The following is my probably inaccurate memory summarizing our conversation

This morning we had a little parent teacher conference about some aspects of bar mitzva readiness.  Ari was considering buying siddurim for each kid.  Notwithstanding that we already have 2 children's siddurs on the shelf (and boy #3 is often still asleep when I do tefila in the morning) that the boys already don't use, I didn't think it was a good idea to have the kids follow along while I daven.

Right now, I daven out loud.  They play video games and sing along when they feel like it.  I feel that having them follow along (or I even considered Elazar just standing next to me for shemona esrei and me being motzi him that way) would be excruciatingly boring for them and not confer any actual benefit.  I suggested that during Avos U'Banim, when Ari has the kids for learning, he work on reading Shema, Shemona Esrei, bentching and other brachos achronos. (And Asher Yatzer, which I forgot to mention.) 

The question is, will E be able to daven 3x a day with a minyan and a full davening?  If not, what is the bare halachic minimum?  Ari asked what about birchas Kriyas Shema.  I am singing them out loud to Elazar every day. (Not maariv, but shacharis.)  So he is becoming familiar with them.  I don't know that making him sit with an open siddur would help, and it can definitely pain him and make him miserable.  And if, at bar mitzva age, E finds he cannot focus on the whole thing and have kavana, and he hates it, then what do we recommend for him?  Just Shema and Shemona Esrei 2x a day.  Mincha just Shemona Esrei.  Bare minimum halachic requirements. 

Ari wants to make sure that E can count at a minyan.  To that end, he will need to know how to respond (amens, kedusha, kaddish, etc).  I suggested Ari go through that with him.  Is it better to do that at the minyan or outside the minyan?  (As I don't know, I leave that to Ari's discretion.)

Ari also felt that he had pushed E too much during Avos U'Banim.  I told him that I had discovered from my learning with E that he enjoys learning trope outside the context of reading and translating.  And he enjoys translating when he doesn't have to read (meaning you read the word to him and he translates) and he enjoys understanding the pesukim when you tell him the general translation but it loses enjoyment for him when he has to sit and decode a lot.  He'd rather each word or phrase in the pasuk be read to him, ask him what the words mean and have him answer/guess, then tell him generally as a whole what the pasuk means. 

I said that I think that not pushing reading and translating makes sense.  Because he enjoys other aspects of learning Torah.

• If you read it to him, he likes translating some of the words if he knows them
• If you sing him the trope, he likes learning and repeating the trope
• If you tell him what the pasuk means, he enjoys thinking about it

He does NOT like reading.  He does not like going slowly and translating it.  Will having him do that increase the likelihood that he will learn Torah in the future?

Will having him read and decode increase his future ability to learn Torah because he will have the skills?

These are important questions.  (Wish I knew the answers!)  It seems to me that focusing on the parts he enjoys and not pushing the parts that pain him will keep his learning positive and enjoyable.  This will increase the probability that he will learn Torah as an adult.

But what about his lacking skills?  Either he will be motivated to gain skills, or he will learn using translations.  My sense is that pushing the skills will more likely end up (in E's particular case) with him avoiding future Torah learning.

I said to Ari that I think focusing on the 3 types of learning that he enjoys above and avoiding what he dislikes will make him more likely to learn Torah by himself at age 25.  Ari said, "Really?"  

It's kind of scary to not do the "classic" educational stuff.  Will we be providing him with the education necessary to be a ben Torah?  

On the other hand, traditional education would be a disaster for this particular child.  We are already out of the box.  It's a tough line to figure out what is "pushing too hard" and what is "avoiding our responsibility to make sure he is capable of fulfilling his responsibilities."  What is he capable of and what is he truly not capable of?  What will foster a joy and love of Torah and what will push him away?  What can he really handle and what is a good idea for him to handle?

With so many kids who have gone through the school system being disinterested, not halachically observant, not having a strong emotional and spiritual relationship to Torah, and lacking skills, at least I feel I can't do worse than that with alternative education.  That's not a very high bar, though.

