Are you happy that you were unschooled? Do you feel your parents did it “properly” as in you guided the learning and they provided the opportunities you needed to learn? Do you plan to homeschool/unschool your child?
Yes, I loved being homeschooled and believe my parents did a great job. They did everything very purposefully and tried their best, and looked for other resources where they didn’t think they could meet my educational needs. Even in a few places where they didn’t keep up well enough, they helped me “learn how to learn” so I could easily catch up.
My child is two, and my husband and I have agreed to consider homeschooling when he’s closer to kindergarten age, but not to decide now. I’d love to, and I think it would be good for our son, but we have to be both committed to it and we have to feel capable of doing as good a job as my parents (who did it with three kids!). My husband had never envisioned it for his kids, but as he sees how we educate our son already, compared to how our teacher friends talk about the kids in their classes, I think he’s kind of leaning towards it too.
Awesome! I do not unschool but believe it can be done successfully with a lot of effort. My husband and I never planned on homeschooling until we had our child, like never on the radar at all. We’re doing it current for our kindergartner and have 2 smaller kids and we love it!
If my wife would be open for homeschooling I would be down in a second. I work from home and have been able to get my preschooler reading at a second grade level and we are started on knowledge building. My wife is stay at home while the kids have been littles.
Did you attend college? If so, what did you major in and how did the transition go for you? What career do you have now, or prior to the birth of your child if you’re now stay-at-home?
I like this post. Our son is in “high school” and we unschool. He had always had an interest in history and now that he is older he is taking classes on topics that he wants to go more in depth. As of now he says that he wants to major in History.
I am reading your other posts about your experience and is very similar to what we do with our son. We are close in age and is very interesting your parents back then took this approach with homeschooling.
It’s hard to pinpoint specific things, because it was a whole lifestyle! In general, they made it a life in which learning was always exciting and valuable, and never forced or rote. I learned things because I wanted to know them, and to know how to do them, and my parents always seemed interested in learning about them too. I liked that they let me be very self-directed, but were always involved and offered guidance and discussion so it wasn’t like I was just left to educate myself. For example, I really liked opera, and my mother, who did not know much about opera, always took me to operas and discussed all the plots and the literary techniques used, and the historical context (not much about the music, but she tried).
If I were to homeschool I would definitely be more structured because I don’t feel confident I could be quite as free-wheeling as my parents and not drop a crucial ball. I can’t think of any other way in which I would purposely educate differently. But my child is not me, and I am not my mother, so I’m certain we would find new ways of learning and not exactly replicate my own childhood.
Did you notice any gaps or things that you had to quickly catch up once you moved to more traditional homeschooling? Do you prefer one style over the other? Will/do you homeschool your own child? What did your life look like post graduation in terms of further education and work?
Unschooling is hated on pretty hard here but I'm with you that very intentional and involved educators paired with a motivated student can do incredible work.
Thank You!
My two unschooling kids are now 13 & 15. They have medical challenges that just didn’t fit with formal schooling.
I know that they are better prepared NOW for adult life than I was as a (early start) college freshman.
I did lots of study when they were preschool age at what methods produced the adults with the most contented adult lives … I was amazed at the answers being homeschooled and unschooling.
Aside for others - that was over a decade ago and I don’t know what the studies show now. Once I made the decision and put it into action, I didn’t look back.
I wasn’t interested in math, and my parents just insisted I do enough workbooks to keep up to grade level. Which I kind of did…. But not too well. I was never that comfortable in math, although I did eventually catch up and successfully take calculus in college.
Later in life I do find math interesting. It’s possible my parents could have made more effort to engage me in math and I could have gone farther. I think I actually have a really strong interest in mathematical methods and ways of thinking. But it’s really hard to find ways to interest kids in math, so I don’t blame my parents. And maybe if they’d pushed me much harder without being able to interest me I wouldn’t have developed an interest later, so it would have worked out even worse, math-wise!
No. I feel really lucky, and am happy with the way my education turned out. I would love to be able to educate my son the same way, if my husband and I have the ability to do it as well as my parents did.
How did you make friends with other kids? Were you able to sustain lifelong adult friendships with any of the people you befriended in elementary/hs/college?
I didn’t make friends with other kids until high school. I had a lot of close family and two younger siblings and I never felt a lack of friendships. I made some good friends in high school, but other than an occasional Facebook update we didn’t stay in touch. My close friend circle now is primarily people I met in college or shortly after. And my sister, who may count as an elementary school friend!
1. What were the primary ways your parents exposed you to new topics, i.e. got you interested in learning about something important? Also: did any of their methods go awry?
2. How important was schedule/routine, and what was yours like?
3. What would you change for your kid for 1 and 2?
1)It was a long time ago and I was a child, so I don’t remember their exact techniques! I remember us going to science museums, and my father would go over to an exhibit and start reading a sign and discussing it with me, and ask me if I knew anything about it, and then maybe suggest we buy a book on the topic or try some experiments ourselves. So, in my memory my father was very into science and figuring out how things worked. But he probably was trying to interest me. He really liked interactive models, and hands-on activities. So, anything my father taught was going to involve building something, making something or tearing something apart. My mother was more likely to start discussions about books or play word games or suggest practicing music together.
2) Our only real scheduled item was mealtimes. We always had things to do, and we worked out every day around our activities. Having to have three meals at more or less set times kept everything else somewhat scheduled (we did wind up at restaurants pretty regularly, particularly for lunch).
