Sponteneity

Unschooling is interest based learning where children naturally learn from their environment and are trusted to learn what they need to learn to succeed in life.  Parents act as a resource person and role model to help educate their children in a respectful manner.  Unschooling will often look different with each family.  This blog includes my family's approach to the unschooling philosophy.  I will sometimes include ideas and challenges and sometimes I will include a blog of an actual day or event of our unschooling family.  Feel free to follow my blog if you would like to learn more.  Thank you for taking time to read my blog!


One thing I really love about the unschooling philosophy is the ability to be spontaneous and going with the flow of life.  If you have a rigid personality that sees the world in more of a black and white manner without much beauty in the grey, then this approach would not be a good fit for you, but it works very well for our family.  I have learned that going with the flow of life is the most relaxing, productive, and meaningful way to live.  Life is so unpredictable and if children are taught at a young age that they have to follow a strict routine or schedule everyday of their life, this is not realistic and will not create a happy adult because life does not work in this manner.  However, if children are able to live a free life where plans may change at the last minute, but that is okay and we will still live; then the struggles of adulthood will not be as challenging because this is just an extension of childhood with the unschooled child. 


Today was one of those days when spontaneity led us into a very interesting direction.  Normally, Mondays are recorder lesson day.  We spend the mornings completely unschooling where the children choose what they want to do and we all have our little routines that help us deal with our lives and then we have lunch and shortly after that, head out to my son's recorder class and he does his class while the children play in the nursery at the church where the class takes place.  Well, the class was canceled today because the teacher had a family emergency.  Plan B is usually focus on reading time after lunch for as long as the children want to do reading time.  I usually have my oldest son pick out 3 books to read on his own since he is working on his reading skills and the younger two children then pick out multiple books to listen to or try to read on their own or sometimes will choose no books and do free play instead.  However, today we went to a last minute birthday celebration instead.


Facebook has been a very good social networking tool for homeschooling.  I have met many families through this that I would not have met otherwise. There was one family I met recently.  We set up a playdate at a local fast food play area a month or so ago.  Today, this mom was on one of the local homeschooling network groups and asking about a good place to take her daughter for her birthday.  I made a suggestion and she asked what I was doing, well, we were going to have reading time since recorder class was canceled, but I was also thinking about getting out of the house since cabin fever has set in pretty hard with this long winter.  We ended up meeting this family at a local fun spot and stayed for about 3 hours and then swung by one of my favorite little local groceries, picked up a few things that they had in stock and headed home.  It was a great, unplanned, spontaneous, go with the flow kind of day.  It was great!


My oldest son, who is 7 years old, has gotten use to this going with the flow outlook and when I told him his recorder class was canceled and we were going to head out to this special location, he was very enthusiastic about it and just looked forward to playing games, connecting with the other children and enjoying life.  That's what being alive means, going with the flow and enjoying every moment.  My 5 year old daughter has not quite grasped onto this going with the flow philosophy quite yet, but it will come with time.  She acted pretty shy and clung to me and was quite frightened of the characters walking around this place in costumes, but started to warm up to the experience towards the end.  Baby boy was very similar to my daughter.  He was very hesitant about this experience initially and also clung to me, but learned to enjoy his time as the hours moved forward.  So our lesson today was learning how to go with the flow.  My 7 year old son has already learned this lesson, but it was a wonderful learning experience for the younger two children.  They learned that being out of your element and doing something out of the norm can feel really uncomfortable, but it can also be a lot of fun and a unique experience that they can look back on and smile even though at the time, they felt unsure about it.


I remember my 7 year old son clinging to me up to about the age of 6 and he is very independent now.  It is interesting how most parents will remark and compliment him about his independence and I just chuckle to myself because he was just as clingy as the younger two when he was their age.  I think children need to feel that security prior to age 6 and they need to know that there is a place that they can feel safe no matter what the situation is and then once they become more brave, they can spread their wings and fly and continue taking baby steps towards this until they miraculously reach adulthood with the maturity to care for themselves and the wisdom to let go, enjoy the moment and go with the flow of life.  So this was our unschooling lesson for the day.