Slow Roasted Teenagers ~ Yummy ~

** Okay, here's my preface: if you think you're going to feel judged or offended, stop reading now. If you're going to have an open mind, please carry on :)***

I have terrible news: Our children are being slow roasted.

There's an old adage about cooking frogs. If the frogs are dumped into boiling water, they will jump out. However, if they are put in the pot with the cool water and slowly brought up to a boil, the frog won't notice. It doesn't struggle, or jump out. It's cooked.
This is what is happening to our children. And the scary part is, we are allowing it. Defending it. Even supporting it.

We recently had a teen suicide due to "cyber-bullying". As I watched her youtube video, I couldn't help but think this young girl is was no different from so many young girls. She made the kinds of "mistakes" that are common to the teen years. Flashing, fooling around with boys; some poor choices perhaps... But nothing uncommon to growing up.... and LEARNING about life. She was also victimized and taken advantage of by boys. Again, sadly, not uncommon at all. What's new, is that thanks to the internet, thanks to social media, and thanks to cameras on every cell phone, and a cell phone with every teen, her "mistakes" were immortalized online, for all to see. For all to mock, and ostracize. Her "mistakes" were on display to follow her from school to school. And somehow, the children in every school felt entitled, maybe even justified to bully her. As a whole they felt okay about participating in tearing her down.... to the point of finally beating her with a crowd of support. Eventually, leading to her suicide. And sadly, her experience, is not uncommon at all.

It's shameful. I feel heartbroken for her family. And I feel haunted by questions... Where are the parents? Any of the parents? Are people to busy to monitor the online safety and activities of their children? Why were they not acting like people who had learned morals? Empathy? Kindness?
I'm sure a lot of things factor into this... but basically, I believe they've been cooked. And that's not justification. It doesn't make it okay. It makes me wonder, what is wrong with families? Why are we allowing this?!

Talking this story over with people, something interesting happened. Stories of bullying came forward from each person. Bullying from both teachers, and fellow students. Bullying stories that took place 40 some years ago, right up until now. Let's start with the stories of teachers bullying. (Please Understand, this is not meant as an offense to all teachers, surely there are many, many wonderful, positive teachers who keep children save and have a beneficial effect on their students.) The stories I heard were all from elementary school; they included teachers pushing children down stairs; strangling a child against a wall in front of a class; shoving a child to the ground in front of a class; not allowing a child to use the washroom, and having him wet himself in front of the class; and locking a child alone in a classroom for 2 hour detention after school closed up. These stories are multi-generational, and from varying towns and cities. The children in these stories experienced Fear, Hurt, Embarrassment, Shame, Humiliation, and HUGE Injustice and Violation of trust at the hands of people entrusted to care for them. In all of these stories, no significant consequences came to the teachers; and yet the one's telling the stories, tell them like they were yesterday; flushed faces, and shaking voices.

Do you think these kinds of experiences might have an influence on our children's development of empathy? or Kindness? I do. I think it teaches them it's okay to treat people badly. And what's more?.... the parents were told about these situations. The parents rightly complained, and nothing came of it. So what do our kids learn?? What are WE teaching them? We're the teaching them that if you are big, or in power, this kind of behavior is okay. If you're at school, this behavior is okay. If you get caught, even as an adult, you won't be held accountable in any major way. If you are a child, you are power-less. And if you are a parent, you are also power-less to help. The School has the power, the System has the power. And right from elementary school on, the lesson is bullying is okay. Of course we would never say that, however it's true.... although, terribly inconvenient.

In fact, in some schools it is true right from day 1 of Kindergarten. One mom recently told me of her schools new policy that on the first day of school, parents were not allowed to enter the school. Period. She said children were crying, parents were crying; and they were told, "No. No parents in the school. We'll take care of them. This will encourage their independence." And parents accepted that. Oh, I'm sure some protested, or maybe felt inwardly worried; but this mom reported that overall, parents just allowed the school to have that much say! Again, what is the message?! What is the lesson?!
The message is "We, the school, are big and powerful, and even your parents can't help you or even access you here." Intimidating at the very least. And what does this teach (a 5 year old) about empathy? About the importance of feelings, and caring for another's experience? Or the connection of parents to their little ones? The importance of family?.... all secondary to the prerogative of the school.