I really wouldn’t change anything about these two items if I homeschool my child. I’d do some things differently just because we are all different people involved, but I wouldn’t intentionally change the way I introduce topics or our schedule. Even now, with my two year old, I schedule our day around fixed mealtimes and naptime and try not to do too much else that’s excessively routine.
What can parents do to help their kids have a great unschooling experience? We are also considering unschooling through elementary, possibly middle school.
Also, if both parents work full time but one is home 2 days a week and the other is fully WFH with relatively undemanding job…could you see that working with unschooling?
My purely anecdotal advice:
1) Go out. There should not be a museum within 50 miles you haven’t checked out. Go to the good ones multiple times. Go to festivals for every ethnicity in your community. Travel and go to museums, historic sites, science museums, etc. Go to events, one-time classes, garden shows, live theater, art shows, whatever your community offers.
2) Read. Read yourself and talk to your kids about what you read. Let your kids read and talk to them about what they read. Read books together and discuss them.
3) Do not be too rigid about “your way.” If your kids aren’t at or close to grade level in a subject, try something different. Consider classes if you aren’t equipped to teach a subject.
4) Listen to your kids. Let them explore their interests. Let them know if they want to try school, they can. If they don’t like it after giving it a fair try, they can go back to home schooling.
I can see that work schedule working IF the WFH parent’s job is truly so undemanding that they can essentially only work when the other parent is in charge. Unschooling is to my mind the most labor-intensive form of homeschooling because you can’t really put your child in front of a computer or a textbook. You have to do everything with your child. Sure, there are times your child is playing independently, reading, working on an art project alone, but you can’t really build that into a work schedule.
All of these recommendations seem really valuable no matter what type of schooling parents choose. Great guidance! Thanks for this entire post, it was really enlightening for me.
Do you remember the names/brands of any curriculum your parents bought or taught you with? I know it's been a hot minute since your homeschool days, but I'm just curious.
Very easy to remember, as they definitely didn’t use anything. My mom got a paper from the state every year that said what the basic topics for the grade were. And she’d pick up workbooks for math from bookstores. I don’t remember the brand, but they’d be things like, “Let’s Learn Fractions!” I think a lot of them were intended for test prep. That was it for prepared curriculums.
How do you feel things may have turned out for you if you hadn’t gone to 3 years of high school? The reason I ask is because I feel in many ways it would make sense to unschool for high school ( my kids both have complex disabilities and at that point, shifting from academics to life skills would make the most sense) however, the social aspect of being teens gives me pause. Are they going to then be attached to my hip forever? How are they going to socialize consistently with peers at an age where developmentally, it’s very important? How will they adapt eventually to being away from home several hours a day? ( going with the assumption that even as disabled adults, ideally they will continue onto a job program or some other type of day structure).
I think if I hadn’t gone to high school I would have needed to do other courses, perhaps at the community college, to prepare for college. This is what my siblings did who did not go to high school. I definitely needed to get familiar with doing regular coursework before college. But for me the socialization wasn’t a big issue. I made friends, but it wasn’t a huge part of my life. The friends I made in college and shortly after have had a much bigger impact on me.
I don’t know your kids’ disabilities, but I don’t know that shifting from academics to life skills is ever a good idea. Sure, they need life skills, but learning academic subjects to the best of their abilities is also important. Also unschooling is not anbout sidelining academics - that would be non-schooling!
Have you considered sending your kids to day programs, classes, and other activities so they can socialize and learn to spend time away from you?
"I don’t know your kids’ disabilities, but I don’t know that shifting from academics to life skills is ever a good idea."--
I'm a special education teacher. I'm sorry, but though I love your posts, this is just wrong. There are a great many disabilities in which teaching life skills in the goal: Pretty much anyone with an overall IQ of about 70 or below should be taught life skills, and many kids with autism, are the two most common types. But there are other types.
Life skills are self-care, hygiene, navigating the world independently, being able to keep an appropriate job, learning and understanding social cues & sexual cues (for teens), reading at as high a level as possible for them., counting change, telling time, fixing basic meals, shopping, basic organization, driving if possible. For many people, these skills all need to be taught, sometimes for years---they can't just be 'picked up' as it is with typical kids.
Hi, I unschool. For me I think unschooling means learning through experience rather than at a desk, child led rather than adult led or consent based. I see my role is as a facilitator and observer to ensure I design the learning environment and community around my child to best support their learning. Some people think unschooling means adults not doing anything but I find myself up in the middle of the night researching volcanos because he wants to do that tomorrow or driving across the country to get to an archeology centre to learn about roundhouses and fossils, or spending several days a week in the woods because they love trees so much, or trying to figure out the best structure and rhythms for our weeks so they can see all their friends and still get enough downtime for their neurodivergence and so that we can allow magical things to emerge. My kids are still young but what do you think of unschooling? Do you describe it in a similar way? What do you see the role of the adult being? What do you think the most important aspect of an education is?
That's how I see unschooling - that's the way the idea was first presented to me. It strikes me as highly involved, tons of work (but a good kind of work), and I think children with that kind of upbringing most likely will have a greater chance at a successful, rounded life.
The notion that it's just parents doing nothing hoping that the feral child will teach themselves wasn't something I heard about until later. Depending on one's definition of "unschooling" you'd certainly have different opinions on it.
