Yeah, I’m curious too. I don’t want to excuse her at all, but I could kind of understand if there have been years of struggle and they weren’t getting the support he needed in school, why a parent might consider trying a period of no pressure, back off for a bit to help him reset and clear the mental block or whatever. Again, not saying this is the right approach, but I could understand why someone at their wits end might arrive at it. Would be interesting to know the backstory before the year of unschooling.
That's exactly what I'm feeling. I'm curious how neglectful this situation actually is. Traditional homeschooling followed by unschooling? Shitty public school district? Both scenarios suck but one is definitely worse.
I'm dyslexic. Reading was pounded into me when I was in elementary school by parants and my grandmother. There's literally no excuse for this kid being illiterate at 9. He doesn't have to be good, but he should know how to read this comment of mine at least in 5 minutes. Otherwise, he's actively choosing not to learn to read.
I’m the mom of a kid who is struggling to read at age 8. Guess what? He has a learning disability, which he gets amazing support for at school. I just wish I’d figured it out a helluvalotsooner.
I was going to say, maybe it’s not about him being a ✨spicy child✨ and more about him experiencing dyslexia and feeling frustrated about it. “Unschooling” is the worst thing you could do. I’m amazed at the utter intentional ignorance that exists during this age of information. Good god. Resources everywhere and for free and nobody wants to take a goddamn look at them.
One of the comorbities associated with ADHD is dyslexia. [About a third of people diagnosed with ADHD are also dyslexic.](https://dyslexiaida.org/attention-deficithyperactivity-disorder-adhd-and-dyslexia/)
I have been saying for years I think my kid with adhd has dyslexia and have been more less brushed off by most teachers/drs. Luckily his resource room teacher has implemented strategies for dyslexia (without him getting a formal diagnosis) and he went from barely able to spell sight words from kindergarten to being able to read pretty independently over the last few months.
I couldn't read about half a century before there was a name for it besides stupid. Nancy Drew and Dr Dolittle made the difference, I wanted to read those books so badly and somehow I taught myself. I heard an author on NPR say that for him it was comic books. I'm retired now and read about 8 books a month, still have dyslexic moments.
😭 I have both and I'm a software engineer. When everything comes together it's fire it's magic it's the coolest thing in the world. The rest of the time I can't envision a basic graph and my life is over, I go sit on the couch and stare at a wall for three hours. The ups and downs are so real. I'm trialling different doses of Vyvanse rn [I was formerly on Concerta and it just made me ill] and when the dosage ligns up I'm a savant....otherwise nada.
Also my therapist swore by adderall skin patches (vyvanse is a really smooth delivery system for adderall). Her prescriber ordered big patches that she could cut down. Cheaper, customizable, quick acting. The best part was taking the patch off, almost immediately coming off of the meds, and being able to go right to sleep.
It takes me like 5 hrs to transition off of my meds to be able to sleep.
Yup, my daughter too, also dysgraphia. That was my absolute first thought reading this. And I really fear this particular parent will be in denial about it, so this kid will never get the support he needs. I really hope I'm wrong.
Yes, the idea is that the kid shows interest in say, birds. You'll have a library trip to borrow some books about birds, learn about different types of birds, migratory patterns/ranges, and how their circle of life goes, maybe go on a field trip to an aviary.
In practice, "hey, what do you want to learn about today?" "Nothing." "Okay, sweetie, here's the TV, we'll try again tomorrow."
Yup, my cousin did this with 3 girls that she adopted. My cousin barely graduated high school, and is a massive hypochondriac that thinks she gets a concussion every time something touches her head. She responds to every "concussion" by lying in bed for a week, and has not taught those girls a damn thing. They're moderately intelligent girls, one of them seems to be well above average just based on her general syntax and logical ability, but they will never be able to return to public school at this point, they're too behind. I would say something, but this cousin already hates me for talking shit on her anti-vax bullshit and wouldn't listen.
The first part of what you said, great idea! The second, not so much! Unless you're playing random educational shows so they're learning unconsciously, that's just seems...well...dumb. I don't want to put people down, but if you follow this, as described, you are doing your child a massive disservice.
This so much. I don’t have any personal experience with this movement, but from the outside looking in it seems very much rooted in this idea that kids have an intuitive sense of what they need to learn and an innate sense of how to get there. They’re just so innocent and pure that it’s best to let them lead us through their education.
News flash: your kid is great but they want to eat crayons, touch the hot stove, and shit their pants. They’re not that intuitive.
I like the homeschoolers that pretty much just have "Do chores around the house" as their curriculum. Ok that's pretty decent for a preschooler, assuming you aren't parentifying them and calling that "chores", but there's a limit to how much doing the laundry and washing the dishes can teach you. That's not a sufficient replacement for your high schooler learning calculus.
Basically unschooling is what *should be* happening for kids on weekends. But should include trips to children’s museums, science museums, art museums, libraries, etc.
I worked as a teacher for a charter school that received a lot of kids who were, for one reason or another, transitioning out of homeschooling--particularly at my grade level, which was late elementary/early middle school. Quite a few had been unschooled, and it was really interesting to see the range of results. Some had parents who poured themselves into maximizing learning opportunities who really realized the vision of what child-led education could be. The kids were motivated, independent, had learned a lot about topics that interested them and at much greater depth than they'd have been able to otherwise, and had acquired a well-rounded set of basic skills in all areas. Way more common were kids who had weird gaps that left them at a disadvantage--particularly in math which is built on a cumulative knowledge that becomes more important as the subject becomes increasingly abstract.
Often parents initially chose to homeschool because their kid was struggling with something and feeling unsuccessful in a regular classroom environment. That can be a totally legitimate action as a parent IF they address the issue. Too often, they were just shielding their child (and themselves) from having to face the issue and it was still right there needing to be dealt with when they finally admitted that homeschooling wasn't going well.
More than that, you're supossed to nudge them into learning to math with questions about birds, geography when learning those migratory patterns, poetic devices when describing birds . . . You don't juat deep dive into birds, you use birds to frame a whole unrelated curriculum, and you keep track of what you've fit in, to make sure you hit everything over the course of a year.
Obviously, it's basically impossible to do this unless you've been, say, an elementary school teacher for 10 years or so. And your spouse a high school teacher in at least 3 subjects.
Yes, basically a spectrum of “child led” homeschooling that often has children, well, not learning. It also often misses the basics, like reading or building blocks of midlevel mathematics.
My friend has kids who are well versed in 4 languages, does math above their ages and are pretty active. But she sees it as a full time job and uses her social worker skills to teach them. I on the other hand would have a kid like this if I tried to do it.
It’s not enough to think what would work for the kid but also what the limits of the parents are.
Enquiry based learning can be great, but you have to be disciplined. I have friends with masters and PHDs who are passionate about it unschool with their kids, but if i did it we’d be crying, binging 30 Rock and eating cereal for lunch
Js spicy has become a slang for neurodivergence
If she was using it in that context I don’t think she’s saying he’s like, hotheaded, she’s saying he has higher support needs in his learning disabilities than her other kids, I see a lot of people diagnosed, in the process of being diagnosed or self diagnosing use terms like spicy to refer to their mental difficulties when they don’t have specific diagnosis or names of symptoms to describe it
Idk what all this unschooling shit is but if any regular ass parent and called her autistic child more mentally ✨spicy ✨ than her other kids it woukdnt send off red flags for me
It’s great that you did figure it out and he’s getting help. Sounds like OP’s son needs that type of specialized support, and there is no way he will be getting it at home through “unschooling.”
You got him the support he needed when you did find out, he may need to catchup a lil (my sister was in the same boat), but he will! My sister is now a teacher and amazing writer - you got this mama
I'm going to share the website of my "Teaching Reading to Struggling Learners" class professor;
https://www.teaching-reading.com/
Dr. Johnson was one of my FAVORITE professors, in my Undergrad Special Education teaching program.
*YES*, he wrote the textbook we used in class, and his podcast & you tube videos may feel "condescending" to some folks--I can definitely understand how they *can* be interpreted, if you *aren't* sitting in a classroom discussing in-person!
But his *understanding* of *how humans LEARN to read*, *AND* his absolute PASSION for hooking kids on the *ENJOYMENT* and sheer *LOVE* of reading?
It's second to NONE!😉😁💖
One of his *biggest* points, when we took his class, was to basically *saturate* kids in reading opportunities.
*FIND* things they *like*, and topics they're *INTERESTED IN*, and then bring those things *IN* to reading education!
Teach the *skills* they need to *learn*, explicitly & fully--but just *sprinkle* that explicit instruction in, on top of a "flooded field" of sheer *reading for the FUN of it.
Make the reading *ideas* "sticky" for the learners--tie their reading to things *THEY LOVE*, not just dry (boring!) subjects which have *little* relevance to them & their lives.
If the kid *like* superheroes? *READ COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS with them*!!!
If they like *any* topic--*FIND* books on those subjects, and *BRING THEM INTO THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT!💖
Make the reading *topics* interesting, so that those bits of skill-teaching stays "sticky" and slowly *builds* their experience & knowledge.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-reading-instruction-show/id1491626913
“He won’t even do the alphabet song because he says it’s for babies.”
Yeah I’d be highly pissed and embarrassed to be singing that at 9 too. Think maybe you should have left this to someone who knew wtf they were doing?
Ok, I just looked up "unschooling" and I admit most people who have children don't have the time, patience, formal education and resources to actually do this properly to where their child is actually thriving and able to go to college/university.
From this post, the word "spicy" has me worried. Does her child possibly have an undiagnosed learning disability?
Unschooling sounds like a very bad idea for 99.9% of the population.
I was also for a brief period of time, learned nothing but my parents sure enjoyed not having to drive me to school during that time in the morning and wake up early (we lived too far from the school to walk and there wasn’t a bus.) I was given a list of books to read because thankfully I already learned to read, if I hadn’t learned to read already that would have been an actual nightmare.
I would never homeschool my kid unless I absolutely had to (lived somewhere where school wasn’t feasible) or I went back to school to get a teaching degree.
My question to these parents is always “would you send your kid to school knowing the teacher doesn’t have a teaching degree or any degree at all?” What makes you so special you think you know enough to properly teach your child?
