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.

Yes they socialise with conventionally educated children. Yes they get on fine with them. The children next door were gobsmacked when they heard our children played minecraft for 6 hours straight, but that was when an updated version came out, its not a daily thing. There's too many other things they'd rather be doing.

One of the reasons I go to work is because I like my children to see that I am productive in society and pay my taxes, as well as contributing to the household coffer. How will you prevent your children from becoming used to the idea that your role is simply to facilitate their needs?

As DH and I both work Im not sure what you're getting at

6 hours on Minecraft?? Crikey.

When you're working on a contract who facilitates the children, or do they not have any adult input during those time?

One child refused to brush or their hair for 2 years. I was fine with that. Their body, their choice. They didn't like washing it, but understood the smell wasn't appealing to others so asked me to help them find away to fix it without having to wash it. I did. When one of them was 4 they ate nothing but instant noodles every night for 6 months. Their body, their choice. They got sick of noodles and moved on to more adventurous foods. Its about trusting them. Trusting that they know whats best for them, and encouraging that.
I'm sure someone will now pipe up with "but what if they want to play in the middle of an intersection? Would you trust that?"

OP, not a question but a comment.

my dd was H.ed (home school, is American) for those who don't know, for just 3 years.
People could not believe how old she was when she started school again, at 11 she was taken for a 6th former and this year, mistaken for a teacher/ staff member.
She was helping to find an errant child, calming the parent, when parent turned on her and started shouting about keeping kids safe etc..

We believe this was H.ed, it allowed her to be herself, follow her dreams, do what she wants, not have to do things she doesn't want to.

I don't believe that kids should be taught they have to do certain things, as this way they end up doing what makes them happy, rather than a career for the sake of working.

I encourage mine to find something they enjoyed then working would be pleasure not a chore.

My marine biology loving daughter had an annual membership to the aquarium, is currently trying to grow algae in a petrie dish on the window sill, swims twice a week, enjoys watching documentaries, attends beach clean ups, is on a crusade to stop plastic entering the ocean and endangering wildlife, is constantly reading and subscribes to YouTube channels that follow turtle breeding programmes and whale watching and how narwhales are being affected by climate change. Thats only the tip of the iceberg!

I don't understand - how is she going to fulfil her dream without gcses, levels, a degree and a postgrad?

Ugh how patronising!

Why the selective answers?

Trusting that they know whats best for them

But they're children OP! They don't always know what's best for them! They need decent parents to show them and teach them. Honestly, I fear for the future with children being 'raised' like this.

I will ask again, what level of education do you have and how did you obtain it?

They have a very involved father. Im6not sure why people think DH having a full time job means the children are left alone if I'm busy. The kids have full unrestricted access to screens and the internet. Dh or I are always with them.

Yes we know... mine craft and YouTube!

As DH and I both work Im not sure what you're getting at

For me, it’s that he works full time, out of the house presumably, with all the socialising and child-free time that that entails.

While you’re at home, picking up bits of work where you can and being solely responsible for ensuring your children learn something that will enable them to support themselves as adults.

That seems a very one-sided arrangement to me.

We found radical unschooling unsustainable once there were multiple children in the mix with complex needs. (we are close to being unschoolers. Certainly no curriculum or anything, but no, we aren't radical unschoolers)

Here are my questions:

1. how do you cope with sibling conflict (or how do they cope)? That was an area where, for everyone's well being, I found it necessary to intervene to help everyone learn the skills to be civilised human beings, in a somewhat top down way, while they were learning the ropes. Not doing rewards and punishments, but intervening whether or not the intervention was welcomed...

2. Similarly, the need for healthy eating massively outstripped linguistic and cognitive understanding of its benefits for my children (or the cognitive understanding of budgets, and time constraints on going to the supermarket for chocolate every single day etc). We now have house rules about food, which were imposed top down when my oldest was about 11 or so. That's not very radical unschool-y at all, though everyone seems pretty much to have bought into the house rules. Did you have a period where the children's diets were exclusively beige? Did that cause you anxiety?

3. do you encounter many feral bratty unschool-y children? Most of the home educators we socialise with routinely DO have some top down expectations about behaviour from their children, or have invested a lot of time and energy in helping their children learn to be kind and gentle and inclusive and yada yada; my experience of radical unschool types has tended to be a bit Lord of the Flies to be honest (and my children don't want anything to do with that culture). How do you avoid that sort of unkind wildness?

DerelictWreck. She's 10. She's not going to get a degree next week. The focus at this stage is on nurturing her passion, encouraging her curiosity, feeding her desire to learn. She will be capable of doing gcces if she chooses to.

Dh or I are always with them

What if they said they didn't want you to be? Would you respect that too?

How do you concentrate on your contract work if you are always with the children?

I find it odd that people think you'd need to be an expect in everything to help a child learn. I mean we are talking to each other on the internet right now! People do realise you can use if for things other than facebook and mumsnet right?

I'd like to ask at what age your children got interested in reading?
Mine is an only child and has yet to become totally convinced of the need to read as she has a handy adult present at all times....

One child refused to brush or their hair for 2 years. I was fine with that. Their body, their choice. They didn't like washing it, but understood the smell wasn't appealing to others so asked me to help them find away to fix it without having to wash it. I did. When one of them was 4 they ate nothing but instant noodles every night for 6 months. Their body, their choice. They got sick of noodles and moved on to more adventurous foods.

surely there comes a point when you have parent, and letting your child eat nothing but pot noddles for 6 months is them eating junk food, and not doing them any good....?

Its about trusting them. Trusting that they know whats best for them, and encouraging that.

But children aren't born knowing this stuff, they have to be taught it. I mean yes, eventually they will understand for themselves that if they don't brush their hair or wash their hair properly for 2 years it will be really disgusting, but I don't understand how that is better than you just telling them that they need to brush and wash their hair properly? What's the benefit of them finding out that sort of stuff 'for themselves'?

But OP, violin is not a 'core' subject. If your child wants to learn the violin, you do what everyone else does and get them lessons.

What about Maths? Science? Can you teach them to GCSE level? The child wanting to go into the air force will need at least these - and high grades, too. A couple of STEAM sessions will not help.

I think it's great, so long as the child is not hindered. Sometimes (as with the violin lessons) you will need to pass the teaching on to a professional, and this will be either a tutor (expensive) or a school.

Presumably when they want to do A levels, they will attend a college? A Uni for a degree?

Is learning about something from the internet that your parent is unable to teach you really as rewarding as learning with a group of other children, discussing and bouncing ideas off each other? I wouldn’t have thought so.

IMO letting kids eat supernoodles everyday and not brush their hair for two years is serious neglect.

Yes most children will eventually realise that this is bad for them, but it is be parents job to parent them. To not do so is neglectful

But you say you pick up the odd part time contract here and there. It doesn’t sound like you work very much really (unless I’ve misunderstood), which is why it all sounds doable. (Also doesn’t sound like you’re in the U.K. so living costs may before affordable?)

Does your work involve you being outside the home? What happens to the children if so? And if you’re at home working, are the children then left to their own devices for the day?