Unschooling is the right thing to do. That’s a bold claim that you might challenge if your ideas about what’s right are different from mine. What if my right is your wrong? Is that the end of the conversation? Or could we agree that we must all decide what’s right for our families, and then live by those principles?
Knowing what is right helps us when we’re tempted to doubt our parenting or the way we’re educating our kids. When difficult times arrive, and we wonder if we’re mistaken about our choices, all we need to do is ask: are we doing what’s right? If we are, we should continue on as before and trust. Everything will be okay because we’re doing what we believe is right.
What principles are you building your life upon? What is the right way for you and your family to live?
We are unschoolers because we believe every person, adult and child, is equal in dignity, deserves to be treated with respect, and should be loved unconditionally. And that’s what I think is at the heart of unschooling.
Earlier this year, I captured a few thoughts on this topic in an Instagram caption:
When Life Isn’t Perfect
What if I said unschooling won’t prevent our children from making mistakes? After their years at home, within our families, our adult kids might go out into the world and live lives that aren’t as picture-perfect and impressive as we’d hoped. Because even though we give our kids their freedom, somehow, we still have images of how our kids will turn out. But we might not end up with unschooling poster children.
If I told you that might happen, would you reject unschooling and keep searching for the perfect way to bring up and educate your kids?
Or would you recognise that perfection is impossible? It’s not what we should be seeking. Our parenting choices should be based on something far more important:
We must do what is right.
We should give our kids what they need. We should respect, trust and accept them, valuing them for who they are instead of trying to turn them into the people we think they should be. We should look at them with wonder and awe. And when they make mistakes, we must show empathy, recognising that we make mistakes too. We need to stand up for our children, help them through their challenges and mistakes, and ignore other people’s opinions when they tell us it’s our fault because we made poor choices.
Our kids don’t need to reflect any perfect parenting image we might cling to. All they need to do is reflect our love.
Life can be difficult. There’s no getting away from that. We might get discouraged. We could wonder where we went wrong. Should we have done things a different way? Is it too late to change pathways? Perhaps we haven’t even begun unschooling, but we’ve heard stories. Maybe we shouldn’t even consider going down this road.
I’m sure everyone gets to the point where we question our parenting. What should we do?
The answer is easy. I say it all the time. It’s important.
Love.
Love unconditionally.
Unschool.
Not because it will make life perfect. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.
If we do what’s right and things don’t turn out as we hope, we’ll know we did our best. We gave our kids what they needed. The rest is up to them. They can choose to follow us closely or fly off, stretching the connections. And if that happens, all we can do is trust that those bonds will draw our kids back.
What we can’t do is say, “What did I do wrong?”
It’s never wrong to love well.
The Inconvenience of an Imperfect Life
We unschool and life isn’t perfect. And this is very inconvenient because someone might say, ‘Unschooling obviously doesn’t work. Why do you do it?’ How will we respond if that happens? Will we start to doubt what we’re doing? Or will knowing we’re doing what we feel is right give us the confidence to trust and keep living this way of life? Will we still talk about how we’re unschooling and not be afraid of criticism? Is there a message we can still share even if our lives aren’t picture-perfect?
A Message We Can All Share Even if Our Unschooling Lives Aren’t Picture-Perfect
When life is full of problems, it might seem like unschooling isn’t working.
When Unschooling Doesn’t Seem to be Working
Is it right to love our kids unconditionally? How will kids learn the difference between right and wrong if we never show our displeasure by withdrawing our love? Perhaps choosing to unschool is wrong after all. Could it be an irresponsible way to raise our kids?
Here’s the beginning of a story from my book Radical Unschool Love. If you’d like to hear the whole story, please listen to episode 203 of my podcast. (Or you could buy my book!)
Learning Right from Wrong
It can be hard to let go and trust our children. How do we know that they will make the right choices? Perhaps we should keep control over them just in case because we don’t want them making big mistakes.
Perhaps it doesn’t sound sensible letting kids do what they’d like, allowing them to choose instead of telling them what to do. And I think it wouldn’t be sensible to give our kids that freedom if we aren’t connected to them and don’t have strong relationships.
