Bar Mitzva dreamin' on such a winter's day

I often describe unschooling as a whole bunch of Sundays or vacation days.  We wake up, we do whatever.  There is no pressure, no "things that need to be done  or accomplished" and just that pleasant feeling of the day or days stretching out before you with no obligations.  In that space, we can be creative, enjoy each other's company, explore things that interest us.  There is a lot of relaxing, feeling close to each other, laughing, casual chatting.  Plenty of opportunities for "Hey, let's do this" and "Okay, why not."

When people start to homeschool, we sometimes ask two questions: What is your child's learning style and what is the homeschooling parent's style?  Take both into account. 

People think I'm relaxed because I unschool.  And I mostly am.  But I also have a part of me that adores lists, schedules, and checking things off.  That is draconian about time.  And about accomplishing.  And finds it exhilarating to juggle Lots of Important Things.

Overall, I haven't found that way of life a higher quality of life, either for me or for my children.  I won't hold my kids back if some of them want the High Achiever lifestyle, but I really like the modest, slow, relaxed lifestyle.

When I think about what I'd like Elazar to be able to do for his bar mitzva, all my High Achiever senses and bells and whistles go off.

Even though

• Elazar is maturing and growing every day in body, thought, mind, maturity, and emotions
• Pushing someone to daven or learn before they are ready or more or faster when they are on the path anyways seems foolish and counterproductive

(This is counterbalanced by the thought that sometimes people will do a lowest common denominator unless nudged)
(This is counter-counterbalanced by the philosophy that unschooling doesn't believe that about people.  People will learn what is interesting and what is valuable.)

• My understanding is that 13 is still young maturity-wise, and many kids have a conceptual explosion around 15. (Which, uncoincidentally, is the age the Mishna brings down to start learning Gemara)

I've been davening out loud next to him so he gets some familiarity.  Then I sing the opening haftora bracha with him.  (He's almost done with that, so in another month we'll start with the end brachos.)

We have only one bracha left in shemona esrei.  This morning we learned
וכל החיים יודוך סלה
Everything alive praises You.

Elazar said: That's not true; there are people who don't believe in God

I said: You can praise without speaking.  For example, if you see a beautiful work of art, do you think, "Wow, the artist is amazing!"
Elazar: Yes
Me: So anything can "praise" the Creator in that way
Elazar: But this says "everything alive." What you are saying also applies to inanimate things.

Me: 

Me: You are right.  You stumped me.  Good question.  You unlocked a riddle in the Shemona Esrei!  I'll be thinking about it.  Thank you!

I want to work on his reading.  I want him to be able to bentch out loud if he's called on it.  (I really want him to be able to daven for the tzibbur, but before that comes "ability to daven at all" and "desire to daven.")

I want to learn Elazar's parsha with him.  I want him to be able to give a speech about his sedra if he wants.  

(This is counterbalanced by the idea that learning on a schedule with a specific deadline in mind frequently compromises the quality of learning and adds pressure)
(This is counter-counterbalanced by the idea that some people find a deadline motivating and encouraging)
(This is counter-counter-counterbalanced by the idea that Elazar certainly does not)

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!

How Things Roll

Last week, Ari brought in groceries and it's the kids' job to put the basement fridge ones in the basement.  We had a new gallon of milk.  I called the kids to put the milk away but 3 of them were playing a game. 



I don't like the milk being left out, and I was getting agitated.  It wasn't such a big deal for me to put it away, but I think it's important that I get help, or else I become a resentful, nasty person.

I asked where E was and he was outside playing.  I kept asking them to do it and they kept being in the middle of the game, and finally I got all huffy, snapped at the room at large, and stomped down with the milk.

When I got up, E had just walked in.  And I said, "NOW you walk in?"  He was utterly bewildered.

I was thinking this morning how glad I am that I'm not normally like this.  It's really unpleasant to live with a mom who is resentful, can't get her needs met, yells, stomps around, and gets angry like that.  I remembered a few major times over the course of my parenting when I did that, and different techniques I've used to change my habits.  (Including but not limited to: practicing controlling my temper, decluttering, changing my parenting style, reframing expectations, practicing straightforward and direct communication, simplifying my life so that I'm not overwhelmed, streamlining processes, thinking about long term affects of my behavior...)

This morning, Chen (teen) sat me down somberly and told me that she saw that E reacted with some shame when I yelled at him, and she felt that was unfair, since he did nothing wrong.  She told me she thinks that in general when I get intense he's particularly susceptible to feeling ashamed, and therefore she thinks I should make an extra effort around him to avoid speaking in those ways.  (Even though obviously it would be good if I could avoid doing it to everyone else, too.)

This is part of the trying to stop blaming thing that I've been working on since Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur this year.  I particularly noticed that it's been affecting Elazar. 

I thanked Chen (I'm blessed that she has a real gift for speaking to me about things in a way where I don't get defensive.  I think part of it is she watched me and Sarah during Sarah's teen years work so hard to de-escalate, and part of it is her natural ability and personality).  And she's going to point it out to me when she sees me do it in the future, and I'll try to cut down more.