Yes, into the cooking pot they go.

For 12-13 years, we as parents support our children participating in this system. Slowly roasting. And let's face it. We're busy. We trust that the learning happening in Our school is good, at least mostly good. The problems of drugs, alcohol, sex, bullying, and so on "don't happen at our school"; "it's a private school"; or "we live in a good area of town"; or "we're in such a small town".... "We're trying to earn a living; to make ends meet. We try to have regular family dinners, and enjoy some weekend events together... taxi-ing to and from friends houses, the mall, soccer practice and so on...."

And then, one day they are in high school and these kinds of things happen. It is all too common. And then people around us wonder, and maybe We wonder how these things could possibly happen.... people like myself wonder why these teens have no empathy.... why they are vicious.

They've been cooked. Slow roasted by the school system. By the climate of this world. By Video games about war, stealing cars, hookers, or .... By social media.... By popular male and female performers also teaching anything but positive morals, or good qualities; and often promoting unhealthy views on sex and attitudes that de-value women.... Wow. I'm sounding awfully judgmental; awfully down on a lot of things. What is my point anyways?!

My point is:

I hope that when my children come into contact with the boiling water, they will hop out!!

For our family, this hope is a lot of work. It's meant following a path of natural learning, at home. It's meant making financial choices that support time together over many other things. It's meant being really specific about entertainment. And mostly, it's meant keeping our purpose of a trusting, close relationship foremost; one that models empathy and kindness. A relationship that is protective of their innocence, childhood, and feelings.
It means, (forgive my rudeness) raising them. It means doing our best and hoping. Reading stories like this, reflecting, and hoping.

I hope that as these tragedies happen, some people will go further than saying "What a shame... so sad." I hope that at least some people will start thinking deeper than that. And figuring out how these events are connected to their own families, because they are.  
~We are all connected.~

Old Dan Tucker... and Other Insanities

WHAT is going on?! 

I have been hearing.... literally, Old Dan Tucker being sung for days..... Sung by my children.

I hear it being serenaded while I'm in the shower;

belted out from the back seat while I'm driving;

chanted while we're walking;

and finally dialed down to a hum when I've begged for a break from the Insanity!!

And of course next thing I know it's stuck in MY head too... and then I'm humming it. Where is this coming from?

Old Dan Tucker is just one example of The Insanity. This year something has shifted. Did I say Shifted? What I meant to say was my world has been Flipped, turned-upside-down. (yes, much like the Will Smith song. lol)

This year while planning our learning year, (as much as one can plan that), I started feeling curious about the Waldorf philosophy; which led me, quite surprisingly to browsing through curriculum. Let me say that again: CURRICULUM. For me this is darn-near Shocking. For anyone who knows me knows, I have felt pretty passionately against curriculum; and certainly against anything that looks like school-at-home. These feelings were re-enforced when Liv and I were struggling our way through Kindergarten curriculum, and later struggling through many other bouts of "teaching" and "learning" how to read. Little did I know, the source of our struggle was undiagnosed Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. All I knew, and still know, is this kind of learning was not worth it, or fun, or successful for us. And yet here I was looking through curriculum.

So why on Earth am I feeling good about this?! ....It still sounds crazy.

My outlook, as I was browsing the "curriculum", is that it could be just one more resource, among many resources, that we may or may not use; depending on where we're at with our learning.... okaaaaay.... To my surprise, I found that the Waldorf ideas of protecting the rites of childhood deeply resonated with me; and the bits of curriculum I was seeing looked so multi-sensory. I was having a very strong feeling that this could be a beautiful fit for us.

The other thing that shifted my outlook is that my daughter, wait for it...... ASKED FOR CURRICULUM!! Workbooks to be specific. 