One of the things that makes Unschooling so Radical

Something that comes up when people worry about unschooling is: What if the kid grows up and feels that the parent has abdicated responsibility for educating them and the parent should have done a better job and forced them?

I've tried to explain that when unschoolers want to know something and feel like they need it, they simply pursue it.  Ask for help if they need.  (For example, when Chen took a college course and realized she didn't know exactly how to write an essay, she asked me to run through it with her and I told her about introductions, stating points, backing them up, and conclusions, and she began writing essays.) Today I read something by Caren Knox and it gave insight as to why this is and how it works and it absolutely resonated with my experience (bolding is mine):

Someone said that they find watching their children feeling bad about failing painful.  She responded:

One thing I’ve noticed in most long-time unschoolers I’ve known is that they inherently understand that they’re learning all the time, and that they experience not reaching goals or not quite getting something, not as personal failure or a shortcoming, but as one step in learning. I doubt they’d even be able to express that, unless they’re particularly self-reflective; for them, taking “failure” personally isn’t part of their experience of life. (This, of course, also depends on the personality of the child. What I’m saying is what I’ve noticed, generally speaking.)

They’re able to assess what happened without self-recrimination. “Oh, I didn’t know xyz was part of this thing I’m trying. Now I know, so this time I’ll add in xyz and maybe it’ll work now.” “Jeez, I am not so great at organizing this thing. I’ll ask Banu how they did it for the thing they did.” [<——- Very doubtful any unschooler has said anything like this out loud. This is my clumsy attempt at portraying the inner, perhaps even unnoticed by them, thoughts of an unschooler facing something not working as they planned or imagined.]

In school, something not working means FAILURE. You had one chance, and you screwed up, so that’s it. You get an F or a C or some other measurement that means you did not get this thing, and you will not get this thing, because this is the only time in the curriculum this is done. And people seem to think that means something about you personally. “You’re bad at math.” “You’ll never be an engineer.” “You’re slow.” “You’re a bad student.” “You are falling behind.” “You have a disability.”

Unschoolers have experienced life differently. There is plenty of time to do what they’re trying, so not getting it the first time means they can assess and try again, learning each time. (They might learn they don’t want to do that thing as much as they thought they did.) If they see they’re not skilled in a certain area, it doesn’t mean that *they* are failures; they can choose to learn about that, or ask for help, or outsource, or all of those.

Most always-radically unschooled kids or long-time radical unschoolers are comfortable with the process of learning, which often involves failure.
It’s like a lot of video games. You move your character through obstacles, and if you fail, there’s another life right there for you to take what you learned (“Whoa, a Goomba comes at me there”) and make different choices (“I’ll kick this Koopa shell first, then go”). There’s no real-life failure or death, and there are infinite opportunities for you to start over (or from a save point) and take another go at it.

"You should have taught me X"

It's one of the unschooling parent's nightmares that people tell me about sometimes.  What if, since I didn't "make" my kid sit down and learn xyz, they come to me when they are older and blame me?  What if they denounce me and say, "You should have taught it to me! You should have made me do it!"

Parenting is rife with stories from people who were grateful that their parents made them do things.  "I'm glad my parents made me leyn for my bar mitzva." "I'm glad my parents forced me to do my homework every night."  "I'm glad my parents forced me to..." Actually, I just went to google that to get some ideas: get a summer job; perform in musicals; swimming lessons; music lessons; restrict media...

Interesting.  As I'm reading, I see an equal amount of resentment at being forced to do things ("I still hate it and I hate it more because they made me do it") and I see resentment for being not forced to do things ("I wish I had more guidance and it didn't feel like they cared what I did or loved me").

