Do you have great desires? Are there things you want to do with your life? Maybe you know in a vague kind of way that you need to do something, but you don’t know what you should do. Or perhaps your desires don’t feel important.
When I was a child, I had desires, but they came to nothing. Other people said that they knew what was best for me, and so I left my dreams behind. Yes, my desires felt like dreams. There was no way I was ever going to follow them.
But we should have dreams. We should have desires. Good ones. Ones implanted within us by God. We should listen to the stirrings of our hearts and take action. Of course, some of our desires may end up being fulfilled in ways different from what we imagine, but they will lead us somewhere. They’ll involve our talents. They will make a difference.
That’s why I think it’s important to listen to our kids and what they’d like to do. They need their desires. They need to know how to listen to God deep within them. (So do we.) We shouldn’t trample over our children’s desires. We shouldn’t hide them under our own ideas.
When we aren’t used to desiring anything, we find it hard to desire God. And, of course, we need God. Perhaps all good desires lead to Him. They lead to Love.
Something Extra
If you’re interested, there’s a Christian unschooling section in my book Radical Unschool Love. There are also lots of stories in both Radical Unschool Love and Curious Unschoolers where I’ve mentioned God or talked about Him ‘between the lines’!
Photos
PhotosOur dog Quinn has lots of desires. She knows exactly what she wants: food, hugs, long walks, love. And because she knows what she wants, she finds a way to get what she needs!
What are your desires? What are your dreams and hopes? Do you know? And how do we know if our desires are from God? Do we need to know how to listen?
Absolutely! Some people call it one’s vocation, as in what God is calling each of us to do, but when you drill down, one’s vocation is indeed made of dreams and desires in accord with what God wants for us. I love how you put it, that our kids need to learn how to listen to God, to desire God, and ultimately to be led to the Love that comes from God – the very best Love of all! Thanks, Sue!
Staci,
Oh yes, I agree: our dreams and desires lead us to our vocations. Learning how to listen to God… If we always tell our children what to do and what’s best for them, perhaps they’ll never learn to listen. I wonder if we’ll end up suppressing the desires that are supposed to lead our children to to God. God is indeed the very best Love of all!
I think this post gets closer to the heart of my current questions about education, homeschooling, and unschooling. I have heard education described as an ordering of the affections. I think Cindy Rollins said this and was quoting C.S. Lewis (maybe?). What you say resonates with me so much, and yet, there are other very thoughtful and well-read people in the homeschooling/education world, like Cindy Rollins, that talk about the ordering of the affections, which also makes sense to me. Am I the only one who struggles with feeling drawn to both “sides”? How do we reconcile ordering our affections with following our dreams and desires? Must the ordering come first so that the desires are indeed ones that lead us to God, or as you said above, “ones implanted within us by God”? And if that ordering comes first, how is that done in an unschooling way? I have heard too many people justify school (in a building or at home) by saying that we need to not always do what we want, that we need to have humility, that children need to master the basic skills to take advantage of classes in upper school years, that children don’t know what is best for them and that’s why they have parents, and….it is hard to disagree with those statements–no matter how much I want to not make my kids do formal studies
Thank you for continuing to put forth thought-provoking posts!
Emily,
Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about Cindy Rollins and her thoughts and ideas, so I can only make some general comments. And even then, my thoughts might be muddled!
I just wonder if our kids desires will be suppressed if we insist they do things our way. Will they learn that their desires are unimportant? Could we get in the way of our kids’ ability to listen to God?
Maybe it seems unlikely that kids who have the freedom to choose will use that freedom wisely. They’ll only do what they like and will become self-centred. But this isn’t our experience. Kids are capable of doing difficult things, working hard, learning the things they need to know, putting other people ahead of themselves, doing what is right rather than what they like. Of course, we have to be very connected to our kids so that we can guide them. And we have to do whatever we ask of them. Be good examples. Maybe all this ends up being much more difficult than just telling our kids what they should do. Though trying to stay in control of our kids is difficult too because they can protest.
But could the battles with our kids just be part of our parental duty? We’re wiser and more experienced than our children. Perhaps they should obey us because we know best. I’ve thought a lot about this and have come to the conclusion that God doesn’t want our families to be places of conflict. We should feel joyful and at peace. That’s what should be at the heart of our lives. I could never return to our non-unschooling life because our relationships suffered during that time. I was an unkind person trying to deal with the stress of being a homeschooling mother. I didn’t take the easy pathway when we began unschooling because life can still be difficult. But we’re in this together, helping each other. We’re no longer battling with one another. And that feels right. The other thing I’ve pondered is this: do we always know what’s best for our kids? We think we can see the big picture better than them, but do we really know what they need better than they do? What if our ideas are wrong? Talking with my kids about who they are and what they need has been a huge learning experience!
