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I feel like this post just distilled the central point of Unschooling for me. Normally children are made to wait until college to ask those questions and wrestle with those topics.
I don’t want to make my children wait.
And this weekend Murphy was “driving” an ATV with Chris. I couldn’t believe how grown up he looked. And then I realized that things will get better and I won’t always be tending to babies.
The story reminded me of a college experience.
I went to a conference thingy for college kids and I was the only from my school. I ended up eating dinner with a group from Carnegie-Mellon. Through conversation it came out that my parents were divorced. All the Carnegie-Mellon kids wanted to ask me about that experience. I thought it incredible that not one of them, out of a table of about 10 or so, had divorced parents. No, they all shook their heads, but they asked me many questions about it.
My take away from it at the time was, geez, divorce is so damaging. But from your story, I see that their boldness to just ask me the questions was unique as well.
Just thought I would mention that Peter Gray will be speaking at a mini conference that I helped organize with other parents in Brooklyn, NY.
http://alternativestoschool.com/brooklyn-conference/
He will give an hour talk and also have an hour for questions.
That’s so cool. Thanks for letting us know about it. I almost never miss living in Brooklyn, but today I do :)
Penelope
My family is going to this event!
Oh awesome! Enjoy that!
Thanks for sharing. This looks like a fantastic event.
We’ll plan to be there!
Excellent post! I’m just beginning to get comfortable with all the questions that come up. (I have a 6, 5 and 2 year old.) I find I grow as a result, too – one of the best things about homeschooling.
Hi! I never thought of climbing trees, playing on swings, using knives, playing with fire, chasing others, and getting lost as dangerous play. These things just seem normal parts of play.
I have always asked hard questions to myself but seldom do I ask them out loud. I first have to understand the person I’m going to ask and predict how he’ll respond. Now I usually type my questions in a search engine and read the most relevant posts.
I think I was 4 (must’ve been because I was in grade school yet) and my mom and I were ridding the bus standing up because it was packed. I’m holding a paper they’ve given me in school to color for Easter. It is was Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And I start asking where Jesus came from.
My mom answers.
So…where did they come from?
“Their mom and dads and they came from their own mom and dads all the way to Adam and Eve.”
Where did Adam and Eve come from?
“From God”
But where did God come from?
“God has no beginning and no end.”
What? Where did you learn that? How do you know God is really real if we can’t see it?
“Okay we’re done here.”
*****
That was the very first time I remember asking those questions and my moms last reaction told me it was sacrilegious to ask them. Somehow I buried that skeptical streak deep down and when it resurfaced from time to time I was always so shocked by it. But really it’s been there all along.
I just really like to make people happy so i bury it and the three days later it rises again ;)
Happy Easter everyone!
We’ll go have a crazy party with my husbands family and play games and I’ll let the toddler eat whatever candy he wants until he can’t stand it anymore and I’ll probably be dying for a nap halfway through the day.
“I bury it and 3 days later it rises again.” Too funny!
The role of a parent is to keep a kid safe. It’s nature.
One of the hardest things for a child to do as they get older is to remember this and filter their parents voice and expectations through the ‘safety-lens’. What’s in the parent’s best personal interest, might not be the kids from that perspective.
This reminded me of a podcast I recently heard, by invisibilia: “How to become batman”. It’s about what happens when you let blind people take risks. Really fascinating.
I listened to the same podcast and loved it! It was really interesting to think about how much impact our expectations have on people and what they are capable of.
This was nice to read. I am one of those question-askers. I have been suspended from school, arrested, dumped, kicked out of my family (by each individual parent), and lost about a dozen friends because of this.