12 June 2017

A Gradual Approach to Unschooling

Maybe you’ve been reading about unschooling and you like the thought of it. Yes, it sounds good. But you’re not sure you can do it. It will take a lot of trust. You’ll have to think about things in a new way. Maybe you’ll need to make a lot of changes. It could feel very uncomfortable.

“What if my child wants to sit in front of the computer all day?” you ask.

“Yes, he might want to do that at first,” someone says. “He’ll be catching up. Later, when he realises you’re not going to restrict his computer time, he’ll relax and move onto other things.”

But what if he doesn’t? What if he sits there for hours and hours. He might not go outside and get any exercise. He could miss out on all kinds of other experiences.

“Perhaps computers are his thing. Shouldn’t kids be allowed to spend as much time as they need on their interests? No one tells adults how long they can spend working on their passions. Why should it be any different for children?”

This is all very true. I imagine being deep in my creative writing world. The words are flowing and then someone comes along and says, “That’s enough writing for one day. It’s time you did something else. You need a balanced life. And exercise. Go outside.” How frustrating to have to return to the normal world when we’re deeply immersed in our work.

But despite our concerns, we gather up our courage and say to our kids, “Yes, you can use the computer,” and then we stand back determined not to limit their time. Even if they spend all day there.  Which they do.  And they’re still there the next day and the one after that. Deep down we’re not really happy about this and we get anxious. Do our kids notice? Do they know we’re not really comfortable with the whole idea of letting go of control? Maybe they’re waiting for the moment when we grab back the reins. In the meantime, they might as well spend as long as possible on the computer while they’ve got the chance.

Even though we might be doing our best to let go and unschool, maybe we don’t really trust our kids and so they don’t trust us. No one is happy. And eventually, we decide we won’t unschool after all.

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But what if we only let go as far as we’re comfortable? What if we approached unschooling in tiny steps? Let ourselves get used to it bit by bit? Not jump in the deep end but instead adopt a gradual approach?

You know what? I reckon this is the best way to move to an unschooling way of life.

Yes, we can listen to people who have more unschooling experience than us. Ponder what they have to say. Maybe push ourselves a little bit out of our comfort zone. But we shouldn’t do things that we’re not happy with just because we’ve been told by others that this is the way to go if we want to unschool properly. If we do, maybe we’ll end up rejecting unschooling altogether.

And who knows where a step-by-step approach to unschooling will lead? If someone had told me a few years ago that we’d become radical unschoolers, I would have protested loudly, “Oh no, I could never let go to that extent. I’m not even sure I should. It doesn’t feel right.” But here we are living the life I said we would never live.

It’s hard to change our way of life overnight. Perhaps we need time to ponder and absorb and work things out for ourselves. If we do that, our motivation for change will come from deep within us and not from other people. We’ll want to unschool because we truly believe, right to our cores, that this is the best way to live.


Images: Sophie, Imogen, Charlotte and Gemma-Rose. We arrived at unschooling in a very gradual and roundabout way. I never stop feeling thankful that I can live this way of life with my family.


So what do you think? A gradual approach? Or is it better just to jump in the deep end and leave behind an old way of life all at once? Or maybe different approaches suit different people? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

15 Comments

  1. I’m a jump in all or nothing in a family of slow & steady. I think the gradual approach is one that depth and understanding comes. The jump in can lead to frustration and confusion especially if you’ve jumped in from school at home. The results don’t come so quickly. De schooling takes time.
    Slow and steady wins the race for us.

    I’m sure it’s so different for others especially those that unschool from birth.

    • Computers and video games can become a form of addiction. You should do some research on the devastating effects of technology on the developing mind of a child before encouraging parents to not limit screen time.

      And didn’t Holt himself discourage mindless screen time?

      As I’ve researched unschooling, I’ve been completely turned off because of the vast amount of unschoolers I’ve meet that play video games all day. The problem is modern video games are created to be addicting and they literally never end. ?

      • Sofia,

        Yes, I agree: we have to be careful and protect our kids from anything that would adversely affect their health and happiness. That’s why I encourage parents not to do anything they feel uncomfortable with just because other parents tell them that this is the right way to unschool: ‘…we shouldn’t do things that we’re not happy with just because we’ve been told by others that this is the way to go if we want to unschool properly.” In this post, I repeat common things unschoolers say, but add that parents have to work things out for themselves.

