Unschooling/parenting quotation that sums up the entire ‘package’ almost:
“If parents want to be unschoolers, they need to figure out how to be better parents, because it’s the relationship between the parents and children that ultimately makes unschooling work.” — Sandra Dodd
I’d add that parents need to figure out how to become better people in general and Peaceful people/parents. Once you take the leap of questioning compulsory schooling, it leads you down a snowball’s path of questioning EVERYTHING — which is good if you are really wanting to make drastic changes for the better in yourself, your family and in the relationships you have with all people.
Many people come and sit close to unschooling, because they think it simply means their children don’t have to go to school and their children can focus on what is important to them. A lot of parents find themselves a couple months into unschooling and realize that there is way more to it than just taking their kids out of school and letting them pick something they want to do. Slowly, parents find out that they need to change, change their outlook on life, what they consider to be important and how they view their relationship with their children.
Parents (who really believe that learning is innate and in everything) will start to question the amount of control they are using in their relationships with their children. They will slowly find out that the more Freedom their children have (and they have) and the more Trust and Respect they have for their children (and themselves), the better their relationships become.
There is no magical formula (I don’t think) that exists, which will make the transformation into becoming an unschooling family easy or overnight. As parents, we need extra time to heal and accept any emotional hurt that we carry over from our own childhoods…without doing so, we make our unschooling journey extra bumpy and stressful. As parents, we are the ones who have to question what our culture tells us is acceptable/expected behavior for parents and their children and most of all we have to question the messages about parent-child relationships we received from our own family. When we are hurting and our judgment is clouded by cultural noise, it is almost impossible for us to be Peaceful, Respectful and Trusting people/parents.
Breathe. Live. Laugh. Love. Learn. Eat Cookies. Make it to a conference.
