Leaping From The Box

I was recently updating some articles on my LeapingFromTheBox.com site and had to smile when I worked on my Chocolate Cake! article. In that article I share an afternoon that our youngest child Charles and I experienced in the kitchen, trying to bake a chocolate cake together. It was one that was not soon repeated. Cooking with my children just never seemed to pan out, no pun intended. I am not sure if it was the too small kitchen, our different learning styles (and subsequent communication issues), or just that I did not have enough patience, but cooking lessons were few and far between in our house. There were occasions when I would try to remedy this, but they were usually short-lived and everyone involved experienced a welcome sigh of relief when any lessons ended.

My step-mother must have been a good teacher, because when I left home I was able to cook meals for large numbers of people. In fact, my husband and I ate a lot of leftovers until I learned to cook for two (after cooking for eight for so long). She would have been sorely disappointed in me that I did not pass along to my children the cooking skills I learned from her, but the truth is, I did not. A homeschooling failure, right? Probably so, but maybe, just maybe, an unschooling success, at least for one of my children.

The Right Incentive?

After our daughter and granddaughter moved back in with us a couple of months ago, I asked our son David to help out a little bit more around the house, maybe cooking some meals or helping with Miss Munchkin’s care during the daytime. I had half thought that might prove to be the incentive needed for him to go get that part-time job, but instead, it seems to have been the incentive to get him cooking. Not quite what I had in mind, but I am not complaining. Well, not much. He still needs to get that job. But I am certainly enjoying the welcome break from meal planning and preparation. In the last two months, I have cooked maybe five suppertime meals! It is wonderful!

I am not completely off the hook, since David had had so little previous cooking experience. I have to be on hand while recipes are consulted, grocery lists are planned, and most especially during the actual cooking process. But I try to stay out of the process as much as possible, just nearby enough so that he can quickly ask a question or I can throw out a suggestion if I see an impending disaster. And amazingly enough, we have had some very good meals. David has been quite adventurous, choosing for one of his very first meals a Japanese fried rice recipe off the Internet, a dish that I have never attempted. After several meals of that, his sister decided he needed to branch out and she has been finding him recipes from other continents. Tuesday night we had Yabbie or Crayfish Fettuccine, an Australian dish. Only it was more shrimp fettuccine and while the shrimp and the fettuccine was great, the sweet potato based sauce was not a hit. Tonight we are doing Africa with some sort of baked meat pie and green bean salad.

What is truly remarkable, though, is how much easier, calmer, less stress-inducing the cooking experiences are now, versus what they were years ago. At that time my children really did not want to learn to cook, but I felt that it was something they ought to know how to do. The end result was a dread on my part and an avoidance of all things cooking on their parts. This time around, I rarely have to ask David what he’s making or if he is going to get started. He has truly taken it upon himself to have a meal served up at around the same time every evening (except for an evening here or there where we eat leftovers or order out pizza). Every now and again it is nice to have an unschooling success smack me upside the head and remind me just why I love unschooling so much!

A reader posed this Unschooling Question:

Hello! We decided to homeschool before my first was born. Along the way we discovered unschooling and it was a perfect fit…for mom and dad. My daughter, now 5, wants to go to school so unbelievably bad. At first I was appalled, but I have since warmed to the idea out of necessity. I don’t want my daughter to feel that she will be missing out on something she wants so badly…”because I said so!” I have tried to lay out the pros and cons as non-biased as possible, but I find myself highlighting the pros of unschooling (and homeschooling in general) way more, on accident, and later feel as if I am spreading propaganda rather than being honest about the situation.

This has to be one of the strangest parenting dilemmas. “Should my child go to school? (with parental hopes and dreams being that she chooses to not attend).” I guess if we choose to help her find her own path and attend public school, we would definitely be considered radical unschoolers. I just don’t know how to make sense of it in my head, and essentially to my daughter. I don’t want to push her either way. I just never thought I would ever face this kind of situation, given that most kids would love to have the option to NOT attend school.

Also, if she does attend, do I push her to do her homework and study, etc. I am so confused.

One more thing…we have a great local unschool group that is very active and hosts monthly events for every interest.

Any input will be welcomed. Thanks sooooo much!