If we say to our kids, “Go and do whatever you want,” and then step back completely, yes, they might not know the right thing to do. They might end up making the wrong choices. So we can’t do that. If we did, we’d be unparenting. Children need guidance from us. But why should they listen to us? I think they will only be open to our guidance if we are connected with them. Kids must view us as the most important people in their lives, the ones they want to follow, the ones whose values and opinions they trust more than anyone else’s.
Yes, we must be connected with our kids. But how do we build up that connection? What is connection all about? We have to accept our kids just as they are. Love them unconditionally. Respect them by treating them as we’d like people to treat us. Take time to listen to them properly. Show them empathy instead of dismissing their feelings and telling them how they should feel. Be willing to forgive them when they make mistakes. Admit our mistakes. Ask for forgiveness when we fail.
We have to show our kids that no one is perfect, but that’s okay. As long as we all keep striving to do what is right.
How do kids develop a sense of right and wrong? Here’s part of another story from my book Radical Unschool Love. Again, you can hear the whole story if you listen to episode 203 of my podcast.
Developing a Sense of Right and Wrong
My young adult son Callum and I went to town to have some mother-son time. As we sipped coffee, we chatted.
“I’ve been keeping up with an interesting discussion online about spanking children,” I said. “The big question is, how do you make children do what you want them to do without smacking them?”
Make kids do what we want them to do? There’s something wrong with this question. It seems to be all about us.
“How do you teach kids the right thing to do and remain a gentle parent?” I continued. “I’m not a smacking mother. Except for that time when you were eight. Smacking didn’t help.”
I thought about that occasion when I smacked eight-year-old Callum. I can’t remember what he’d done wrong, but I do remember how frustrated I’d felt. I lashed out at him, and my hand met solid- boy flesh and came away stinging. Callum didn’t look repentant at all. My smack hadn’t made him reconsider his behaviour, and so I felt even more frustrated.
Callum grinned as he remembered my futile effort to smack him. “Yes, it didn’t work.”
“Why didn’t smacking work?” I asked.
“I was tougher than you. The smack hurt you more than me. It didn’t convince me I needed to change my behaviour. Children are clever. If they can avoid punishment, they will continue to do what is wrong as long as they don’t get found out. Maybe children have to want to behave because it’s the right thing to do and not because they might get caught and then smacked or punished in some other way.”
“So children need to develop a sense of what’s right and wrong and want to live by those standards?”
“Yes.”
Podcast Version of this Post Plus Extra Content.
Please listen to episode 203 of my Stories of an Unschooling Family podcast to hear the stories in this post plus lots of extra content, including two stories from my book, Radical Unschool Love. I also share lots of comments throughout the episode.
Christian Unschooling
How do we decide what’s right and wrong? Do we look to God for answers to this question? But what happens when we try and live the way God wants, and life isn’t easy? Do we accept that choosing to do what is right can sometimes be challenging? Do we trust God, keep praying, and continue to walk forward and, hopefully, remain at peace?
A Last Thought
I said in episode 203 of my podcast:
Sometimes we might wonder if unschooling is the right thing to do. Is this the best method to bring up and educate our kids? But what if we don’t look at unschooling as a method but as the principles we want to base our lives on? If we recognise that by unschooling, we’re doing all the right things – loving unconditionally, accepting, and forgiving – then it doesn’t matter if we encounter problems or not. We have no choice: we have to persevere.
Knowing we are doing what is right might not result in a picture-perfect life and kids who never make mistakes, but it could give us a sense of peace. Every time we encounter a challenge, we won’t need to question our decisions. We just need to reaffirm we’re living life based on the principles we believe to be right, and then persevere through the difficult time, loving and guiding each other, and trusting everyone will be okay.
Photos
Sometimes the path ahead disappears into the mist, and we question whether it’s safe to keep going.
Here’s one of my own misty photos. Often, we ascend the hill into our village to discover it’s shrouded in mist. Or we’ll step outside our home and realise we can’t see very far. Walking or running through the mist-drenched bush is magical!
What Do You Think?
How do you decide what’s right? Have the principles that are the foundation of your life ever changed? When life doesn’t go as smoothly as you’d like, do you worry you’re on the wrong path? Or do you continue on, confident you’re doing what’s right?