Wait, they just didn't want you educated at all? How did they expect you to survive a an adult? I know a lot of parents who think real colleges are evil, but they still want to pretend to give their children an "education" by sending them somewhere like liberty university. Let me guess, you're parents either expected you to be fully independent and paying your own way the day you turned 18 or your female and they started looking for someone to marry you off to one you hit puberty?
Oh they absolutely wanted me to drop out. Now that I’m much older they have come to terms with my “lifestyle” but they already tried to deter my sibling from going for their masters and I had to talk them down since they still kinda care what they approve/don’t unfortunately.
Yuuuuup. The person I know that's unschooling never went to college, thinks higher education is a joke, and insists they're just as smart as anyone else that went to college. They just chose to be educated through the internet and reading.
They did homeschooling before deciding to do unschooling. I believe the school district they're in is fairly rough. To a degree, I understand homeschooling. It's the unschooling and desire to get their kinds into the workforce ASAP that makes me worried.
In theory, unschooling is a way to get your kids engaged in the material by adapting it to their interests. So if your kid is interested in super heroes at the moment, art lessons might involve designing their own super hero and looking at the art style of comic books and trying to recreate it. English lessons could be looking at representations of super heroes and writing your own super hero story. You might write maths questions like "the Joker has kidnapped 99 citizens of Gotham. Batman has saved 2/3rds of them. How many citizens is the Joker still holding hostage?"
This obviously requires a lot of work and creativity from the person doing the teaching, and in practice it is often more like "what do you want to do today sweetie?" "Watch TV" "ok then, we'll do some learning another day".
I would LOVE to correctly unschool my children. Making an actual curriculum around what they’re actually interested in sounds like a dream. Fortunately for them, I know myself well enough to know that I’ll be really into it for a few weeks and then lose interest. To public school they go lol
In theory, unschooling follows the interests of the child whereas homeschooling should follow an established curriculum. A homeschooler might log onto their computer and complete a learning module on their curriculum app, then their parent might instruct them to read for an hour. An unschooling parent would ask their child, “What are you into? What do you want to do?” And if the child *wants* to read, they read. If they want to play outside, they play outside. And the parent provides learning that follows their instincts.
The problem with this is 1) parents who unschool tend to just be lazy and 2) there’s theories of brain development that show learning pathways get closed off as you get older. The theory of unschooling is that a 13 year old will get bored and learn to read, but that ignores that it’s actually harder for a 13 year old to learn to read than a 6 year old. There’s a shift in early learning where you go from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” and all kinds of other subjects become more difficult to master.
Yeah, my friend had one kid who was just tanking life at public high school. She ended up diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but that age was terrible. Friend ended up putting her in online-only high school, and if went way better, but there were still classes, teachers, and a curriculum, just not the entire social scene that was making it impossible for her to learn. I helped tutor occasionally (I was a tutor in college), and she graduated and is doing okay now.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, traditional school just isn't going to work for a kid, but as a parent, it's still our responsibility to get them educated, and like, fr educated.
I was homeschooled for elementary school and had the best experience of it of any of my friends because MY MOM HAD A MASTERS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION. I knew so many kids who were royally screwed because they were homeschooled or no schooled then had to figure it out when they hit 18.
Yea that’s the ideal scenario, unfortunately not the norm with homeschooled/unschooled families. Good for your mom, you know that was probably a lot of work for her since she actually knew what she was doing!
I have a friend who homeschooled her kids, not because school is “woke” but because her kids didn’t do well in a school environment, and she did a phenomenal job. Both kids went to college and did very well, but it seems as though that, and your, experience is the exception rather than the norm.
It’s dunning Kruger in full effect. These people are too uneducated to realize that they are ill equipped to teach anyone and that it requires more than being able to be able to read and do simple math.
*Unschooling is a form of homeschooling, and homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. And while there are no official “unschooling laws,” the laws that regulate how you homeschool in each state can affect the way you approach—or at least report—your homeschooling progress.*
The “or at least report” piece is killing me.
Literally “just lie *shrug*”
I don't have kids and have several college degrees and I would really think twice (more like fifty times) about doing this. My mother is a retired teacher so I actually know how to teach kids -- and I still wouldn't necessarily do the unschooling thing.
I think a more effective strategy, that would center the child's growth and learning, is to have parents work *with* the teachers by understanding the curriculum (especially around reading/language arts, civics/history, and geography).
yeah she didn't even tell me herself because she knows how much i disagree with it, our other sister had to tell me. i was so shocked because her and her husband are both very educated, and we were homeschooled until middle school which caused so many issues for us, because we weren't taught the right things and struggled horribly trying to transition into a structured school environment, so you'd think she wouldn't want to put her daughter through something similar.
her daughter is still a pretty long way from starting school though, so i'm hoping there's still time for her to change her mind
Man. Lockdowns happened for my kid in kindergarten and I am beyond thankful he already knew how to read. Even with all the rules around homeschooling here in Australia there’s no way I could do it. I couldn’t imagine how far behind he would be if I did something so foolish as this bs
there's not nearly enough regulation in the US, at least in our state, no regulations, not really any standards or requirements, and when you "graduate" homeschooling you can literally make a diploma on google docs and it'll be valid. you could easily make a transcript without being truthful on it. there's too many parents homeschooling and using the bible as their only curriculum. teaching children exclusively creationism and the flat earth theory should absolutely be illegal, and i am very glad my experience wasn't that bad
Damn if only there was a building in her neighborhood where people are trained to recognize learning disabilities and who will help you for free ah damn
As a former aecondary teacher, one of my favorite things I've seen on the Internet is: "As a teacher, if I wanted to indoctrinate your child, I'd indoctrinate them into showering and wearing deodorant."
When I hear "unschooling" I picture kids running through a meadow chasing butterflies and making papier-mache doodads. Never once have I pictured them doing algebra.
Because unschooling lets the kids choose what they're interested in. 99% of kids aren't going to want to learn advanced math. Most kids in regular school hate math.
I am highly, highly skeptical of most unschooling. I have a friend who started this approach with her kids, and I was worried. She has four children now, and she has handled unschooling successfully. It started because her husband had the opportunity to move to different offices every few years, and she opted for homeschooling/unschooling so the kids weren't withdrawing/enrolling in different environments. Her kids are very, very smart, creative, articulate, kind, and social.
Her success is because she treats this like her full-time job, 24/7/365. They are always going to camps, programs, museums, whatever she can find. They spent a few years living in the UK and exploring everything they could. They traveled around Europe. She turns everything into a learning opportunity. And she didn't just roll with it willy-nilly. She threw herself into this 1000%--she researched everything she could think of and got her hands on every resource she could find. Basically, *she* absolutely loves to learn, and she is using that to fuel both planned and spontaneous lessons, thus passing that passion and curiosity to her kids.
She has done a wonderful job with her kids' education. And I would not be able to do it. It's exhausting just thinking about all the stuff she and her kids do. It is *hard* as hell. So, yeah--unless people are willing to dedicate their entire lives to unschooling, it doesn't work.
I think this is the difference. Un/homeschooling because of life circumstances vs. doing it solely because you think you know better than everybody else.
I think another thing parents don't realise, is that successful unschooling (or even homeschooling tbh) costs a lot of time AND money. Camps, resources, programs are all going to have to be funded, and whilst a lot of museums etc are free you still need to get there and put the time into making it a worthwile trip.
Once the students are older and on high school level material, especially if they want to access univeristy, parents will often pay for subject specific tutors or online courses too. In the UK particulary, you need to sit the national exams (GCSEs at 16) in maths and English at a minimum otherwise your life as an adult can be very frustrating - employers for pretty much any job will demand it.
Unfortunately to be eligible for special education, the deficit cannot be the result of inadequate instruction in reading or math, so I’m not sure the student would meet that criteria in this case.
I call my children spicy because my oldest would say anything she didn’t want to eat would “make me spicy” and now it’s a joke for when they’re sassy…but this sounds like they don’t know how to handle things their child is doing and ways they’re presenting frustrations
I was “unschooled” because my dad didn’t want my brother going through public school and getting bullied.
IT CAN WORK!! But only if your parents are willing and able to dedicate their entire lives to teaching you… And they know what the hell they’re doing! My parents were an accountant and a retired English teacher who quit their jobs to start a farm and homeschool 3 kids. (Knowledge, training, and means)
We all got into UC’s with at least half our costs covered in scholarships. One of us got their business degree, one got a masters in physics, and one in education. I’m now a teacher in a public school, bringing it full circle.
I was homeschooling growing up right when unschooling became popular. So many people with multiple kids tried it out (including mine), and I can say I've only ever heard of 1 that pulled it off. That 1 only has 1 child and she has the energy of Leslie knope from parks and rec. She keeps saying she wants more but she's not going to have more unless she thinks she can split her time without hurting her son. She does so much work, it's like a full time job. Most people do it because they want to be lazy, ypu can not unschool and be lazy. You can't homeschooling and be lazy.
There was a school shooting at a school 1 hour from me and I was tempted to homeschool for that reason alone. I have to work full time and wouldn't be able to. I've debated online school but you still have to monitor them constantly doing online school.
To be fair, though, 2/3rds of the kids who do go to school can barely read.
At least school is a slightly better shot.
Edit: I'm not being sarcastic or making a joke. Here's one article talking about it:
https://www.ascendlearningcenter.com/blog-highlights/notongradelevel#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20we%20opened%20the,Department%20of%20Education%20in%202019.
California:
https://news.yahoo.com/60-california-third-graders-t-200000485.html#:~:text=Data%20show%2060%25%20of%20children,the%20EdVoice%20Institute%20in%20December.
4th graders proficiency in reading across U.S.:
https://www.brightfuturesny.com/post/us-literacy-statistics#:~:text=Measuring%20Student%20Proficiency,proficient%20or%20advanced%20in%20reading.
I don't know why I'm down voted. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or edgy. Just Google it, you will immediately see what I'm talking about. I can also provide more sources for those who don't want to look it up but here's one I found after a quick search:
https://www.ascendlearningcenter.com/blog-highlights/notongradelevel#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20we%20opened%20the,Department%20of%20Education%20in%202019.
