Alternative Parenting – Page 24 – a hippie with a minivan

control…

Imagine living in a household or even a society that wants to control everything you do… what and when you eat, when you sleep and for how long, when and what you read and learn…

I think after a while… I would probably rebel… wouldn’t you?

So why do so many parents want to control their kids in such a way? And don’t they see what the consequences will be later on?

In the last few weeks I have heard once too often about children’s “sleeping problems”… and it has made me think about something that I have wrote before about sleep and CIO and well it brought me to the idea of control…

I think many parents seem to be under the impression that they must be in control… that it is in their best interests to control the way their kids behave, when they sleep, how they eat, what they learn, and just everything they do…

And not only do they believe that… but they also believe that if they do not control those things then it will be a free-for-all because the kids will then have complete control…

Not only does this put an enormous amount of unrealistic pressure on parents… but then when they can’t have that complete control (which is normal) then just makes a them feel more “out of control” and then they seem to start spiralling…

Spiralling into making bad decisions that lead to trying more, punishing more… and consequently being more detached and just making everything worse in the end… because being in control of someone is not showing them to make the right decisions for themselves…it is making decisions for them without learning why… so the more you try to control someone, the less they learn for the themselves… so when they rebel, they do so with a lack of skills…

Children do have a lot to learn, and yes, might act on impulse and might not make the right decisions all the time… but they do not need to be controlled in order to learn, but instead need to be guided…

And if we guide well… then the funny thing is… we are essentially “in control” of the situation…

and honestly… when that happens it is quite a great feeling…

quote…

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself
-Galileo

Zeitgeist: The Movie

Through a link on a facebook page I was introduced to this movie…

I have to say that it is Really interesting… It is Free so there is no excuse not to watch it…

Though you may or may not agree with all of it it, because I may not agree with all of it either… it does bring up a lot of questions…

The first part deals with Religion and myths and truths of where so many believes took root. Pretty much all on par except for a few details of what I was taught in my studies… and of course quite interesting in my opinion.

The second part is about 9/11 and the theory about what really happened.

The third is about Financial history of the US, the creation of the Federal reserve and money ties in with historical events and then what is predicted for the future…

Check it out… and discuss!

The official website (you can watch it there by clicking the blue square or download it)

or see it on Google Video

questions, questions, questions…

The older the kids get the more questions come out… and the older the get the more patience they have to listen to the answer and the more understanding they have get the answer…

Today in the car Xavier asked about where power comes from then learned the meaning and differences of solar power, wind power, nuclear power and hydro power. When I “quizzed” him after to see if he was listening/understood… he had retained all of them…

Then at supper at the table Simon and I were talking about those stupid HFCS commercials… Simon said “4 sylables… prop-a-gan-da” then Xavier asked what a sylable was and we explained with a few examples and he understood right away…

It is just amazing how much kids can learn so quickly… especially when they are interested…

The cutest question today though was

“Mama… how do you know all of this?”

to which I answered… “well you learn something new everyday… so the older you get the more you know”…

so he answered… “wow… you must be really old”

Another meeting…

Yesterday I went to another homeschooling meeting…I was ready for it to be as usual but I wanted to go because it was being held at my good friends house and I wanted to see her and her new baby and the boys wanted to go play with her girls…

It turned out to be just a nice get together which was pretty nice… One of the girls is moving so it was kind of like a mini goodbye party and a little welcome party for the new baby… (who is so cute!!)

I still feel like the oddball there though… besides getting looked at and talked at like I was crazy because my kids went outside in socks without shoes and they might get dirty or wet *gasp* … I got the feeling that some of them pretty much think that we don’t do anything because we don’t sit and “do school”….

because we don’t have a little classroom set up… because we don’t have any curriculum that we follow… because we don’t have a set amount of time for each subject and because I don’t even care that the boys might not be interested in some things yet or that there are things that they might not learn at the expected age…

When we talked at one point about baking bread I also got a comment about how much free time I have because we don’t do anything because I am not “teaching”…

It is really hard for a traditional homeschooler to understand unschooling I guess…

There is a lot of ground between doing school at home and forcing kids to learn on schedule and doing anything at all and ignoring a child’s education.

I spend a lot of my day answering questions, finding information about things I don’t know the answers to myself… there is so much to learn without being forced…and as an aide to my children’s learning I need to have and find the answers until they are ready to be able to find the information on their own…

Not sitting down and doing school curriculum doesn’t mean that we never do anything and learn.Not having to prepare for the next lesson doesn’t mean that I never research and prepare my answers… it might not be as formal but it is a lot of work and time because the questions range so much…

The good things that came out of yesterday though was that I got to spend time with my friend before everyone got there and then for a few hours after they left… I got to cuddle a new little baby… I got to talk with some really nice people though we might not see eye to eye on some/many things… The kids got to play with some friends and outside on their great property..

and another cool thing is that the same person that assumed that we don’t do anything did mention something that she is going to be starting soon with her kids that was overheard by Xavier and peaked his interest…

so we have a little project in midst…