I was thinking afterwards about how the unschoolers would approach this.  (Assuming they would agree that kids "should" help with the groceries, which they do not.)  The radical unschoolers have a way of looking at things very creatively.  So I realized if I absolutely wanted them to take the milk down later, and I absolutely could not let the milk stay out the 3 minutes until their game was done (which I could have, but I'm anal about milk in the fridge, which is my issue, and not the kids' problem), I actually could have stuck the milk upstairs and then when they were available, they would have been happy to run it down.  That would have been a decent solution.  Instead, I got resentful and mean. 

I'm glad I've been exposed to the radical unschooler way of thinking, even if I only could think of it after the fact.  I've had a lot of success running through scenarios in my head that went not well and figuring out what I could have done that would have worked better for me.  (Stick that on the list of techniques I use to change my habits..)

A host of worries that ended up turning out ok. For now

I was looking for all the posts where I stressed out about Aharon's socialization.  I can't find them.  I guess I didn't write about them.  (Or my memory is bad and my search engine keywords inadequate.)

Sometimes I have a kid who I think would do okay in school, but I homeschool because it's our philosophy and lifestyle.  And sometimes I have kids for which I am grateful every day that we are homeschooling. 

At first I thought Aharon would be a good candidate for school.  He's bright, he has the capacity to sit, he likes people and is not shy.  Not that I was particularly looking to send him to school. 

It turns out that despite being an extremely amenable two-year-old, he had a turbulent years 3 and 4.  He tantrumed numerous times a day, frequently hitting, biting, kicking, pulling hair, etc.

I was greatly concerned that part of the problem was his home environment.  I was concerned that he didn't have a strong social group.  There were always a lot of kids around--but he was the youngest boy.  Always downtrodden, always left behind, never keeping up, never taken seriously.  His life was a series of frustrations.  No wonder he was a ball of anger.  I hesitated to send him to preschool (exorbitant price tag aside) because he was so physically aggressive and so quick to shriek in frustration.  I had trouble managing it; I imagined him being placed in timeout all day long or the teachers having a lot of trouble with him.

I tried looking for a playgroup.  He was so close in age to his brother (17mo apart) that there was just too much social overlap in the community.

So I sent him to camp.  Which he loved, and it seemed like the answer.  But then the second month of camp came, and he started getting stomachaches.  I spoke to the Rebbe and all he could say is that the amount of children tripled.  As it ended up, Aharon resisted going to camp so much that he didn't go the second month.

What is interesting is how Aharon's personality matured and how our neighbor kids' personalities shifted and matured.  The little girl that is a year younger than he is that he used to push (and therefore get kicked out of her house and come home crying) grew up and matured and became a good companion for him.  The little girl Jack's age became inclined to play with him more because he matured and could play older games.  The boy Elazar's age got a new baby and found that Aharon was the perfect, hardy age to wrestle with.  So for a few years I was so worried about his unhappiness, so worried that I was causing him misery by not sending him to school (except for the issues school would cause), so worried he would be angry and unhappy forever.  And he's pretty happy now socially.  If I could have told myself, "Don't worry, things shift, relationships shift, he'll be okay." 

I think anytime a child is in a phase, it's worrisome.   What if they don't outgrow this?  What if it gets worse?  What if it's just the beginning of a long downward spiral of unhappiness?  And having been through some of those, too, I can tell you that we drag ourselves through those times, too, as best as we can.  But it's useful to note that many times, what's happening IS a temporary phase and things do shift.

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.   

on answering questions and is the era of tantrums over?

chana doesn't really understand a lot of the rashis we do.  aside from reading and translation skills, there are often deep points in rashi and she frequently realizes that she doesn't get it.  and then i realize that 1. she is right; it's a lot more complicated than i realized and 2. she doesn't have the conceptual sophistication to get it.

i like chazara (i've mentioned before) because she realizes new things from reading it again, and it gives her time to brew the different issues.  we had been doing the rashi of yosef coming to the house to do his "work."  she asked me today if i thought yosef intended to be with potiphar's wife; she didn't think so.

she realized today that she didn't understand what it meant that hashem was going to send the bear to bother yosef.  she's read that 3x, but today it hit her that she didn't understand it.  i explained to her a couple of times that the bear is eishas potiphar.  but today she asked me about it again.  and yet, to have a discussion about the psychology of being in a leadership position and grooming himself and how that leads to potiphar's wife noticing him is not something she is interested in.

but i do think it's important to respect that she doesn't understand it.  we are so quick to push answers.  i sometimes think that sitting with the question is more valuable.  if you answer the question, then it stops bothering them and they stop thinking about it.  or, what happened to me a lot when i was a kid, you get the sense that you are supposed to not have the question anymore after the answer and so you accept it, even though it doesn't quite answer the question to your satisfaction.

also, something that i read in r' saadia gaon (maybe) is that people don't realize that thinking and drawing conclusions and finding answers takes effort and work the same way growing crops does.

another thing i was thinking about is that chana hasn't tantrummed in a while.  that's another oddity about homeschooling.  instead of worrying year to year if your kid is "caught up" (caught up to what, anyway??), you can take a long term view of a bunch of years.  i would have thought that my kid ought to have been mature enough to not be tantrumming about her work 2 years ago.  after all, she would never do that in "real" school.  but yet, here we are, and i suddenly realized today that she has the maturity to express her dislike of chumash and express when she is overwhelmed without the tantrums.