**still shaking my head in disbelief**

Here I had brainstormed with her all the interests and goals she had for herself for the year.... I'm typing up a plan. One that deliberately looks nothing like formal learning, one that is full of games and activities.... and she says, "mom, did you put some curriculum in that? I mean, you know, some workbooks and stuff? Cause I'm thinking I'm getting older and stuff, and I think I should start getting better at math and my spelling and things." 

HUH?! WHAT NOW?

So then again, maybe I was browsing curriculum because somewhere inside me, my intuition knew that this is where we were heading; that this is what was next for us. I don't know how many articles, stories and blogs I've read with the same happenings: lots of free, active, spirited life learning and then with age and interest, reading, and math and eventually more formal learning. I just never thought it would happen to us. I really didn't.

I've picked out but, ahem, not yet ordered curriculum. I'm still looking at it as a resource, just another option to use or not. And as usual, I'm following the lead of my little learners.... and they are leading me to playing "school". I'm not even kidding a little. All of my deep-set opposition to "school-at-home" style learning is having to bow to my children telling me that, "NO MOM, This is supposed to be how it looks.... We sit here, and you are there, and you teach us, and we have to put up our hands... and.... and.... and." .....AND truth be told, they are having a ton of fun with it, and we are learning spelling. And while I do have some inner conflict about this style of learning, it's pretty impossible to argue with them about this one. Or argue with myself, as long as this "school" game remains THEIR idea!

See what I mean? Insanity. World. up. side. down.

Know what else?
For the first time in 6 years my daughter is not taking dance. We are still a part of a belly dance group, but she isn't taking dance. Given the option to explore some new interests, Liv chose to take a break from it. She's found herself a fantastic horse riding mentor, and is in love with horses! Which is helping tremendously with her learning challenges and confidence. I'm still in shock. No dance. HUH.

While browsing through the previously mentioned forbidden fruit, I stumbled upon a new book; Simplicity Parenting. Again, something inside me said, "you have to order that book." The blurb about it mentioned the theme is "Too much". As I looked around, I literally saw Too Much. Too much mess, from too much stuff, in every room of our probably Too Much house. I wondered if this is what the book was about.
We had been recovering all summer from the previous year of Too Much screens; we've been trying to create new limits and routines surrounding that. I wondered if that was the Too Much being referred to in the book. Either way Simple sounded pretty inviting.
I received my new book this week, and have been hooked. And it is what I thought. Our Too Much environment. Full of Too much stuff.  Full of Too Much screens. Toys. Clothes. Adult conversation.

Which leads me to my next insanity. Simplifying my house. AKA- pulling up the utility trailer and making repeated trips to the dump and second hand store. All of these changes have me feeling a little overwhelmed, lost, excited, confused, surprised.... very.... just Very. Is that a feeling? Again. World. Up. Side. Down.

And so, fueled by my new book; accompanied by my family singing Old Dan Tucker; and inspired by our recently discovered major addiction to watching Little House, and Longing for a simpler life.... I am taking on the Too Much mess. I might even blog about our progress, and take pictures for accountability! LOL

Alright. Enough with writing. Time. To. Simplify.

Innocent

I haven't written here for some time. Partly because I haven't had much to say, partly because sometimes I say the wrong thing. And by that I mean that I say something that offends someone, or breaks down my relationship with someone. Neither is fun, not offending, but also not sharing.

With that in mind continue reading, because I have a story to share. A story about Innocence.

My son is 6. He tends to say some crazy things, in his innocence, of course. Like the time he told me my singing made food come up his throat... Or the time he told our guest she had a big bum! He is full of surprises.

The other night his deep thinking was the surprise. He said to me " you know mom, people are innocent". He sounded so sincere, so thoughtful. I didn't know where this was coming from. I was quiet, I wondered if he could know what innocent meant or where he had heard this word. He continued, " you see, mom, when the first people were here, everything was perfect, here was no right and wrong, the world was innocent. And then Satan came down and messed everything up. Now people don't know, and so people are still innocent."

I couldn't help but be amazed, and nod in agreement, and hug him, and tell him how much I love him. It may have looked a lot like "praise".... But it was oozing out of so much warmth. My little guy just demonstrated such a deep and complex understanding of innocence. Wow.