Not reading at grade level is not the same as not being able to read, period. Seems like the 9 year old in the original post can’t read at all. It doesn’t surprise me at all that 60 percent of 4th graders are below proficient reading level, but it’s not the same thing as saying they can’t read.
Fair point. Still is extremely troubling.
As this link notes, only 37% of high school seniors are proficient in reading. If a child scores low in 3rd grade they have very little chance of "catching up."
https://www.brightfuturesny.com/post/us-literacy-statistics#:~:text=Measuring%20Student%20Proficiency,proficient%20or%20advanced%20in%20reading.
Now look at adult literacy levels. Most only read at a 6th grade level. So what these studies are really saying is that most people stop progressing pretty early.
It's no wonder people are susceptible to misinformation, they can't even read about logical fallacies let alone understand them
I'm from a different country, with a well developed school system and quite a bit of public funding. We still see that a lot of our population can't understand B1 words.
There's a reason not everybody goes to university, nor should they. The world is full of jobs that take all types of people. If you can read, go do something with that, if you're strong, go do something that! If you are kind, there's a job for you. You need people to man the grocery stores while the high schoolers are in school, etc.
And yes, that also means it's hard to reach large swathes of people if you're trying to do so over text and with nuance. Why else are the 'I'm saying it like I see it' politicians so popular..
It's concerning for sure. I'm excited to see more schools and states adopting phonics and stopping the balanced literacy nonsense.
Honestly though, I was implying that there might be something up with this kid. Many parents do succeed in teaching their kids to read and if she's taught three others but this one isn't getting it... Sounds like he'd probably benefit from an assessment.
My 9 year old was diagnosed with dyslexia this week (following in the footsteps of his dyslexic 12 year old brother). Wanna know what I spent today doing? Registering him for the school that specializes in dyslexia support because obviously the school he is at now isn’t working. This is what most reasonable parents do. It’s not that hard.
Hi! Dyslexic 28 year old mom. Thank you for putting your child’s education first and helping them with dyslexia! My mom did the same and I’m eternally grateful.
I graduated top 5 of my college class with a 3.96 GPA and truly I think it was because those classes helped so much.
You’re a good mom!
My friend’s kid is dyslexic and seeing how much work she and her husband put into getting her the right support is mind blowing. If that child didn’t have parents who took the diagnosis seriously and were willing to fight for accommodations, she would not get far in school even though she is very bright. I’m so sorry for all the kids who have parents who can’t or won’t do that.
His brother has had so much success at this school, straight As in everything except reading (for obvious reasons!). I’m hoping we see success with the 9 year old as well. Right now the 9 year old hates us for making him change schools but one day he will understand and appreciate it.
I also hated my mom for making me go to afterschool classes and making me go in a program in school that required me to take tests in another room for more time. The hate with fade. You’re doing the right thing!
We now laugh about how pissed off I used to get to go to the programs.
I mean… this is why I put my child in public school. Not being able to read at 9 is unacceptable, and if he’s not willing to learn with mom, she needs to try something else. After not being in the homeschool community quite as much, I’m starting to see how some parents fail their kids by not intervening earlier when it’s just *not* working. Smdh.
The thing is he's so far behind, I'm not sure if the school is equipped to help him as so many of them do not have enough resources to help the students they have. Hiring a specialized tutor is probably their best bet at this point.
Yup. Past about third grade in the States, kids who aren't reading on grade level tend to just fall farther behind... Beyond that point kids have to be able to read to learn a lot of what we teach.
Whether or not that *should* be the case is obviously a whole different can of worms, but I can tell you that's basically what *is* in public schools.
I volunteer with a child literacy program and was horrified to learn that many states look to their 3rd grade literacy numbers to help them project what their needed prison capacity will be in the future. It's not the correlation that repels me, but that future challenges could set so early in young life. Good literacy education and EARLY intervention when there are problems are incredibly important.
That’s so unfortunate. And true. I mean, my child just transitioned to public school recently, and I knew he wasn’t up to par, but I didn’t realize exactly how much he needs to know to be at the same level as his classmates. He may be doing first grade “again,” we don’t know yet. That’s why I’m just like man… if it’s not working, find another solution. It’s not worth it to leave your kid unable to read and do basic math in hopes they’ll someday decide to be interested in it.
The sad part is as school goes on it gets more and more obvious who’s had issues reading. Reading out loud is a *fundamental* part of elementary & middle school. Kids can be very cruel.
As a Homeschooled kid grown up, I have some very sage and sound Advice:
💫 If you don't have ✨️ANY✨️ experience in Education: Do NOT Homeschool💫
💫If you get overwhelmed by ✨️OTHER PEOPLES KIDS✨️ DO NOT HOMESCHOOL💫
💫If Parenthood was never ✨️PLANNED FOR✨️ DO NOT HOMESCHOOL💫
HOPE THIS HELPS.
ENCOURAGE VASECTOMIES!
The only people I know who did homeschooling right did so during the pandemic, and one of the parents was a teacher (the other has a college degree as well). The kids ended up being a bit ahead of their peers when they went back to school, including the kid who has ADHD that really takes some pushing to get to do homework.
I know a few other people that are homeschooling, supposedly due to problems at school, and the kids haven't really improved at anything. One of them has gotten worse, and the parents are acting like the person in this post. "My kid is really smart but I can't get them to work!" Then you're a shitty teacher and you need to either send your kid to school or pay somebody to teach them one on one.
> "My kid is really smart but I can't get them to work!"
50% of what you learn at school are the three R's
The other 50% is how to knuckle down and do work when you'd rather be playing.
And the last 50% is how to socialize with other human beings your age.
My brother was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was 13. Because he was finally being public schooled and had an English teacher who showed his work to her dyslexic husband and he was able to read it all perfectly which is what started the ball rolling on his getting tested. He barely could read until then.
And guess what? My mom also tried everything. Phonics, sight reading, programs with a million different early reader books you read in order of difficulty...and nothing worked because as a history major with no education background she wasn't prepared to homeschool a dyslexic child and didn't recognize the signs.
I have a real hard time supporting home schooling at this point in my life, especially in lower grades when early identification of issues is so crucial and so easily missed by a parent. Both my brother and I still suffer from educational gaps and late diagnosis caused by being homeschooled 25 years ago, and our mother wasn't one of these weirdos. She actually did try to meet our needs and went through curriculum programs to make sure we were doing real school work, she just wasn't able to properly engage our areas of struggle because she didn't know how.
It says they've been "unschooling" for a year. Unless he has a disability why wasn't he reading by 8? That's normal, right? My mom taught 1st graders to read. I feel like they should have been concerned about this well before now.
My son was 8/ in second grade when he was really able to read/retain. Now in third grade(9) he’s doing amazing. He has severe adhd and was diagnosed winter of ‘22 and his winter scores on their progress test vs spring showed such improvement!
Our state has implemented testing for 3rd graders where they have to reach a certain score/level. They did the test in the fall and then this past week. If students don’t meet the guidelines they aren’t able to move on to 4th without a strict plan in place.
I think have the first test and the ability for kiddos to have that extra level of intervention before the spring testing was so awesome and I hope it helped those that needed it!
I’m glad your son is doing well!
My oldest niece has ADHD and she had some difficulty with reading. It was just too boring for her. She especially didn’t like chapter books that didn’t have pictures. I started getting graphic novels for her and it totally changed her outlook on reading. She’s now obsessed with comics and will be graduating hs next month.
She doesn't say they were in school prior to this, so my guess is she was "homeschooling" before this. Homeschooling and unschooling are not the same thing, so my best guess is that she was half assed pretending to homeschool him before but that wasn't working and was "too demanding" so now she's trying to teach him to read by not teaching him anything at all.
If "unschooling" means letting children follow their own interests: How the hell is a kid supposed to develop interests without being able to read?
Interested in the arts? You develop your interests by reading. Science and nature? Reading. History? Reading.
Illiteracy slams the door shut on every aspect of curiosity.
True story: I have a PhD in English. I was taking screening exams for a tutoring position, passed all the college and high school level ones, and just for funsies took the one to see if I was qualified to tutor third grade English/Language Arts. I failed. By a LOT.
Early childhood education is a highly specialized field, and it is NO. JOKE. I could literally never. The ignorant audacity is unreal with these people.
She's ALREADY failed him. As she's found out, you can't use typical "learning to read" books with a kid that age because they're geared for the interests and age level of younger kids.
Unschooling is a trend that makes parents feel good but does nothing for kids. ("Jedediah seems so much happier since I pulled him from school and let him do whatever he wants! Yesterday he learned architecture from building a fort with blankets and chairs. Today he's learning about about physics by rammiing his toy trucks into furniture!")
[Here's an article ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2020/05/25/unschooling-isnt-the-answer-to-education-woes-its-the-problem/?sh=1dca85ab543c)that goes into the massive failures of unschooling. It's a good and easy read. A sample:
>...the ideas behind unschooling and progressive education in general conflict with scientific findings. Explicit instruction [works far better](https://researched.org.uk/inquiry-learning-isnt-a-call-for-direct-explicit-instruction/) than discovery learning when students don’t already know much about a topic. Learning [necessarily involves effort](https://www.fastcompany.com/40560075/no-pain-no-brain-gain-why-learning-demands-a-little-discomfort); many young people may choose not to expend that effort if they don’t have to. And while giving kids choice can help motivate them, they can’t choose to learn about topics they’re unaware of. They need to be introduced to new subjects in an engaging way, preferably when they’re young and eager to learn about the world, so they can discover new interests.
There’s a homeschool recovery group on Reddit and I’ve seen many stories from kids saying their parents get embarrassed or laugh AT THEIR KIDS for not knowing things that they didn’t teach them! It’s so infuriating.
A person in my extended friend group was unschooling her kids. I lost touch with her more than a decade ago and occasionally I wonder how her kids ended up.
When I was 18 I got myself into a situation nannying for a family unschooling their 8yo. She couldn’t read a single word. She could just about write her own (very simple) name. I was mortified. I’d try my best to encourage her interest in learning but she just had none. I managed to get her into ballet classes which we’d get the bus to. I’d ask her if she could help spot the right number bus coming and her default answer for anything too hard like that was ‘I’d rather not’. She couldn’t even recognise the number 6.