Our kids have desires and so do we. We want to be good parents and educate our kids well, but how do we do that? Is God calling us towards unschooling or something else? How do we know? I think it’s good to research and ponder thoughts and ideas. But ultimately, we have to listen to God speaking in our hearts.
I’m trying to be a better listener. It’s so hard to listen to God when we’re continually bombarded with noise, isn’t it? Life is busy, we get drowned in information especially from the Internet, we try and keep up with too many people and things… I’m trying to create more silence in my life. That could be a topic for another post!
Loads of random thoughts!
You are so right, Sue. I agree with you. I love your comment about creating space for silence in our lives. I think that is so important because it is so, so easy to fill every moment with noise of some sort. I’m going to work on this, too.
So if I agree with you, why do I feel like a “troublemaker” (I read your new post!) with all my questions?! It is really hard to let go of the idea that there are certain things that many kids are learning or should know by a certain age–and that it would be my fault if my kids aren’t given a chance to learn those things. It’s hard to see how to not use some curriculum just to help make sure they are exposed to what other kids are learning. But then I see how much stress I feel when I have to fit school work into our day and make sure they are getting through what I think they should do. I am not a nice person when I get stressed out, and it does seem like whatever benefit that would come from the curriculum has now been lost in my unkind words. Your term “dragon mother” is very appropriate here for me. I think my pride becomes more important than my kids in these moments. That hardly seems like I’m modeling a proper order of the affections.
Have there been any moments you’d be willing to share about when you wish you did try to teach something to your kids earlier? I have heard you say that “they will learn what they need to know when they need to know it.” Aren’t there times when they need to know it and there isn’t time to quickly listen what they need to know? One mother told me she didn’t make her children learn their math facts, and then when they reached higher math classes, it was hard because they had to take so long to get through the problems. She thought she was letting them learn naturally, at their own pace, but wished she had helped them memorize their facts earlier.
I’m looking forward to reading Radical Unschool Love soon! I’m sorry if some of this is answered in your book and I’m making you repeat yourself!
Emily,
Letting go of the ideas we were brought up with is very difficult, isn’t it? What if we do something different and it doesn’t work out? Perhaps we’ll jeopardise our kids’ futures. Maybe we’ll feel guilty for not pushing our kids harder. Will we regret unschooling them?
Do kids need to know certain things by certain ages? I was chatting with my school teacher husband about this the other day. At school, it’s convenient if all kids learn the same things at the same rate. There isn’t time or available resources to see to each child’s individual needs. But our children aren’t in this system. They can learn and grow and develop in their own time and way. Everyone is different: different talents, different missions in life. What each person needs to know is different.
What if a child hasn’t been taught a vital piece of knowledge? It’s never too late to learn something. Yes, it might take a child time to ‘catch up’ with things like maths, but is time such a big issue? And kids learn faster when they have a need. I can’t think of a time when I wished I’d taught my kids something. But there have been many times when I’ve been in awe of what they do know. They know so much that I don’t know because they’ve had the opportunity to explore what interests them.
It’s a pity we can’t see the future, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be lovely to know everything works out perfectly? We could relax and enjoy our kids without worrying. But, of course, we don’t know what’s ahead. We just have to do what we think God is calling us to do and trust Him. We might feel as if bringing up and educating our kids is solely our responsibility, but it isn’t. I love these words from A Little Way of Homeschooling by Suzie Andres:
Therese was a realist, and knew there was work to be done, but she decided to do whatever came her way without fear without worrying about the outcome, without the false notion that it depended on her…
… I think that one of our methods for multiplying worries is telling ourselves that our job in educating our children is to do our best, to pack as much knowledge into them as possible. How much more profitable to us to begin from Therese’s reminder, “It’s only in Heaven that we’ll see the whole truth about everything. This is impossible on earth.”
God will give each of us the time that we need to learn everything He wants us to know; this applies to both ourselves and our children. Why do we expect we must teach it all to our children in our homeschool? And why do we automatically assume that this burden of prospective learning will be painful for them, arduous for us? There is a less frightening way….
… In the spirit of St Therese, we as Catholics ought to realise that Jesus has set us free. If we believe His words, if we strive to believe Him more and more, we will start by living one day at a time, letting tomorrow take care of itself. Already we will have made progress if we refuse to see the whole future of a child contained in today’s accomplishments, successes and failures…
I hope you enjoy Radical Unschool Love!
Emily, you are never a troublemaker. It’s always good to chat with you!