Do it Well

When I first had a webpage, I assumed everyone who came here or to a discussion wanted to unschool as well as possible, but over the years I have seen an increasing number of people stumbling along as though they were in the crowd at a big fair, and they were "being there" with lots of unschoolers (even if only online) but they were not being there with their children. They were not becoming unschooling parents.

If unschooling is not done well, it's not being done at all.

Too often, people want us to tell them they are unschoolers, but they don't actually want to do what's involved in learning and changing and becoming unschoolers. And so every time anyone is "supportive" to those people in those situations, it hurts them more than helps them. Any "I know how you feel," even, can cause them to relax rather than to look for a way to change things in a direction that would be better for life for ALL of them.

That support seems invariably to come from someone else who came here for the same reason.

SandraDodd.com/support (2/3 of the way down)

Pam Sorooshian, on that same page:

I really suggest reading reading reading - Sandra and Joyce have so much on their sites that we could spend a lifetime pondering it all. Let it wash over you.
You'll be glad you did.

Reminder:

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Unschooling is not as easy as some people think it is. It can be fun, and simple, and life changing, if it is done deeply and thoroughly.

My comment under that quote, in 2016:

I wrote that for Just Add Light and Stir, I guess. I couldn't find it elsewhere, I mean. But for one reason and another i've seen a lot of unschooling claims and nonsense today about part time, or accidentally unschooling, or temporarily unschooling, or people saying that I don't know what unschooling really is...
It's dismaying but it's out there.
If you want to unschool well, do it deeply, solidly, thoughtfully, determinedly. Don't do it lightly or accidentally, and don't think there's nothing to it.

I wrote, "Thanks, Marta Pires, for saving that quote," on Just Add Light, so it was probably from a chat transcript that was not saved or published, from 2014 or earlier.

Stephen M Kavanagh Priest

knowing i was having children i studied the education systems of many countrys and grew to understand the way it all works. Unschooling is one of the best ways to help kids grow and explore the world. I have noticed may people think its a joke the type of thing parents who want an easy ride would choose, however once these people learn more and understand that it takes commitment passion energy and drive to provide your kids with the environment to grow they change there tune.

Sylvia Woodman

Unschooling is not "doing nothing." It takes planning, and resources, and intention. I think it felt more like work in the earlier years while I was still doing the bulk of my Deschooling. (Don't get me wrong there are still things that "catch me by surprise" in my thinking even now! But it's not as constant.) But at some point, there was a shift. A Leveling Up. Unschooling became less of the way we were educating the children and more of the way we lived our lives. It wasn't one thing that we did. It was a million tiny choices (and not so tiny choices) that led us to where we are today.

Make the Better Choice Forest Eastwood

Thoughtfully today entailed my daughter guiding me through the Interstate-4 traffic and planning the route to Universal Theme Park.
I-4 is the highway with the most fatalities in the U.S.A.
She sat in the passenger front seat and encouraged me to merge, change lanes, and breathe deeply (there’s another of Sandra’s Unschooling words) and craned her neck around to notify me if fast drivers were coming on either side of us.
My daughter’s “guyfriend” is visiting from Taiwan and sat wordless in the back seat of our Beetle astonished at her ‘take charge’ behavior.
Noticeably, she realizes when she feels confident enough to take the car and when it is a better idea to not take chances for the sake of appearing more ‘mature’.
I believe this is a valuable quality and a direct result of not having been forced to prove herself through her years of learning about life.

Caren Knox

The bulk of what was challenging for me was changing internally, not just in parenting beliefs and thoughts about learning, but acknowledging & feeling the very deep connection my sons and I share.
Because of how I was parented, along with other childhood difficulties, I had a fear of “letting people get close”, but I found the more I trusted and allowed my heart to open to my sons, the better and happier our days were.

Do it!

"Cheery Neglect"

Failure, in unschooling