UnschoolingBasics...

On if/ then contracts:

In the "If-then" section you were talking about just that -- "If-Then" situations, and that made perfect sense to me. But then in a later section (parenting or chores, maybe?) You mention Cake Baking - and how they should be able to bake/make messes/etc if they want, but it would be the Mom's responsibility to clean it. Why wouldn't that just be part of an "If - then" situation? "If they want to bake a cake, then they would have to do the whole process of cake baking"? My daughter loves to play around in the kitchen, and I always thought of the "clean up" as part of the whole "process of baking", or what-have-you. The cleaning up of making a cake is just part of the whole process of cake making - isn't it? Am I making any sense?

Yes, your question makes perfect sense.

It might help you see it more clearly if you ask yourself what your goal is. Is the goal to have a clean kitchen or the experience of making a cake? If the goal is a clean kitchen, then it's better not to have children! ;-)

Ah, but why can't the goal be both a clean kitchen and a cake?

It can be. But ...

When we have two goals there often comes a time when the two goals conflict: to meet one you need to give up the other. What if your daughter responded to your contract with, "Okay, then I don't feel like making a cake." What will you have gained and what will you have lost? Would you rather when she grew up she had memories of a clean kitchen or a particularly yummy creation?

When I did crafts with my daughter it did always seem as though there was more setting up and cleaning up than crafting :-/ but I realized that if my daughter associated a tedious clean up as a necessary part of crafts, then she'd choose crafts a lot less. And what would I have gained? A neat craft cabinet? What's the point of that!?

That said, clean up can be an organic part of creating. You can say "Could you put the milk back in the refrigerator for me?" and "This goes on the second shelf of the cabinet."

But *accept* that the clean up is your contribution to helping your daughter explore. It's like the $30 you spend to get into the science center. Would you ask her to pay her part of the admission price? And if she chose not to, what would you have gained?

So rather than thinking about how you can make her clean up, rethink the process of cake baking. What I do is set all the ingredients out in the order the recipe calls for them. I read off the directions a step at a time. When she's done with an ingredient, I put it away. When she's done with a bowl or cup, I put it in the dishwasher. There's still some clean up at the end, but it's a lot less. And since I've focused on trying not to associate helping me with unpleasantness, she is very willing to help me out. (I have certainly not been perfect in not getting upset about clean up! But, though pressuring to clean up lets off steam, I can clearly see it has the opposite effect on my daughter than I want.)

—Joyce
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com

THIS is the stuff I love - take a common situation and find a different, JOYFUL way of looking at it - and in turn change the *feeling* you hold in body about it. One way feels grumbly, resentful, and coercive (not great energy to carry around or approach relationships with). The other way feels good - it's loving, supportive, and allows a little more joy into your life.

All it takes is a shift in perspective! Charles Swindell said, "I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it." Another way of saying it is, "Life is ten percent situation, 90% attitude - how we *choose* approach it." Attitude is *big*.

DH and I were talking about this. If I complain about my daughter leaving her dishes on the coffee table, if I make a point of telling her that *I* had to pick them up and walk all the way over to the sink and clean them up, etc, then I make it that much *less* appealing for her to do it herself because I've made such a big deal of how unpleasant it was for me to do it, and my resentment is clearly showing her that it's a joyless chore that I prefer to avoid. So even if she does it next time, will she be doing it with a light heart or will she be thinking about what a PITA it is to have to clean up? Plus there was the time and energy I expended to fuss at her, and the critical, conditional messages she heard in my complaining.

If, instead, I think of how picking up her dishes is a small way of helping to care for her, and it leaves her with more uninterrupted time to play the game she enjoys so much, and how it's not difficult at all because I'm walking right past them on my way into the kitchen anyways, and I just joyfully pick them up without saying anything, then not only have I saved myself from harboring all those negative feelings, I've spared her from them, too, and found joy in my heart by doing something small and simple for someone I love, but I've also modeled that picking up our messes can be just a routine, uncomplicated part of living together.

