What No One Will Tell You: The Kids Don’t Have to Go to School
I’m doing some bonus podcasts about school and... not going.
Because it’s this time of year, and we can feel the push.
So if you’re new, this will be perfect timing. If you’re not so new, stay and listen. It’s funny how when you first start, you are so frantically trying to get your bearings that you miss at least half of what people are trying to tell you!
So, let’s consider this podcast, Back to Basics.
And before we get into the Basics of this Unschooling option, I want to address the overarching Basic thought that it needs to be debunked...
The kids don’t really have to go to school.
No one wants to admit that. But it’s the truth.
If you’re listening and you haven’t made the leap yet - or if you opted for homeschooling last year and it didn’t really work out for yo...
reach out. I have so many resources to help make your unschooling journey easier.
So yes, you’ve survived last year (somehow!) and but you want better than that. You know in your heart of hearts that life can be better than what it’s been up to this point. The wrangling with your kid about doing school work, trying to spin the idea that, yes, this is all necessary despite their protests.
It’s hard to do because you have your own doubts.
All those “necessary” classes and subjects from your own school days – long forgotten!
Besides, no one ever asked you in your adult life about the Pythagorean Theorem or the date of the Battle of Hastings. Heck, you don’t even use your degree! Neither do I! (Talk about a waste of time and money.) YOu’ve been deputized by the kids’ school as their “Homework Police.,” making sure they memorize all those same irrelevant facts. Or you’ve taken on the homeschooling responsibility and YOU are the warden yourself. Not fun. Not engaging. Not even sure they’re learning much.
But what are you going to do?
You used to remind yourself that this is simply what everyone must endure until they’re 18 and graduated.
But school these days? It doesn’t look like your school days with so much emphasis on testing, the pressure and the stress. The bullying that happens has really gotten out of hand and the teachers seem incredibly frustrated. I don’t know whether the system got too big or too removed from the learner...but it has gone very wrong.
And you’re pretty sure your kids are not going to look back on these days with a lot of happy memories.
So as you’re wringing your hands and wondering if there are any viable options at all, you’ve started to notice a few more families deciding to homeschool... and maybe even the term unschooling has popped up.
Before we dive into a few of the common questions that I want to address...I want to talk to those of you who think you can’t homeschool or unschool because you had such a rough time during the pandemic.
Unschooling doesn’t look like what you went through at all.
Not only is the world more available to move about in - but you don’t have to make your child fit the schools agenda. That was such a horrible time - even the schools ended up ditching their own agendas! So unschooling doesn’t look like that at all. Instead of cramming the kids into the curriculum, forcing them to complete stuff because...well, someone said you have to, you can flip the process upside down.
Start with the learner. What are the interests?
Then all the learning begins.
You don’t have to pour a ton of facts onto them and hope they memorize it all for the test. You don’t need those facts in your real life now...and it’s very possible the kids are noticing that. No wonder they ask what we asked when we were in school,
“Why do I need to know this?”
It’s a good question!
So if you’re telling yourself,
“We were miserable failures as homeschoolers in the pandemic.”
Rest assured. This is a new ball game.
The first question that pops in people’s minds is usually,
The first question that pops in people’s minds is usually,
Do regular people like me homeschool their kids?
And as soon as that question slips in, the flood of additional questions surface!
- Is homeschooling even legal here? Are their a ton of hoops to jump through?
- Would I even be qualified to do this?
- How would they make any friends?
- How would they learn anything?
- What if we can’t stand each other?
So I just want to tell you,
Yes. Regular people do homeschool their kids.
You don’t have to be doing this for religious reasons or because you’re a crunchy granola type of parent.
I was neither of these. We went to church, but it wasn’t my reason to step away from school. We ate healthy food… for the most part, and I was always looking for kinder more gentle ways to parent. I didn’t really understand why attachment parenting stopped when they became school age. I was just a regular mom from the suburbs. I had no plans to homeschool as we were trying to make school work for my little kindergartener. But as first grade rolled around, it became clear that the classroom experience was not a good situation. His enthusiasm for learning was already starting to wane. His curiosity was being squashed. His individualism and self-expression – well, there was no room for that. So I started to investigate the homeschooling option. It was the 1990’s and the landscape...looked a lot different!
But the times have changed. And more and more moms like me (and you!) started leaving the local schools venturing into this learning no-man’s-land. Interestingly, there were plenty of people choosing home education back then and thousands more now. It’s a subculture that exists in every community. You may not see it... until you actually start.
5 Common Questions:
1. Is Unschooling legal?
2. What Qualifications do I need?
3. What about Socialization
4. How will they Learn what they need?
5. What if it's too much "togetherness?"
Let's Get Some Answers!
1. I'm worried about the legality of unschooling?
Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. Each state decides it’s own rules for what hoops homeschoolers must jump through to legally homeschool. A quick google search can take you to your local and/or state homeschooling group and they will have an explanation as to how the community is dealing with the compulsory attendance laws. Some states require nothing of homeschooling families. Others want periodic testing, some want an end-of the-year evaluation. And unschooling is simply a legitimate style of homeschooling. All laws and requirements about homeschooling apply to unschooling.
It’s always best to talk to the local unschoolers though - they can help you navigate the reality of how the laws apply.