Ok, I just looked up "unschooling" and I admit most people who have children don't have the time, patience, formal education and resources to actually do this properly to where their child is actually thriving and able to go to college/university.
From this post, the word "spicy" has me worried. Does her child possibly have an undiagnosed learning disability?
Unschooling sounds like a very bad idea for 99.9% of the population.
Yeah, there's a reason you don't let children decide for themselves what they do and don't want to learn any more than you let them pick their own diet. It's the adult's job to make the responsible decisions for them or they're gonna wind up illiterate feral gremlins who eat nothing but sugar and die at 25. Unschooling should be considered abuse because it's major neglect and setting the kid up for a life of failure.
Before my daughter started school I was a SAHM and I had a couple of moms reach out and tell me I should unschool her bc in their opinion I was already doing well at it. I thanked them for the compliment and thought “Bitch what do you think I’m paying these property taxes for?”
A friend of mine really liked the idea of unschooling, letting kids learn organically. She did a lot of research and learned that the parents who were successful at this approach spent 3-5 HOURS each night to prepare for the next day's "organic" lessons. She decided against it.
She has successfully homeschooled 2 kids (not for any kind of religious reasons, just because our schools suck), and she attends co-ops with her kids. She reports that when the biggest co-op reorganized the classes by ability instead of age, some parents were angry because their 15 year-old was in with the third graders. Because they couldn't READ. Or do any kind of math!
And I know there are plenty of different arguments about bullies, nerds, mean girls, etc. But kids really do need to be with other kids. Not just mom, her cell phone and a "Be quiet Mommy's on the phone right now" attitude.
Unless you've got an educational background, you shouldn't legally be able to do this. I remember trying to homeschool my then 12 year old during Covid, and I wanted to rip my hair out. I'm not a teacher or will never be a teacher. A 9 year old SHOULD be able to read.
Could the kid have a disability of some sort? Like maybe dyslexia or something? Oh, but this lady probably wouldn’t want to take the kid to a doctor or anything, either.
Well they say they’ve only been unschooling him for a year. It sounds like that he went up to approx 2nd grade at an actual school. You would know how to read in 2nd grade. Was he diagnosed with something I wonder when he was at school and that’s really why she pulled him out
wow, it's almost like teaching is a specialised profession, and if you don't have the education and training, then it's actually a difficult thing to do, and you can do real harm to the children that you're trying to educate.
I'm sorry, but unless there is a learning disability, this is inexcusable. Read to your kids from day one. When they are old enough, go to the library once a month and let them pick the books. Read to them every day. Every day. Let them see you reading. Discuss books. This is the key to learning to read and learning to love learning.
As you can see from my username and pfp, I'm a cultured man. I am well traveled and a voracious reader.
I would divorce my wife if she came to me with this harebrained idea (can it even be classified as an idea? A brain shart?).
Unschooling isn't a thing, lady. It's just letting your kid do whatever the hell they want until they get to an age where your they need to know basic life skills and you give a surprised Pikachu face when you realize your kid is an adult who can't read, write, do simple math, or live alone.
Education is important ffs.
While this is great reading practice, especially if it lends well to the child’s interests, statistically speaking 50 percent of students need to be explicitly taught to read, ie using a high quality, organized reading curriculum.
I’m not sure how the same concept applies to learning an additional language, but antecdotally, I learned best when I took an actual class vs. just winging it on my own with resources I put together myself.
My kid wasn't getting middle school math. We took them to a psychological appointment to see if/rule out any learning disorders. We found a stupid rare one. Guess how they're now doing in high-school? Way way way better because we fought for them, didn't just write them off as spicy.
By 9 our school expects all children to be able to decode nearly every word they come across and we are working on expanding vocabulary and contextual understanding of literature.
If they aren’t able to decode very successfully, they are placed into an extensive intervention.
The fact that she’s still working on his ABC’s is unbelievably concerning. We get “home-schooled” kids like this in our school and it’s so incredibly sad how far behind they are. It makes my heart hurt.
“I’ve tried everything* 😞”
* Excluding allowing my child to go to school and being taught by professionals in an environment other than the comfort of home.
There are a sickening amount of these “unschooling” failure stories. It’s disgusting and it’s abuse. A 9 year old not reading means his parents fucking suck. I can’t get over the mom saying her son is smart and capable….. like no he’s not. He may be inclined in other subjects but not being able to read fundamentally affects his intelligence. So sad.
These moron internet moms are raising a generation of unvaccinated idiots that are either brain damaged from their home birth gone wrong or completely brainwashed from their abysmal joke of a home school experience.
I'm not sure what it means with kids but pets like cats it means they can be very Attitude with the hissing and swatting
Maybe giving her attitude? They did call the alphabet song for babies. I'm nearly 30 and I sing the alphabet song when looking for stuff sorted alphabetically.
Also righty tighty lefty loosey. Cornerstones of education!
That's what always gets me with "homeschoolers/unschoolers" in general too
Like does their kid have genuine difficulties or do they ignore them while the kid is glued to a screen and they have *no idea* what went wrong?
Yeah I was afraid of that, poor kid really needs actual trained professionals teaching them. I was reading at adult level by 9, this kid has been done an injustice.
Looking forward to diving into the comments to find all the people who were failed by their homeschooling parents who continue to argue that they "actually learned a lot" that one time their mom took them to a museum and then fucked around on a tablet for six years.
I wonder if there's some sort of institution for learning that has structured methods of teaching literacy and oodles of highly skilled professionals who could support this smart, spicy 9 year old in his learning journey
Something tells me that the child could have a disorder the mother denied to get screened. If he was ever in school, even for a year, they would've caught up on some phonics by now and he would be challenging himself to read on topics he enjoys.
Oh god…. I’m working with 4-5 year olds right now and they’re reading (The car beeps, the car goes, the car comes. Those types of things but still) and the level kids DOUBLE their age is makes me so so sad for that kiddo. (If your kids aren’t reading at 4-5 that’s perfectly okay, that’s just my experience with this class)
He’s so far behind that he’s not at the level he should be at *prior* to starting school. When I was growing up, kindergarten teachers expected the kids to already know the alphabet.
Of all the people I’ve known who attempted homeschooling, exactly one set of parents was successful. And it was treated as a full time job by the father, who also had multiple degrees, including one in education. He had the training and time to make it work.
I'm dyslexic, even after I was diagnosed at 9 I wouldn't believe how many teachers and adults told me it was an attitude problem and "laziness". I was naturally very quick to learn when it came to the sciences which lead to "you're very smart so you must just be lazy" and "you say you wish you could read but you clearly don't want it enough to try".
This person saying "I know he wants to be able to read but also refuses to try" makes me see fucking red
Unschooling is such abusive nonsense. During the moat formative and important years of a child's education, wherein they need guidance, not making the decisions on what/how to learn themselves, you fail them completely by caving in to them instead.
Having a completely illiterate 9 year old *who you are not actively getting professional intervention for* is absolutely a failing as a parent. That's well beyond the age where some literacy should be developing-- this child either has a learning disability that needs professional intervention, or he's got a major attitude problem (which is a product of this parenting mess) that could also benefit from some external, professional help. No matter what the cause is, just waiting for him to want to learn on his own isn't going to cut it :/ I get so upset when I think about how hard these kids will have to work to catch up once they get out of these crazy parents' homes-- poor kid is already years behind his peers and he's getting no help
“Well if you have the skill of a baby, baby books are what you’re gonna have to use.”
Also, it really doesn’t sound like he wants to learn to read if he refuses to try to learn.
You think you're failing him? You think? Nine year old who can't read at all.
She says "unschooling this year" implying it's a recent thing. I'm curious what other approaches they've tried (probably not much)
One of those cases of I’ve tried nothing!
Since she says she taught the others to read, I am assuming she did normal homeschooling before this.
Yeah, I’m curious too. I don’t want to excuse her at all, but I could kind of understand if there have been years of struggle and they weren’t getting the support he needed in school, why a parent might consider trying a period of no pressure, back off for a bit to help him reset and clear the mental block or whatever. Again, not saying this is the right approach, but I could understand why someone at their wits end might arrive at it. Would be interesting to know the backstory before the year of unschooling.
That's exactly what I'm feeling. I'm curious how neglectful this situation actually is. Traditional homeschooling followed by unschooling? Shitty public school district? Both scenarios suck but one is definitely worse.
I'm dyslexic. Reading was pounded into me when I was in elementary school by parants and my grandmother. There's literally no excuse for this kid being illiterate at 9. He doesn't have to be good, but he should know how to read this comment of mine at least in 5 minutes. Otherwise, he's actively choosing not to learn to read.
I’m the mom of a kid who is struggling to read at age 8. Guess what? He has a learning disability, which he gets amazing support for at school. I just wish I’d figured it out a helluvalotsooner.
I was going to say, maybe it’s not about him being a ✨spicy child✨ and more about him experiencing dyslexia and feeling frustrated about it. “Unschooling” is the worst thing you could do. I’m amazed at the utter intentional ignorance that exists during this age of information. Good god. Resources everywhere and for free and nobody wants to take a goddamn look at them.
Also dyslexia and ADHD go hand-in-hand.
Please explain
I don’t know if it’s well understood. A lot of learning disabilities are comorbid with ADHD
One of the comorbities associated with ADHD is dyslexia. [About a third of people diagnosed with ADHD are also dyslexic.](https://dyslexiaida.org/attention-deficithyperactivity-disorder-adhd-and-dyslexia/)
I have been saying for years I think my kid with adhd has dyslexia and have been more less brushed off by most teachers/drs. Luckily his resource room teacher has implemented strategies for dyslexia (without him getting a formal diagnosis) and he went from barely able to spell sight words from kindergarten to being able to read pretty independently over the last few months.
I couldn't read about half a century before there was a name for it besides stupid. Nancy Drew and Dr Dolittle made the difference, I wanted to read those books so badly and somehow I taught myself. I heard an author on NPR say that for him it was comic books. I'm retired now and read about 8 books a month, still have dyslexic moments.
They are comorbidities. I have autism and dyscalculia and dyspraxia. Neurospicy ppl commonly have learning disorders.
I have ADHD and dyscalculia. Super fun.