And, lo and behold, she takes the dishes to the sink much, much more than she ever did when I spent time fussing at her about it. My goal is not to raise a daughter that always takes her dishes to the sink but to raise a child who feels loved, within family that lives joyfully. And that starts with my *attitude* when I interact her, the way I think about things and the corresponding feelings I bring into our relationship. Sometimes the dishes are a side effect of that. :)

—Susan

On saying yes:

The philosophies do work. I have two kids on the spectrum (well, maybe four, we haven't had the other two diagnosed, we started unschooling and there was no reason at that point) and Susan was right on the money. It's not about how old they are or what they should be doing. It's about where they are now. Yes, I've have had entire weeks where I have done nothing but sit with Breanna (who's ten physically and two cognitively). I've had days in a row where I've just held Emily. I've spent hours with Josh while he's struggling to self-regulate and he wanted to kill himself. No, it's not easy. But unschooling WILL help and it DOES work.

If you have a bunch of stuff that is being poured out and smashed, that tells me she is trying to learn. She's trying to figure out not only how stuff works, but if it works the same way every time. She's trying to figure out if spreading lotion everywhere feels good to her, or bad. She's not thinking, is this going to piss mom off? What the heck *I* do? I sit with her. I help her squirt a gallon of lotion into a huge mixing bowl. I sit with her while she spreads it around, and then when she's moved on (preferably to a bathtub full of bubbles to wash off) I squeegee it back into the lotion bottle to do again later. We have sweater boxes full of rice and beans and soap under her bed so she can reach it. We have baskets of paint and chalk and playdough, and her room can go however she wants. We have spent years helping her do that in her room or outside, which meant there were a lot of years that we were cleaning the living room and kitchen and dining room after she went to bed. If she's not trying to learn like that, then I'm saying she's already learned that it's the easiest most effective way of getting your attention, then she's trying to communicate that she does need something, and you have to figure out what it is. But saying that she has autism and unschooling doesn't work, isn't going to help. I'm not nitpicking, and I'm not criticizing, I'm saying autism is not an excuse. You CAN and SHOULD hang out with her. Why wouldn't she want you by her? That sounds like she doesn't trust you...why wouldn't she play board games with you, or video games, or read or go hiking? If she wants to play with pickles, what if you sat down beside her and did it too? Sounds ridiculous, but if she doesn't want you by her now, you need to build the relationship, and a $3 jar of pickles is CHEAP under those terms.

—Melissa

The ideas that I've found helpful in the many, many discussions on this list about limits are:

Try to find a way to say yes - look for the "yes" Avoid making arbitrary decisions Validate your child's feelings

I'm still working on finding yes - I'm getting better at it. I wasn't raised in a problem-solving family, so it's taken extra practice on my part to find creative solutions and figure out how I can say "yes" instead of "no". There are others here with more experience in seeing the "yes" and can probably give suggestions.

One thing I've realized is that there are different ways of saying yes. One way: "Yes, that would be a great sofa for when we get a bigger house / in a few years when we have a bigger budget, etc." Another way: "You certainly do have great taste! Yes, I really want your opinion about which couch we should pick. What other neat sofas do you see?" And another way: "Yes, red is a perfect color for our room! Our budget is $2000. Do you see any red sofas for that price? I know we can find one. Let's look together!"

Another example of yes: A really neat thing I saw at a recent unschooling conference (Live and Learn) were kids climbing the walls - literally! The buildings had these great rock-wall foundations that went about ten feet high, with rocks sticking out at various angles. They were so tempting to climb! I didn't see anyone tell their child "no". What I *did* see were numerous parents standing with their children, hands steadying them, as they helped them climb the walls safely.

Speaking of climbing things, saying yes more has helped dh & I build trust with our son. He is a fantastic climber and seeks experiences that sometimes push our comfort level. We used to limit him, tell him no, pull him down from ledges/walls/trees and generally stopped him from doing things that (supposedly) aren't safe for kids to do. Traditional parenting says we were doing the right thing, because kids need boundaries and they don't know their limits, so we have to set limits for them.

Through learning about RU we could see that there *IS* a different approach, one that makes both practical and intuitive sense to us. We weren't taking his abilities into account, we were being really inflexible (as people who live by "rules" tend to be), we weren't evaluating each situation independently, we weren't supporting his interest.