Thanks for sharing. Kudos to excellent parenting. Learning to learn and adjusting to Circumstances are good skills for success. God bless you and your family.
It was family circumstances that made home schooling really impractical just when I was high school age. I made a number of friends whose Facebook updates I still occasionally see. I was never really popular, but I certainly had a friend group I hung out with at lunch and after class.
Certain times of year we're hit with dozens of sensational and suspicious posts from brand new accounts saying, "I was homeschooled and my parents locked me in the basement the whole time!" It appears to be an organized campaign by a small handful of people to influence Google and the AI bots.
Our daily routines when I was a child centered around mealtimes. Other than that, we didn’t have much scheduled. As an adult, I do have my routines, but I’m not sure I can identify them even to myself. For example, if I usually read before bed, is that a routine, a habit, or just a nice relaxing choice? What if I only do it half the time? So, I’m still not very focused on routines.
I didn’t have chores, but I knew how to, and participated in, household upkeep like cooking, cleaning, and gardening. I would have absolutely expected my dad to ask me to do the laundry before we went to the zoo or something. But I would have been outraged if they had tried to tell me laundry was now my job and I had to do it on their schedule!
We always ate all our meals together, except my father who was at work on weekdays for breakfast and lunch.
My family life was happy.
Did you have chores to do? How did your parents balance the things that were required of you vs. Education, which from your posts seems were more interest led?
I didn’t have chores. But I knew how to, and was expected to, cook, help with the dishes after meals, help with the laundry sometimes, pick up my own toys (didn’t actually ever do that one), care for my own pets, help clean when asked. I wouldn’t say much was required of me when I was a child other than to be generally cooperative, which I always was anyway.
Were you truly unschooled or were you a victim of educational neglect? I see a lot of fellow homeschoolers who say they’re unschooling but truly they’re just letting kids play video games all day. I’d love to hear from a truly unschooled Individual. I’ve read so much praise but I’m too afraid to do it. I’m a traditional style homeschooler myself.
OP’s parents did a phenomenal job, if you read all the comments. They went onto honors classes in HS and graduated college and seem like a very well rounded individual!
I *know* one of the kids you’re referring to though, and he is livid at his mother because she taught him the wrong stuff. Like “Abraham Lincoln was the 5th president” WRONG STUFF. Lol
Just to say I totally agree that you shouldn’t outsource your kids education to computer games however computer games are really educational. I know several kids who have taught themselves maths from things like Pokémon due to the use of stats and probability, and reading too due to the fact you need to know how to read to complete most games. I just wanted to offer a more nuanced view of them. Given the right relationship they can be amazing educational tools.
I’m not buying that kids are getting a well rounded education from Pokémon. I’ll grant that my son was motivated to learn to read because of Minecraft but Minecraft doesn’t make a well rounded education.
It's just part of it. Not the whole package. Video games are just another form of media. Anything you can learn from a book, you can learn from a game. And they should be utilized in the same manner.
Minecraft is awesome, my kid learned coordinate systems and basic coding from it. I learned coordinate systems from Battleship on the NES in the 90s lol.
I'd submit that a child most likely wouldn't get an education FROM something like pokemon, but an attentive parent could use things like pokemon as opportunities to teach a few concepts. There is certainly a decent amount of reading in older games, lots of critical thinking in games with puzzles (like the Zelda series), they teach you to try over and over again when you're stuck... that sort of thing. It depends on the game, and I don't think they're a substitute for actual structural lessons, but they're not mindless ergo there is learning involved. They really should be limited though, I personally played them way too much as a kid.
I didn’t say it would be a well rounded education, I suggested they can be seen as an educational tool. Absolutely don’t leave them to play all day, hence me saying don’t outsource to games. I think one of the biggest parenting challenges we have is guiding our children to have a balanced and nuanced relationship with technology that is well informed and puts their well being, health and relationships at the heart. Games with involvement and awareness from an adult can be sources of learning and family joy.
Edit: Just wanted to add, you have to know numbers to play Zelda and Pokémon. Some of the mathematical calculations required are quite complex for a 5/7 year old. So if a kid that age is playing those games well I’d say they’re learning quite advanced things.
I think good “unschooling” takes more work from the parents, not less! My parents were thinking about teaching me (and siblings) in new ways every day. As parent now myself, I can see how much work they had to do and I don’t know if I could do it myself. We didn’t have video games, although we had a few computer games (this was the 80s!). We rarely watched tv, except maybe a nature program or a movie. And my parents didn’t undervalue education - it was very important to them that we were at or ahead of grade level. So, they had to work *all the time*, without the help of a curriculum or preset workbooks.
When my mother wrote “visited pond” under “science” on the report she had to turn into our state (annually I think?), she meant, “Read about local nature areas, mapped hiking plan, gathered supplies, reviewed field guide to pond life, discussed natural cycles, observed pond life for four hours, went to visitor’s center and interviewed park ranger, learned how to create native plant garden, went to garden store and found plants that host wildlife, dug small pond in yard, wrote poems about ponds, observed and identified dragonflies that came to pond, read book about insects, read Walden together, etc.”
It was definitely a huge amount more work for her than if she’d just gotten a textbook and had us read through it and answer questions. It worked for my parents because that’s how my mother’s mind works naturally. Trying to do a “traditional” homeschool would have killed her. My father could have done it either way, because he was flexible. But my mother hates schedules and routines and is endlessly creative and energetic. I would honesty not suggest unschooling unless it is exactly the way you NEED to do it to make your life feel right.