I've heard more than once that parents are nervous about unschooling because what if the child grows up and "knows nothing" (obviously that's absurd because children are curious and can't help learning things if they aren't forced to learn things, but the fear is more if they don't know "basic" things like reading/writing/'rithmetic) and is then angry at the parent for not discharging their parental responsibility: I trusted you to handle my education!  Yeah, I fought you, but I was a child! You weren't supposed to let me do things that are not good for me!  If I'm a toddler and I want to run into the street into traffic, you aren't supposed to LET me!

First, I want to note that there seem to be two extremes that upset grown kids here: 1) being controlled and being forced to do things they don't want to do.  2) being uninvolved and not being pushed to do things or encouraged or given help and support to get out of comfort zones.

In general, people are familiar with unschooling being not about forcing.  But it is not the second option, either.  It is not neglect.  It is not letting kids find their own way with no parental support or supervision.  It is very hands on and very involved.  It's just that the parents don't decide what to do, they support what the child wants to do.

Next. (I think I wrote about this before, but I can't find the post.)  A big feature of unschooling is that the child learns something when it is interesting or when it is useful.  Therefore, if a child is concerned that they haven't learned xyz, you can simply reassure them that when it is interesting enough OR when they find they need it, they'll have the motivation to learn it and be willing to put in the time and effort to learn it.  And that time will be the right time, and there's nothing wrong with not knowing it until that point. 

In our society, we have a lot of social norms about what age people should know different things.  But that is actually pretty arbitrary.  There's something magical about a cheerful, energetic, and optimistic 25 year old who doesn't know something basic but assures their boss that they are prepared to learn it and should have a general sense of things in a couple of weeks.  And then walks back in with an excellent grasp and a sophisticated understanding of things.

Part of unschooling is a cheerful confidence that they have the ability to learn things when they want to. 

Finally, I'd like to quote Deb Rossing from an unschooling group (bold mine):

okay, and if he does 'blame' you, then what? Knowing that you've done what you could to support, encourage, facilitate what he said he wanted to do (or not do, or try and stop doing) all along the way, what does his 'blaming' do to you? It sounds like you're trying to line everything up perfectly so you don't get 'blamed' for anything - but reality is that you -could- do everything perfectly and STILL get 'blamed' because that is not something you can control, that is in the head of the other person, whether it is your child, your partner, or some other person. We can't talk a person out of their opinions and feelings. Best we can do is ask for feedback "How could I have done that better, in that time and situation?" Often, they don't know -because basically blame is trying to get out from under feeling badly -about themselves- not so much about you or what you did/didn't do.

I think Deb put her finger on a couple of important points.  One, we as homeschooling or unschooling parents are worried about all the responsibility--so we'd love to set it up so that whatever goes wrong is not our fault.  The fact is, homeschooling is scary.  Because nobody else is making the decisions about what to do with your children and how to educate them.  It's all on you.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  It's sobering that this really is on us.

It's important to be open to feedback (heck, most of homeschooling is basically taking feedback from your children about how to teach them).

But sometimes blame is just them feeling badly about themselves and wanting to avoid the reality--when you want to learn it, you can and will.

An important distinction is that sometimes kids want the end result of having the knowledge or skill, but they do not want to put in the time and effort to get that result.  They want to be a great electric guitar player; they don't want to practice.  They want to know calculus; they don't want to spend hours working on it.  They want to build things; they don't want to start slowly and methodically.

And we as adults, often shame them for that.  Or worry that this demonstrates a future lack of ability to persist.

So when they say, "I want to play piano" for the hundredth time, we retort: "Practice, and you'll get better!" 

We lecture or we pressure or we let them know that there is something bad about them for not being motivated to put in that time and effort.

Unschooling really is radical in this sense.  It suggests trust.  Trust that you don't have to push.  That when the child wants to do it, it will come.  Either it will come easily, or your child will be determined and will persist.

