Does autonomous stretch to every aspect of life?

[Colleger]

I've just come home from an adventure holiday and can't wait to book another one. However, although I felt that DS learnt a lot and benefited from it he basically hated every minute of it! He's at the age where coming on holidays with us is still a must and we do not have family to send him to. But if you're an autonomous educator, are holiday decisions dictated by your children's wants and desires? DS has plenty opportunities to go on other outings and holidays that fill his desires (and bore me to tears) so there is more than enough compromise in this area.

Anyway, I'm beginning to feel life is too short for all of us - hence taking DS out of school - and that also means that I don't think my life should entirely be put on hold just because DS would be unreasonably, imo, unhappy with our holiday choices.

What do the chilled-been-there-done-that autonomous parent's think?

First of all, your needs matter too. Giving a child autonomy doesn't mean your life revolves around his desires. It means that you let him make decisions about things which affect him, rather than telling him what to do purely "for his own good." For example, a child who has autonomy over all aspects of his life wouldn't be prevented from staying up late. However, that doesn't mean he gets to keep the rest of the household up by playing loud music late at night when they are trying to sleep.

Secondly, only some families who give their children autonomy over their education allow them control over all other aspects of their lives. Most of my autonomously educating friends do have a few areas where they consider their children are not competent to make their own decisions and where the parents keep control.

This could even vary between the different children in a family. For instance, my older daughter never wanted to go anywhere alone where I felt she would be unsafe. I trusted her judgement and she has always gone wherever she liked; I just give advice and suggestions. But my younger daughter doesn't seem to have a very well-developed road sense and isn't able to come up with a sensible plan when she finds herself in trouble. (If she were lost, she wouldn't ask for help. She'd probably wander around for ages and then hide somewhere crying.) She also seems not to understand her own limitations and wants to cross the road and go to the park alone. So I keep control over where she goes and with whom, and she never goes out alone.

I didn't completely understand your holiday dilemma but I'd say you could educate autonomously while still making decisions for your son about his holidays, if you feel strongly that these holiday experiences are ones which he needs to have. After all, I don't require my little girl to learn to read, but I do require her to hold my hand while crossing the road. I trust her to take control of her own learning, but not of her own safety outdoors.

Or you could choose to let your son have control over this aspect of his life, but that doesn't mean his needs automatically trump yours. It might mean, for instance, that you let him make his own arrangements to opt out of family holidays whenever he wants to and is able to. So if he can talk a friend's parents into letting him stay with them in order to avoid getting dragged along on holiday with you, then you'd let him do that. Alternatively, he might have to come camping with you because there's nowhere else he can go, but you'd let him stay in the tent reading or listening to music while you go for invigorating walks in the rain. If you were saying that all family outings and holidays revolved around your interests, then I'd suggest it would be more fair to compromise and perhaps take it in turns to do what you like and what he likes - but you say this compromise is happening already. There will be times when not everybody in the family can have what they want, and this may be one of those times. Of course you deserve a turn to have a holiday you like!

Marking my place as I'm interested in what others do. :)

for us, aspiring to a consent-based family life (because there is always the danger of me turning into a fishwife) spills over into education. I would expect it to spill over into family life if a family started out aiming at autonomous education - where does education stop, yk?

PS we have separate holidays for separate parts of the family. Sometimes we all go together, but usually it's a subset of the family. That way just about everyone's needs get met

We try to live consensually, where we find a way for us all to be happy, rather than by compromise, where at least one person feels like they have given something up.
So yes for us autonomy spills over into all aspects of family life.

"But if you're an autonomous educator, are holiday decisions dictated by your children's wants and desires? "
We'd all discuss a family holiday, and try and find something that we all were happy with. For us life was not dominated by the children's wants any more than it dominated by ours.
Everyone's family is different, but that is what has worked really well for us since we became autonomous-and having done life where parents dictate choices, this way for us, has been a whole lot happier.

You say that your child has "DS has plenty opportunities to go on other outings and holidays that fill his desires (and bore me to tears)"

Then if I were in that situation, I would be discussing with him, that you do 'so and so' to enable him to do these things, and suggest that it could work the other way too-him coming along with you to an adventure holiday enables you to get what you need to recharge your batteries, to carry on doing things with him.

If that way doesn't seem to be working, then I would drop the idea of the adventure holiday-for the time being- and find something different again that you both will enjoy, so you feel like your needs are being met and you don't feel compromised.

All too soon he will have grown up and no longer come with you, he could maybe stay with friends instead-our teens had friends stay here for days/weeks and they have gone to stay with other families round the country too. Our house usually had extra teens in it, seems so empty often now they are not here.

DH doesn't do camping or hostels-so he didn't come to any of the HE gatherings and camps, I went on my own with the children. Then later we'd find time to do some sort of break with him too.
I wouldn't have made him come camping, any more than I would have made the children come on a holiday they didn't really didn't want to either.

Our children are all grown now and dh and I have lots of time to holiday together, doing things that don't interest the children...... and I still go camping without him too!

I think the phrase 'dictated by your child's wants and desires' is interesting because it has within it a - possibly unconscious - devaluing of children's wants and desires as opposed to an adult's. Would you say that about your dh or a valued friend? Would you make your dh go on a holiday he hated because you thought it was good for him and if so, how would you expect him to feel about it - would he feel receptive to enjoying the experience? This is something I am only starting to think about in the context of unschooling but I am becoming more and more aware of how language is used to imply that children's choices and desires are less valid that adults - 'giving into his every whim' for example. Right now all my choices are determined by what I know my dc will enjoy as otherwise life will be miserable, but as we go on I hope they will be made by consensus, with all opinions mattering. I would not like being forced to go on a holiday I hated, and so I would assume my dc will feel the same, and that that is not good for our relationship. However I will also try to make sure my needs are met and I hope no one will be dictating.

Very interesting point chocolatecrispies and I can see where you are coming from. However, in our case, it seems that so much of our life revolves around the kids and there are times when it needs to revolve around my husband, myself or an individual child even if it's not ideal for anyone else. I have "suffered" the golfing holidays on the way to a holiday I wanted as it worked out cheaper to do them both and it was the only chance DH and I could spend time together. Our interests are so different that we'd never see each other if we didn't go on holiday together. The dull bits are outweighed by seeing him, and he always likes my choices anyway (although pretends not to)

I've decided that in this area my needs will come first. I am giving up so much to home ed him. It's what he wants and needs but I have needs to and life is about compromise, give and take etc. :)