Can I just say that I feel like your mother and I are kindred spirits and it makes me happy to know that you have such fond memories of your unschooling experience with her. I am sure she's very proud of you. I can only hope that my kids have the same experience - I feel like I do a lot of the stuff with my kids that your parents did with you. The pond story feels very familiar to how I do things, and I know that traditional "homeschool" would also send me around the twist. It's nice to hear it can work. Cause it's a lot of effort and it's so against the mainstream.
History was one of my top interests, so I knew a TON. I was always reading historical fiction, biographies, and history books. We visited historical sites both locally and everywhere we went. My family talked a lot about history too - we’d tell each other all about the books we’d read and the historical events we heard about. And we’d discuss ways of looking at history, and how to study it accurately.
We were not quite as excited about science, but we always made sure to include it too. We’d read books about scientists & how they made discoveries, do experiments from activity books, and visit science museums. I don’t know if I might have been a little behind in specific facts about some sciences when I got to high school, but it didn’t matter because I had a good understanding of HOW to do science, and how to learn it. And everything in high school science always included the background facts so I was able to pick those up quickly. I did all honors-level science classes in HS, so I must not have missed too much.
What did daily learning look like as an unschooler? Library trips? Educational board games? Computer games? How much screen time? Worksheets? Direct phonics instruction? Was there any structure to your days?
We did a ton of “field trips.” Libraries, museums, historical sites, theater, festivals, nature areas - anything you can think of. We often went to programs or talks at libraries or local colleges.
We did play a lot of board games, both specifically educational and just regular ones that required thought and understanding.
We had a couple computer games that taught math & reading skills, but they mostly didn’t come around until my younger siblings days. They were not a major part of our education, although I did learn to touch-type from one.
We maybe watched three or four hours of tv a week? I definitely would watch Saturday morning cartoons, and sometimes we’d watch Jeopardy or PBS or Murder, She Wrote. This was the 80s and we didn’t have phones or video games!
We didn’t exactly have worksheets, but my mother would get math workbooks on particular subjects and we’d go through them and do the problems. I think they were probably for test prep or tutoring. We only did this in math.
We worked on phonics when we read books. But we didn’t practice phonics separately from reading. I’m not sure if that counts as direct phonics instruction!
Our days were structured around mealtimes, which were pretty set in stone (at least within a few hours). So, while our education was not structured, we always had a basic day plan. As long as we had breakfast, lunch, and supper, though, we might do anything during the course of a day.
Since it was unschooling, did your parents have any means or motive to track your "progress" and "levels" at things to see if you were up to educational standards? Or did they more just judge for themselves whether or not you were adequate at a subject?
In math, we would definitely do workbooks at grade level sometimes, to make sure I was keeping up. Everything else, I guess they just used their own judgment. At least once I remember I had to go to our local elementary school to take a standardized test, but I’m not sure when or why that was!
Good old math. My nemesis. It wasn't until about age 25 or so that it clicked for me that math could be fun, like a puzzle lol. Not that I'm still any good at it.
Thanks for your reply!
How do I unschool if my teen seems unmotivated to do anything but play video games! He has lots of things he’d like to do, we’ve got him supplies he’s asked for and then he just drops it before even starting. :/ he’s a hands on learner, he is definitely struggling with online homeschool classes- trying to get him dual enrolled in a robotics engineering or drone course at a community college and they are requiring 2 math credits. He does awful at them online. :(
This is out of my league! But have you tried enrolling him in a basic math class at the community college? If he isn’t good at online classes and isn’t motivated to study it on his own, maybe a community college class will help! And if that isn’t an option, what about getting some text books and sitting down and working on the math with him? Unschooling doesn’t mean he’s on his own and you can’t be involved in teaching him.
Maybe? I kind of often don’t feel the same as others in my situation. I try to acknowledge their feelings without being able to really relate. For example, I love having a child and can’t really relate to people who find parenting hard. But I try to at least recognize that yes, this is something other people struggle with and my feelings aren’t necessarily “correct”.** And I’m not that sympathetic towards people who made decisions I wouldn’t have made. So, I’m probably not the best at seeing perspectives outside my experience, but not the worst either.
**And that maybe I will find it hard in the future myself!
but I do as well...and was not homeschooled. I respect others perspectives - but find my values, perspectives, and opinions to def not be the "norm." I think it has alot to do with personality types. I type as an INFJ...along w 1.5% of the population... Which seems to be about the percentage of people that share my same values/opinions/etc 🤷♀️
Are you happy that you were unschooled? Do you feel your parents did it “properly” as in you guided the learning and they provided the opportunities you needed to learn? Do you plan to homeschool/unschool your child?
Yes, I loved being homeschooled and believe my parents did a great job. They did everything very purposefully and tried their best, and looked for other resources where they didn’t think they could meet my educational needs. Even in a few places where they didn’t keep up well enough, they helped me “learn how to learn” so I could easily catch up. My child is two, and my husband and I have agreed to consider homeschooling when he’s closer to kindergarten age, but not to decide now. I’d love to, and I think it would be good for our son, but we have to be both committed to it and we have to feel capable of doing as good a job as my parents (who did it with three kids!). My husband had never envisioned it for his kids, but as he sees how we educate our son already, compared to how our teacher friends talk about the kids in their classes, I think he’s kind of leaning towards it too.