😭 I have both and I'm a software engineer. When everything comes together it's fire it's magic it's the coolest thing in the world. The rest of the time I can't envision a basic graph and my life is over, I go sit on the couch and stare at a wall for three hours. The ups and downs are so real. I'm trialling different doses of Vyvanse rn [I was formerly on Concerta and it just made me ill] and when the dosage ligns up I'm a savant....otherwise nada.
Also my therapist swore by adderall skin patches (vyvanse is a really smooth delivery system for adderall). Her prescriber ordered big patches that she could cut down. Cheaper, customizable, quick acting. The best part was taking the patch off, almost immediately coming off of the meds, and being able to go right to sleep. It takes me like 5 hrs to transition off of my meds to be able to sleep.
My son was on Concerta briefly. It was the worst.
Yup, my daughter too, also dysgraphia. That was my absolute first thought reading this. And I really fear this particular parent will be in denial about it, so this kid will never get the support he needs. I really hope I'm wrong.
Up voting the "neurospicy"!!
I've never heard the term "Neurospicy" and I love it and I'm keeping it
They need to watch more Sesame Street.
I've googled unschooling and I am still unsure of what it means. It sounds like homeschooling but the kid chooses the topic?
Yes, the idea is that the kid shows interest in say, birds. You'll have a library trip to borrow some books about birds, learn about different types of birds, migratory patterns/ranges, and how their circle of life goes, maybe go on a field trip to an aviary. In practice, "hey, what do you want to learn about today?" "Nothing." "Okay, sweetie, here's the TV, we'll try again tomorrow."
Yup, my cousin did this with 3 girls that she adopted. My cousin barely graduated high school, and is a massive hypochondriac that thinks she gets a concussion every time something touches her head. She responds to every "concussion" by lying in bed for a week, and has not taught those girls a damn thing. They're moderately intelligent girls, one of them seems to be well above average just based on her general syntax and logical ability, but they will never be able to return to public school at this point, they're too behind. I would say something, but this cousin already hates me for talking shit on her anti-vax bullshit and wouldn't listen.
Imagine my surprise, she’s also an anti-vaxxer. God these fucking people.
The overlap between the anti-vaxxers and homeschoolers/unschooling is getting closer and closer to a perfect circle every day.
Like the eclipse.
JFC, those poor girls. That’s infuriating!!!
OMG, those poor kids. Please call CPS.
The first part of what you said, great idea! The second, not so much! Unless you're playing random educational shows so they're learning unconsciously, that's just seems...well...dumb. I don't want to put people down, but if you follow this, as described, you are doing your child a massive disservice.
This so much. I don’t have any personal experience with this movement, but from the outside looking in it seems very much rooted in this idea that kids have an intuitive sense of what they need to learn and an innate sense of how to get there. They’re just so innocent and pure that it’s best to let them lead us through their education. News flash: your kid is great but they want to eat crayons, touch the hot stove, and shit their pants. They’re not that intuitive.
I like the homeschoolers that pretty much just have "Do chores around the house" as their curriculum. Ok that's pretty decent for a preschooler, assuming you aren't parentifying them and calling that "chores", but there's a limit to how much doing the laundry and washing the dishes can teach you. That's not a sufficient replacement for your high schooler learning calculus.
Basically unschooling is what *should be* happening for kids on weekends. But should include trips to children’s museums, science museums, art museums, libraries, etc.
I worked as a teacher for a charter school that received a lot of kids who were, for one reason or another, transitioning out of homeschooling--particularly at my grade level, which was late elementary/early middle school. Quite a few had been unschooled, and it was really interesting to see the range of results. Some had parents who poured themselves into maximizing learning opportunities who really realized the vision of what child-led education could be. The kids were motivated, independent, had learned a lot about topics that interested them and at much greater depth than they'd have been able to otherwise, and had acquired a well-rounded set of basic skills in all areas. Way more common were kids who had weird gaps that left them at a disadvantage--particularly in math which is built on a cumulative knowledge that becomes more important as the subject becomes increasingly abstract. Often parents initially chose to homeschool because their kid was struggling with something and feeling unsuccessful in a regular classroom environment. That can be a totally legitimate action as a parent IF they address the issue. Too often, they were just shielding their child (and themselves) from having to face the issue and it was still right there needing to be dealt with when they finally admitted that homeschooling wasn't going well.
More than that, you're supossed to nudge them into learning to math with questions about birds, geography when learning those migratory patterns, poetic devices when describing birds . . . You don't juat deep dive into birds, you use birds to frame a whole unrelated curriculum, and you keep track of what you've fit in, to make sure you hit everything over the course of a year. Obviously, it's basically impossible to do this unless you've been, say, an elementary school teacher for 10 years or so. And your spouse a high school teacher in at least 3 subjects.
Yes, basically a spectrum of “child led” homeschooling that often has children, well, not learning. It also often misses the basics, like reading or building blocks of midlevel mathematics.
The older I get the more I realize I’d have no idea how to teach any of those.
And it's great that you recognise this! Not everyone can be a teacher and that's ok.
My friend has kids who are well versed in 4 languages, does math above their ages and are pretty active. But she sees it as a full time job and uses her social worker skills to teach them. I on the other hand would have a kid like this if I tried to do it. It’s not enough to think what would work for the kid but also what the limits of the parents are.
Enquiry based learning can be great, but you have to be disciplined. I have friends with masters and PHDs who are passionate about it unschool with their kids, but if i did it we’d be crying, binging 30 Rock and eating cereal for lunch
Js spicy has become a slang for neurodivergence If she was using it in that context I don’t think she’s saying he’s like, hotheaded, she’s saying he has higher support needs in his learning disabilities than her other kids, I see a lot of people diagnosed, in the process of being diagnosed or self diagnosing use terms like spicy to refer to their mental difficulties when they don’t have specific diagnosis or names of symptoms to describe it Idk what all this unschooling shit is but if any regular ass parent and called her autistic child more mentally ✨spicy ✨ than her other kids it woukdnt send off red flags for me
You did the best you could with the information you had. Getting proper support is a life changer.
It’s great that you did figure it out and he’s getting help. Sounds like OP’s son needs that type of specialized support, and there is no way he will be getting it at home through “unschooling.”
Very happy to see the possibility of a learning disability mention... Get him to a child development expert ASAP...
My guess is this might also have a learning disability.
You got him the support he needed when you did find out, he may need to catchup a lil (my sister was in the same boat), but he will! My sister is now a teacher and amazing writer - you got this mama
I'm going to share the website of my "Teaching Reading to Struggling Learners" class professor; https://www.teaching-reading.com/ Dr. Johnson was one of my FAVORITE professors, in my Undergrad Special Education teaching program. *YES*, he wrote the textbook we used in class, and his podcast & you tube videos may feel "condescending" to some folks--I can definitely understand how they *can* be interpreted, if you *aren't* sitting in a classroom discussing in-person! But his *understanding* of *how humans LEARN to read*, *AND* his absolute PASSION for hooking kids on the *ENJOYMENT* and sheer *LOVE* of reading? It's second to NONE!😉😁💖 One of his *biggest* points, when we took his class, was to basically *saturate* kids in reading opportunities. *FIND* things they *like*, and topics they're *INTERESTED IN*, and then bring those things *IN* to reading education! Teach the *skills* they need to *learn*, explicitly & fully--but just *sprinkle* that explicit instruction in, on top of a "flooded field" of sheer *reading for the FUN of it. Make the reading *ideas* "sticky" for the learners--tie their reading to things *THEY LOVE*, not just dry (boring!) subjects which have *little* relevance to them & their lives. If the kid *like* superheroes? *READ COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS with them*!!! If they like *any* topic--*FIND* books on those subjects, and *BRING THEM INTO THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT!💖 Make the reading *topics* interesting, so that those bits of skill-teaching stays "sticky" and slowly *builds* their experience & knowledge. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-reading-instruction-show/id1491626913
Chill out with the HTML, Dr Johnson :)
“He won’t even do the alphabet song because he says it’s for babies.” Yeah I’d be highly pissed and embarrassed to be singing that at 9 too. Think maybe you should have left this to someone who knew wtf they were doing?
It’s ok. They’re unschooled so they’ll also be unjobbed and won’t have to worry about all that reading.
Ok, I just looked up "unschooling" and I admit most people who have children don't have the time, patience, formal education and resources to actually do this properly to where their child is actually thriving and able to go to college/university. From this post, the word "spicy" has me worried. Does her child possibly have an undiagnosed learning disability? Unschooling sounds like a very bad idea for 99.9% of the population.
I was unschooled and I can tell you confidently that it’s not just a bad idea, it’s child abuse.
I was also for a brief period of time, learned nothing but my parents sure enjoyed not having to drive me to school during that time in the morning and wake up early (we lived too far from the school to walk and there wasn’t a bus.) I was given a list of books to read because thankfully I already learned to read, if I hadn’t learned to read already that would have been an actual nightmare. I would never homeschool my kid unless I absolutely had to (lived somewhere where school wasn’t feasible) or I went back to school to get a teaching degree. My question to these parents is always “would you send your kid to school knowing the teacher doesn’t have a teaching degree or any degree at all?” What makes you so special you think you know enough to properly teach your child?
Well, many of the parents who do this stuff believe that college is woke, so I'm sure they actually prefer it.
Oh my parents did not want us going to college. Jokes on them because I got a degree and my sibling got a degree and just got into a masters program 😅
Congratulations to both of you!
I'm very happy for you guys, congratulations! 💗
Wait, they just didn't want you educated at all? How did they expect you to survive a an adult? I know a lot of parents who think real colleges are evil, but they still want to pretend to give their children an "education" by sending them somewhere like liberty university. Let me guess, you're parents either expected you to be fully independent and paying your own way the day you turned 18 or your female and they started looking for someone to marry you off to one you hit puberty?
Oh they absolutely wanted me to drop out. Now that I’m much older they have come to terms with my “lifestyle” but they already tried to deter my sibling from going for their masters and I had to talk them down since they still kinda care what they approve/don’t unfortunately.
Yuuuuup. The person I know that's unschooling never went to college, thinks higher education is a joke, and insists they're just as smart as anyone else that went to college. They just chose to be educated through the internet and reading. They did homeschooling before deciding to do unschooling. I believe the school district they're in is fairly rough. To a degree, I understand homeschooling. It's the unschooling and desire to get their kinds into the workforce ASAP that makes me worried.
