What if you want to unschool ?

Question

And your kids are basically unmotivated? What if they are around 12 years old and just want to sit around all day?

Answer 1

wel if you live in california you can not teach your kids unless you have a teachers crudential ya i no it sucks

Answer 2

I think most of the people who frown on unschooling or say it doesn't work don't truly understand how it works.

For kids who have been in school, or kids who have done school at home -- those kids must *deschool* before they can truly unschool.  Deschooling kids certainly may look like they are not doing anything, but vegging can be very therapeutic.  It's recommended they get to veg for 1 month for every year they were in school.

If the parents are looking for schooly things to prove whether or not their kids are motivated, they'll be disappointed.  True unschooling and true learning rarely looks like schooly things.  In other words, kids learn from everything: cartoons, video games, TV shows, museums, books, digging in the dirt, riding bikes, shooting hoops, etc.  Unschooled kids *may* choose classes or workbooks and the like, but it's rare unless they're pursuing a specific goal.

The biggest misconception about unschooling is that kids are left to fend for themselves educationally.  This isn't true.  Yes, the kids are free to pursue their passions and follow their interests, and learning happens as a side effect.  But we parents are also very involved, talking with our kids, watching TV with our kids, learning about their passions, as well as providing them with a rich environment, taking them on cool trips, answering their questions, and finding cool things they may like and bringing it home.

I've never met an unmotivated unschooler.  The times my kids have chosen to veg out, they were going through a developmental change, and being quiet was therapeutic.

People are programmed to learn.  Think about how you, as an adult, learn new things.  Yes, you might take a class or buy a CD set, or invest in lessons (ie music), but many times you might google it, get books and read about it, find others interested in the same thing, immerse yourself in it.  Rarely does it look like school.

Answer 3

I'm 15 and have unschooled all my life, as have my siblings without any probs.

What I think you'd have to understand is that if your 12 year old has ever been to conventional school then unschooling will come hard to them, at least for the first few months or so.

Any kid who has previously been to a conventional school will need some considerable time to de-school and heal from the inevitable harm done in conventional classrooms, by conventional schooling etc.

I'm not even sure one can take a 12 year old who has been in a conventional school setting since they were 6 and suddenly make the swap to unschooling. One only has to look at the beliefs about and attitudes towards unschooling of conventionally schooled people on this board to see that.

Most people's experiences are that unschooling works best for kids who have never been to school, never been exposed to the damaging effects of school and have never been indoctrinated by the expectations of school and outside teachers and peers and external influences. Either that or teenagers who are old enough to have seen through the myth of school as offering any sort of viable, worthwhile, real world/adult life relevant education.

Answer 4

your the parent. make them get their butts up and do something. being lazy isnt going to get you anywhere in this world.

Answer 5

Parents who do unschooling don't have kids that are unmotivated and sit around all day doing nothing. The reason they choose to unschool or whatever you want to call it is because they have taken the time to really get to know how their child learns and what interests them and are motivated to do what it takes for their child to learn thru everyday life.

If kids were truly sitting around all day doing nothing at all then I wouldn't call this anything, but pure laziness on the child's part and mostly parent.

This is a silly question. I don't know why I am even bothering to answer, but if you are not planning on unschooling your child then why bother worrying about it or wasting your time on it.

Answer 6

Unschooling, despite what it may look like, doesn't fall entirely on the shoulders of the kids. The parents need to be an active part of their education and life in general. Forcing them to do certain things would defeat the purpose of unschooling, but you do at least need to offer them things to do. etYou can't just drop a pile of textbooks on the livingroom floor next to the xbox and expect them to go at it completely alone. Unschooling is unstructured, child-directed learning. Offer them resources and activities that will GET them motivated. Unlock their interests. If you see that all your son wants to do is play Star Wars games all day, get him a telescope, take him for a "feild trip" to a local space center or planetarium or science museum. Get him books to read starting with Star Wars fiction and then maybe books about the science behind the fiction, or movie production, or computer generated images. Maybe he'll start writing his own science fiction stories. Maybe he'll start exploring other genras of literature which will branch off into a whole new set of multidisciplinary interests.