Hindsight is 20/20 - we can see that our actions and unreasonableness were just creating a barrier in our relationship and driving him to meet his need in unsafe ways. The more we resisted and limited, the more often he would sneak and do it anyways, without our presence. It scared us. We knew limiting him even more or resorting to punishment for not following our "rule" was not the answer. So we chose to take a different route.

By supporting his interest we've found that he now *asks* us to be present when he climbs - he trusts that we will support him, not scold him. His also much safer - he's not seeking the experience without help or taking every stolen - and potentially very dangerous - opportunity he can find. He feels good about us being with him. He knows that he can express an interest to climb something and we'll try our best to make it happen.

We can see that when he's allowed to explore freely and safely he is really good about knowing his own limitations and respecting them - since we changed our approach (and attitude) he hasn't felt the need to attempt truly dangerous climbs and he hasn't sustained more than a few minor scratches. Finding the yes has eliminated the power struggle, which was a source of unending frustration for all of us. Now we can share in the joy of his interest rather than fear it. In doing so we've have fostered an atmosphere of trust and collaboration.

I told him our budget and showed him that was more. He's still disappointed. Should we have gone into debt and eaten all the space in our very small living room to make him happy?

Help walk your child through the situation. Share the process you went through in evaluating the options. Give them a chance to share their thoughts. "Yes, let's think about that. We could keep the old sofa and save up for this one, but it would probably take us about two years. The old sofa is in pretty bad shape, I don't think it would last that long. I'd rather save up for our vacation to Hawaii / a playstation2 / that really cool swing set you saw last week. What do you think? Do you have any ideas?"

If you only have $2k to spend on a sofa that's a practical limit. Sometimes we bump up against practical limits. The point others are trying to make is that we don't need to *create* inflexible rules or impose limits arbitrarily. If we look hard enough at almost any situation, we can usually see a gray area - in most cases the situation is not as black/white or win/lose as we may first think. In situations where we do bump up against natural limits, it becomes really important to look for alternatives that allow you to say "yes" and to validate your child's experience.

It's *okay* for your son to be disappointed about not getting the sofa he desired. Sometimes I was uncomfortable when I sensed feelings of anger, disappointment, sadness, etc., in my kids. I don't want them to feel that way but often the methods I used were not helpful. Denying the feeling or telling a child to "get over it" doesn't make it go away - but it can lead to them feeling worse - only increasing their feelings of anger, frustration, or sadness because no one is listening to them or trying to understand how they feel. Even if I *did* understand, they weren't hearing that message when I told them "sorry, that's the way it is".

By acknowledging their feelings, I can help them work through it, making it becomes easier for them to let go. It also lets them know that I care - that what they're feeling matters to me. I used to be scared of doing this - I thought that focusing on their feelings would only intensify them or cause them to linger on it longer. But the opposite is true. When I ignored my children's disappointment over something they would act out in other ways or stew over their feelings for hours. They were seeking acknowledgment and release and I was withholding it. I also realized how *I* felt when someone I cared about brushed my feelings aside. Imagine if your husband or friend told you (even kindly) to just get over it or they ignored your feelings. It can be hurtful and frustrating.

Different approaches work for different kids; what may be soothing and helpful to my kids may not be effective with yours, but you can use feedback from your kids and the particulars of the situation to develop some tools for helping them cope with intense feelings. Try to validate their concern/desire, let them know you've heard them, and create an opportunity for them to share details. You can grant their wish through imagination or take the silly route to get them laughing. For example:

Wow, you really want to get that big red sectional, don't you? You're feeling disappointed that we can't afford it right now. What do you like best about it? I like the color, too. And it does have enough room for all of us! In fact, it may even hold a giraffe and a few kangaroos, too! How about that? What kind of potion could we use to make it small enough to fit into our house? I wish I could make this money grow like those flowers you planted, then we'd have enough to get that couch! How cool would that be? Too bad it won't fit in our house right now. We should take a picture of it for our wish book, don't you think? I can see you really like that red color. You know, I bet we can find a red ottoman!

