In another thread, I wrote:
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And Dar wrote:
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So here I am. Some background first, concerning the gist of our unschooling over the past few years.
Dd15 has become exceedingly driven and passionate about her violin studies. She also entered school part-time a year and a bit ago, doing a small selection of advanced academic courses, mostly outside her areas of natural interest. She's got major weirdness going on in her sleep-wake cycles, preferring to pull all-nighters once or twice a week, then sleeping until dark to catch up. She rarely lifts a finger to help around the house and doesn't interact much with the rest of the family. (She lives in the city part-time to study violin, and even here has her own detached cabin for a bedroom.) She's extremely introverted and stubborn, as well as highly sedentary. She is, despite her various issues, a very high achiever. She scored almost 100% on her courses and provincial exams, and is very advanced as both a violinist and pianist. She also has a part-time job (6-10 hours a week).
Ds13 has become increasingly immersed in computer gaming. He rarely lifts a finger to help around the house. His habit is to stay up until 4 a.m. gaming, then sleep until noon. He has almost no interest in social interaction, physical activity or hobbies. He used to enjoy being outside, training the dog, building things, messing about with tools and toys, hanging out with friends, going on hikes, but those things have gradually got squeezed out of his life as his computer use has gone from 3 to 6 hours a day up to 12 to 15 hours a day. On the plus side -- he is a good viola player and practices every day, and he sings in a youth choir. He enjoys both of these, but hates leaving the house (and the computer) to go to rehearsals and lessons. He sits sullen and half-asleep in the van for up to 8 hours as we drive to his various musical things, refusing audiobooks, music or conversation.
Dd11 is pleasant and sociable. She helps around the house occasionally. She has some interests like knitting and baking, which she's quite accomplished at. She enjoys reading and likes academic bookwork. In the past few months, though, she's got more and more interested in the gaming her brother is into, and often stays up way past midnight watching him play. She is now spending about half the time she did a few months ago on her hobbies, book-based learning and social activities. She sleeps in very late and would rather curl up with her iPod watching videos than do most of the things that used to interest her. She usually declines to get involved in things like hikes, craft projects and other activities.
Dd6 is a little dynamo who is full of interests. She is sociable and helpful and is game for almost anything. She stays up until 10 pm but is raring to go at 8 in the morning.
Dh is a small-town doc, and is on-call for the ER a lot. Meaning he's home a fair bit of the time on weekends and in the evenings but on edge, needs to be ready to respond to a phone call at an instant's notice, and really values what sleep he can get. We have a relatively small home (1600 sqft). He's rarely expressed any opinions or concerns about the kids -- whether general parenting stuff or unschooling. Even if I ask him what he thinks, he usually just says "yeah, that sounds okay" to whatever I say.
But the past year or two has got him increasingly concerned about the older kids. They're academically fine in terms of literacy, writing and math -- easily on grade level, probably a good bit beyond in many respects. His concern is really about their lifestyle and work ethic -- the chaotic evenings, late nights which feed into his insomnia troubles, the sleeping the day away, lack of meaningful family interaction, obsessive computer-gaming, negligible contribution to the household, etc..
The truth is, I worry about the same things. But I worry privately and just deal with my worries. The kids and I often hold democratic family meetings where we discuss these issues and others, but nothing ever seems to really change. They make half-hearted attempts to change; they seem to want to be more helpful, more productive members of our family and community. But they don't follow through. They want to play Team Fortress 2 or to watch YouTube videos more than they want to be helpful and productive.
When dh voiced his concerns to me I told him he should bring them to a family meeting. Not in an authoritarian way, but so that the kids would understand his worries and frustrations and be able to help find solutions. Being considerate of others' feelings is part of what we work for at our Meetings. And that should include dh's feelings.
So we had our meeting yesterday. At one point he said to the middle kids "I think homeschooling isn't working and I really think you kids should go to school. It would structure your days and you'd probably be happier."
The middle two kids are emphatic about not going to school. Ds13 burst into tears at that point. He has some pretty huge anxieties about evaluations, competition, comparative learning, benchmarks and the like. He's dysgraphic, perfectionistic and output-challenged. He would not be a good fit for a school that relies on written output for evaluation. Dd11 would probably do fine, but her skills and interests are very advanced for her age, and there's no way she'd be challenged by anything other than the workload. And she hates the idea of spending all day at school.
