Cautions
A chapter from 2005's Big Book of Unschooling (page 8) is brought here in 2025, to go with something I wrote in 2024, in a facebook discussion.
There was also a group discussion of that chapter of the book in 2011. Click here for transcript
Cautions
Don't do what you don't understand. Although faith in others' stories and experiences might get you started, what will bring growth and confidence is seeing the changes in your children, and seeing them relax into the world of learning. Other unschoolers can help you move toward better relationships with your children, but it's only a start.
Some families emulate the behaviors of other unschoolers without understanding what's being done or why.
Don't change your whole life suddenly. Making hundreds of deliberate, small changes is better than one big declaration that says, basically, "Everything we told you before is hereby replaced with something I don't quite understand." That's no way to build trusting relationships.
If an idea in this book piques your interest, keep reading and keep thinking. Think about your own childhood or those you've seen or contributed to. Think about arguments that seemed pointless in retrospect, and the damage done by them. Picture and remember the difference between going to sleep content and crying yourself to sleep. Remember moments in your childhood when the world seemed bright and big and happy. Then the next time you have a decision to make with or for your child, lean a bit toward the happy contentment answer.
Gradual change is more comfortable for children and other family members as well. Doing what you understand while seeking to understand even more will make you a confident unschooler, while jumping in before you really get it will be unsettling for all involved.
Having made my case for slow being good, though, I'm going to explain why you need to hurry up and get with it. [The next chapter was "Why Rush to Get It?" (Kids are getting older.)]
SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
At Radical Unschooling Info, a facebook group, I wrote this:
There are things I can't do. (They are things no one can do; I'm not interested In them.)
One's politics. I only want to discuss learning, and what helps. If someone lives where home education Is not legal, I'm not interested In helping change laws. I never have been.
A crucial side note to that: There is no law anywhere that says "unschooling is legal." As a form of home education, unschooling can be legal IF the parents understand how learning works well enough to descibe what they're doing in "educationese," if necessary—in schoolish terms.
Looking for schoolish terms does not help unschooling. It doesn't help a parent see other kinds of learning better, so it's best if well-deschooled parents then (IF NECESSARY) describe what's being learned In terms that the state/province/country requires (IF NEEDED).
"Unschooling" won't be named in a law as a legality. If home education is legal in a jurisdiction, learning everything possible about unschooling can help, but don't use the term to government officials. Say homeschooling or home education, whatever the standard phrase is.
PARTNERS, husbands, co-parents, others-with-legal-say...
My advice from the beginning is to go slowly, gradually, be sweet and persuasive without nagging or being obsessive about it.
Unschooling needs a peaceful home without legal wrestling. I have seen unschooling fail because one parent puts an ultimatum on the other parent. I have seen judges order kids to school. I have seen mothers lose custody of their children.
I will not, cannot, don't want to, do anything except encourage families to stay Intact if they can, because a peaceful intact family with love (and even with school) is better for the children.
Unschooling is difficult. It's a luxury. It's not a guarantee, it's not a right, it's not a product anyone can sell you, it's not a religion you can join, it's not a club you can join and then "be one." It's something to learn slowly and solidly and something to create and maintain within a family, within the home.
It's fragile. It can work, but it's not easy.
It can work, but it can fail.
Links I provided after that:
The original (for those with facebook access) is (or might still be) and a few comments are here: 29 April 2024, "There are things I can't do. ..."
Do it!
Huge gambles (or small gambles)
No Guarantee