So I have a collection of Local Groups linked at the Unschooling Mom2Mom website. And more about how to figure out what YOUR laws are. Sometimes the legal question has to do with how to fulfill the requirements about various subjects. Unschoolers do this because they see that subjects are weaving throughout everyday life activities.
When you realize it’s about LEARNING....you begin to see that it doesn’t have to come from a classroom or a textbook or one subject at a time. So the legal requirements are being met...creatively. But met.
- Looking for other Unschoolers near you? Find Local Groups
- Read More: Is Unschooling Legal
2. Are you qualified?
Of course you are! Do you know everything? Of course NOT!
No one said you have to know everything. You simply have to be a good resource finder. A good Tour Guide. A good communicator.
Being able to tap into the local community (libraries, museums, friends with skills, the Internet, etc.) is all you need to be able to provide a wonderful rich learning environment.
This is really more of a confidence problem, right? And reframing what really matters!
It’s also because we’ve had decades of being told to rely on The Experts...and the implication, spoken or not, was that WE could not be trusted without these experts and their plans.
Almost a Stockholm Syndrome.
Need Coaching & Community?
You don't have to do this alone!
We have a Membership Group that can provide the support you need on this unschooling journey.
Everyone is different - but learning from and leaning on each other can really help!
3. Ahhh… what about socialization?
That question always rolls around. People envision lonely children at a kitchen table - but that’s not what this looks like anymore. Certainly not what unschooling EVER looked like.
This socialization question has a lot of layers to it...some of it even carrying over from our own childhoods... insecurities or fears, things we want our kids to avoid. Or maybe we have really social kids and we can’t figure out how they’ll make enough friends to be happy. But unschooled Kids make friends through shared interests and experiences - the way any of us do who aren’t sitting in a classroom. That’s about desk proximity or shared first letter of the last name… that can’t really be the basis of a friendship. I can remember being “best friends” with someone for a year while we sat beside each other in class. And then the next year, we had no shared classes and that friendship was gone. :::poof:::
Unschooled kids aren’t missing out on anything by skipping those kinds of shallow “friendships.”
All over the country, unschoolers are getting together at parks and homes, libraries and recreation centers. They’re off on “field trips” together, meeting for “game days,” pool parties, and mid-week (gasp!) sleepovers.
Worried about Socialization?
If you're concerned about how the kids
are going to make friends if they don't go to school,
this full color 25-page Unschooling Guide is for you!!
I have more for you to think about in here as well, like...
- Examining this concept of socialization
- How to help your child develop social skills
- What about community?
- Social benefits of Unschooling
- "Susie, You're Not Here to Socialize!" (yes, I mean me!)
- Making Friends
- And so much more!
4. How will they learn?
I touched on this before as it pertains to the legalities. But when we dive deeper, it’s not just about checking the box for the legal requirements. It’s about seeing that Life provides SOO many opportunities to learn.
The difference is that we start with their interests and curiosities, and then that ripples outward.
That’s why curriculum doesn’t work - many of these opportunities can’t be planned ahead of time.
It’s about being open and flexible and living in the moment and learning about what’s crossing your path.
Instead saying you can’t be bothered because you have something else - something someone else has decided is more important - that needs the focus first. Unschoolers don’t subscribe to that kind of thinking. When you know that everyone is hardwired to learn, you can trust that learning will happen. I should point out, this reversal in thinking...to go from the Top Down Teacher-driven Make-em-do-it way to a more Learner-driven, Individualized approach to learning takes time.
We call it deschooling and I have a lot of resources that can help you. Podcast and Video playlists all about deschooling. Because it doesn’t happen over night. That’s part of the heavy lifting parents will do to undo some of the faulty thinking you might be carrying around with you.
But when you think about learning, recognize all the ways your kids expand their knowledge, their vocabulary, their skills - it’s from the internet, books, movies, conversations with people “in-the-know,” life experiences - so many ways! Classrooms are only ONE method - not the only way to learn! And, you’ll probably learn a little along the way too! Learning really doesn’t have to be dull drudgery to get through – it can be exciting and fun. That’s what will make your kids (The Learners) engage! Not a stack of worksheets.
RESOURCES:
5. What if it’s too much togetherness?
The 5th question that is sometimes whispered - because lots of people think it but no one wants to say it out loud.
If this is really the case – then you will have the opportunity to work on it. You’ll be able to create rhythms in your day that work for you and for your kids. You don’t have to be side-by-side 24 hours/day! But when you remove the rushing around and the pressure that happens in those precious hours after they come home from school and before they hit the pillow, you’ll be surprised how much everyone’s attitude improves!
I do have 2 really good books that might help you...
RESOURCES:
- Parent-Teen Breakthrough: A Relationship Approach by Mira Kirshenbaum.
- When Your Kids Push Your Buttons by Bonnie Harris.
So there are my quickie answers to the first five questions that usually pop up. I’m sure there are more percolating in there. And we have time to talk more. I’d love to be able to help you figure this out.
Hop on my calendar and we can talk 1:1,
join the membership group to get ongoing support, or
DIY your way through all the Guides,
Courses, books that I have waiting for you at the website.
There’s nothing worse than feeling you don’t have any options.
But at least in this case, that’s not true.
You do.