Chen kept saying she wanted to take the ACTs.  But for a long while she didn't do much about it.  If I actually was stressed that she wouldn't be able to take the ACTs and that she had to take the ACTs and it would be terrible for her future if she didn't take the ACTs, my reactions and my interactions with her would have looked very differently than if I was emotionally neutral about her plans and just wanted to support her.  I bought her a curriculum.  She didn't like it.  I got her ACT books out of the library.  I offered to teach her but she didn't want that.  I researched and discovered alternative paths to college--going to community college without needing to take SATs or ACTs.  I told her about that.  Eventually, she started teaching herself the math.  She got a friend to teach her.  She asked for a couple of tutoring sessions, which I paid for.  I wasn't on top of her and to me it was not about what she was learning or not learning.  It was about supporting her choices.

If a child is blaming the parent, it could be:

• You really did make a mistake.  In that case, be honest and apologize.  You can try to explain what your thinking was, but that only works if there are literally decades of trust between you and your child and your child is used to thinking of you as having the child's best interests at heart and not about pushing your own agenda onto the child.  If, as parents, we push our own issues and wants and dreams onto our children, then they may be suspicious that we haven't had their best interests at heart.  And would they be wrong?
• The child is wrestling with self doubt. Nervous about lack of abilities or accomplishment.  Usually the parents seizes this opportunity to "teach" the child that what is needed is effort or motivation.  Instead, consider exuding trust.  Remind the child that learning is easiest when it is interesting or useful to the person.  Find things that are interesting and fun to the child, and give reassurance that it won't be hard to learn when they are ready.

It's kind of scary to take that leap and believe that it really is okay if they don't know things or have certain skills or are able to do certain things.  I remember thinking--but...but...what if they never learn math?!  What if they never want to learn Torah?  What if they can't do...things?

For an unschooler the answer when your child asks this is:  Okay, do you want to do it now?  How can I help?

And if they say: No...I just want to know what if I grow up and I don't know it?

Answer: Then you'll learn it when you want to!

Davening Goals

Davening has a way of clarifying goals.  I've been trying to figure out the easiest way for Elazar to learn how to leyn.  He'll be 12 soon.  I started learning his parsha and the first aliyah is SO MUCH more difficult than the last 3 pesukim of maftir.  I started focusing on the trope because he wanted to go to the ice cream store.  I said I'll take him every couple of weeks and we'll learn the trope.  All the boys are doing it together and we've been enjoying ice cream.

One of the things I've been davening for is that Elazar should have an easy time grasping and remembering the trope, and that it should come easily to him.  That's not something that's in human control.

I realized as I was davening about it this morning, that if I could fast forward fifteen years into the future, and see that Elazar loves to learn Torah, is shomer mitzvos, can make parnassah, and has the promise of a loving and healthy relationship, then I wouldn't care a whit if he could leyn or not.

My 2010 educational goals (seems like it's about time for a conscious re-evalution; a lot has shifted in almost a decade) already need a reboot because I discovered via the turbulent teen years that I had focused on love of learning and shortchanged love of mitzvos.  One of my most frequent tefilos is that my children should love Torah AND mitzvos. 

This doesn't just work by invoking Divine Intervention (though tefila acknowledges that human efforts are essentially insufficient for success).  It focuses me every day.  When I daven that my children should love mitzvos, it affects how I speak about mitzvos.  It affects my relationship with mitzvos.  It helps me pay attention to how mitzvos are good and useful and keeps my attitude more positive.  It frames how I speak to them about mitzvos.  Basically, davening strongly affects how these conversations and interactions go--in a laws of nature kind of way.

Davening about leyning this morning was a weird experience.  I've davened for it before, because I find that davening helps ME keep a value or goal in the forefront of my mind.  It's easier for me to keep motivated about practicing the trope with him when I davened for it that morning.  Years ago my Rabbi mentioned that when asking God for something, the first question to ask ourselves is, "Have I done everything possible according to the laws of nature to achieve this?"  It's kind of chutzpadik to lie in bed staring at the window and davening that Hashem should open the window for me.  Get out of bed and open the window! (If you can't, have physical disability or emotional resistance, then of course davening is not chutzpadik.) (And [sidepoint] it's also okay to be chutzpadik in davening, too.)

