if you or your husband is repeatedly careless? I
assume that occasionally happens (I know I can be careless, as can my
husband).

Probably it's a natural consequence -- you leave something out that gets wet
in the rain, you have to buy a new one. I don't know what grace-oriented is,
but I can tell you that here I'm a little obsessive about our family board
games, etc. I like them to be put away right away, so pieces aren't lost.

So, when my daughters were old enough to take out a game, I'd ask them to
put it away right away when they were done. If it wasn't, I'd pick it up and
just mention it to them later ("I put Chutes and Ladders away for you.").
Sometimes I'd ask them to. The result of this is that at 8 and 5 I almost
never have to pick up any game pieces. I don't bother about most other
things, I'm only that way about games. <g> But they knew it was important to
me, and they understand why, and they are cheerfully accommodating me. If I
had set up a punishment situation ("You left Chutes and Ladders out for the
fifth time this week, now you can't play it tomorrow.") it would have
devolved from them doing me a kindness to something far yuckier that I'd
rather not have in our relationship.

>
> I feel similarly about cleaning up after meals and doing a
> once-a-day pick up so that we start fresh each day with cleared
> counters and floors. I've shared with the kids that this is how I
> function best as their mother and so we all do it together. I
> somehow have gotten the impression that some here would see
> that as coercion. I simply see it as a family practice.

If your husband said to you, "I function best as a husband if every day you
and I clean up the yard" and you have no choice, is that coercion, or a
family practice?


>
> When we discussed chores etc. before, there was
> significant resistance on this list to "imposing *anything*. So this
> is why I think there can be confusion—why a mother would
> wonder if she should limit a child jumping on her bed.

It's her bed, you see. If my daughters don't want me to do something to
their beds, I won't (including jumping on it, making it with sheets they
think are ugly, whatever) so if I tell them I'd rather they not do something
to mine, they listen. If they didn't, I'd stand up for my rights to an
unjumped bed, just like if ANYONE (husband, friends, children) was doing
something to me or my immediate and sole possessions that I didn't like, I'd
see that they stopped.

>
> To my way of thinking, the philosophy of unschooling is one that
> supports our family values. It isn't the ideology that supercedes
> who we are as individuals. I want to blend the philosophy with
> what I realisitically know I need to function well with the kids.

What about what they need to function well with you? What if one of your
children realistically needs to stare out the window and not get involved
with cleanup 6 days next week. Where do his or her needs fit in? What if
they can't articulate them?

> How do you see it? Do you hear the tension being felt here? Is it
> "imposing on a child" to say, "We take care of each other's
> posessions or you won't get to use them"? I think so.
>
> Do some unschooling families set routines that support the
> functioning of the home that involve their kids? I think so.

All unschooling families do, I imagine. But the key is "families set
routines" not "mom sets routines that are most appealing to her and everyone
else falls in or else they lose things or are otherwise punished."

:::snip to next post:::


>On the other hand, one of the things that concerns me is that I
>hear women talking about children as though they are
> little adults. Kids are notoriously poor at imagining future
> They don't always tie past behavior with present
> results. (Sleep is an easy example of this, particularly with young
> kids.) They often won't try something new (as in food) just based
> on it's color. They often aren't conscious of other people's
> possessions or even their own. (I'm talking about young children
> especially--under 10).

I often won't try a new food based on color, or name of the food, or smell.
Sometimes, I stay up way too late even though I know I'll feel awful the
next day when I have to get up early for some reason.

Children are young, less experienced humans. So yes, they are "little
adults". They can and will learn to listen to their own bodies, to treat
family members with respect, etc., just as an adult learns the things they
need to function.

> Certainly I help them to put things away, I allow them to leave out
> a game over a couple of day period if they are in the middle. I'm
> not talking about rigidity. I'm talking about consideration for the
> fact that seven people are sharing this space together.

They didn't choose to have seven people share the space. They are living
with a reality of a large family that was not their option or decision, nor
should it be their burden in any way you can help it.

> \Setting a bedtime has helped my kids sleep well and spend the
> next day in good spirits. If a child is surprisingly alert one night,
> I might suggest she page through a book until she sleeps, or I
> might rube her back and sing to her. But having her in bed at
> 8:30 or 9:00 is important to her and to me, whether she totally
> gets why or not. She is willing and that's because we take great
> care in not laying a big burden of expectations on her in all her
> other waking hours. It's just the routine.