        Many people choose to make lot of rules to protect their kids. However, I don’t believe this is a very effective way of dealing with this situation, especially for older kids. Rules lead to battles. They can be broken. They don’t get to the heart of the problem. That’s why unschoolers have a different approach. And it’s not about stepping back and letting our kids do whatever they like regardless of whether it is good for them or not. It’s about being closely connected with our kids so that we trust each other. We listen to one other and help our children find ways of doing what’s important to them without them getting into situations where their health and happiness are threatened.

        My kids have never had problems with screens. They have full lives that include many offline activities. So I don’t think addiction is inevitable. Some kids do regulate their usage well. But some don’t. I can accept that because I have a problem with screens. I often spend too much time online and feel overwhelmed. Yes, screens can be a problem for some people. That’s why I never dismiss parents when they express concerns about screen time.

        I’ve written and spoken about screens a number of times. Here’s another post:

        https://www.storiesofanunschoolingfamily.com/is-it-really-okay-to-give-unschooling-kids-unlimited-access-to-screens-and-the-internet/

        I think this is a very complicated issue which can’t be explored in a few words. Unschooling is complicated too. Hard to understand at a glance. I can see why, after reading my post, you suggested I research how technology affects developing brains. That would be the responsible thing to do if we were indeed neglecting our kids.

        Thank you for expressing your concerns about unlimited screen time. It’s been good to chat with you.

  2. Yes to the gradual thing (partly because it’s less scary that way, and partly because small children really can’t make decisions yet, i.e. they need a lot of direct teaching about things like sharing, and not biting, and when you feel like this it means you’re tired and sleep will fix it, and so on), but I don’t think it’s the case that no one tells adults how much time they can spend on their passions. I have five, soon to be six and the oldest is 10; you’ve raised a large family yourself and know it wasn’t always the case that you got long (or any!) stretches of uninterrupted time to do anything, even if your passion was using the bathroom in peace. 🙂 Family life produces some natural limits on what any given person can do, at least if we’re also trying to teach being considerate of others. Many unschoolers talk about letting kids do whatever they want for however long (screen time being a common example) being the only unschool way that counts, while the reality is that one kid might want to use something (computer, cd player, mom’s lap) for hours, but other people in the family have legitimate needs too and everyone has to be taken into account.
    You’re truly very careful not to draw hard and fast lines about who’s doing it “right” and who isn’t, but I think a lot of people looking at the unschool life and wondering if they can do it are discouraged by thinking that that means the kids don’t ever have to consider anyone else, or that the parent is never allowed to interrupt the child when something else needs to be done. Part of the key (and you’ve written about it elsewhere) is modeling that: we have to limit our own time on devices to give our full attention to a child speaking to us, we have to put that book down to change a diaper, we have to interrupt our to-do list to read to someone, we have to stop what we’re doing to get in the car to take a child somewhere. And then we can lead our kids to recognize that they need to do the same because unschooling isn’t really just about uninterrupted me-time (which is the impression many people have).

  3. Anna,

    Your thoughts on natural limits are very interesting and relevant. Yes, we talk about letting kids do what they want for as long as they’d like and it does sound like our kids will become very self-centered. I’m also sure a lot of people are discouraged because they think that unschooled kids don’t have to consider other people’s needs. However, it doesn’t work out this way. Without a parent imposing limits, unschooled kids learn to be considerate and generous. They give up their time and are willing to stop what they are doing when it’s necessary. The motivation to be generous comes from the child and not from the parent.

    I do agree that parents can’t spend as much time on their passions as we’d sometimes like. But although it can be frustrating at times, I think we are willing to be self-giving because we love our families and know there are times when their needs have to come before ours. You are right: We model what we hope our kids will learn. And they do follow our example. At least that’s what I’ve found!

    I think the problem you have mentioned is one of those unschooling misconceptions. It is true that parents don’t impose limits. But that doesn’t mean kids don’t impose them on themselves.

    I think my post did need some clarification. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and discussing this point!

  4. I definitely needed to see this post at this time. I’ve got a son that’s been sitting at that computer for just about the entire day…..and this is not the first in the row of days this has happened.
    I find it such a struggle between letting him grow and explore and thinking, what if he never learns what he needs for the next phase of his life?
    My girls, on the other hand, were focused and goal oriented most of the time. It’s been quite a difference between the two sexes to watch.
    Thanks for the post! Definitely needed to read this and gave me food for thought.