This time, while davening, I was just hit with the feeling of What If I were to know that leyning wouldn't work out for him, but I got my usual tefila answered--that he loves Torah and Mitzvos?

It was clear to me what the answer is.

Not to say that I plan to stop trying to facilitate his leyning.  I think if it's not too painful or too stressful*, participating in minyan in the fullest way possible is an important part of being grown up and being part of the community.
(*Big IF)

But it's an important perspective.

Best Use of My Time

I have to remember that conflict resolution is one of the most important things to me as a parent and homeschooler.  

Way back when my oldest was homeschooling, and I was trying to figure out how to manage my time and make decisions about what to teach, I did a "begin with the end in mind" approach where I thought about what things I wanted my adult children to have.  And then planned their education with that in mind.  

To recap, it was 4 things:

1. Basic reading, written communication, and math (I've since dropped math--they seem to figure out the basics of a calculator pretty easily)
2. A sufficient sense of responsibility that allows a person to hold down a job; i.e. show up on time and do your work diligently.
3. The capacity for satisfying and emotionally healthy relationships with a spouse, children, and friends.
4. A non-superstitious relationship to Judaism and Torah (I've since changed it to a love for Torah AND mitzvos, after some missteps in parenting during the teen years)

I've mentioned that physical fighting has gone down and we are seeing a lot of verbal disagreements with raised voices.  One of the things I've always loved about homeschooling is that there is time to slow down and handle these issues.  And what I love about unschooling is it seems like that IS the job.

So now I'm reminding myself not to get swept away by my own projects and the minutiae of running a fair-sized household and not to forget that when I hear the voices raised, I have nothing better to do than to go over to them or call them over to me, help them talk through the conflict, and learn and practice the tools to resolve it.

Math & Middos

Jack has no money left in his "bank account," the spreadsheet I use to keep track of their money. 

On Friday, we were driving.  He was angry and shaking my seat.  I said if he doesn't stop shaking it, he'll have to move to the back back of the van.  He didn't stop.  I told him to move.  He started screaming about moving.  I said that I'm counting to 5 and then I'm taking a dollar away from him.  He started moving.  I stopped counting.  He stopped moving and started screaming again about how he hadn't heard me warn him he'd have to move.  I finished counting and said he has to give me a dollar.  He started screaming that he didn't know I was counting.  I said I'm starting to count again, and then it's another dollar.

He moved.  He spent the next half hour screaming about how it isn't fair, he hadn't heard the first warning, he hadn't heard the counting.

He said that he was never going to give me any more money to put into his account, because right now it has negative one.  And if he puts money in, then I'll get a dollar from him.  But if he never puts money in again, it will always stay negative one and never get his dollar taken away.

I thought that demonstrated a pretty decent handle on how negative numbers work and I'll put that on the quarterly report.

On a side note, I may have mentioned (I looked for some posts but couldn't find--wait, I vaguely remembered something and searched "succos lollipops" and found this post) that Jack has a particular middah that I personally find challenging and end up getting into conflict with him about. 

My most recent attempt to deal with this was for us to talk in whispers when we begin to argue.  It's been pretty helpful because no matter how heated, it's difficult to escalate too much while whispering.

He gets into a mentality sometimes where everything is bad, or unfair.  He wallows, has a hard time getting out of being unhappy (he's always had trouble self-soothing from the time he was a baby and small toddler), and eventually he turns to grandiose solutions that are impractical or absurd, and gets even more furious when we won't implement them.  Or he focuses a lot of mental energy on the aspects of unfairness and how he is logically correct.