Having her in bed at 8:30 or 9:00 is important to her how? If someone else
set your bedtime, would you resent it? What if you weren't tired? What if
you really wanted to finish a project but someone else was saying, "Nope,
clock says 9 p.m., in bed with you." What if someone else got to decide
these important and personal things for you?

>To me, these are routines that support our unschooling lifestyle.
>I don't see them competing with it at all.

If you set your own routines for the things that are important to you, and
the kids set their routines for the things they want to do and that are
important to them, and you simply ask if someone will help you as you need
them, as you go through your day, just as they ask you for help as they go
through theirs, you are likely to get help in my experience. There are
unschoolers with large families and it really does work.

I know this all sounds abrupt -- it's late :) and I want to get it sent. I
am not intending to sound snippy.

Pam

[email protected]

The purpose of this post is for me to agree with Pam Hartley.

In a message dated 1/23/03 1:18:21 AM, pamhartley@... writes:

<< I don't bother about most other

things, I'm only that way about games. <g> But they knew it was important to

me, and they understand why, and they are cheerfully accommodating me. If I

had set up a punishment situation ("You left Chutes and Ladders out for the

fifth time this week, now you can't play it tomorrow.") it would have

devolved from them doing me a kindness to something far yuckier that I'd

rather not have in our relationship. >>

We still have the tiny plastic acorns for our Squirrel game.

Two reasons: I used to check through the vacuum cleaner bags for Ninja
Turtle weapons or game pieces. And we had a "lost parts" drawer, and any
game piece found randomly about was (still is) returned to its box at some
point.

My kids played LOTS of games (still, sometimes, Holly especially) and we have
always been careful with game pieces. They like the games, they see
immediately the purpose of keeping things together, and they do it not from
fear of punishment or limitations but because it's right to do. The
limitation and punishment is that they can't play if the parts aren't there.

And instead of making them put the games up when they were little we would
get them to help us (or we would "help them" even though it was doing most of
the work), and talk about which pieces went where, and make a game of lining
up the stuff in the box.

Also I bought little ziploc bags for games pieces. And for jigsaw puzzles,
we put the pieces in a ziploc bag (gallon freezer bags, usually) inside the
box, so if the box falls being put up high or taken down, the pieces armans
have instincts which we try to extinguish. Maybe we shouldn't do that.
By forcing children to eat what we put on their plates regardless of their
personal gag factor, we don't teach them anything good. We teach them to
ignore their bodies, to ignore their noses, and to do what bigger people tell
them to do.

<<Sometimes, I stay up way too late even though I know I'll feel awful the

next day when I have to get up early for some reason.>>

After I sent the post about sleeping, Holly asked me to forward it to her so
she could read it later. I had to go to sent mail and all, and Holly was
asking me whether there were really parents who thought a kid wouldn't go to
sleep when he was sleepy. "They'll fall asleep in their chairs if they're
really sleepy."

"But they've never tried it, so they don't know."

Holly laughed. She said, "Haven't THEY ever fallen asleep in a chair?"
(meaning the parents)

I said maybe the parents had always gone to bed by the clock too. She just
laughed and went to wake Kirby up. They're going to a Harry Potter
tournament together in a bit.

<<Children are young, less experienced humans. So yes, they are "little

adults". They can and will learn to listen to their own bodies, to treat

family members with respect, etc., just as an adult learns the things they

need to function.>>

Pam's right.

What is "a little adult"?
We don't have the "adult" distinction here. Kirby has been on a growth curve
his whole live, and a learning curve, which is uniquely his. We've treated
him like a person. We've treated him like Kirby. There isn't a point at
which he becomes Kirby, or becomes a real person. He already is.

It's our duty and privilege and joy to help him learn about the world, to
give him a safe haven and a launchpad.

<<>To me, these are routines that support our unschooling lifestyle.

>I don't see them competing with it at all.>>

That wasn't Pam, that was Pam quoting.

I think it's not a matter of "competing," it's a philosophical matter.

If one doesn't believe that children can self-regulate as to sleeping or
eating, can they really believe that they will self-regulate watching movies
or playing on the computer? Will they believe that reading can happen
without a schedule imposed from outside if they don't think a child will go
to sleep when he's sleepy?

We were lucky to have tried the flexibility about eating and sleeping before
Kirby was school-age, and I think that helped make unschooling really easy to
trust.

Sandra