Its all ok..ish. I hate the unschooling websites almost as much as I hate the chaos in the home when we just live and I dont attack the kids with lame worksheets. I dont know how I want this to be and I dont know why I cant just go with the flow. I DO go with the flow, I have no other choice. I am so glad they arent getting sneezed on 13 miles away in a school they hated that I had to drive to in the frigid dark of 7 am, but.....
O h I dont know. I just dont know. They are all super happy. Now I just need to catch up.
5 comments:
maybe you don't need to catch up. maybe you just need to start where you are at. I find that a lot less stressful.
Happy is important!
Sometimes it takes a while to find out what works for you.
hi Joy
I'm reading your blog with lots of interest these days because we are in similar shoes.
four kids, large age range, they love homeschooling.
I always feel completely inadequate. Great plans but with so many different learning styles and ages - the finished product is never what I imagine.
I love the idea of homeschooling, my kids love it, and I think it's good for them. But in reality, I just like the fun stuff. I hate the math, the sheets, the worry as now my 13 year old will have to make important decisions about high school options.
I hate the nagging, coaxing, and pleading to get them to follow through.
If you find the magic answer - pass it along!
erin
Just remember that most of the unschooling websites rarely show you anything of the uncertainty, loss of cool, or chaos or anything else negative.
Just read John Holt and John Taylor Gatto and whoever else inspires oyu and go with what you know in your gut to be the right thing for your kids. Then do it - even if it's making everyone sit down and do math worksheets ;)
Miranda at this blog http://nurturedbylove.blogspot.com/
had a post a long while back about how she, too, is guilty of posting only the positive and rarely anything about the endless days of uncertainty and playing computer games her kids sometimes get into...I'll see if I can find it.
We're unschool-y, too (my kids are too young for me to have any real advice, though) and I'm SOOOO not the zen-like patient baking/crafting/always-clean-house mama some of the blogs/forums portray. I can only assume that, since most of them are human, they are lying (intentionally or not). I yell. I've spanked recently though it's not a value of mine AT ALL. I despair that I suck at parenting and wouldn't my kids be better off with someone who is paid to be patient with them??? But, I persist because I read John Holt and John Taylor Gatto and Gordon Neufeld and someday I'll find a woman author on attachment parenting or homeschooling who inspires me but I suspect that right now she's homeschooling her kids and is too busy to write ;) Oh, the woman who wrote The Teenage whatever handbook - how to drop out of school and unschool yourself. I found her pretty inspirational.
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