No specific teacher or lesson brought about this understanding. Dare I say it arose organically, from his freedom, his innocence.

DREAMS ~ and Variations of Real Life

(* this is less about unschooling and more about making sure we can continue to*)

I've been thinking that we underestimate the power of DREAMS!
Both the kind we have while we are awake, and the kind we have while we are asleep.... and maybe the times in-between too.

You see, every time we dream we CREATE.
We create an alternate version of how things are, how things could be.
And how often do our dreams become real life?
How often do they come true, and we find it is not quite as great
as we imagined it would be?
We dreamed and dreamed, we problem-solved and pursued,
then we are where we dreamed we wanted to be,
and we find it's not quite as great as we thought....
Or do we get their and it feels even greater?....
I have had both experiences.

Lately, I have been dreaming of our family in a different living situation....
I thought my dream was attached my set of values.... now, I'm not so sure. Unfortunately, Surprisingly, and for some reason Unknown to me,
this current dream was attached to a thing- "Stuff"- a new house specifically. In this dream, we have a large kitchen, a big fenced yard with a dog and goats! (Landon is making goat's milk soap), a pottery studio for me to work in, the laundry room is it's own room... lol.... an area to garden... We were all on board with this dream, and we logically, have been trying to sell our home to create this new one. Only one problem.

The problem of "Stuff".....
This dream-home is more Stuff.
And I'm not so sure I'm okay with that part of this dream.
With the Stuff comes more costs, more caring for the Stuff....
and often this translates into working more
for the money to care for and maintain the Stuff.
This part of the Dream isn't sitting well with me.
I highly value being WITH my family.
with my children. with my husband.
learning and living together. Everyday.
That is my most important DREAM.
I wouldn't ever want "Stuff" to become bigger than my Dreams of us

together.

I am wondering, what need is My dream telling me I have?

Perhaps, My dream is to CREATE a more efficient kitchen,
not necessarily a bigger one;

perhaps, My Dream is to make better use of the outdoors
perhaps, My dream is to walk more, to camp and visit the beach;

maybe my Dream is to transform our garage into a pottery studio;
and maybe our washer and dryer could be moved into our basement.....

Perhaps, this is My Real Dream.... without the extra costly Stuff...
and perhaps it would feel as great as I imagine!

and perhaps it wouldn't.

but I continue Dreaming!
Aware of the power that DREAMING can have!

Dreaming grew into living my life with my best friend; one of the very few people who "gets" me;
dreams brought to life our children;dreaming allowed me to heal from my first birth by helping other mamas have their babies;dreaming allowed me to give birth at home the next time, with courage and faith; dreaming allowed us to imagine what we could make of this affordable rundown home we have renovated; dreaming of being able to stay at home with my children beyond the age of 5 led to homeschooling; and dreaming of something better than that has led to unschooling.....

What a powerful thing dreaming can be!?

So what have you dreamed of lately?

how we got to this unschooling place

It occurred to me that I spend a great deal of time writing about this thing we call unschooling. I write about it's philosophies and how positively it has effected my family. My writing has been somewhat impersonal. Distant.
I would like to share with you how we got to this place, because it was not the obvious choice and has not been without it's challenges. In fact, there have been a few occasions I need to remind myself why this is the path we have chosen. (I will warn you, this is long...)



When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was a pretty conventional mama. I had a doctor. I birthed Olivia in the hospital in a rather artificial way. (which I will save for a later post) I tried to breastfeed, but alas, breastfeeding was not going to happen for us. As is the story for so many moms. So like so many moms, she drank formula. And I continued reading the common, average parenting books. Listening to the advice of anyone who would give it.

I was a mama who was very unsure how to mama. I was lost. I made a lot of "mistakes".

As she was becoming a toddler my husband and I happened to read the story of the bible character, Daniel. In the story, Daniel and his 3 companions are taken as captives to Babylon. In Babylon, the king orders that they be a part of the education system in Babylon. The king strips them of the names given to them by their parents and gives them names related to the Babylonian deities. He tries to make them change their diet. In the school, they are required to learn all about the Babylonian ways; their language, their holidays, their gods. The education system in this bible story did everything it could to strip the boys of their identity.