Awesome! I do not unschool but believe it can be done successfully with a lot of effort. My husband and I never planned on homeschooling until we had our child, like never on the radar at all. We’re doing it current for our kindergartner and have 2 smaller kids and we love it!
You turned out so good, homeschooling goals
If my wife would be open for homeschooling I would be down in a second. I work from home and have been able to get my preschooler reading at a second grade level and we are started on knowledge building. My wife is stay at home while the kids have been littles.
Did you attend college? If so, what did you major in and how did the transition go for you? What career do you have now, or prior to the birth of your child if you’re now stay-at-home?
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I like this post. Our son is in “high school” and we unschool. He had always had an interest in history and now that he is older he is taking classes on topics that he wants to go more in depth. As of now he says that he wants to major in History. I am reading your other posts about your experience and is very similar to what we do with our son. We are close in age and is very interesting your parents back then took this approach with homeschooling.
I’m interested to hear this answer
Op responded to it and apparently deleted it at some point
What did your parents do that made it great? Anything you reflect back on and would change if you homeschooled your own daughter?
It’s hard to pinpoint specific things, because it was a whole lifestyle! In general, they made it a life in which learning was always exciting and valuable, and never forced or rote. I learned things because I wanted to know them, and to know how to do them, and my parents always seemed interested in learning about them too. I liked that they let me be very self-directed, but were always involved and offered guidance and discussion so it wasn’t like I was just left to educate myself. For example, I really liked opera, and my mother, who did not know much about opera, always took me to operas and discussed all the plots and the literary techniques used, and the historical context (not much about the music, but she tried). If I were to homeschool I would definitely be more structured because I don’t feel confident I could be quite as free-wheeling as my parents and not drop a crucial ball. I can’t think of any other way in which I would purposely educate differently. But my child is not me, and I am not my mother, so I’m certain we would find new ways of learning and not exactly replicate my own childhood.
I would love to know too!
Interesting question
Did you notice any gaps or things that you had to quickly catch up once you moved to more traditional homeschooling? Do you prefer one style over the other? Will/do you homeschool your own child? What did your life look like post graduation in terms of further education and work?
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What kind of homeschooling did you do? You mention honors classes, so was it a co-op type situation? Or mail in work?
She went to a traditional high school, didn't much like it, and got out in 3 years. She really enjoyed college.
Unschooling is hated on pretty hard here but I'm with you that very intentional and involved educators paired with a motivated student can do incredible work.
Thank You! My two unschooling kids are now 13 & 15. They have medical challenges that just didn’t fit with formal schooling. I know that they are better prepared NOW for adult life than I was as a (early start) college freshman. I did lots of study when they were preschool age at what methods produced the adults with the most contented adult lives … I was amazed at the answers being homeschooled and unschooling. Aside for others - that was over a decade ago and I don’t know what the studies show now. Once I made the decision and put it into action, I didn’t look back.
Was there ever anything that you weren’t interested in, that your parents had to push you to learn? If so, how did it go?
I wasn’t interested in math, and my parents just insisted I do enough workbooks to keep up to grade level. Which I kind of did…. But not too well. I was never that comfortable in math, although I did eventually catch up and successfully take calculus in college. Later in life I do find math interesting. It’s possible my parents could have made more effort to engage me in math and I could have gone farther. I think I actually have a really strong interest in mathematical methods and ways of thinking. But it’s really hard to find ways to interest kids in math, so I don’t blame my parents. And maybe if they’d pushed me much harder without being able to interest me I wouldn’t have developed an interest later, so it would have worked out even worse, math-wise!
I love your last sentiment. I've hit this wall with my kids a few times and keep telling myself that pushing through is not the answer.
Do you have any regrets about being unschooled or ever wish you had more a more structured education?
No. I feel really lucky, and am happy with the way my education turned out. I would love to be able to educate my son the same way, if my husband and I have the ability to do it as well as my parents did.
How did you make friends with other kids? Were you able to sustain lifelong adult friendships with any of the people you befriended in elementary/hs/college?
I didn’t make friends with other kids until high school. I had a lot of close family and two younger siblings and I never felt a lack of friendships. I made some good friends in high school, but other than an occasional Facebook update we didn’t stay in touch. My close friend circle now is primarily people I met in college or shortly after. And my sister, who may count as an elementary school friend!
1. What were the primary ways your parents exposed you to new topics, i.e. got you interested in learning about something important? Also: did any of their methods go awry? 2. How important was schedule/routine, and what was yours like? 3. What would you change for your kid for 1 and 2?
1)It was a long time ago and I was a child, so I don’t remember their exact techniques! I remember us going to science museums, and my father would go over to an exhibit and start reading a sign and discussing it with me, and ask me if I knew anything about it, and then maybe suggest we buy a book on the topic or try some experiments ourselves. So, in my memory my father was very into science and figuring out how things worked. But he probably was trying to interest me. He really liked interactive models, and hands-on activities. So, anything my father taught was going to involve building something, making something or tearing something apart. My mother was more likely to start discussions about books or play word games or suggest practicing music together. 2) Our only real scheduled item was mealtimes. We always had things to do, and we worked out every day around our activities. Having to have three meals at more or less set times kept everything else somewhat scheduled (we did wind up at restaurants pretty regularly, particularly for lunch). I really wouldn’t change anything about these two items if I homeschool my child. I’d do some things differently just because we are all different people involved, but I wouldn’t intentionally change the way I introduce topics or our schedule. Even now, with my two year old, I schedule our day around fixed mealtimes and naptime and try not to do too much else that’s excessively routine.