First off, your statement that “most kids would love to have the option to NOT attend school” would apply more to children that have already attended school, not to those who have never been. Television and other aspects of our society (media) have worked diligently to make public school in general and Preschool / Kindergarten in particular appear very appealing to young children. It is not at all unusual for young children to be excited about going to school, where they can do all the things the big kids do!

The Main Decision

Your main decision seems to be whether or not to allow your daughter to attend public school. Once you decide that, then you can deal with your other concerns. In order to make that decision, you need to examine your feelings and beliefs about public school. Do you homeschool due to a belief that public schools are inherently injurious to children’s spirits? Or do you view homeschooling as just one of many possible ways to educate, neither better nor worse than any other form?

Some parents equate public school with playing in the road. While it may seem harmless at first, the dangers are there and by the time you see them coming, it is too late and the damage (sometimes permanent) is done. If you feel that public school is a danger to your daughter’s health and well-being, then your decision is made for you — you homeschool her, regardless of what she wants to do. At her young age, your daughter does not have the maturity or experience to make such a large, important decision.

If you feel that public school is a perfectly viable alternative to homeschooling, then allowing your daughter to try public school would seem to be a logical decision. Based upon the experience with my children, some children really enjoy public school during those early elementary years, while others absolutely do not thrive there. But even in the best of public schools, there will be issues, some of which you may hear about from your child, many that you will not. I was very surprised and disturbed by some of the stories I heard from my children even several years after I removed them from public school. I like to think that, if I had known at the time all that was going on, I would have removed them years earlier.

Finding Out Why She Wishes To Attend Public School

You might try to find out why your daughter wants to go to public school. I have had friends whose children wanted nothing more than a back pack like all the other kids that go to public school. Or they wanted a lunch pail. Or to ride the school bus. One even wanted a menu of what lunch would be each day of the week. It can be amusing to find out just what the child’s expectations are about Kindergarten or Preschool or Public School. If it is something as simple as having a backpack to carry around, that is easily solved.

I also know some families that have done a complete “school day” at home, so their children would know what school was really like. The reality of having to get up early, catch the bus (they actually strapped everyone into the car and made the trek to school), stay seated all day, ask for permission to go to the bathroom, etc., was much more than the children had anticipated and long before the end of the day, they were more than happy to be homeschooled.

If Attending, What To Do About Homework and Studying

Again, you have options here, depending upon your philosophies and beliefs about education, public school, etc. Some families whose children opt for public school do so knowing that they can homeschool at any time. The parents do not care about grades and wish that the child get out of public school what they desire and/or need at the time. Other families insist that, if their children go to public school, they agree to the rules of the game and therefore are expected to do their homework and worry about their grades. Some even insist that the child commit to a full year if they decide to go to public school. Of course, at the Kindergarten age, I doubt that a child that young can understand that type of commitment or whether the parent would want to insist upon completing a full year in public school if they felt it was harming their child in some way.

Guilty of Spreading Unschooling Propaganda?

We all have our biases, based upon our beliefs and experiences, and they will come out, no matter how hard we try to be neutral in our speaking. You want to homeschool, you want your child to be unschooled, so it is only natural that you present that idea in a better light than you do public school. As long as you are trying to be balanced, that is the best you can do. No one can ask for more. Quite honestly, after experiencing life with my children in public school and then homeschooling, I doubt I would be at all balanced in trying to convince a child of mine not to attend public school.

Unschooling Support Group

You are lucky, indeed, to have an active unschooling support group locally. If your family decides to continue homeschooling, be sure to plan something fun for that first day back of public school. Many homeschoolers plan a “not back to school” day, including swimming, park days, ice cream, whatever you can think of to celebrate your freedom from the public school schedule for the coming year!

Best of luck with your decision. Be sure to write back and let us know what you decide!

For ideas about homeschooling / unschooling Kindergarten, check out my Do You Need To Teach Kindergarten? article.

There are several new ant questions (and answers) this week at Ask the Consult-Ant.

Also, don’t forget that Roberta, our LeapingFromTheBox “Consult-Ant,” has her very own Growing With Science Blog.

In her Kids’ Questions About Ants post, Roberta answers questions from several fourth graders in Georgia who had an ant farm in their classroom. They had some interesting questions, things I had never thought about concerning ants. Check them out!