un-

I've been travelling a lot through the blog-o-sphere this week. Spending lots (too much?) time reading people's adventures in homeschooling, unschooling, parenting, unparenting, and...err...running. And I've been trying to sort out some my thoughts swirling through my head...and you, lucky readers, get to read my thought sorting!

Even though I would not call us unschoolers (yet), I really enjoy reading blogs of families who embrace that style of educating their children. It's a big thing to question the status quo and homeschool, and even bigger to say "you know what? The "system" doesn't know everything" and trust that you don't have to plan out a whole bunch of "curriculum" for your child to receive a meaningful education.

And I think that (generally speaking) the families that opt for the unschooling path (or natural learning, or whatever you want to call it) tend to have a different parenting style. Some call it "un-parenting" - where they place more trust in their children to make their own decisions (with their own consequences). But I think the amount of freedom they give their kids is perhaps not the common theme, but rather that their style of discipline is not based on expectations or conditions...not so much "if you behave this way, I will love you more" or "if you make these mistakes, this will be the consequence", but rather "I will love you and talk to you and help you through no matter what you do, or don't do".

Rather than rewards, punishment, star charts or time outs, this parenting approach appears to be let's talk about it, tell me how you feel, let's see if we can find a better way to deal with things, this is how it makes me feel. It's about loving the child unconditionally and parenting by working with your child. It's about helping your child grow into caring, responsible people.

Now, mostly, these blogs don't say "and you should be doing this too", but they do provide food for thought. And I know I am more mindful of our schooling approach and my parenting approach.

I take the opportunity to say "yes" more often (and am surprised at what we learn when I do!).

I try not to judge over-emotional meltdowns with "consequences", but try to talk to my kids about how they are feeling and how I can help them deal with those emotions.

I try to trust that they will learn if we follow their interests and passions.

I try to inspire my kids with my interests (because you never know, Mum might know and do some cool stuff too!).

I try to love my whole family unconditionally (I don't always succeed) and hope that we can all become more caring and responsible people.