    • Bobbi,

      Yes, our kids can be very different from each other. Some we worry about more than others. I’m sure your son will indeed learn all he needs to know, but if you’re not feeling happy about the situation, perhaps you can take things slowly. We need to feel at peace with our decisions, don’t we? Maybe a day will come when you’re quite happy to let your son manage his own computer time, but it sounds like you are reluctant to do that right at this moment.

      I’ll add a link to a series of articles that might interest you. They are about screen time and balance. There aren’t truly unschooling posts, but the ideas in them might suit you where you are right at this moment:

      http://www.happilyfamily.com/limiting-screen-time-for-kids/

      Thanks for stopping by!

  5. Hello, thanks for writing this. We did jump in full force and after about a month of the kids spending all waking hours in front of the computer, devices, and streaming services, we did have to back it up a bit.

    What we were noticing is that the amount of entertainment, channels, apps, games are hard for our kids to deal with having come from very low media all their lives. Yes, they get bored from one type of media after a few hours, but the next shiny thing catches their eye and they spend hours kinda moving back and forth and get kinda frustrated and anxious trying to consume it all. They totally stopped reading, drawing, and riding their bikes.

    I think where we’ve settled right now is 2 hours / day, plus additional documentaries and family movies, etc, that don’t count on their time.

    We’ve found that They are pretty OK with those time limits, it kinda allows them to step back and make choices of what they do want to consume for 2 hours the next day. And what’s not really worth their time. Step away from the buffet and think about how you feel, what tasted good, etc.

    Plus it has allowed mom and dad to take baby steps as well….which is likely the biggest bonus. And the kids really enjoy reading, drawing, cooking, and other activities still with their non-media time. It’s kinda like they’ve rediscovered them again…sure they aren’t as flashy with dramatic music, but they are worthy of their time.

    I think the baby steps is a win-win. And they’ll get exposure to media in small steps, and when we do loosen up and allow more time, I think they’ll have more experience and personal tools to know what media they want to spend their time on.

    Anyway, that’s just us and our path in unschooling.

  6. Dehru,

    It sounds like you’re at a place that feels comfortable for you and is working for your kids right at this moment. And that’s what matters the most, isn’t it? Not doing things to someone’s schedule but working out what’s best for our own families and taking time for trust and confidence to grow. And then maybe later, there won’t be any need to restrict such things as computer time etc. It’ll all fall into place.

    Perhaps a gradual approach to unschooling doesn’t sound right. We’re either unschooling or we’re not. However, I do believe that we can move along the unschooling pathway in a step by step way and this could be better for most of us. Time to experience and adjust and get to the stage where we truly believe in unschooling and are able to trust. Time also for our kids to really trust us.

    Thank you so much for sharing your unschooling story. I’m glad you stopped by. It’s been good to chat!

  7. Hi Sue!
    Thank you very much for your posts!
    I am new to the idea of unschooling but it seems that I have been unconsciously doing just that simply because I cannot find time to do anything else. I suppose my biggest dilemma is time management, managing my own time that is. My children are 4, 3, and 1. Most of the time I get up at 5 simply to load up the dishwasher, do the laundry, cook, etc. because the kids always wake up with billions of ideas and questions!
    It amazes me how my kids learn things! It seems that they just wake up with certain knowledge that they did not possess the day before. Just yesterday I asked them if they were ready to head back inside because the mosquitoes were coming out to eat us. My oldest daughter wished for all the mosquitoes to just disappear! I reminded her that the dragonflies would be hungry then. Then she turned to me and said: “it is called ‘migration’, mom!” Migration?! “Well, yes, the dragonflies would follow the mosquitoes to other people’s yards! See, it is like a chain: when the elephants have nothing to eat, they move to look for food, and then the lions who want to eat the elephants – follow them!” I never actually sit down, put things aside and teach them, but somehow they learn!

    Mandatory schooling here starts at the age of 5, or the child has to be registered as a “homeschooler”. So we are at the threshold. I am really worried that if I send my kids off to school, they will lose their natural curiosity. If I recreate the school at home, it might lead to similar consequences. BUT if we simply keep doing what we are doing right now, what if they lose this amazing curiosity just by growing older?
    So far I haven’t really restricted anything. There are 2 major rules: we go go bed at a certain time, and we all walk our 3 dogs every morning. Other than that – anything goes.

    I love your stories! You sound so confident that I start feeling like a wimp!

