Online Pornography & Chinuch Part II

Here is Part I

The reason I asked experienced unschoolers about their thoughts on pornography is because in general, radical unschoolers don't restrict media.  Their attitude towards screentime, video games, shows, movies, youtube, is that it is all educational.  They aren't alarmed by violent video games, violent movies (if the child seems emotionally able to handle it), playing video games "all day long."  They also are relaxed about "junk food." And bedtimes.  And so many other things.  They are extremely sensitive to prioritizing relationships, and strive to have healthy relationships in the family and good communication, and responsiveness to the children's needs.  So I wanted to hear what unschoolers have to say about pornography.  Anything that society thinks is "bad" is not necessarily harmful, and unschoolers often have a very different way of looking at things, and I wondered about their approach. 

Before I get into that, I want to share a halachic approach.  I found this podcast extremely useful:
Intimate Judaism: Masturbation, Sexual Health, & Halacha: Is There a Conflict?

From the unschoolers I got advice:

• to definitely begin conversations about online content and pornography. 
• to be very careful to not be accusatory or to engender feelings of guilt
• that there is a lot of material online that a kid can stumble onto and be overwhelmed by
• that filters don't stop that, and conversation is probably the best approach

Given that, I had my first conversation about it.  I told E that now that his body is changing, it's time to talk about pornography on the internet.  (This is part of many ongoing conversations we've been having about changing bodies.)  I asked him if he knows what pornography is, and he said people having sex on camera.  I made 4 points:

1. When you get older, if you see pornography, you can feel sexually excited, which means...(I trailed off here and 7yo helpfully supplied, "like you want to do the thing that makes babies?") (7yo asked if he should leave the room when I started by saying, "Now that your body is starting to change, it's time to have a conversation."  But I said, Nah, he can stay if he wants.)
   
2. There is a lot of pornography which is disturbing or scary or uncomfortable.  We reviewed what to do any time he sees something that makes him uncomfortable: Close it and walk away, and come and get me and tell me if you want to discuss it. (I wonder if I should be more forceful about telling them that it's important to talk to me about it, or if it's okay to leave it to their discretion.  I guess it depends on how disturbing whatever they come across is.) (This is something that the unschooling ladies thought was very important to convey to my kids--that they could come across things that could potentially scare or disturb them, and they should be prepared for that and have agency to close it down and know that there is parental support available.)
   
3. If you ever see anything that you have questions about, come and ask me and we can talk about it. 
   
4. Pornography is usually acting, which means the women are acting like they enjoy it and not necessarily enjoying it, and the way things happen in pornography is not actually how it really is in real life.  (Conversations to follow about checking if someone likes it, both verbally and nonverbally, and more about communication and paying attention to what your partner likes and communicating what you like and don't like.  But that's not for now.)

Aharon's First Torah

A couple of days ago, Aharon told me he doesn't like it when I speak in Hebrew. 

"Well," I said, "I speak in Hebrew so that when you want to read the Torah, you'll understand it.  Because the Torah is in Hebrew."

And he said, "But I can't read the Torah."

"Actually, I think you can," I said.  He hasn't been practicing his Hebrew reading very much (except once a week at Avos U'Banim), but like unschoolers usually do, he had practiced every day while he was interested in mastering it, then hit a level of proficiency and stopped working on it.  Last time I saw him read, I felt he was pretty fluent.  I had been thinking I should offer to work on davening with him, but as always, I vacillate between wondering if I should try to work with them and figuring it will be way more efficient and quick if they do it when they are motivated.

Aharon and Elazar began talking about how they actually knew a fair amount of what the words meant in the Hebrew reader.

[When I started unschooling, I had a fear that one day my kids would grow up, realize they have massive gaps in their education, and blame me for not forcing them to learn it.  But I then realized that a lot of unschooling is cheerfully talking about how when they want it and are interested in it, they'll learn it.  So they don't learn Torah inside right now, but when it comes up, we talk about how when they are interested and want to, they'll learn it.  It turns out that unschoolers happily and cheerfully learn new things and master new skills as they become relevant or interesting.]

Tonight, Aharon was wandering around, and I said, "Hey, want to try to read the Torah?"

He said okay.  I asked him which part of Torah is his favorite.  He said the part where Hashem turned the water into blood. 

No problem.  I pulled out Shmos and opened up the pasuk.  Aharon read המים and I repeated it after him and he said, "the water!"  Then he read אשר and didn't know what it was.  I said "that" and he said "אשר קדשנו במצותיו" and I said Yup. Then he read ביאור and I told him that was the Hebrew word for the Nile River.  Then he was getting antsy and I told him just one more word.  And I pointed to the last word in the pasuk and he read לדם.  And I repeated it and he didn't know.  And I said just "dam" and he said, "Blood!"  And he grinned.

****

An example of how halacha comes up naturally: Aharon wanted to eat his pizza bagel and I told him to make a bracha but he was waiting for the bagel to call off a bit.  Then he came over to me a minute later with a tiny bit of the cheese from the top and asked me if this was the same bracha as the bagel.  I said no, that's shehakol, and he should make that bracha and then a bracha on the bagel later when it cools down.

Burning Chanuka Question

7yo came in this morning (he would have woken me up to ask this; happily I'm getting plenty of sleep these days and I wake up early most days) to ask:

Do we light the Chanuka candles on Shabbos?

I said no, we light before and we light after.

He said: Then how can it count for the day?

Excellent.  He's thinking halachically.  If we light before Shabbos, how can it count for that night?  Doesn't it need to be after nightfall? 

I reassured him that it's ok, we do light beforehand and it still counts.

But now I'm thinking about it.  How does that work halachically?

I do find about homeschooling, especially unschooling, that kids aren't mentally worn out from sitting so many hours and their curiosity is not dulled from studying things they are not interested in.  People who are in school have a hard time comprehending the urge to think about things when you don't "have" to.  I myself, a product of the school system, continue to be shocked by it.  But very often, my kids wake me up with "school" questions.