Because it triggers things in me, it's been difficult to parent this well.  I've tried valiantly and failed spectacularly on numerous occasions, often ending with me becoming verbally abusive.  My sister and I have gotten into more than one fight when she asked my why I was allowing him to carry on so aggressively and publicly.  (Note: she was right.  I got very defensive and we had more than one argument, but ultimately she stuck to her guns and I tried to open myself to what she was saying and she helped me process some of my conflicts and helped me focus on what types of boundaries were important to hold with him as he tantrummed and it was extremely helpful.  Having someone close to you watch you parent and give input, while painful, can be very helpful.)  Staylistening has been useful but has not addressed the basic middah.  I figured it's the kind of thing that hopefully if I don't make it worse, he'll eventually get the time and maturity to work through it. 

I've noticed an irony in parenting.  Lots of times as parents, we see a trait in our children that we think is negative.  So we try to "parent" it out of them.  But it's possible that if we just give them space and don't make it worse, then they'll end up being mature enough and emotionally healthy enough to manage it and navigate it as they grow.  (This I probably learned from radical unschooling.)  Shyness, for example.  Or "selfishness," I've seen, can be something that might need to be addressed, but it's also possible that selfishness is developed through a scarcity mentality and that being in a home with kindness and generosity will eventually lead to being kind and generous.  Or anger, which I used to think with my oldest that I needed to train her in self control, but it turns out that parenting with firm but kind boundaries and giving them space to have and feel the fullness of their feelings sort of ends up with them being able to manage their anger (well, the jury's still out on this one as my youngest seems to have an extra dose of my FOO's temper, and he's still young, so we'll see in ten years or so).

So I realized with Jack that it's important for me to be there as a loving presence while he goes through this complex wave of emotions.  And it's important for me not to "fix" it, and it's important for me to maintain the "no" while still being kind.  (That's where I often fail/ed.)  And it's important for him to have the experience of being so upset and grieving all the things that come up for him each time (life is unfair, his brother gets things and experiences he doesn't, he has no friends, his life is miserable, etc.) and to really have it be okay for him to be sad about all these things in a profound way, and for him to have the experience of it ebbing and him climbing his way out. 

I don't think it's useful for me to cajole him out of it, or coax him, or distract him, or try to fix it.  Those are all futile things we do in life with our own pain.  The best thing I can do for him is to be there for him as a loving presence that has confidence that these feelings will not destroy him and that he can and will feel them without the world ending.  And let him see that it does ebb and it is okay.

I had a recent epiphany.  I realized I was buying in to Jack's narrative.  I identify with him.  I agreed with him that it is a tragedy that his brother has more friends, has more fun, goes on more playdates, and gets more invites, more presents, more shalach manos.

It occurred to me that maybe it's not a tragedy.  Maybe it's just his chelek, his situation, and that learning to navigate his feelings and be able to tolerate the pain and pick himself up afterwards is actually a good thing.  Maybe even a better thing than having more playdates and more shalach manos.   

When Strangers Quiz Your Children

I just drove a half hour with my three boys in the back seat.  They got along pretty decently, no major fighting.  Lots of arguing and tussling.  Why don't regular cars come with that limo glass panel that slides open and closed so the driver can't hear what's going on in the back!! 

Last week, I took Jack (2nd/3rd grade) to an allergy doctor.  The doctor was a frum guy, and when he saw me speaking Hebrew to Jack, he spoke to him in Hebrew, too.  Happily, it was one of those situations where my kids actually understand Hebrew--he spoke with a strong American accent. 

Upon discovering that Jack was homeschooled, he proceeded to do what so many doctors have done--he began quizzing Jack about what he learns and knows.  Jack can actually read and do math somewhat on grade level--which has not always been the case with unschooling.  He hesitated about Chumash, and actually blanked on the question "Do you know how to say elephant in Hebrew?"  (It's so much easier to translate "pil" than to be asked to produce the Hebrew word...)

I let most of it play out, keeping a pleasant smile on my face.  Afterwards, I asked Jack how he liked the doctor (he's introverted, so the major achievement here was looking the doctor in the face and answering his questions in a decibel the doctor could actually hear) and Jack commented on how the doctor asked him so many questions.

