Take a deep breath and dive head first into the world of unschooling my pingos

Andy, Eddie, and Kami all had a taste of public school, Kami only Kindergarten but that was enough for her to utter the words “I HATE SCHOOL” more than once.
Pepi is 100% unschooled, and she is the one I base my observations on the most, is like looking at uncontaminated waters to better judge the “unschooling process”, not that my other kids aren’t benefiting from it, because they are.
The thing with Pepi is that I can see her instant learning appear like magic, and I know nobody taught her something she wasn’t interested in learning at the time.
She has been guided by her curiosity all through her life, and at 7 years of age, she knows about the same academic concepts kids her age are learning in school but with a practical use in her life.
Maybe she doesn’t know everything they are teaching in second grade, but the same can be said about a second grader, they may be covering a lot of material but they aren’t learning it all because their focus is not 100% in what they are learning since their interests are others than what people think they should be learning. What Pepi learns she is into, invested with all of herself. She knows other things that they aren’t learning in 2d grade, and perhaps even highschool students aren’t even learning about.
Unschooling allows a kid to become an expert in the things they love, and discriminate what they have no use for until they do.

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
- Lily Tomlin
Unschooling focuses on the pursuit of happiness first, that is learning what you love and then life falls into place around that.
Not everyone is blessed with a job they like.

Unrelated:
I have been conditioned by FB to write entries of less than 420 characters… ack!

“My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.”
- Margaret Mead

I wish at some point, Mark and I would be doing what we always wanted to do, what makes us happy.
If parents do that kids will pick up after them, they learn by example most, if a parent takes a role of victim that sacrifices their own happiness for their family in order to provide, kids will have the idea that when is their turn they will have do the same.
It doesn’t have to be that way, it is not selfish to do what we love, it is the best way to succeed, and success will bring the means to provide. Plus kids enjoy having happy relaxed parents around, approachable parents that will be happy to assist them if they need a hand in their own pursuit of happiness.
It is an ideal but it takes time, it takes some restrain, some unspoiling, because we are used to consumerism; Mark’s job enables us to live in that culture, he gets some pleasure in being the provider and his job is near what he loves to do, but not quite. I like being home but I would love for him to have more time with the kids, and I’d love tho have blocks of time undisturbed to do art.
It really is a little tinkering and small adjustments, maybe if I dedicate more time to art and profit from it (contradicting my other goal of give it away), Mark could step down a notch and find a job that allowed him more family time, thus giving me the time I need to make the art…yeah like the chicken and the egg dilemma. I need the time first.

When I first wrote the entry the quote was:
“Your children need your presence more than your presents.”
- Rev. Jesse Jackson

the quote now is:
“Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level.”
- Enrico Fermi, physicist

Unschooling is not that confusing though…

Tested again:

“The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.”
- Mother Teresa

Yikes! Right on!

...the wonderful people my kids are growing up to be.
I’m learning to judge them and criticize them less, and appreciate the things they are interested in.
The books they love to read, the things they create.
The less I intervene the more they surprise me, and at the same time I’m here for them, and facilitating the resources they need to continue their journeys towards their own happiness.
If there are some things I wish they would discover, I leave them in their path, if they pick it up great, if not I keep trying subtly.
As they need me less and less I found I need to pursue my own happiness, and I’m a bit lost where to start, I need to do more art, in a way I enjoy it again. Sketches, and drawings is all I’ve been doing, lots of ideas!

I always wanted to be a mom, and my kids make me so happy to be theirs.

The day I decided to dive into unschooling I discovered a fountain of crystalline water that promises not to empty anytime soon.
I don’t say this is the only way to raise children, but it is awesome for me.
Coercion, emotional blackmail, punishments, rewards ,and worst withholding of love have been used through history in the raising of children; apparently producing good results most of the time.
While a lot of great people in history has been raised trough this methods (and most people I know to some degree), I wonder if it was that or they just prevailed trough it all despite of it because they realized who they were meant to be; would have they been great without that upbringing, I don’t know but I wonder.

Do the goal really justifies the means? Is it worth to sacrifice true happiness and enjoyment of a passion of our own, to the applause of a passion imposed to us by others?
There is a lot of us that gets lost in this process, some of us had love for things that at the end of regular schooling will be too late to pursue, often parents discourage those passions of children’s interests because in their eyes they have not as much future as those they dream for them.

It is sad for me to see kids that have forgotten how to enjoy the learning process and become miniature joyless grownups that think they have to work hard on things that they have no interest whatsoever so they can become just one more gear of society’s machine. Yes they will have those skills that were shoved into them later, but will they learn to love them as much as something they will only now wish they had, perhaps try to shove their abandoned dreams onto their own children having forever a perpetual chain of frustrated dreams.

Responsibility is not only being able to complete tasks that might be good for our future, responsibility is to learn to take care of yourself as a whole being, including joy and enjoyment of tasks that we set for ourselves and might be good for us right now.

It is great to see a mind rise free of baggage from their upbringing, doing something great not for the applause at the end but for the enjoyment of the task itself, everything else is just a side effect.