So we spent a lot of time exploring alternatives, compromises that would help put daddy's anxieties and frustrations at rest, whilst preserving the kids' educational autonomy. In the week before the meeting, we'd pretty much solved the evening chaos / sleep issue with an agreed-upon 11pm bedroom-curfew. The kids are fine with this. Ds13 (who moaned a lot about the idea at its inception) actually volunteered that he likes it now.
So I hoped we could find a similar compromise for work ethic issues. I asked "can you think of anything that you'd be willing to do a bit differently to help daddy be less worried and frustrated by this?" But the middle kids could not come up with any suggestions for compromises. None at all. They would not go to school. They did not want to adjust anything about their daily lives to appease their dad's concerns. Ds just wanted to be left free to play games on the computer for 14-16 hours a day. Even though he understood that, for example, family members should help each other with the running of the household, his response was "I know I should, but I just don't want to. I like playing on the computer more."
So what was left? I was pretty sure dh was on the verge of dragging them across the street and registering them all school (our meeting was at a café looking over the schoolyard). So I suggested 2 hours a day of structured home-schooling, and one significant chore a day. No computer use until that is done. A two-week trial, then a re-evaluation.
Dh said okay. The kids said "do we have to?" And I said "yes, you have to."
So there goes Consensual Living.
Today was day one.
Ds was in tears for an hour. He finally did some good math work. A little prose work / editing. And finished up watching a Teaching Company physics lecture. Dd11 had some tears over handwriting which wasn't as neat as she hoped. She was minimally enthusiastic but compliant. She did some algebra, AP biology, handwriting, music theory and watched a history lecture on DVD. Dd6 did some Hands-on Equations, handwriting, music theory, history and math drill and she loved it all and asked for extra work.
Tomorrow will be day two.
Years ago I read a post by someone who said "I'd love to unschool, but my son really needs the structure." I thought about that a bit. I wondered "what if my kids really need structure too? How would I ever know?" I figured I'd help my kids create their own structure if they wanted it. But what if they never wanted it, but needed it? Like they needed that nasty-tasting Clarithromycin when they had whooping cough? I'm willing to reserve judgment at this point. Perhaps this is my family's opportunity to discover that we need structure, even if we don't necessarily want to create it.
Miranda
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Originally Posted by Dar ... and I want to hear more about the axe falling, but perhaps you should start a new thread... |
Dd15 has become exceedingly driven and passionate about her violin studies. She also entered school part-time a year and a bit ago, doing a small selection of advanced academic courses, mostly outside her areas of natural interest. She's got major weirdness going on in her sleep-wake cycles, preferring to pull all-nighters once or twice a week, then sleeping until dark to catch up. She rarely lifts a finger to help around the house and doesn't interact much with the rest of the family. (She lives in the city part-time to study violin, and even here has her own detached cabin for a bedroom.) She's extremely introverted and stubborn, as well as highly sedentary. She is, despite her various issues, a very high achiever. She scored almost 100% on her courses and provincial exams, and is very advanced as both a violinist and pianist. She also has a part-time job (6-10 hours a week).
Ds13 has become increasingly immersed in computer gaming. He rarely lifts a finger to help around the house. His habit is to stay up until 4 a.m. gaming, then sleep until noon. He has almost no interest in social interaction, physical activity or hobbies. He used to enjoy being outside, training the dog, building things, messing about with tools and toys, hanging out with friends, going on hikes, but those things have gradually got squeezed out of his life as his computer use has gone from 3 to 6 hours a day up to 12 to 15 hours a day. On the plus side -- he is a good viola player and practices every day, and he sings in a youth choir. He enjoys both of these, but hates leaving the house (and the computer) to go to rehearsals and lessons. He sits sullen and half-asleep in the van for up to 8 hours as we drive to his various musical things, refusing audiobooks, music or conversation.
Dd11 is pleasant and sociable. She helps around the house occasionally. She has some interests like knitting and baking, which she's quite accomplished at. She enjoys reading and likes academic bookwork. In the past few months, though, she's got more and more interested in the gaming her brother is into, and often stays up way past midnight watching him play. She is now spending about half the time she did a few months ago on her hobbies, book-based learning and social activities. She sleeps in very late and would rather curl up with her iPod watching videos than do most of the things that used to interest her. She usually declines to get involved in things like hikes, craft projects and other activities.
Dd6 is a little dynamo who is full of interests. She is sociable and helpful and is game for almost anything. She stays up until 10 pm but is raring to go at 8 in the morning.