Give your kids a bit of time to "de-school", to get out of the rigid, superstructured routines of public school. Give them time to just sit and do what they want, even if that means doing nothing for a week or two. >>>WATCH THEM!<<< Watch what they're doing. Listen to what they're talking about. Every kid is naturally interested in something, even if it's something that seems silly. It could be the beginning of great things. Sit down and talk with them. Ask them if there's anything, ANYTHING AT ALL that they'd like to try. Ask what they want to be when they grow up. Ask what they like to do in their free time. Ask what their favorite books or TV shows are, and see where it goes. If your daughter likes to play with those Littlest Pet Shop toys, take her to a local animal shelter to volunteer. Take her to a real pet shop and let her ask questions about the animals and learn about working in and running a pet shop. Take her to the library and let her get books about animals she wants to learn more about. Talk about pet overpopulation and pet safety. If she gets tired of this, find a new interest to persue. Maybe she likes music. She might be interested in learning an instrument or taking voice lessons. She might be interested in the history of modern popular music. She might be interested in all the math behind music theory, or how we hear certain sounds, or how certain instruments work to produce certain sounds.

You as the parent need to open the doors for them and offer them things that they can do besides sitting around. You don't have to push them. Just give them some good ideas. If you don't know where to start, ask them. Learn their interests and aspirations. Take them to the library at least once a week and just let them go wild. (They should have library cards). If they see a poster for an event going on at the library that catches their eye, let them attend and see what they learn. Have books and encyclopedias and educational magazines around the house readily available to them. Rent interesting movies once in a while. They could be strictly entertaining and still have educational and inspirational value. At least once a month, see if there is anywhere the children want to go. The zoo, a museum, a historical landmark near by. Give them options! Then spend time talking about what you learn there. Make sure the kids have educational toys to play with as well as the ones that may not seem to be learning tools (though you'd be surprised how much I learned about computer science and 3D animation and general problem solving skills just by playing with an xbox) When a birthday comes around, buy boardgames like Cranium, Blurt, Clue, buy educational computer games like JumpStart, or those Learning Adventure games. Get a chess board and let them learn the age old game. Get leapfrog or National Geographic products... If they show interest, look into a small robotics kit or crystal growing kit or some science kit that they seem interested in playing with. There are a number of science kits with a Harry Potter theme that I used to LOVE when I was a bit younger. Get art sets, plastic beads, crayola products. Anything ot foster creativity. Before long they might start liking the educational toys more than the video games.

Just be a part of their education. Let them lead you. That is the purpose of unschooling. But open doors for them and offer up ideas. Give them the resources and the tools they need. All children have a natural desire to learn. Trust them

Answer 7

I have a high regard for unschooling. I believe that a child can learn skills to a superior level that way because skills are learned better in context.

Though I have no experience with unschooling, the idea seems to be to allow the child to be led by their own curiosity and investigate their own interests. That may involve just making them more acquainted with the skills and errands needed to make it in adult life. For example your shopping becomes a small exercize in practical math, nutrition and business. Or it may involve helping a child learn what it takes to go into the career field they are most interested in. If they like comic books, then help them learn everything about the comic book business, visual storytelling, publishing and distribution. If they play video games then help them learn how to make one. Computer programming or simple scripting may be a very useful skill, and it may involve a lot of math, which may be less of an obstacle since it is practical and in context instead of rote drilling.

Look for writings and lectures from John Taylor Gatto for some ideas and inspiration. He was a multiple-time New York Teacher of the year at the city and state level who often tells stories in his speeches about how he helped students get some real-world experience doing what they were most interested in. And look for the book "Summerhill, A Radical Approach to Child Rearing" by A. S. Neil, to learn about his experiences with children who were given the option to do whatever they wanted. He said that they often needed time to decompress. But that they always learned what they needed in their own time.

As a final thought, I wouldn't worry yourself too much, but then, I wouldn't give kids too much opportunity for empty amusements either, like sitting on the couch all day, watching TV, or keeping them supplied with new video games unless they were doing more than just playing them and moving on.

Answer 8

Unschooling is horrible. Your child won't learn anything, he/she won't be able to go to college, if he doesn't go to college, he will probably end up homeless unless he stays with you.

Answer 9

On homeschooling, you're going to get opinions all over the map.  For what it's worth, here's my pin on the map (and watch someone else come smash it in with a sledgehammer).

I'm all for homeschooling, but I see unschooling working only for a certain, driven kind of kid serious about getting some serious learning under his belt during the opportune years of schooling age.  Do you have a child who looks at a shelf containing volumes of literary classics and would love to read them some day?  You can probably trust that time would be well spent on his unschooling journey.

My kid spent his computer learning games time slot swapping disks to watch the intro animation sequences, and clicked around the transitionary interface to walk the characters around the map without ever once stopping at the stations to learn the math and phonics.  That was a no-go.  Remarkably, my number 2 son plays them through.

