I'm a radical unschooler AMA

[OutOfControlSpirals]

I'm a radical unschooling mum, which basically means I've taken the principals of unschooling, where a child is free to learn what they want, when they want, and applied it to every aspect of our lives. So my children have the same freedoms that I do when it comes to eating/sleeping/learning etc.

Schooled children still choose what they wear/eat/do with their spare time though surely. They may not have total control (neither do yours for reasons such as monetary restrictions) but most parents do not force there children to do things.

I have read research that unschooled children are far more likely to go into creative jobs. This does not surprise me. There is usually more freedom in these jobs and qualifications don't matter as much.

In terms of qualifications, things change over a working life time. When I left formal education you did not need a degree for my job. Now many employers ask for one even though it is not really necessary. I have one and this gives me far more choice about jobs. The last thing I would want to do now is a degree so I had more choice in jobs.

The one thing I always wonder with HE is what the kids think of spending so many hours with a parent, especially as they get into teenage years. I know I wanted to build an independent part of my life as I got older, and school was part of this.

Also OP do you recognise that kids who go to school also pursue their own learning outside of school?
For example I was fascinated by insects and read lots about them and watched them. My brother was fascinated by Egypt and taught himself how to read hieroglyphics.

If they want to paint till 1am or sit out star gaze, they can, they don't have get up early to go to school, they can sleep in as long as they're body needs.

I'm always amused by people who think that routine-less living is natural for human beings and is "what their body needs."

The most natural environment I ever lived in was when I lived in a village in West Papua with no electricity for a month. Very interesting experience and quite fun (apart from the massive spiders, ugh...)

You get up at a roughly "set" time because you hear cockerels crowing and nature noises, and the daylight wakes you up due to lack of curtains. Also, there are tasks to be done.

You wash yourself at a certain time in the morning because there is no privacy so you have be at the river at a time when the men are not there and it's the women's bathing time (if you are a woman).

You need to hang out your washing at times when there will be sunlight, but before they will get contaminated by bugs. So washing and other chores must be done at certain times.

You need to do any detailed work (like handicraft work) during daylight hours because there is no artificial light.

You stay in and sleep during the hottest hours of the day because there is no air con.

You have to get into your mosquito net by a certain time because the little houses let in mosquitos and there are no coils or artificial chemicals for keeping them away (in the days before mosquito nets, smokey fires were used for keeping them at bay, so everyone had to gather around the smokey fire during the evening hours when the mozzies come out).

Eating is done at particular times because everything has to be cooked from scratch and cooking takes time and effort and it is hard to keep food fresh due to lack of fridges--grazing and snacking are the exception not the norm.

The result is that you end up having a surprisingly "defined" little daily scheduled, without ever looking at a single clock.

It is actually quite natural for human beings to live according to a routine. The only difference is that in traditional societies, routines vary by season more than they do in developed countries. Being able to drift through the day staying up at random times and doing whatever for hours on end and then sleeping in is something that has become possible due to things like artificial light, aircon/heating, refrigeration and modern buildings.

It is actually quite natural for human beings to live according to a routine.

I agree - that has been my experience too (not in a village in West Papua, but in a place with 12 hours of sunlight throughout the year and astronomical electricity bills)

So, op, when you say "AMA" you mean "listen to me telling you what a superior parent I am and I'll ignore your questions"

Amazing to see how triggered this thread is making people!

I'm not an unschooler, but I can see the appeal. All this hand-waving about how the kids will get a job, whether their teeth will rot, how they'll survive in the "real world" (what, are they living in a cabin in the woods right now?) and so on shows a deep distrust of children's learning ability, ability to self-care in response to good modelling and choice, a rigid adherence to capitalist society's definitions of success, and a tendency to catastrophise temporary less-desirable choices.

The reality is that a) with a few specialised exceptions, most jobs are not that hard to learn to do, even for novices, b) there are massive chunks of learning done in school that most people will never have cause to use again in their lives, c) in today's information-saturated world, knowing where to go to get information on something is more important than stockpiling that information in your head, d) our most important life and work skills as adults are not usually learned in formal education (or can just as easily be acquired outside formal education), and e) conventional 'jobs' are changing rapidly and will continue to do so.

I just wanted to say good on you, OP, it takes a lot to place genuine trust in your children's ability to become self-motivated learners and ignore the people wilfully misinterpreting things like "we don't enforce a routine" to mean "nothing ever happens at a regular time and our lives are complete chaos, with no interactions with the standard routines or systems of society".

I know a couple of radically unschooled kids and they have turned out to be utterly delightful and capable young adults.

A relative has autism and as a teenager would have eaten cheesy chips for tea for years if left to it. He was and still is, incredibly limited in the food he eats

Holly I know SEN children are over represented in the HE sector. But my question was not about that, but about allowing total freedom of choices for a child with SN such as autism

I did home ed with my now adult son who's severely autistic.

Food difficulties related to autism aren't really a choice the person deliberately makes just because. There are usually very good reasons for it and any parent or caregiver of someone who has autism related food difficulties will know this and they will know they can be nigh on impossible to sort out.

At one stage my son lived on toast and butter for about a year, and there were other things but it would take too long to explain to you the reasoning behind it. But more to the point Im not sure you'd ever see it as anything other than a child being allowed to eat what he/she wanted to eat.