Unconditional love, respect to their choices and gentle guidance on the ways of the world, is the only way I can think can bring such a result.

It is easy for us parents to put high expectations on their kids.

We imagine what they will be as we observe their talents, we encourage them to plan out a future according to things that we think are important and sometimes we shake aside some of our kids interests as something that will pass.
Sometimes we even manipulate them into an old dream of ours as a way to fulfill what we wanted to be or what we admire or envy from other people.

Unschooling makes us observers and facilitators of the interests our kids demonstrate, no matter how uncertain the future seems to us it is the only way to allow them to learn, investigate and create with passion.

I decided that my dreams are for me to follow, my kids deserve a fresh launchpad for their own dreams, I will continue to expose them to new things, and allow them to watch me follow my own passions.

It doesn’t matter what they learn as long as they are learning something.

I never imagined my little girl would learn to make computer programs at 7 and then teach her little 5 y/o sister. If I had been quick to judge what she was doing as a waste of time and push her to learn some material from her grade level I would have robbed her of valuable learning, and kill her learning passion.

There are some days that I feel something is not going right, they seem to be doing the same thing over and over, watching some cartoon that they have seen already a couple of times, only to reveal after a few days that they were studying the animation and they came up with their own amazing one.

The boys love to explore the backyard, and they have discovered a lot of cool things, if it wasn’t for my 9 y/o boy I probably wouldn’t known I have olive trees in the backyard.
He took a cup full of the tiny olives and put them in a mixture of dirt, water, chocolate, and salt. They bright green fruits turned olive color and after a few days started to smell like the ones I buy in a jar. We investigated all about it and found out that we have a couple of Texas olive trees.

I don’t say this discoveries wouldn’t have happened during a weekend or after school, the thing is that the creativity and free play that happens during the summer stagnated during the school year, and the kids were too tired to do anything after school and they were dragged by family activities during the weekend when dad was home.

The school system is design to make kids learn as if they wouldn’t want to do that by themselves, homework becomes a chore no matter how “fun” the teacher designs it to be, engaging only some kids and turning off others. Not all kids find value on learning everything is presented to them, some have their own agenda and their curiosity is self motivating.
It is only when they come across some ill interest that I distract them with something else.

I stopped asking my kids what they wanted to be when they grow up because it makes them think they have to wait until later for life to begin, they get to choose what they want to be now, and later it might evolve to be their contribution to the world or it might be something totally different, but at least they won’t feel they are disappointing anybody if they see is theirs only the choice to make, I will support them.

Some people have made it their job to prove me wrong, test my kids at every corner, try to compete with their schooled kids, and judge because we don’t fall into the conventional way of doing things. I guess it is all part of package, and I just have to deal with it.

“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trial.”
- Confucius

...on the way to perfected unschooling…

We had a wonderful year soaking in unschooling all by ourselves. I wanted to regroup my family and have fun without pressure of schedules.
We found our house and like our garden we are planing, I thought it was time to start growing our own roots here too.
I’m slowly looking for what is there to do around here, and I joined an amazing group of unschoolers, and now we are making friends as a family, it is sooooo cool!
I have made only a few local friends since I moved to the USA, my biggest source of friends is still the internet but most of you are not near me.
The boys found friends the first day, and the girls are finally coming around.
So far they all seem like a sweet group of people,very peaceful and loving, almost like a bigger family.
We do park days and meet once a week, and sometimes someone suggests a field trip, or just a hang out idea to spend time together. It also came up in the board to co-op help sharing talents, and ways to learn cool things together as families.
I wish we were closer like in the same neighborhood, but it is ok this way, we spend a lot of time with friends but still get a whole lot of family time too.

We went to the Dallas Heritage Village today because they had a homeschooling event.
I snapped this picture of my only completely unschooled kid in the village school. She put herself there and was reading from the first grade book, she really enjoyed it.
She was a teacher or the pianist a times too. Kami also took turns being the teacher or sitting and reading, Eddie had fun also, and Andy was unsure he wanted to be there so he was sitting at the back and little by little started having fun.

YEeeeYYY YEYYYYY!

We will be going on a long trip, a circle in the center of the USA, Starting in Texas, up Arkansas all the way to Minnesota, then Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone, and the grand canyon! And then come back to Texas trough New Mexico. We hope to be able to do it all in 12 days, we might have to be happy with a few less places but I hope we get to see even more.
We are going to camp! I’m looking for a tent and things for the kids to do and watch in the long drive.
I can’t wait! The kids will learn so much!
This is our first family vacation in 11 years! We have gone to Mexico to see relatives but it is not the same, this is new unfamiliar territories, and camping not in the backyard!!! My dad used to take us when I was little and those are some of my best memories.
I hope the kids will enjoy it, they are a bit too indoorsy.
They didn’t like the idea at first but now they are getting excited.
It will be my roadschool I wanted just without the RV; which might make it a bit less confortable but easier and freer.
Yippety yippety YEY!!!!
Then we will come back recharged and ready to move, we are finally going to be able to get our own house, with room for me to have a studio weeeeeee… I hope I hope!!!
Life needs green and rainbows!!!!!!!