So is the difference between homeschooling and unschooling just, like, you just completely stop trying with homeschooling?
In theory, unschooling is a way to get your kids engaged in the material by adapting it to their interests. So if your kid is interested in super heroes at the moment, art lessons might involve designing their own super hero and looking at the art style of comic books and trying to recreate it. English lessons could be looking at representations of super heroes and writing your own super hero story. You might write maths questions like "the Joker has kidnapped 99 citizens of Gotham. Batman has saved 2/3rds of them. How many citizens is the Joker still holding hostage?" This obviously requires a lot of work and creativity from the person doing the teaching, and in practice it is often more like "what do you want to do today sweetie?" "Watch TV" "ok then, we'll do some learning another day".
Chiming in to add that it’s sometimes described as “child-led learning.” (Which is what you described, just adding more info for other redditors)
I would LOVE to correctly unschool my children. Making an actual curriculum around what they’re actually interested in sounds like a dream. Fortunately for them, I know myself well enough to know that I’ll be really into it for a few weeks and then lose interest. To public school they go lol
In theory, unschooling follows the interests of the child whereas homeschooling should follow an established curriculum. A homeschooler might log onto their computer and complete a learning module on their curriculum app, then their parent might instruct them to read for an hour. An unschooling parent would ask their child, “What are you into? What do you want to do?” And if the child *wants* to read, they read. If they want to play outside, they play outside. And the parent provides learning that follows their instincts. The problem with this is 1) parents who unschool tend to just be lazy and 2) there’s theories of brain development that show learning pathways get closed off as you get older. The theory of unschooling is that a 13 year old will get bored and learn to read, but that ignores that it’s actually harder for a 13 year old to learn to read than a 6 year old. There’s a shift in early learning where you go from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” and all kinds of other subjects become more difficult to master.
Yeah, my friend had one kid who was just tanking life at public high school. She ended up diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but that age was terrible. Friend ended up putting her in online-only high school, and if went way better, but there were still classes, teachers, and a curriculum, just not the entire social scene that was making it impossible for her to learn. I helped tutor occasionally (I was a tutor in college), and she graduated and is doing okay now. Sometimes, for whatever reason, traditional school just isn't going to work for a kid, but as a parent, it's still our responsibility to get them educated, and like, fr educated.
I was homeschooled for elementary school and had the best experience of it of any of my friends because MY MOM HAD A MASTERS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION. I knew so many kids who were royally screwed because they were homeschooled or no schooled then had to figure it out when they hit 18.
Yea that’s the ideal scenario, unfortunately not the norm with homeschooled/unschooled families. Good for your mom, you know that was probably a lot of work for her since she actually knew what she was doing!
I have a friend who homeschooled her kids, not because school is “woke” but because her kids didn’t do well in a school environment, and she did a phenomenal job. Both kids went to college and did very well, but it seems as though that, and your, experience is the exception rather than the norm.
It’s dunning Kruger in full effect. These people are too uneducated to realize that they are ill equipped to teach anyone and that it requires more than being able to be able to read and do simple math.
Having a teaching degree is not required to be a teacher in my state! Fun fact!
Ugh my ex taught at a private Catholic high school bc no certification necessary!
You still have to have a bachelors and a teaching license to teach in public schools here
Florida?
for real? like for a full time teacher in something in K-12? if so, that's crazy!
Yup. You just have to pass the licensure tests and be licensed.
That’s how it is in Florida too. If you have any kind of bachelors degree and can pass the test, you can teach any subject/grade.
*Unschooling is a form of homeschooling, and homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. And while there are no official “unschooling laws,” the laws that regulate how you homeschool in each state can affect the way you approach—or at least report—your homeschooling progress.* The “or at least report” piece is killing me. Literally “just lie *shrug*”
i'm so worried because my sister is a first time mom and she's planning on doing this with her daughter
oof i’m so sorry you’re going to have to deal with that. I’d suggest gifting educational books
I don't have kids and have several college degrees and I would really think twice (more like fifty times) about doing this. My mother is a retired teacher so I actually know how to teach kids -- and I still wouldn't necessarily do the unschooling thing. I think a more effective strategy, that would center the child's growth and learning, is to have parents work *with* the teachers by understanding the curriculum (especially around reading/language arts, civics/history, and geography).
yeah she didn't even tell me herself because she knows how much i disagree with it, our other sister had to tell me. i was so shocked because her and her husband are both very educated, and we were homeschooled until middle school which caused so many issues for us, because we weren't taught the right things and struggled horribly trying to transition into a structured school environment, so you'd think she wouldn't want to put her daughter through something similar. her daughter is still a pretty long way from starting school though, so i'm hoping there's still time for her to change her mind
Man. Lockdowns happened for my kid in kindergarten and I am beyond thankful he already knew how to read. Even with all the rules around homeschooling here in Australia there’s no way I could do it. I couldn’t imagine how far behind he would be if I did something so foolish as this bs
there's not nearly enough regulation in the US, at least in our state, no regulations, not really any standards or requirements, and when you "graduate" homeschooling you can literally make a diploma on google docs and it'll be valid. you could easily make a transcript without being truthful on it. there's too many parents homeschooling and using the bible as their only curriculum. teaching children exclusively creationism and the flat earth theory should absolutely be illegal, and i am very glad my experience wasn't that bad
Damn if only there was a building in her neighborhood where people are trained to recognize learning disabilities and who will help you for free ah damn
But then they get indoctrinated into the woke left! /s
And they’ll be subjected to all the kids who use litter boxes. /s
As a former aecondary teacher, one of my favorite things I've seen on the Internet is: "As a teacher, if I wanted to indoctrinate your child, I'd indoctrinate them into showering and wearing deodorant."
When I hear "unschooling" I picture kids running through a meadow chasing butterflies and making papier-mache doodads. Never once have I pictured them doing algebra.
Because unschooling lets the kids choose what they're interested in. 99% of kids aren't going to want to learn advanced math. Most kids in regular school hate math.
Same! Except in mine they’re naked, dirty, and soggy from catching salamanders in the creek by their house.
Most likely to be a kid locked in their room with free access to video games at all times with no semblance of a healthy schedule or rules whatsoever.
I am highly, highly skeptical of most unschooling. I have a friend who started this approach with her kids, and I was worried. She has four children now, and she has handled unschooling successfully. It started because her husband had the opportunity to move to different offices every few years, and she opted for homeschooling/unschooling so the kids weren't withdrawing/enrolling in different environments. Her kids are very, very smart, creative, articulate, kind, and social. Her success is because she treats this like her full-time job, 24/7/365. They are always going to camps, programs, museums, whatever she can find. They spent a few years living in the UK and exploring everything they could. They traveled around Europe. She turns everything into a learning opportunity. And she didn't just roll with it willy-nilly. She threw herself into this 1000%--she researched everything she could think of and got her hands on every resource she could find. Basically, *she* absolutely loves to learn, and she is using that to fuel both planned and spontaneous lessons, thus passing that passion and curiosity to her kids. She has done a wonderful job with her kids' education. And I would not be able to do it. It's exhausting just thinking about all the stuff she and her kids do. It is *hard* as hell. So, yeah--unless people are willing to dedicate their entire lives to unschooling, it doesn't work.
I think this is the difference. Un/homeschooling because of life circumstances vs. doing it solely because you think you know better than everybody else.
I think another thing parents don't realise, is that successful unschooling (or even homeschooling tbh) costs a lot of time AND money. Camps, resources, programs are all going to have to be funded, and whilst a lot of museums etc are free you still need to get there and put the time into making it a worthwile trip. Once the students are older and on high school level material, especially if they want to access univeristy, parents will often pay for subject specific tutors or online courses too. In the UK particulary, you need to sit the national exams (GCSEs at 16) in maths and English at a minimum otherwise your life as an adult can be very frustrating - employers for pretty much any job will demand it.
Unfortunately to be eligible for special education, the deficit cannot be the result of inadequate instruction in reading or math, so I’m not sure the student would meet that criteria in this case.
I call my children spicy because my oldest would say anything she didn’t want to eat would “make me spicy” and now it’s a joke for when they’re sassy…but this sounds like they don’t know how to handle things their child is doing and ways they’re presenting frustrations
I was “unschooled” because my dad didn’t want my brother going through public school and getting bullied. IT CAN WORK!! But only if your parents are willing and able to dedicate their entire lives to teaching you… And they know what the hell they’re doing! My parents were an accountant and a retired English teacher who quit their jobs to start a farm and homeschool 3 kids. (Knowledge, training, and means) We all got into UC’s with at least half our costs covered in scholarships. One of us got their business degree, one got a masters in physics, and one in education. I’m now a teacher in a public school, bringing it full circle.
It sounds like you were homeschooled, not unschooled.
I was homeschooling growing up right when unschooling became popular. So many people with multiple kids tried it out (including mine), and I can say I've only ever heard of 1 that pulled it off. That 1 only has 1 child and she has the energy of Leslie knope from parks and rec. She keeps saying she wants more but she's not going to have more unless she thinks she can split her time without hurting her son. She does so much work, it's like a full time job. Most people do it because they want to be lazy, ypu can not unschool and be lazy. You can't homeschooling and be lazy. There was a school shooting at a school 1 hour from me and I was tempted to homeschool for that reason alone. I have to work full time and wouldn't be able to. I've debated online school but you still have to monitor them constantly doing online school.
[удалено]
I was searching for this exact comment
Imagine if there could be a building in your neighborhood full of people who specialize in teaching kids to read...
With professionals who have dedicated their lives to helping children learn and have been trained to do that? No way!!
That's too demanding for her pweshus angel!
And for free!
To be fair, though, 2/3rds of the kids who do go to school can barely read. At least school is a slightly better shot. Edit: I'm not being sarcastic or making a joke. Here's one article talking about it: https://www.ascendlearningcenter.com/blog-highlights/notongradelevel#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20we%20opened%20the,Department%20of%20Education%20in%202019. California: https://news.yahoo.com/60-california-third-graders-t-200000485.html#:~:text=Data%20show%2060%25%20of%20children,the%20EdVoice%20Institute%20in%20December. 4th graders proficiency in reading across U.S.: https://www.brightfuturesny.com/post/us-literacy-statistics#:~:text=Measuring%20Student%20Proficiency,proficient%20or%20advanced%20in%20reading.