Dh is a small-town doc, and is on-call for the ER a lot. Meaning he's home a fair bit of the time on weekends and in the evenings but on edge, needs to be ready to respond to a phone call at an instant's notice, and really values what sleep he can get. We have a relatively small home (1600 sqft). He's rarely expressed any opinions or concerns about the kids -- whether general parenting stuff or unschooling. Even if I ask him what he thinks, he usually just says "yeah, that sounds okay" to whatever I say.
But the past year or two has got him increasingly concerned about the older kids. They're academically fine in terms of literacy, writing and math -- easily on grade level, probably a good bit beyond in many respects. His concern is really about their lifestyle and work ethic -- the chaotic evenings, late nights which feed into his insomnia troubles, the sleeping the day away, lack of meaningful family interaction, obsessive computer-gaming, negligible contribution to the household, etc..
The truth is, I worry about the same things. But I worry privately and just deal with my worries. The kids and I often hold democratic family meetings where we discuss these issues and others, but nothing ever seems to really change. They make half-hearted attempts to change; they seem to want to be more helpful, more productive members of our family and community. But they don't follow through. They want to play Team Fortress 2 or to watch YouTube videos more than they want to be helpful and productive.
When dh voiced his concerns to me I told him he should bring them to a family meeting. Not in an authoritarian way, but so that the kids would understand his worries and frustrations and be able to help find solutions. Being considerate of others' feelings is part of what we work for at our Meetings. And that should include dh's feelings.
So we had our meeting yesterday. At one point he said to the middle kids "I think homeschooling isn't working and I really think you kids should go to school. It would structure your days and you'd probably be happier."
The middle two kids are emphatic about not going to school. Ds13 burst into tears at that point. He has some pretty huge anxieties about evaluations, competition, comparative learning, benchmarks and the like. He's dysgraphic, perfectionistic and output-challenged. He would not be a good fit for a school that relies on written output for evaluation. Dd11 would probably do fine, but her skills and interests are very advanced for her age, and there's no way she'd be challenged by anything other than the workload. And she hates the idea of spending all day at school.
So we spent a lot of time exploring alternatives, compromises that would help put daddy's anxieties and frustrations at rest, whilst preserving the kids' educational autonomy. In the week before the meeting, we'd pretty much solved the evening chaos / sleep issue with an agreed-upon 11pm bedroom-curfew. The kids are fine with this. Ds13 (who moaned a lot about the idea at its inception) actually volunteered that he likes it now.
So I hoped we could find a similar compromise for work ethic issues. I asked "can you think of anything that you'd be willing to do a bit differently to help daddy be less worried and frustrated by this?" But the middle kids could not come up with any suggestions for compromises. None at all. They would not go to school. They did not want to adjust anything about their daily lives to appease their dad's concerns. Ds just wanted to be left free to play games on the computer for 14-16 hours a day. Even though he understood that, for example, family members should help each other with the running of the household, his response was "I know I should, but I just don't want to. I like playing on the computer more."
So what was left? I was pretty sure dh was on the verge of dragging them across the street and registering them all school (our meeting was at a café looking over the schoolyard). So I suggested 2 hours a day of structured home-schooling, and one significant chore a day. No computer use until that is done. A two-week trial, then a re-evaluation.
Dh said okay. The kids said "do we have to?" And I said "yes, you have to."
So there goes Consensual Living.
Today was day one.
Ds was in tears for an hour. He finally did some good math work. A little prose work / editing. And finished up watching a Teaching Company physics lecture. Dd11 had some tears over handwriting which wasn't as neat as she hoped. She was minimally enthusiastic but compliant. She did some algebra, AP biology, handwriting, music theory and watched a history lecture on DVD. Dd6 did some Hands-on Equations, handwriting, music theory, history and math drill and she loved it all and asked for extra work.
Tomorrow will be day two.
Years ago I read a post by someone who said "I'd love to unschool, but my son really needs the structure." I thought about that a bit. I wondered "what if my kids really need structure too? How would I ever know?" I figured I'd help my kids create their own structure if they wanted it. But what if they never wanted it, but needed it? Like they needed that nasty-tasting Clarithromycin when they had whooping cough? I'm willing to reserve judgment at this point. Perhaps this is my family's opportunity to discover that we need structure, even if we don't necessarily want to create it.
Miranda