Clothing: I do not..will not allow my sons to run about with their pubic area hanging out of their pants. <snip> I would love to be topless on our beach but that's against the law. It would make me happy. I'm still not allowed. Those are lessons that we all have to learn. So, instead of the butt crack showing pants, they have something else they pick out as long as their butt crack is hidden. AND the clothing has to be within the family budget.

Well, there *are* topless beaches and as an adult you can choose to visit them. You can also choose to be topless in the privacy of your home, purchase a house on the beach with private access, join a nudist club that sponsors events, go on a clothing-optional cruise, etc. There are opportunities available that allow you to pursue that desire/interest. What options are you providing for your boys to support their choice in clothing?

So, those huge pants that hang are verboten. Is that squelching their individuality? Yeah probably. But too bad. There are limits to what an individual can be allowed to do.

Yes, there are natural limits, but this is not one of them, it is a limit you've created. Is there a way to meet your desire for appropriate covering *and* their desire to wear baggy pants? In previous discussions folks on this list have talked about finding win-win solutions. That's really helped me thinking differently about this stuff - it doesn't have to be a win/lose. There is usually a way to meet everyone's needs.

Have you brainstormed about this issue? Have you discussed it with them? Not talking at them, but truly asking for their input and being receptive to what they say. Why do your boys prefer the big pants? It is a style they like? Are they more comfortable? How does the "squelching their individuality" feel to them? How does it affect your relationship with them? Can they wear baggy pants at home? Can they wear exercise shorts or boxers under the pants to make them less revealing?

My kids prefer to wear as few clothes as possible. We have close (nosy) neighbors and no outdoor privacy. For practical and legal reasons, they need to be dressed appropriately when they're outside. To make this less of an issue for them, I make sure they they have choice and say-so over their inside clothing (or lack thereof). They can wear pjs or just a t-shirt and underwear if they want. They can put on their bathing suit - as my daughter did this evening - and wear it around the house if they want. I'm happy to turn the heat up a little to make it warmer if they are more comfortable spending their time in shorts and going barefoot.

I am getting the impression still that there should be no limits on children. I'm sure I'm missing something but I have yet to hear the loudest voices on here show any limits they have on their children.

I think you're still seeing this as "all or none" situation. There *are* natural, practical and/or legal limits. Those exist apart from any "rules" we may impose on our children. If your goal is to see how other parents have been successful at removing the "rules" then you need to stop focusing on the limits. It's much more helpful to concentrate on finding the yes.

So my question is, where does it stop?

Hmm... maybe it will help you see the underlying principal behind this discussion if we reword that question, so it becomes "Where does problem-solving stop?"

If you have a 16 yr old daughter who wants to have sex on your sofa in front of you 4 yr old is that OK? (I'm not being flip seriously. I want to know if what I perceive being said is actually what's being advocated.)

Is it a real-life situation? Possibly, but unlikely. Are your children really at risk of winding up in this scenario? If you need to focus on this theoretical situation, then let's pretend this is a real situation involving a real teenager. Ask yourself what tragically unmet need the teen must be experiencing in order for this circumstance to arise in the first place. What is missing from his life? Do you think a teenager who desire this type of experience grew up feeling safe, loved, secure, trusted, supported, valued, and honored? Why is this teen driven to fulfill his needs in unsafe, illegal, or inappropriate ways?

Sometimes people become frustrated about the apparent lack of limits that families on this list place on their kids. They may stretch to conceive of the most dramatic situation they can come up with, hoping that finally someone will agree that yes, here is a situation where you can "lay down the law" and set limits across the board. The problem is that they are too busy pushing to find the "no" that they get stuck. You can't find the "yes" when you're looking for the place where "no" lives. It won't help you make the shift to a different perspective.

A common refrain: "So it's okay to just let your kid jump off a cliff or play in the road?"

Parents on this list have come up with ways to say yes even in these and other "extreme" situations. However, it must get tiresome for them to expend energy on coming up with solutions to problems that are currently non-existent or extremely far-fetched, such as your question about teenage sex in front of a sibling.

If you want to go from a place of limits and control to a place of trust and creative problem-solving, know that focusing on rules or unlikely situations is not going to help you make the shift. What might help: taking a recent or current event, looking at it from different angles, discovering your own issues (and owning them), thinking about the principals behind unschooling (I listed a few at the beginning) and choosing to try a different approach in the future.