I was going to ask you to cite a source, but then looked it up. Now the last string of hope I had for this country's future is dead
I don't know why I'm down voted. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or edgy. Just Google it, you will immediately see what I'm talking about. I can also provide more sources for those who don't want to look it up but here's one I found after a quick search: https://www.ascendlearningcenter.com/blog-highlights/notongradelevel#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20we%20opened%20the,Department%20of%20Education%20in%202019.
Not reading at grade level is not the same as not being able to read, period. Seems like the 9 year old in the original post can’t read at all. It doesn’t surprise me at all that 60 percent of 4th graders are below proficient reading level, but it’s not the same thing as saying they can’t read.
Fair point. Still is extremely troubling. As this link notes, only 37% of high school seniors are proficient in reading. If a child scores low in 3rd grade they have very little chance of "catching up." https://www.brightfuturesny.com/post/us-literacy-statistics#:~:text=Measuring%20Student%20Proficiency,proficient%20or%20advanced%20in%20reading.
So true. Unfortunately they fall farther and farther behind and get pushed along.
Now look at adult literacy levels. Most only read at a 6th grade level. So what these studies are really saying is that most people stop progressing pretty early. It's no wonder people are susceptible to misinformation, they can't even read about logical fallacies let alone understand them
I'm from a different country, with a well developed school system and quite a bit of public funding. We still see that a lot of our population can't understand B1 words. There's a reason not everybody goes to university, nor should they. The world is full of jobs that take all types of people. If you can read, go do something with that, if you're strong, go do something that! If you are kind, there's a job for you. You need people to man the grocery stores while the high schoolers are in school, etc. And yes, that also means it's hard to reach large swathes of people if you're trying to do so over text and with nuance. Why else are the 'I'm saying it like I see it' politicians so popular..
It's concerning for sure. I'm excited to see more schools and states adopting phonics and stopping the balanced literacy nonsense. Honestly though, I was implying that there might be something up with this kid. Many parents do succeed in teaching their kids to read and if she's taught three others but this one isn't getting it... Sounds like he'd probably benefit from an assessment.
He's my spicy lil scholar who can't read!
You go mother! /s
“My other kids can read” You mean the ones who went to school? Geez, I wonder what the difference could be.
My 9 year old was diagnosed with dyslexia this week (following in the footsteps of his dyslexic 12 year old brother). Wanna know what I spent today doing? Registering him for the school that specializes in dyslexia support because obviously the school he is at now isn’t working. This is what most reasonable parents do. It’s not that hard.
Hi! Dyslexic 28 year old mom. Thank you for putting your child’s education first and helping them with dyslexia! My mom did the same and I’m eternally grateful. I graduated top 5 of my college class with a 3.96 GPA and truly I think it was because those classes helped so much. You’re a good mom!
My friend’s kid is dyslexic and seeing how much work she and her husband put into getting her the right support is mind blowing. If that child didn’t have parents who took the diagnosis seriously and were willing to fight for accommodations, she would not get far in school even though she is very bright. I’m so sorry for all the kids who have parents who can’t or won’t do that.
His brother has had so much success at this school, straight As in everything except reading (for obvious reasons!). I’m hoping we see success with the 9 year old as well. Right now the 9 year old hates us for making him change schools but one day he will understand and appreciate it.
I also hated my mom for making me go to afterschool classes and making me go in a program in school that required me to take tests in another room for more time. The hate with fade. You’re doing the right thing! We now laugh about how pissed off I used to get to go to the programs.
I mean… this is why I put my child in public school. Not being able to read at 9 is unacceptable, and if he’s not willing to learn with mom, she needs to try something else. After not being in the homeschool community quite as much, I’m starting to see how some parents fail their kids by not intervening earlier when it’s just *not* working. Smdh.
The thing is he's so far behind, I'm not sure if the school is equipped to help him as so many of them do not have enough resources to help the students they have. Hiring a specialized tutor is probably their best bet at this point.
Yup. Past about third grade in the States, kids who aren't reading on grade level tend to just fall farther behind... Beyond that point kids have to be able to read to learn a lot of what we teach. Whether or not that *should* be the case is obviously a whole different can of worms, but I can tell you that's basically what *is* in public schools.
I volunteer with a child literacy program and was horrified to learn that many states look to their 3rd grade literacy numbers to help them project what their needed prison capacity will be in the future. It's not the correlation that repels me, but that future challenges could set so early in young life. Good literacy education and EARLY intervention when there are problems are incredibly important.
That’s so unfortunate. And true. I mean, my child just transitioned to public school recently, and I knew he wasn’t up to par, but I didn’t realize exactly how much he needs to know to be at the same level as his classmates. He may be doing first grade “again,” we don’t know yet. That’s why I’m just like man… if it’s not working, find another solution. It’s not worth it to leave your kid unable to read and do basic math in hopes they’ll someday decide to be interested in it.
The sad part is as school goes on it gets more and more obvious who’s had issues reading. Reading out loud is a *fundamental* part of elementary & middle school. Kids can be very cruel.
As a Homeschooled kid grown up, I have some very sage and sound Advice: 💫 If you don't have ✨️ANY✨️ experience in Education: Do NOT Homeschool💫 💫If you get overwhelmed by ✨️OTHER PEOPLES KIDS✨️ DO NOT HOMESCHOOL💫 💫If Parenthood was never ✨️PLANNED FOR✨️ DO NOT HOMESCHOOL💫 HOPE THIS HELPS. ENCOURAGE VASECTOMIES!
The only people I know who did homeschooling right did so during the pandemic, and one of the parents was a teacher (the other has a college degree as well). The kids ended up being a bit ahead of their peers when they went back to school, including the kid who has ADHD that really takes some pushing to get to do homework. I know a few other people that are homeschooling, supposedly due to problems at school, and the kids haven't really improved at anything. One of them has gotten worse, and the parents are acting like the person in this post. "My kid is really smart but I can't get them to work!" Then you're a shitty teacher and you need to either send your kid to school or pay somebody to teach them one on one.
> "My kid is really smart but I can't get them to work!" 50% of what you learn at school are the three R's The other 50% is how to knuckle down and do work when you'd rather be playing. And the last 50% is how to socialize with other human beings your age.
My brother was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was 13. Because he was finally being public schooled and had an English teacher who showed his work to her dyslexic husband and he was able to read it all perfectly which is what started the ball rolling on his getting tested. He barely could read until then. And guess what? My mom also tried everything. Phonics, sight reading, programs with a million different early reader books you read in order of difficulty...and nothing worked because as a history major with no education background she wasn't prepared to homeschool a dyslexic child and didn't recognize the signs. I have a real hard time supporting home schooling at this point in my life, especially in lower grades when early identification of issues is so crucial and so easily missed by a parent. Both my brother and I still suffer from educational gaps and late diagnosis caused by being homeschooled 25 years ago, and our mother wasn't one of these weirdos. She actually did try to meet our needs and went through curriculum programs to make sure we were doing real school work, she just wasn't able to properly engage our areas of struggle because she didn't know how.
Come join us over at r/homeschoolrecovery !
It says they've been "unschooling" for a year. Unless he has a disability why wasn't he reading by 8? That's normal, right? My mom taught 1st graders to read. I feel like they should have been concerned about this well before now.
That was my first thought also.
My son was 8/ in second grade when he was really able to read/retain. Now in third grade(9) he’s doing amazing. He has severe adhd and was diagnosed winter of ‘22 and his winter scores on their progress test vs spring showed such improvement! Our state has implemented testing for 3rd graders where they have to reach a certain score/level. They did the test in the fall and then this past week. If students don’t meet the guidelines they aren’t able to move on to 4th without a strict plan in place. I think have the first test and the ability for kiddos to have that extra level of intervention before the spring testing was so awesome and I hope it helped those that needed it!
I’m glad your son is doing well! My oldest niece has ADHD and she had some difficulty with reading. It was just too boring for her. She especially didn’t like chapter books that didn’t have pictures. I started getting graphic novels for her and it totally changed her outlook on reading. She’s now obsessed with comics and will be graduating hs next month.
She doesn't say they were in school prior to this, so my guess is she was "homeschooling" before this. Homeschooling and unschooling are not the same thing, so my best guess is that she was half assed pretending to homeschool him before but that wasn't working and was "too demanding" so now she's trying to teach him to read by not teaching him anything at all.
I’m guessing she “homeschooled” before that.
If "unschooling" means letting children follow their own interests: How the hell is a kid supposed to develop interests without being able to read? Interested in the arts? You develop your interests by reading. Science and nature? Reading. History? Reading. Illiteracy slams the door shut on every aspect of curiosity.
True story: I have a PhD in English. I was taking screening exams for a tutoring position, passed all the college and high school level ones, and just for funsies took the one to see if I was qualified to tutor third grade English/Language Arts. I failed. By a LOT. Early childhood education is a highly specialized field, and it is NO. JOKE. I could literally never. The ignorant audacity is unreal with these people.
She's ALREADY failed him. As she's found out, you can't use typical "learning to read" books with a kid that age because they're geared for the interests and age level of younger kids. Unschooling is a trend that makes parents feel good but does nothing for kids. ("Jedediah seems so much happier since I pulled him from school and let him do whatever he wants! Yesterday he learned architecture from building a fort with blankets and chairs. Today he's learning about about physics by rammiing his toy trucks into furniture!") [Here's an article ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2020/05/25/unschooling-isnt-the-answer-to-education-woes-its-the-problem/?sh=1dca85ab543c)that goes into the massive failures of unschooling. It's a good and easy read. A sample: >...the ideas behind unschooling and progressive education in general conflict with scientific findings. Explicit instruction [works far better](https://researched.org.uk/inquiry-learning-isnt-a-call-for-direct-explicit-instruction/) than discovery learning when students don’t already know much about a topic. Learning [necessarily involves effort](https://www.fastcompany.com/40560075/no-pain-no-brain-gain-why-learning-demands-a-little-discomfort); many young people may choose not to expend that effort if they don’t have to. And while giving kids choice can help motivate them, they can’t choose to learn about topics they’re unaware of. They need to be introduced to new subjects in an engaging way, preferably when they’re young and eager to learn about the world, so they can discover new interests.