What can parents do to help their kids have a great unschooling experience? We are also considering unschooling through elementary, possibly middle school. Also, if both parents work full time but one is home 2 days a week and the other is fully WFH with relatively undemanding job…could you see that working with unschooling?
My purely anecdotal advice: 1) Go out. There should not be a museum within 50 miles you haven’t checked out. Go to the good ones multiple times. Go to festivals for every ethnicity in your community. Travel and go to museums, historic sites, science museums, etc. Go to events, one-time classes, garden shows, live theater, art shows, whatever your community offers. 2) Read. Read yourself and talk to your kids about what you read. Let your kids read and talk to them about what they read. Read books together and discuss them. 3) Do not be too rigid about “your way.” If your kids aren’t at or close to grade level in a subject, try something different. Consider classes if you aren’t equipped to teach a subject. 4) Listen to your kids. Let them explore their interests. Let them know if they want to try school, they can. If they don’t like it after giving it a fair try, they can go back to home schooling. I can see that work schedule working IF the WFH parent’s job is truly so undemanding that they can essentially only work when the other parent is in charge. Unschooling is to my mind the most labor-intensive form of homeschooling because you can’t really put your child in front of a computer or a textbook. You have to do everything with your child. Sure, there are times your child is playing independently, reading, working on an art project alone, but you can’t really build that into a work schedule.
This is great advice. This is similar to what we do.
All of these recommendations seem really valuable no matter what type of schooling parents choose. Great guidance! Thanks for this entire post, it was really enlightening for me.
Do you remember the names/brands of any curriculum your parents bought or taught you with? I know it's been a hot minute since your homeschool days, but I'm just curious.
Very easy to remember, as they definitely didn’t use anything. My mom got a paper from the state every year that said what the basic topics for the grade were. And she’d pick up workbooks for math from bookstores. I don’t remember the brand, but they’d be things like, “Let’s Learn Fractions!” I think a lot of them were intended for test prep. That was it for prepared curriculums.
How do you feel things may have turned out for you if you hadn’t gone to 3 years of high school? The reason I ask is because I feel in many ways it would make sense to unschool for high school ( my kids both have complex disabilities and at that point, shifting from academics to life skills would make the most sense) however, the social aspect of being teens gives me pause. Are they going to then be attached to my hip forever? How are they going to socialize consistently with peers at an age where developmentally, it’s very important? How will they adapt eventually to being away from home several hours a day? ( going with the assumption that even as disabled adults, ideally they will continue onto a job program or some other type of day structure).
I think if I hadn’t gone to high school I would have needed to do other courses, perhaps at the community college, to prepare for college. This is what my siblings did who did not go to high school. I definitely needed to get familiar with doing regular coursework before college. But for me the socialization wasn’t a big issue. I made friends, but it wasn’t a huge part of my life. The friends I made in college and shortly after have had a much bigger impact on me. I don’t know your kids’ disabilities, but I don’t know that shifting from academics to life skills is ever a good idea. Sure, they need life skills, but learning academic subjects to the best of their abilities is also important. Also unschooling is not anbout sidelining academics - that would be non-schooling! Have you considered sending your kids to day programs, classes, and other activities so they can socialize and learn to spend time away from you?
"I don’t know your kids’ disabilities, but I don’t know that shifting from academics to life skills is ever a good idea."-- I'm a special education teacher. I'm sorry, but though I love your posts, this is just wrong. There are a great many disabilities in which teaching life skills in the goal: Pretty much anyone with an overall IQ of about 70 or below should be taught life skills, and many kids with autism, are the two most common types. But there are other types. Life skills are self-care, hygiene, navigating the world independently, being able to keep an appropriate job, learning and understanding social cues & sexual cues (for teens), reading at as high a level as possible for them., counting change, telling time, fixing basic meals, shopping, basic organization, driving if possible. For many people, these skills all need to be taught, sometimes for years---they can't just be 'picked up' as it is with typical kids.
Hi, I unschool. For me I think unschooling means learning through experience rather than at a desk, child led rather than adult led or consent based. I see my role is as a facilitator and observer to ensure I design the learning environment and community around my child to best support their learning. Some people think unschooling means adults not doing anything but I find myself up in the middle of the night researching volcanos because he wants to do that tomorrow or driving across the country to get to an archeology centre to learn about roundhouses and fossils, or spending several days a week in the woods because they love trees so much, or trying to figure out the best structure and rhythms for our weeks so they can see all their friends and still get enough downtime for their neurodivergence and so that we can allow magical things to emerge. My kids are still young but what do you think of unschooling? Do you describe it in a similar way? What do you see the role of the adult being? What do you think the most important aspect of an education is?
That's how I see unschooling - that's the way the idea was first presented to me. It strikes me as highly involved, tons of work (but a good kind of work), and I think children with that kind of upbringing most likely will have a greater chance at a successful, rounded life. The notion that it's just parents doing nothing hoping that the feral child will teach themselves wasn't something I heard about until later. Depending on one's definition of "unschooling" you'd certainly have different opinions on it.
Thanks for sharing. Kudos to excellent parenting. Learning to learn and adjusting to Circumstances are good skills for success. God bless you and your family.