My heart hurt for these boys. In exploring the story with my husband, a few things jumped out at us as note worthy.

1. The goal of this education system was to strip the boys of their identity, to force them to learn what the government thought valuable. Ideally, the king wanted to integrate these boys into their way of life. We noticed the similarities to our current educational system. Trying to create cookie-cutter children- dressing alike, thinking alike, celebrating alike. I did not like the idea of my child being a part of a system whose goal was to mold her mind; to make it fit in with this world's ways. I also reasoned that at 5 years old there wouldn't be much of an identity for them to strip away, before inculcating her with this worlds culture.

2. The boys were teen-agers when they were taken captive. Before being taken, it is quite likely that they had many years spent with their family; learning from their parents, and others in the community who cared about them; others who shared their way of life; and their values. The boys in the story succeed in keeping their identity, and I suspect that the large amount of time spent with their families before being taken captive helped to create strong bonds and a strong foundation of beliefs and values. Their way of life would have been "inculcated" in them daily for at least 13 years, before this separation.

3. The boys were taken captive, against their will, and against the will of their parents. Their parents did not say, "this will be good for them, this will make them stronger." They were not willingly sent.

At this point, I knew I would not be sending my child to school. It didn't feel right. I wasn't sure what that meant we would do yet. Just that she wouldn't be going.

I gave birth to my son about a year before Olivia was to start kindergarten. I had come along way as a mama. I birthed him at home with midwives, my hubby, Olivia, my sister, and my close friend. I was confident. I knew who I was at this parenting gig. We co-slept. We nursed. (until he turned 4) We massaged one another. We loved. We were together.

The month before I was to register Olivia for a homeschool program, I had doubts.

Life was challenging with two children. My house was always a mess. I was exhausted. A good deal of the time, my body hurt and I had no clue as to why. The idea of someone else watching my child a few hours a day was kind of appealing.

~I questioned whether I had been over thinking it before. ~I questioned whether keeping her home with me would be taking on too much.

A friend of mine had put her son in school the previous year; she told me that 2 children, in this elementary school had been sent home for having oral sex at the school! I didn't know which part of this story shocked me the most. I felt sick.

Also, her son had been having some struggles with the work he was given to do; the school was wanting to label him with some disorder to explain his difficulties. This all sounded terrible.

~What if my daughter was exposed to kids engaging in these kinds of activities? ~What if she had trouble with the curriculum?
~Would they want to label her too?

My husband said, "Look, I know, you know what you really want to do. So do it. And stop worrying. We will work it out." Little did I know what a life altering statement that would be...

After a lot of searching, I came across a home-school that gave the children choices about what they would learn. All the subjects were mashed together in work-booklets that had been prepared on various topics. Butterflies, dinosaurs, cats.... The teacher was very nice, and the borrowing library was pretty big. The school said Olivia would have $800 to put towards lessons. This sounded good. A month or so into the school year, we were feeling the weight of my health problems and our huge mortgage.
~We wanted to make sure of what was now very important to us.


We sold our house, bought a cheaper townhouse that needed some serious renovations before we could move in. Our family moved in with my in-laws. Obviously, this provided a new set of challenges. But my in-laws were incredibly hospitable to have us! And they supported me in taking care of my kids. I really needed and appreciated the help. Eventually, we got moved into our new home, and I found that a gluten-free diet vastly improved my health. We switched to the home-school program offered in our new town. The workbooks were similar, the teacher was nice; and we were able to be a part of the group art, drama, and science activities offered locally. Also, this new school offered Olivia $1200 for recreational lessons.


There is no easy way to say this. The workbooks were boring. Olivia was expected to do about 4 worksheets per day, on various things. A lot of it was skills she already had a handle on, so they were boring; some of them were beyond her abilities, and were frustrating; and a lot of them were simply irrelevant to her life. Our "school-work" time quickly turned into a power struggle, with plenty of tears to go around. This was not working. I was beginning to feel that I was out of options.



