Unschooling at Home

We don’t know how long we will be at home during this Corona Virus pandemic. Looking at the data coming in from other countries it is clear that it might be some time before we get back to ‘life as usual’. Parents all across the world are finding themselves at home with children and feeling the heavy expectation that they continue their child’s schooling at home. This is going to look different in each situation depending on the personalities of the people in the family and the resources they have available.

I wanted to offer up the concept of Unschooling as an option that might fit some family’s needs.

What is Unschooling?

Unschooling is a type of homeschooling that completely upends the notion of ‘school’. It is child-led and child-paced and there are no official textbooks, lessons, or assessments. It is built on the idea that children are born curious, and that unless it is squashed, they continue to pursue learning on their own accord.

When my kids were younger, we ended up schooling at home. My oldest was reading by age 3 and when he entered formal schooling it did not go well. While the rest of the kids were learning their letters, he was keeping himself busy, often in ways that were disruptive to the rest of the class. When his school began recommending that he be medicated, I decided to just keep him home awhile until his peers caught up.

My unschooling experiment started when I realized that I lacked the discipline or interest to do formal schooling at home. And doing an exact replica of school at home didn’t allow us to take advantage of the time and resources we had and it didn’t really align with the goals and values I had for my kids. Here is how I started:

Start with the End in Mind

Obviously, when I was unschooling it was not during a time of crisis, so when I considered my goals they were time and place specific. Here is what I knew I wanted for my kids:

Pleasant to Be Around: More later on this, but my top priority for my kids is that they would be people I wanted to be spend time with. This would include practicing kindness, treating each other with respect, and using pro-social strategies for getting needs met.

Lifelong Learners: It was important to me that my kids maintained their inborn sense of curiosity. I wanted them to understand that ‘learning’ was not an activity that happened only Monday through Friday between 8:00-3:00; it is available for pursuit at any time and place.

Personal Responsibility: So, my mom always taught me that the number one goal of parenting is to work yourself out of a job. It doesn’t happen magically at age 18; it is a gradual release, where kids learn skills one by one. One of my other main goals for my kids is that they would be independent people who could take care of their own needs.

Renaissance People : At one point while the kids were growing up, we went totally TV free for 5 years. It was a great experiment in learning to find joy and purpose in the world and in learning to keep ourselves mentally challenged. I wanted my kids to be well-rounded in the sense that they were able to develop a wide range of interests and talents and unschooling and huge limits on screen time provided the time and space to do so.

So those were my end goals. As we lived and worked and learned together I just needed to insure that what we did aligned with my values.

A Typical Day

Basically, my kids were just given the time and space to learn on their own. I supported them by setting the expectation that they would take personal responsibility in the process, and by providing resources as needed (trips to the library or to a museum) and structure as needed (creating limits on TV time, etc.)

What did we do instead of lessons? Here are some examples:

• Playing with Legos
• Digging holes
• Playing in the woods
• Reading books
• Watching documentaries
• Computer Programming
• Drawing
• Writing stories
• Cooking
• Reading more books
• Playing board games
• Doing chores
• Helping neighbors

We did this for years. NO FORMAL LESSONS. And guess what? All my kids turned out fine! I am almost positive that most kids can flourish just fine for a few months without formal school.

Goals in the Time of Covid-19

This is an unprecedented time, and we are being asked to live in ways that we never imagined. The future is uncertain and no one is settled into a routine. The most important goal that we face during this Corona Virus Pandemic is survival: physical survival, economic survival, & emotional survival. The goals that you set for your family might be very basic right now, and that is okay!

If you find that your family functions better with routines, then do that. If doing school at home works with your family you can do that. If you find that you just need time and space to be and to survive, that is fine as well. Maybe unschooling would be a good choice for you.

Start today!

Encourage your kids to read and run and create and build and help. Let them practice taking ownership of their habits and their time. Do not be afraid to let them know that you have needs as well, and to respect the boundaries that you have created to successfully continue to do the work you need to do.

In the end, be kind to yourself and do what you need to do. Maybe the concept of unschooling can take some of the pressure off of you. Please contact me if I can be of support or if you need any ideas!