Role of Parents in unschooling their children
When we started unschooling, I felt that everything was going to be easy. But believe me, it wasn't. The first few months were especially very tough. I would get frustrated at their unwillingness to cooperate and help in household chores. They wanted autonomy over everything - when to sleep, eat, bath, brush teeth. They wanted to be on their gadgets all the time. They didn't want to engage in any academic learning and also found their extra curricular classes a burden to attend. I felt that they were drifting away from me and our relationship was not getting any stronger. I sure wasn't happy.
I knew I wasn't doing something right. I wasn't playing my role effectively. I had to unlearn my previous ways and adorn a new way of doing things. A lot of hardwork, talking to other unschooling parents, reading books and blogs helped me work out a new role for myself. As I slowly fit myself into the role, I saw things changing. My children felt accepted and no longer felt the need to rebel. They started sharing stories and happenings in their life. They started giving me space to follow my interests. As they took charge of themselves, they started taking care of their hygiene, started cooking, cleaning. The ugly moments became less and less frequent and we all started having a good time learning and living life.
Here is a glimpse of my new role:
1. Children are individuals with a mind of their own. They need to use their mind to make choices and decisions. Thus approach them the way you approach other adults.
2. When you tell an adult to do something and you insist that they do it your way - you become a nag. Stop nagging your children. Accept that they will do things differently.
3. Do not label or judge their actions as good or bad, wrong or right. There is always a reasoning behind an action. Choose to accept their actions and have respectful conversations around the reasoning behind these actions.
4. Be naturally curious about their life and the way they 'tick'.
5. Have fun with them. Bring out the child in you while having fun.
6. Create an atmosphere for learning. This is done by being available to them when they want to talk or share something personal. Be a sounding board for your children.
7. Children have the resources to deal with their wants, needs and challenges. Hence avoid the urge to solve their problems.
8. Boredom is good. Many a times, they will come to you for solutions for their boredom and shoot all your suggestions down. Whenever my children say, I am bored, what should I do? I say, "Whatever you want to do." I stop myself from immediately jumping to take responsibility to engage them in some activity that keeps their boredom away.
9. Believe that they own the consequences of their actions. Sometimes their actions will not lead to favorable results. That is okay. Encourage them to see that the consequences are a guide to their future decisions.
10. Be patient especially when they are in a bad mood or when they are highly emotional.
11. Trust them and believe that they are learning all the time. They may not have planned schedules or learning goals and targets and measureable outcomes and yet they will be learning and their learning will be visible in application, through living their everyday life.
12. It is okay for children to be doing 'nothing' as there is a lot happening inside them when they are doing 'nothing'.
13. Believe and rejoice in their freedom. As with freedom comes responsibility. Once free they will first take responsibility for themselves and then move on to their immediate surrounding and significant people in their lives and then this will spread to neighbourhood and the macro environment.
As I was thinking about the role I play, I realize that there are so many things I do differently now and I keep learning to do differently with each passing day and many things cannot be enlisted and hence I would like to end this note by saying that 'connection is more important than correction' (a line from the book, Conscious Parent by Shefali Tsabary). This line actually says it all. Whether your child goes to school or not, a parent can definitely follow this.
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