My husband happened to come home with two books for me; he had stumbled on them, discounted for $2 each. Both were about home-schooling, from what he could tell. One was "De-schooling Our Lives"- a collection of articles from various writers; the other was "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto. I love reading, and dove in. In the first one I read article after article about this thing called "unschooling", and stories from families who had done this mysterious thing; and something called a "free school" where children were free to learn whatever they wanted, however they wanted. This all sounded very new and wild. Crazy! I came across an article by John Holt in this book. This is one of my favorite quotes from him:

"This faith is that by nature people are learning animals.
Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn.
Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning
by wheedling, bribing, or bullying.
We do not need to keep picking away at their minds
to make sure they are learning.
What we need to do - and all we need to do -
is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for,
listen respectfully when they feel like talking,
and then get out of the way.
We can trust them to do the rest."

It felt like a fire was lit in my heart. This wild, crazy, trusting thing called "unschooling" felt true.
Indeed, my child had learned to walk and talk on her own, and in her own way. I observed that in the times we weren't struggling about "home work" she was playing and learning happily. ~Could this really work? It felt scary. I approached my husband about it. He was not interested in reading the books; this idea sounded way out there to him too. I think it felt scary to him too. He said he trusted me; and he was willing to give it a try for a certain amount of time; provided that he could still see that she was learning.

~Would she learn to read? write? Oh no, how on earth would she learn math?! This was an overwhelming and exciting place to be.

So here I was- public school was out of the question; and now home school was over too.
~Where exactly did that leave us?

I wasn't sure. I told Olivia that for the remainder of the year I would not be forcing her to do her homework, providing that she could explain to her teacher why she wasn't doing them. She did. "They are kind of boring. I didn't want to do them anymore." It made me smile, and I felt proud of her. She was able to begin to re-claim her right to learning.

Over the summer break I read "Dumbing Us Down". My mind and heart sucked it all in. This book was written by New York's "Teacher Of The Year". He outlined from his experience what lessons the school system he was working in were Really teaching. Many of the lessons being the downright opposite of the lessons most parents would want their children learning. Lessons on confusion, position, indifference, emotional and intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem, and lack of privacy. He explained the difference between "education" and "learning".

One of the things I came across in "dumbing us down" that made the biggest impression on me was a breakdown of kids time: "Out of 168 hours in a week my children (his students) sleep 56. That leaves 112 hours a week out of which to fashion a self..... children watch 55 hours of television a week. That leaves them with 57 hours in a week in which to grow up. My children attend school 30 hours a week, use about 8 hours getting ready and traveling to and from school.... average 7 hour per week in homework- a total of 45 hours..... that leaves them 12 hours a week out of which to create a unique consciousness...." it continues to factor in eating time, and time in extra curricular activities.

I started to think about my own children and their time. Their precious time. Out of 168 hours in a week, my children sleep 70 hours, leaving 98 awake hours. If I gave 30 to the school.... and 6 getting ready for school, and 6 doing homework, a total of 42 hours per week, Isn't that the same amount of time an adult puts into a full-time job? That would leave me with a mere 56 hours per week to just BE with my children. Take away time that I am distracted, cleaning, cooking, or persuing my other interests; or time my children spend at friends houses, or time watching tv. At best, I would get to spend a mere 14 hours per week more time with my children than the school.

Now what? Someone told me it was legal to write a letter to the school board stating that you were teaching your child yourself. So perhaps, this is what I would do. Write a letter stating that I would like to raise my own child.
That I would like to use my right to teach my own.

Sometime in that summer someone told me about a "homeschool" who supported "unschooling". After a lot of meditation, I enrolled her. When the lady who was to be our "learning consultant" called us; I was very upfront about what I wanted our year to look like. Free. No pressure. No boring workbooks. Would that be okay? Yes! Was the answer I got. I was still unsure of how this would work. I just just knew that the below was what I hoped for:

"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important: how to live and how to die."~John Taylor Gatto

In all honesty, that was merely the beginning of our unschooling journey. We have had many challenges since then, but I will save them for another day...