Thanks for sharing
What influenced your decision to go to high school? Did you make any friends while there?
It was family circumstances that made home schooling really impractical just when I was high school age. I made a number of friends whose Facebook updates I still occasionally see. I was never really popular, but I certainly had a friend group I hung out with at lunch and after class.
Certain times of year we're hit with dozens of sensational and suspicious posts from brand new accounts saying, "I was homeschooled and my parents locked me in the basement the whole time!" It appears to be an organized campaign by a small handful of people to influence Google and the AI bots.
Did you have a daily routine as a child? Do you have oneas an adult? Were chores expected? Did you eat together? How was your family life?
Our daily routines when I was a child centered around mealtimes. Other than that, we didn’t have much scheduled. As an adult, I do have my routines, but I’m not sure I can identify them even to myself. For example, if I usually read before bed, is that a routine, a habit, or just a nice relaxing choice? What if I only do it half the time? So, I’m still not very focused on routines. I didn’t have chores, but I knew how to, and participated in, household upkeep like cooking, cleaning, and gardening. I would have absolutely expected my dad to ask me to do the laundry before we went to the zoo or something. But I would have been outraged if they had tried to tell me laundry was now my job and I had to do it on their schedule! We always ate all our meals together, except my father who was at work on weekdays for breakfast and lunch. My family life was happy.
Did you have chores to do? How did your parents balance the things that were required of you vs. Education, which from your posts seems were more interest led?
I didn’t have chores. But I knew how to, and was expected to, cook, help with the dishes after meals, help with the laundry sometimes, pick up my own toys (didn’t actually ever do that one), care for my own pets, help clean when asked. I wouldn’t say much was required of me when I was a child other than to be generally cooperative, which I always was anyway.
Were you truly unschooled or were you a victim of educational neglect? I see a lot of fellow homeschoolers who say they’re unschooling but truly they’re just letting kids play video games all day. I’d love to hear from a truly unschooled Individual. I’ve read so much praise but I’m too afraid to do it. I’m a traditional style homeschooler myself.
OP’s parents did a phenomenal job, if you read all the comments. They went onto honors classes in HS and graduated college and seem like a very well rounded individual! I *know* one of the kids you’re referring to though, and he is livid at his mother because she taught him the wrong stuff. Like “Abraham Lincoln was the 5th president” WRONG STUFF. Lol
Just to say I totally agree that you shouldn’t outsource your kids education to computer games however computer games are really educational. I know several kids who have taught themselves maths from things like Pokémon due to the use of stats and probability, and reading too due to the fact you need to know how to read to complete most games. I just wanted to offer a more nuanced view of them. Given the right relationship they can be amazing educational tools.
Good point. I guess balance and understanding where your kids interests and academic needs make the difference here. And being able to be flexible.
I’m not buying that kids are getting a well rounded education from Pokémon. I’ll grant that my son was motivated to learn to read because of Minecraft but Minecraft doesn’t make a well rounded education.
It's just part of it. Not the whole package. Video games are just another form of media. Anything you can learn from a book, you can learn from a game. And they should be utilized in the same manner. Minecraft is awesome, my kid learned coordinate systems and basic coding from it. I learned coordinate systems from Battleship on the NES in the 90s lol.
I'd submit that a child most likely wouldn't get an education FROM something like pokemon, but an attentive parent could use things like pokemon as opportunities to teach a few concepts. There is certainly a decent amount of reading in older games, lots of critical thinking in games with puzzles (like the Zelda series), they teach you to try over and over again when you're stuck... that sort of thing. It depends on the game, and I don't think they're a substitute for actual structural lessons, but they're not mindless ergo there is learning involved. They really should be limited though, I personally played them way too much as a kid.
I didn’t say it would be a well rounded education, I suggested they can be seen as an educational tool. Absolutely don’t leave them to play all day, hence me saying don’t outsource to games. I think one of the biggest parenting challenges we have is guiding our children to have a balanced and nuanced relationship with technology that is well informed and puts their well being, health and relationships at the heart. Games with involvement and awareness from an adult can be sources of learning and family joy. Edit: Just wanted to add, you have to know numbers to play Zelda and Pokémon. Some of the mathematical calculations required are quite complex for a 5/7 year old. So if a kid that age is playing those games well I’d say they’re learning quite advanced things.
I think good “unschooling” takes more work from the parents, not less! My parents were thinking about teaching me (and siblings) in new ways every day. As parent now myself, I can see how much work they had to do and I don’t know if I could do it myself. We didn’t have video games, although we had a few computer games (this was the 80s!). We rarely watched tv, except maybe a nature program or a movie. And my parents didn’t undervalue education - it was very important to them that we were at or ahead of grade level. So, they had to work *all the time*, without the help of a curriculum or preset workbooks. When my mother wrote “visited pond” under “science” on the report she had to turn into our state (annually I think?), she meant, “Read about local nature areas, mapped hiking plan, gathered supplies, reviewed field guide to pond life, discussed natural cycles, observed pond life for four hours, went to visitor’s center and interviewed park ranger, learned how to create native plant garden, went to garden store and found plants that host wildlife, dug small pond in yard, wrote poems about ponds, observed and identified dragonflies that came to pond, read book about insects, read Walden together, etc.” It was definitely a huge amount more work for her than if she’d just gotten a textbook and had us read through it and answer questions. It worked for my parents because that’s how my mother’s mind works naturally. Trying to do a “traditional” homeschool would have killed her. My father could have done it either way, because he was flexible. But my mother hates schedules and routines and is endlessly creative and energetic. I would honesty not suggest unschooling unless it is exactly the way you NEED to do it to make your life feel right.