    Thank you for your inspiration,
    Natasha

    • Hi Natasha,

      It’s so lovely to meet you and your family. I imagine your three young children are a huge delight. And your three dogs too!

      Your comment reinforces to me the idea that unschooling begins at birth. Your children are curious and interested in everything and so they are learning and developing in a wonderful way. When kids get to the age of 5, if we ignored school, I’m sure they’d continue learning no problem at all! Being old enough for school seems such a big milestone. It’s a time when decisions have to be made. It sounds like you have decided that unschooling is the best way to ensure your children don’t lose their curiosity which is indeed amazing.

      Thank you so much for your kind words. There is no need to feel like a wimp. I’ve had a lot of years to build up my confidence and learn from my mistakes. Thinking back to when I was in your position makes me feel like a wimp! I wish I had been informed like you. You have observed your kids and know exactly what you want for them and how to go about giving them what they need. My poor children had to put up with my many experiments which usually ended in disaster. I went down a lot of different pathways, thinking I knew what was best for my kids before I started to listen and respond to their needs. I suppose if everything had gone perfectly, I wouldn’t have so much to write about. I’m so glad you’re enjoying my stories!

      I’ve enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you so much for stopping by. You made my day with your beautiful comment!

  8. I know this is an old post, but I just want to thank you for it. We are six months in homeschooling and I have been tossed about my the “homeschooling waves” so much. I read John Holt’s How Children Learn and so much of it spoke to me – not just for my children, but also when I look back at my own schooling experience. I have felt a lean towards unschooling, but it IS very unnerving and hard to do.

    I joined a Christian unschooling FB community and saw a conversation between a mediator and a member. Basically, the mediator told the member that she wasn’t truly unschooling because the mother had given the child the freedom to do something that seemed “unschooling”. The mother thought it was unschooling because the child chose it. As a new onlooker, it felt confusing and made me want to not head in that direction because, despite unschooling offering so much freedom, it seemed to have become a box that I didn’t know if I could commit to ( because of what suits our family etc.)

    I also love many aspects of Charlotte Mason, so I have felt so confused. I brought it all before the Lord and asked Him what He wants for our family, and I sensed the words “gentle homeschooling” settle in my spirit. That sounds really weird but I can’t explain it any other way. The word “gentle” gave me so much peace because it’s given me the freedom to decide what our learning will look like – probably unschooling and CM. I don’t feel worried about being a purist (of either) because I believe the Lord has given me the freedom to gently lead the kids under any banner.

    ANYWAY, so sorry about the long-winded comment. It’s wonderful to have a resource like you. I am really thankful for you. Please keep writing – especially unschooling and being a Christian. We need more resources like that!

    Unschooling (radically) is still very scary for me and maybe we will end up that way after a long period…But I am thankful for gentle homeschooling, which seems like what you say in this post.

    Blessings!

    • Sarah,

      I remember being tossed about the homeschooling waves too. There is so much information and lots of opinions out there. I was continually examining ideas and trying them out and then discovering something else… In the end, I stopped and listened to my own children which was exactly what I needed to do.

      I love the idea of describing unschooling as gentle homeschooling. The first unschooling book that I really connected with was Suzie Andres’ Homeschooling with Gentleness. Yes, listening and responding to the needs of our children, not worrying about other people’s expectations but allowing our kids to learn and grow in their own time, enjoying our children right now in the present moment instead of worrying about the future, doing what suits us as a family…

      Labels are tricky. We might think we have to do things a certain way to follow a particular method. With unschooling, there aren’t any rules. Yes, some unschoolers are quick to point out that some families aren’t unschooling in the right way, but unschooling can’t be reduced to a list of dos and don’ts. I think it’s a way of life that is constantly changing as we all learn and grow together. We might start where we feel comfortable, but we could end up somewhere we never imagined. It’s an exciting journey! I guess we could say that the Holy Spirit leads us to where we are meant to go if we listen carefully and trust.

      I’m so glad you’re finding my blog helpful. Thank you for stopping by to let me know. Your words encourage me to keep writing!

      May God bless you and your family too!

      • Sue, thank you so much for replying with such an encouraging comment. Overcoming the urges to “do school” each say is hard, and words like yours just breathe peace into my heart, reminding me where I believe God is leading us. Thank you!

        • Sarah,

          I’m glad my words were helpful. Oh yes, peace! When we can feel it in our hearts we know we’re on the right path. God bless!

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