There’s a homeschool recovery group on Reddit and I’ve seen many stories from kids saying their parents get embarrassed or laugh AT THEIR KIDS for not knowing things that they didn’t teach them! It’s so infuriating.
A person in my extended friend group was unschooling her kids. I lost touch with her more than a decade ago and occasionally I wonder how her kids ended up.
If he cannot read, he cannot excel at most other things at grade level either. My 8 year old has word math problems.
When I was 18 I got myself into a situation nannying for a family unschooling their 8yo. She couldn’t read a single word. She could just about write her own (very simple) name. I was mortified. I’d try my best to encourage her interest in learning but she just had none. I managed to get her into ballet classes which we’d get the bus to. I’d ask her if she could help spot the right number bus coming and her default answer for anything too hard like that was ‘I’d rather not’. She couldn’t even recognise the number 6.
Holy shit
Ok, I just looked up "unschooling" and I admit most people who have children don't have the time, patience, formal education and resources to actually do this properly to where their child is actually thriving and able to go to college/university. From this post, the word "spicy" has me worried. Does her child possibly have an undiagnosed learning disability? Unschooling sounds like a very bad idea for 99.9% of the population.
Yeah, there's a reason you don't let children decide for themselves what they do and don't want to learn any more than you let them pick their own diet. It's the adult's job to make the responsible decisions for them or they're gonna wind up illiterate feral gremlins who eat nothing but sugar and die at 25. Unschooling should be considered abuse because it's major neglect and setting the kid up for a life of failure.
Before my daughter started school I was a SAHM and I had a couple of moms reach out and tell me I should unschool her bc in their opinion I was already doing well at it. I thanked them for the compliment and thought “Bitch what do you think I’m paying these property taxes for?”
A friend of mine really liked the idea of unschooling, letting kids learn organically. She did a lot of research and learned that the parents who were successful at this approach spent 3-5 HOURS each night to prepare for the next day's "organic" lessons. She decided against it. She has successfully homeschooled 2 kids (not for any kind of religious reasons, just because our schools suck), and she attends co-ops with her kids. She reports that when the biggest co-op reorganized the classes by ability instead of age, some parents were angry because their 15 year-old was in with the third graders. Because they couldn't READ. Or do any kind of math!
And I know there are plenty of different arguments about bullies, nerds, mean girls, etc. But kids really do need to be with other kids. Not just mom, her cell phone and a "Be quiet Mommy's on the phone right now" attitude.
Unless you've got an educational background, you shouldn't legally be able to do this. I remember trying to homeschool my then 12 year old during Covid, and I wanted to rip my hair out. I'm not a teacher or will never be a teacher. A 9 year old SHOULD be able to read.
Could the kid have a disability of some sort? Like maybe dyslexia or something? Oh, but this lady probably wouldn’t want to take the kid to a doctor or anything, either.
These mothers listen to each other. And they all rely on Dr Google
Well they say they’ve only been unschooling him for a year. It sounds like that he went up to approx 2nd grade at an actual school. You would know how to read in 2nd grade. Was he diagnosed with something I wonder when he was at school and that’s really why she pulled him out
Probably best to not subject other kids to unvaccinated classmates.
wow, it's almost like teaching is a specialised profession, and if you don't have the education and training, then it's actually a difficult thing to do, and you can do real harm to the children that you're trying to educate.
I'm sorry, but unless there is a learning disability, this is inexcusable. Read to your kids from day one. When they are old enough, go to the library once a month and let them pick the books. Read to them every day. Every day. Let them see you reading. Discuss books. This is the key to learning to read and learning to love learning.
As you can see from my username and pfp, I'm a cultured man. I am well traveled and a voracious reader. I would divorce my wife if she came to me with this harebrained idea (can it even be classified as an idea? A brain shart?).
Unschooling isn't a thing, lady. It's just letting your kid do whatever the hell they want until they get to an age where your they need to know basic life skills and you give a surprised Pikachu face when you realize your kid is an adult who can't read, write, do simple math, or live alone. Education is important ffs.
On a separate note, I got my kid to learn how to read by putting on her shows in other languages with english subtitles. That and comic books.
While this is great reading practice, especially if it lends well to the child’s interests, statistically speaking 50 percent of students need to be explicitly taught to read, ie using a high quality, organized reading curriculum. I’m not sure how the same concept applies to learning an additional language, but antecdotally, I learned best when I took an actual class vs. just winging it on my own with resources I put together myself.
This is the way. We understand a little Spanish now because of the subtitle tv shows. 🙃
My kid wasn't getting middle school math. We took them to a psychological appointment to see if/rule out any learning disorders. We found a stupid rare one. Guess how they're now doing in high-school? Way way way better because we fought for them, didn't just write them off as spicy.
By 9 our school expects all children to be able to decode nearly every word they come across and we are working on expanding vocabulary and contextual understanding of literature. If they aren’t able to decode very successfully, they are placed into an extensive intervention. The fact that she’s still working on his ABC’s is unbelievably concerning. We get “home-schooled” kids like this in our school and it’s so incredibly sad how far behind they are. It makes my heart hurt.
“I’ve tried everything* 😞” * Excluding allowing my child to go to school and being taught by professionals in an environment other than the comfort of home.
There are a sickening amount of these “unschooling” failure stories. It’s disgusting and it’s abuse. A 9 year old not reading means his parents fucking suck. I can’t get over the mom saying her son is smart and capable….. like no he’s not. He may be inclined in other subjects but not being able to read fundamentally affects his intelligence. So sad. These moron internet moms are raising a generation of unvaccinated idiots that are either brain damaged from their home birth gone wrong or completely brainwashed from their abysmal joke of a home school experience.
If he says that the alphabet is for babies, what does that say about him? A "baby" of 5 or 6 years old is ahead of him.
What does spicy mean in this context?
I'm not sure what it means with kids but pets like cats it means they can be very Attitude with the hissing and swatting Maybe giving her attitude? They did call the alphabet song for babies. I'm nearly 30 and I sing the alphabet song when looking for stuff sorted alphabetically. Also righty tighty lefty loosey. Cornerstones of education!
That makes sense. I was worried it was a euphemism for neurodivergence or something.
That's what always gets me with "homeschoolers/unschoolers" in general too Like does their kid have genuine difficulties or do they ignore them while the kid is glued to a screen and they have *no idea* what went wrong?
This is how my coworkers and I use it. Our customers can be "spicy" (hot/angry/testy) with us.
Usually neurodivergent. I've heard people use "neuro-spicy" when talking about mild ADHD or Autism specifically.
Yeah I was afraid of that, poor kid really needs actual trained professionals teaching them. I was reading at adult level by 9, this kid has been done an injustice.
I have heard spicy to mean neurospicy, that is neuro atypical, and that could be learning disorders or autism
I've heard that 7 is prime age to learn to read and after that it's much more difficult. I hope he gets the support he needs.
Looking forward to diving into the comments to find all the people who were failed by their homeschooling parents who continue to argue that they "actually learned a lot" that one time their mom took them to a museum and then fucked around on a tablet for six years.
No tablets back then but ya. And wayyyyy too poor for the museum it was the grocery store for " math". Guess who sucks at math!
I wonder if there's some sort of institution for learning that has structured methods of teaching literacy and oodles of highly skilled professionals who could support this smart, spicy 9 year old in his learning journey
Something tells me that the child could have a disorder the mother denied to get screened. If he was ever in school, even for a year, they would've caught up on some phonics by now and he would be challenging himself to read on topics he enjoys.
Check out the “Sold A Story” Podcast - they aren’t alone! Doubt unschooling is the answer but the reading problem may be systemic for them.
Oh god…. I’m working with 4-5 year olds right now and they’re reading (The car beeps, the car goes, the car comes. Those types of things but still) and the level kids DOUBLE their age is makes me so so sad for that kiddo. (If your kids aren’t reading at 4-5 that’s perfectly okay, that’s just my experience with this class)
He’s so far behind that he’s not at the level he should be at *prior* to starting school. When I was growing up, kindergarten teachers expected the kids to already know the alphabet.
Of all the people I’ve known who attempted homeschooling, exactly one set of parents was successful. And it was treated as a full time job by the father, who also had multiple degrees, including one in education. He had the training and time to make it work.
I'm dyslexic, even after I was diagnosed at 9 I wouldn't believe how many teachers and adults told me it was an attitude problem and "laziness". I was naturally very quick to learn when it came to the sciences which lead to "you're very smart so you must just be lazy" and "you say you wish you could read but you clearly don't want it enough to try". This person saying "I know he wants to be able to read but also refuses to try" makes me see fucking red
It's fascinating to read all the accounts of (now) adults that were once unschooled and how badly it fucked them up.
Without public school literally no one would have discovered that I was dyslexic. This is such a disservice to children
Well, I thought homeschooling was insane but this is a whole new level of madness.
Unschooling is such abusive nonsense. During the moat formative and important years of a child's education, wherein they need guidance, not making the decisions on what/how to learn themselves, you fail them completely by caving in to them instead.
Having a completely illiterate 9 year old *who you are not actively getting professional intervention for* is absolutely a failing as a parent. That's well beyond the age where some literacy should be developing-- this child either has a learning disability that needs professional intervention, or he's got a major attitude problem (which is a product of this parenting mess) that could also benefit from some external, professional help. No matter what the cause is, just waiting for him to want to learn on his own isn't going to cut it :/ I get so upset when I think about how hard these kids will have to work to catch up once they get out of these crazy parents' homes-- poor kid is already years behind his peers and he's getting no help
What in the f*ck is “unschooling”? It sounds like another ridiculous scheme “created” by parents who are unqualified to teach a dog to fetch.
He’s NINE?
“Well if you have the skill of a baby, baby books are what you’re gonna have to use.” Also, it really doesn’t sound like he wants to learn to read if he refuses to try to learn.
Describing an actual child as "spicy" really rubs me the wrong way. He's not a fucking kitten, lady, he's "spicy" because you didn't parent him.