There's a book called Cant Eat Wont Eat and its well worth a read. It doesn't explain ways around food issues in those on the spectrum but it does do very good job of explaining what can cause them. Its a very easy read and is based on first hand accounts of those on the spectrum who are able enough to explain their food difficulties as well as contributions from family members who had a pretty good idea of what was causing food difficulties in those who weren't able to explain for them themselves.

OP, regarding not having the children in mainstream education, is that because you disagree with the UK Curriculum?

The Netherlands is a country famous for its progressive and pressure free education system; pretend you lived there, would you still unschool?

Finally what was the “click” that made you think “that’s it I’m radically unschooling them” and why didn’t you send them down the Steiner/Montessori route?

I sincerely doubt you'd find home educated people in there

Thats when I really started to think WTH.

OP your children will at best resent and at worst hate you one day for lack of guidance you've inflicted on them

It's really amazing how threatened some people are on mumsnet by others who make different choices on raising their children and don't automatically just send them to school because that's what you do. Plenty of schools in this country are failing children, and are hotbeds of bullying and bad behaviour with stressed teachers, with children who are just learning to pass exams so they can join the rat race. Why wouldnt you want better for your child than that? If better means home educating then why not?

If you read the thread it's not really about home schooling, or even unschooling. It's about parenting.

Wowsa this thread is long! I admit, I skipped to the end from about page 9...

Just wanted to quickly say that we have homeschooled for 8 years now (not unschoolers though) and I've totally done the 'because I said so' thing, lol!

Plenty of schools in this country are failing children, and are hotbeds of bullying and bad behaviour with stressed teachers, with children who are just learning to pass exams so they can join the rat race.

Is it a binary choice between that versus a free-for-all with a kid staying up past midnight every night or not brushing their hair for years?

I don't get why people keep asking how OP's children can get decent work without degrees. Unschooled children can go to college and university and gain qualifications. Other posters have explained this but people don't seem to want to listen.

I'd never heard of radical unschooling before, so thank you for this thread @OutOfControlSpirals.

I've actually been reflecting on my own parenting because of it. I've realised I parent my own 15yo DS2 much like this in the summer holidays. (Which I appreciate is very very different to what you do) He eats almost nothing but cereal and spends a vast amount of time doing stunts on his bike. He won't read a book or anything else for the whole summer, even though I've supplied a pile of GCSE revision books for him. If he didn't attend school I'm pretty sure his literacy levels would be very poor.
He goes to bed at what ever time he wants....then expects us to tiptoe around the house until mid day so not to disturb him.

In contrast I'm parenting my 13yo DD very differently. I'm insisting she practices her flute for 10 minutes every day. She huffs and puffs about it, but she naturally good at playing. Left up to her she'd give up, but I know over all the joy of being able to play and passing exams outweighs the pain of playing for a few minutes a day (she actually plays for longer than 10 minutes once she's actually started) I also insist she sit down at the table and eat a sensible meal 3 times a day. I insist she goes to bed before I do as I like to know she's safe and asleep before me.

Also, if you asked me whether she is any good at science, or has any ability in it I would say no. She shows no interest in anything scientific at home. Her science teacher at school tells me something completely different though. I'm amazed that she is actually rather good at science subjects, should end up with 3 decent science GCSEs and has learned a lot at school which we just wouldn't have bothered with at home.

So, my question is: do you ever worry about gaps in your DCs education? Or not providing them with the initial spark to set off their interest in something? Because I think that would be my biggest concern.

Op stated “When one of them was 4 they ate nothing but instant noodles every night for 6 months”.I give my children a varied and balanced diet, it’s crucial for their micro biome, their development- both brain and body, and as they progress in life their propensity for obesity, heart disease and even their mental health. We’ve obviously got very different styles of parenting.

The OP says she makes a meal and doesn't force her child to eat it. How is that any different to any other parent here?

I know lots of naice middle class children who only eat beige food. Eating buttered pasta nightly isn't any better than instant noodles. If the OP had posted that she fights nightly with her child and makes him sit at the table till he has eaten his beans she would be ripped to bloody shreds.

I'd never heard of radical unschooling before, so thank you for this thread @OutOfControlSpirals.

Neither had I and I’m still non the wiser as to what it is.

oops, sorry your children. Your parents probably think you're a dick too though tbf.

It sounds rather akin to the education of the upper classes in the 18th Century - don’t go to school, learn only what you might be interested in, perhaps have a private tutor to prepare you for University. A luxury for the wealthy.

Does your 8 year old ever seriously ask to know about the present imperfect tense?

I don't even know what that is and I went to school & college. 😂

I wanted to home school but decided against it for financial reasons.

I am pretty free reign out with that choice eg food choices/ bedtimes.

What I’d like to ask the op is about your career, how you felt giving it up, is your dh supportive with the ‘wifework’, how you explain your sahp status to your dc in a way to not reinforce sexist attitudes, and what age will your youngest be when you think you’ll return to work ft?

Have you answered this one already? What was your own schooling like and your DH's?

As an aside, I have done an AMA. It's a fair compromise to answer all the questions if you wish to use this thread to explain your unfamiliar ideas. I hope you take the time to answer all your children's questions, however difficult and challenging. You don't seem to do that here.