Monday's Mindful Moments

Free Range Children

I once read an article with this very title. Its premise was that parents need to stop hovering and just allow kids to be free. There's way too much emphasis on safety, especially when kids are exploring the outdoors and playing actively. In a book called Hyper-Parenting its writer shares the same philosophy as the Free Range article writer. Helicopter parents are over-booking, over-planning, over-scheduling their kid's lives. One of the myriad of reasons my kids learn at home, is so they can have "freedoms to choose with their learning and living" without the pressures of teachers; the homework piled high upon them; the principal with rules and regulations; a bell ringing - Pavlovian conditioning; a classroom schedule to restrict them all day. To main steam, these issues are probably perceived as innocuous. For some, they will come away unscathed, but for others, they will live with and try to overcome the trauma they experienced while attending school. It saddens me when I see so many kids under intense stress, pressure and scrutiny from authority figures and parents. Two of my greatest pet peeves are feeling pressured and rushed. I can't imagine what it would be like to have someone always hovering, pressuring and rushing me.

I came across this bit of a booklet on a blog. Just one entry, but a lengthy one. It summarizes well, some of my feelings on restricting kids and school. I don't agree with everything he writes about, but its a good look into the some of the "why's" that make learning at home a preferred lifestyle. I am comforted and thrilled when I find a like-minded person, as I know I am somewhat radical in my thinking when compared to main stream, albeit I'm not a radical unschooler. I couldn't be, because I am of the opinion that when kids are given freedom with all aspects of their lives that it may lead to a certain degree of narcissism. After watching a CBC report on "Rude: Where Have All Our Manners Gone", I can see (but was already fully aware) that common courtesy and consideration for others is lacking in our society. Many in society are self-consumed which makes for VERY high maintenance people. I want what I want, and I want it right now and to hell with anyone else. I certainly don't mean this in the context of - worrying about what others think, I mean it in the context of - think about how others might be feeling - every action has a consequence. Everyone has needs and I think everyone should be able to be respected, but unfortunately someone, at some point, will have to bend a little because some people's needs are sometimes way more intense and overt than other's; there has to be some give and take in a family or any relationship. An example of this might be when someone is having a full blown, fall on the floor, screaming tantrum. Why should everyone else be subjected to that person's pain/anger. I think if the person needs to be loud and carry on then they need to do that in another room so everyone else doesn't have feel it as well. It's this type of situation that leads me to believe that when a person's needs are freely allowed to be infringing on another person to this degree, then this is one of many attributes in the making/creating of narcissism. So caught up in self-serving and self-love that no one else matters. Some people are extremely intuitive, observant and have an innate awareness of others. Some people NEED to be taught these skills.

I take some of the philosophies of unschooling into our lives such as, I don't have a set curriculum in which I follow. Every day takes on its on flow with a few added things that I like to get done such as reading together ( we usually have a fiction and non-fiction on the go); I like my kids doing some kind of math; we usually have something to watch whether it's a fiction or a non-fiction DVD. With that description of our day, I cannot call myself a radical unschooler so I use the term eclectic as it is a far better description of our family's lifestyle. And it's a lifestyle that I cherish. Will my kids look back and feel this way when they're adults? I don't know the answer to that, but I am fully aware that as a parent any decision made while the kids are young can be brought back when they are adults and be completely refuted. For now, this is my lifestyle of choice, it's simple, relaxed, enjoyable, fulfilling, and meaningful......hmmm kind of self-serving....gee, maybe I'm narcissistic?


Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~