By the way, I'm still learning, pushing my own comfort levels, questioning the assumptions and conventional "wisdom" that resides in my head. I used to look for the "no", too, but eventually I realized that it wasn't helpful in the long run - it didn't get me any closer to where I wanted to be. It only got me stuck in that old way of thinking.

—Susan

On unschooling and help:

We had a funny experience regarding this recently... my dad was raised in the 40's and 50's in the time of being seen and not heard.. had a very strict father who really ruled with an iron fist etc... that said he has always been the type to really listen to us when we were kids because he never felt like his side was heard. As a child he felt that by being a child he was automatically at fault and could not be right. He used to tell me when my kids were little that I needed to be firmer with them, that if I didn't tighten up on them they would run me over. Over time he's seen that the freedom I give them works to make them kids who have no desire to run over anyone because they are treated fairly and gently.

Recently we were visiting and my father said he wanted to take the boats out but since my brother's boat was broken there wasn't room for everyone to go in just one boat. He wanted to be fair and not leave anyone out so he was trying to figure out how to do it. My 6 yr old walks over pats him and says "it's ok grand daddy I will help you figure it out" then he proceeded to brainstorm ideas for how it would work... take all the little kids first, take the teens that wanted to ski next, go out again with anyone else that didn't get to go or wanted to go again. My Dad was really impressed and commented on how thoughtful he thought it was that Jack really cared about him getting to do what he wanted to do and how mature he thought it was that he was able to give possible solutions to make it happen. Then my dad said "you know it really makes you feel like you matter when someone goes to the trouble to help you get what you want or need even if it's a lot of work". I think that is my goal... I want my kids to know they matter within my family, their community and their world.

—Lisa B.

Any posts are assumed to be a request for help. It's the next step beyond "Life's hard." That's why there isn't much support for "It's hard," and "I can't." This type of list is the place to go when you want to ask "So what do I do about that? How do I make it less hard. How do I move beyond 'I can't'."

This is lovely - and very much a principle of unschooling as applied to our kids, too. Conventional parenting stops at "Life's hard" - I can't even begin to catalog the times and ways I've heard parents express that to kids as a way to end an argument. Life's hard. No free lunch. Can't always get what you want. End of story. Unschooling *starts* exactly there. Life's hard - so let me help you.

With my deschooling teen, "let me help you" isn't always the best thing to say, directly. He's not *supposed* to need help. It takes time to (re)build a relationship to a place of trusting support. That's true of discussion lists as well. It takes time to build understanding and trust amongst a group of complete strangers, especially since most of us come to the idea of unschooling from somewhere else - often from the somewhere of school where helpfulness is cheating at best and a set-up for an attack at worst.

One of the ideas I rattle on and on about is that autonomy, at least in unschooling jargon, is a whole different ball-game than independence. Part of autonomy is trusting that help is available - something I usually talk about in terms of supporting our kids, but it applies to the adults on this list as well. Most of us were raised to respect independence and distrust help. We're okay getting help by the back door, as it were - bitching about our problems in order to hear others bitch and maybe grab a nugget or two of useful information. Part of deschooling involves developing our own autonomy as parents. Being okay with saying "I need some help here" - to our spouses, friends, kids... and other unschoolers. Seeing help being offered, rather than criticism. Seeing good intentions. Those are some of the unschooling skills that take time and practice to learn.

When I first came to unschooling lists I got my feelings hurt a lot. I expected criticism, so I read every difference as an attack. I expected a bitchy old-girl system and felt slapped around. I expected to be graded on my performance as an unschooling parent and felt like I was getting a D at best. It's interesting to me to look back at some of the same comments that offended and scared me a few years ago and see the kindness being offered. It took some deschooling on my part to be able to see that kindness - much as it has taken some deschooling on my stepson's part to be able to see *my* kindness.

Anyway, this has turned into something of a ramble, but I wanted to say that in many many ways, the same principles we're trying to apply in our families *do* come out on this board. Not always skillfully or successfully, maybe, but then that's true in our families too.

—Meredith

To join the UnschoolingBasics list send mail to unschoolingbasics-subscribe@yahoogroups.com