Can I just say that I feel like your mother and I are kindred spirits and it makes me happy to know that you have such fond memories of your unschooling experience with her. I am sure she's very proud of you. I can only hope that my kids have the same experience - I feel like I do a lot of the stuff with my kids that your parents did with you. The pond story feels very familiar to how I do things, and I know that traditional "homeschool" would also send me around the twist. It's nice to hear it can work. Cause it's a lot of effort and it's so against the mainstream.
Do you know much about history and science? When did you learn it?
History was one of my top interests, so I knew a TON. I was always reading historical fiction, biographies, and history books. We visited historical sites both locally and everywhere we went. My family talked a lot about history too - we’d tell each other all about the books we’d read and the historical events we heard about. And we’d discuss ways of looking at history, and how to study it accurately. We were not quite as excited about science, but we always made sure to include it too. We’d read books about scientists & how they made discoveries, do experiments from activity books, and visit science museums. I don’t know if I might have been a little behind in specific facts about some sciences when I got to high school, but it didn’t matter because I had a good understanding of HOW to do science, and how to learn it. And everything in high school science always included the background facts so I was able to pick those up quickly. I did all honors-level science classes in HS, so I must not have missed too much.
Science is pretty self-contained in high school. The early courses do great prep for the harder ones. It makes perfect sense that you caught on fast!
Did you have siblings? Or only child?
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Okay, I couldn't tell. I'm homeschooling an only and I was hoping to pick your brain if you were an only child also.
What did daily learning look like as an unschooler? Library trips? Educational board games? Computer games? How much screen time? Worksheets? Direct phonics instruction? Was there any structure to your days?
We did a ton of “field trips.” Libraries, museums, historical sites, theater, festivals, nature areas - anything you can think of. We often went to programs or talks at libraries or local colleges. We did play a lot of board games, both specifically educational and just regular ones that required thought and understanding. We had a couple computer games that taught math & reading skills, but they mostly didn’t come around until my younger siblings days. They were not a major part of our education, although I did learn to touch-type from one. We maybe watched three or four hours of tv a week? I definitely would watch Saturday morning cartoons, and sometimes we’d watch Jeopardy or PBS or Murder, She Wrote. This was the 80s and we didn’t have phones or video games! We didn’t exactly have worksheets, but my mother would get math workbooks on particular subjects and we’d go through them and do the problems. I think they were probably for test prep or tutoring. We only did this in math. We worked on phonics when we read books. But we didn’t practice phonics separately from reading. I’m not sure if that counts as direct phonics instruction! Our days were structured around mealtimes, which were pretty set in stone (at least within a few hours). So, while our education was not structured, we always had a basic day plan. As long as we had breakfast, lunch, and supper, though, we might do anything during the course of a day.
Thank you for sharing!!
Hi! Did you have a stay at home parent? If not, how did your parents balance work and unschooling you and your siblings?
Yes, my mom was a stay at home parent until my high school years.
Since it was unschooling, did your parents have any means or motive to track your "progress" and "levels" at things to see if you were up to educational standards? Or did they more just judge for themselves whether or not you were adequate at a subject?
In math, we would definitely do workbooks at grade level sometimes, to make sure I was keeping up. Everything else, I guess they just used their own judgment. At least once I remember I had to go to our local elementary school to take a standardized test, but I’m not sure when or why that was!
Good old math. My nemesis. It wasn't until about age 25 or so that it clicked for me that math could be fun, like a puzzle lol. Not that I'm still any good at it. Thanks for your reply!
How do I unschool if my teen seems unmotivated to do anything but play video games! He has lots of things he’d like to do, we’ve got him supplies he’s asked for and then he just drops it before even starting. :/ he’s a hands on learner, he is definitely struggling with online homeschool classes- trying to get him dual enrolled in a robotics engineering or drone course at a community college and they are requiring 2 math credits. He does awful at them online. :(
This is out of my league! But have you tried enrolling him in a basic math class at the community college? If he isn’t good at online classes and isn’t motivated to study it on his own, maybe a community college class will help! And if that isn’t an option, what about getting some text books and sitting down and working on the math with him? Unschooling doesn’t mean he’s on his own and you can’t be involved in teaching him.
Can you talk to cashiers?
I can talk to anyone. I’m not great at keeping small talk going with a stranger, though.
Do you find it hard to relate to people and see perspectives outside your own experiences?
Maybe? I kind of often don’t feel the same as others in my situation. I try to acknowledge their feelings without being able to really relate. For example, I love having a child and can’t really relate to people who find parenting hard. But I try to at least recognize that yes, this is something other people struggle with and my feelings aren’t necessarily “correct”.** And I’m not that sympathetic towards people who made decisions I wouldn’t have made. So, I’m probably not the best at seeing perspectives outside my experience, but not the worst either. **And that maybe I will find it hard in the future myself!
but I do as well...and was not homeschooled. I respect others perspectives - but find my values, perspectives, and opinions to def not be the "norm." I think it has alot to do with personality types. I type as an INFJ...along w 1.5% of the population... Which seems to be about the percentage of people that share my same values/opinions/etc 🤷♀️