Since unschooling is self-directed, I liken it to nutrition.  Supermaturekid for lunch will, if given the run of the kitchen, make a sandwich, add some vegetables or a piece of fruit on the side, and pour a full glass of milk.  Typical kids would feast on leftover birthday cake.  They need a cop.

My take is that unschooling, for most people, isn't a workable option.  Maybe you could adapt a unit of study and go heavy on where the interests lie, but I'm afraid kids, even big tall ones who can borrow your jacket, lack the maturity to follow through wisely in a pure laissez faire learning environment.

Heck, I didn't even have good study habits down in college, where I was of legal adult age to purchase intoxicants, marry, vote, or enlist in the Armed Forces.  I don't expect better of many 12 year olds, though there are the exceptions.

We'll probably hear about some.  Watch this space.

Answer 10

I've seen different families attempt unschooling over the years.

Some tried it after their kids had been in school for years, but basically just left the kids to themselves. This didn't work. The kids had no inspiration, nothing offered to them and they had no clue what to do with their time.

I've seen a couple of families do an "enriched" unschooling--not really guided, but they made so many things available to the kids and the kids were very interested and occupied. They were involved, even if they weren't directing the kids. This worked.

Both scenarios have been worked out to some degree with those who have always unschooled. Those who were involved had kids who were interested in learning; those who weren't tended to have unmotivated kids.

The parents who were involved in the unschooling didn't have kids at age 12 who just wanted to sit around all day. Kids don't like to be bored. The ones who sit around all day doing nothing are those who are not provided enough or are depressed.

ADDED: Unschooling's results are just like anything--parenting, homeschooling, coaching, etc.: you get out of it what you put into it. I met one unschooler who got out of public school in gr. 7, was highly motivated and her mom let her go at it--but monitored her nonetheless and offered ideas and suggestions. The girl took university courses at the age of 16/17 (by her own choosing) and is now in her 3rd year of full-time post-secondary. Unschoolers CAN and do learn a lot, but the entire "setup", if you will, affects just how much that will happen.

Answer 11

They *will* want to sit around, especially if all they have ever known in their life is someone telling them what they have to learn, how to spend their spare time, how to eat and sleep and think. Its the same thing that every kid goes through when they move out of the house, spend a few months not cleaning their first apartment, get yelled at in their work for not being motivated, put on a few pounds because they finally get to pick all the food that they eat. It is something 90% of people do, and it's no different than a child who's facing making choices for the first time in their life.

But to be honest, sitting around all day is boring as heck. Who would choose it? Only someone who is still trying to prove you have no power over them....or someone who is convinced that their parents are going to turn around any minute and start telling them what to do.

Parents of unschoolers work really hard to provide alternatives to sitting around. EXCITING alternatives that kids would want to choose. And we live our own exciting lives, to provide a good model for children.

Answer 12

I have been researching unschooling, I am currently homeschooling my DD, she's 4 and has started questioning me about reading, so I began a phonics session with her.  I have a BA in education.

I found a really cool site that offers information on unschooling in 'lessons'.  It's really cool and helped me to understand what 'unschooling' is.

http://www.suite101.com/lesson.cfm/19413...

Suite 101 has a TON of stuff on.. well pretty much everything.  If you do a search on unschooling there are tons of articles on the subject. (www.suite101.com)

Good luck in your decision!

Answer 13

Don't know what unshchool is, but if your kids aren't in school well teres a lot of your problem. They need motivation with learning, stimulation of the brain, and creativity, sports, structure, chores and much more. You need to put your foot down and stop allowing this behavior. This isn't the kids fault, this is your doing for allowing them to be like this. YOu are the parent, be one. OYu aren't supposed to be their friend, you are the parent, the best thing you can do for your kids is provide disipline and structure. Clearly thins unschool thing just isn't working out.  What you are doing now  is going to teach them to be unmotivated, lazy and dependant on others for basic things. So again, you need to rethink the unschool. May work for some, but clearly it isn't working for you and your kids, infact it sounds like it has created laziness, intravertd, unmotivated kids. That's not a positive outlook for a future.

Answer 14

I use a boxed curriculum because I'm just not sure where to begin and how to begin the unschooling thing. But i think its great! Kids are unmotivated to do anything but watch TV all day UNLESS you get them up and doing something. In my house the TV doesn't even come on unless school work is DONE!! I have to be the parent and control what happens in our home.  My oldest is 9 and she is given a choice do the work with me or alone. If you don't get it done you don't play with your friends. It's that simple.

Answer 15

im sorry i cant help you in this...because i dont have kids...and i didnt think that you can do unschooling...