Thursday, April 23, 2009

Unparenting

I first heard of Unschooling almost exactly one year ago. I thought it was an interesting concept and was intrigued by it. We have always known we were going to homeschool, but thinking about "school at home" did not appeal to me. So, Unschooling as a way of "teaching", or shall I say, a way for my children to learn, made sense to me. But then when I read about Radical Unchooling I was really intrigued. No time out, no food restrictions, no bedtime...What?
I remember my mom was in town for the big Lake Buchanan fishing trip we take every year and I told her and Devon about the things I had been reading. About these people who parent their kids with no punishments and no bedtimes. They both kind of laughed at me. My mom even said, "Do you go out looking for these weirdos or do they find you?" (Yes, you did mother.)
But the more I read the more it all made since to me and when I shared what I had learned with Devon it made sense to him to. For basically the last year we have been lifting limits for our children. They don't have a bedtime, they can eat what they want, there are no punishments...I will say we have our good days and we have our not so good days, but when I look at other peoples' kids who use time out, spank or other methods of punishment I have to say their kids really are no different than mine. Children are children or maybe I should say children are human and WE all have our good moments and our bad moments. I love what Dayna Martin said on one of her YouTube videos. She gets cranky and in a bad mood sometimes, but she has thirty more years of experience dealing with those feelings than her children do, so yeah kids have their moments.
I recently listened to an awesome podcast by Sarah Parent at Humans Being. It was all about Unparenting. She did a great job explaining Unparenting. If you want to know more about it or have never heard of it or if you are one of my children's grandparents check out her podcast. The first thirty minutes are basically her giving an update on what has been going on with her, so you can skip ahead to about minute number thirty one or so if you want to get to the meat of it.
Let me know what you think.

2 comments:

Mrs. Bailey said...

i am always listening to the new things you're trying and am in awe . . . always thinking it won't work for my kids . . . but with the number of timeouts and horrible moments we're had these days ... i am going to give it a listen! :) thanks for sharing!

Jill said...

I agree Jess. I really think kids respond to things differently as will you, but I am all for trying bits and pieces of styles in parenting and education. I've found myself all over the board this year between parenting my own kids and teaching other little ones and love hearing what other moms and teachers do!