Unschooling - thoughts?

[Snickerdoodle1]

Recently got back in touch with an old school friend via Facebook, have mostly shared messages but last week we met properly for coffee and was good to see her again.

I'd never heard of it before but apparently she is 'unschooling' her DS - not the same as home ed as they never sit down and dedicate time to work, they just visit the occasional museum and forest school class but mostly just focus on being happy. They go on a lot of holidays and spend time will their fellow unschooling friends.

Her DS seems cheerful and positive so clearly she's doing something right but when I was discussing with DH later at home he said he thinks it's 'not fair' on someone not to equip them for life and work and adulthood.

Just wondering what other people's thoughts/opinions are on it?

Sorry should have tagged you above

We homeschool the conventional way, with classes, but many of the families in our large homeschool group unschool. The unschooled Billie Eilish made some of her first appearances at our talent show. The philosophy behind it was explained by John Holt, a public teacher who noticed how top-down formal schooling seemed to quench child's natural curiosity. The idea behind unschooling is to keep the child in a context where they are given materials to learn based on their requests and interests. It can be highly successful. In my experience unschooled children are oddly mature, happy, and independent. They may end up with odd gaps in academic skills but these don't seem to do them any harm even in a university setting; they are strongly self-motivated. This way of life seems to be especially good for art kids (Billie Eilish) and for kids who are mathematically gifted (a bunch of my son's friends who code). It didn't appeal to us for a variety of reasons. Occasionally it is badly done (computer games always seem involved when it goes really off) but the same is true of other methods of schooling.