And it's true, as a homeschooler, I've found that doctors often ask my children questions.  They want to "make sure" my kids are being educated.  Or maybe they are just curious.  And, since I unschool and the younger grades are frequently spent mostly playing, my kids very often don't know the answers.  I've sat there placidly as my children didn't know Judaic bekius, simple math problems, geography, history, science, you name it--and my kids have not known the answer to it.

The only time we had slight vindication was when Chana told the pediatrician she was planning to go to Japan in the summer and he asked, somewhat satirically, how her Japanese was.  And he was absolutely floored when she said, "Well, it's mediocre; not as good as I would like, but I hope that the trip will improve it."

I used to be incredibly stressed out when my kids were being quizzed.  I worried that they didn't know the answers.  I worried homeschooling was failing.  I worried they'd feel bad about themselves for not knowing.

As I got more confident about homeschooling, I trusted that it was OK that they didn't know the answers at age 10.  I also felt that if I didn't exude stress that they don't know the answers, the kids probably wouldn't be unduly disturbed that they don't know the answers.  (And the doctors always told them the answers, so it was kind of like having a mini homeschooling tutoring session thrown in for free in addition to the doctor appointment.)

homeschooling #fail ?

Yom Kippur.  After we finished the Seuda Hamafsekes, I went through the selichos with the 13 attributes with Chana.  She was unimpressed.  Uninterested.  Didn't relate to it.  I asked her to sit in shul at night and try to keep the page and read through in English whatever she liked and see if anything interests her.

I ended up coming into shul for about 15 minutes as the boys played outside.  I stood next to Chana in shul and she told me how boring and pointless shul was.  As we sat there, though, she whispered huge fundamental questions about life and purpose and God and meaning.  She shrugged away when I pointed to parts of the tefila that I liked.  I don't know how much it was okay to whisper in shul.  I tried to answer her questions to some degree.  I think some part of her wants to know what I think, or wants to know the answers, and most of her feels the questions but has little patience to try to unravel or work towards answers.  Her questions make me realize that in my own life, I have questions.

Then Aharon came into shul screaming that Jack hit him and Jack came in after him, defending himself, and I took them home and left Chana in shul.

I thought about it a lot afterwards.  Does Chana not relate to the purpose and concept of the day?  Isn't this because I failed to sit down and discuss it with her and explain it to her?  She doesn't understand atonement (though we did come across it in Vayikra a lot, she usually shrugged away when I wanted to talk about it more in depth).  Hey, can I even explain atonement "al regel achas" on one leg, in a succinct and clear way that a homeschooled teenager has patience for?  How do I expect her to relate to the day when I haven't put in the time and energy to make sure she is prepared?

And I don't mean talking about the prayers.  For a few days we've been debating the mechanics of what she would do on Yom Kippur, how she would pray, what she would pray, where she would pray.  We learned Yona.  After shul that night, Ari sat with her and discussed the different tefilos and brought up the concept of teshuva.  We planned to learn Viduy together (which we ended up doing, the next day.  She didn't really relate to it).  I mean talking about what the High Holy days mean to the Jewish people, what their purpose is, what their design is, how they work.  What teshuva means, how it works, why it's important.

On one hand, unschooling maintains a trust that eventually, she will engage with the day and look for meaning and ask questions and take it seriously.  On the other hand, I wondered if I could have done more to help her understand the significance of the day.

Then I think maybe I'm being too hard on myself.  Maybe she did think about things.  Maybe she's only 13.

As always, when thinking about unschooling, I use the rule of thumb that if I'm concerned about my child not learning, I flip it inwards and focus on my own learning and growth.  Focus on my own understanding of the Days of Awe, and of Yom Kippur, and of kapara.  If I see she doesn't relate to it, that just gives us an opening of where and how to begin.  Maybe next year.