Do you want to go home?

Imagine a scene for a minute. A few kids are playing at the park. One kid keeps having some big feelings, maybe arguing with the others, raising their voice, and overall having a tough time. Their parent is nearby says “do you want to go home?”. What do you picture? Maybe, like me, you usually imagine the parent saying it in a frustrated tone. It may have a thinly veiled tone of threat, sending the message “I will make you go home if you don’t stop”.

This is not an uncommon scene at all. In fact, something happened around here today. Being in public when your child is having some problems isn’t easy. You feel the pressure of the people around you watching. The pressure to be “a good parent”, whatever that means. Maybe even the pressure to attempt to control their behavior to make or more socially acceptable. I will admit that these thoughts still cross my mind.

However, I’m trying to reimagine those same words. “Do you want to go home?”. I see it in a different light. Not a threat. Instead, it’s an offer. An offer to help someone leave a situation that isn’t meeting their needs. A check in to see if they are hungry, thirsty, or in need of connecting. An invitation to partner with them in changing the environment to set them up for success.

“Yes, I want to leave”, my child answers. She knows she isn’t being threatened, she’s simply being asked. No undertones, no veiled threat. I put aside the internal thoughts and offered help. This time i remembered to breathe first, see behavior as communication, and remember that leaving a difficult situation shouldn’t be a punishment.

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Acceptance and expectations

Today was a good day to practice letting go of expectations. We had some fun low key options for play today, but after the kids stayed up super late last night with fireworks and friends, they were all tired and easily irritated today.

A few years ago, I might have felt disappointed that things I had planned or looked forward to were canceled. I’ve learned that peace is the best gift I can try to facilitate in our home. So the pool can wait, we can see friends another day, because today is a day for TV, cuddles, big breaths, and going slow. Not so surprisingly, whenever I accept the situation for what it is, everyone usually starts having a smoother day. They sense my inner acceptance.

Unschooling today 6/24/2019

Just a quick post about our day. I’m trying to give a good balance of our at home days versus our out of the house adventures.

Today started out with making breakfast while the kids played on their tablets for a bit. Neon (In a previous post I shared that Hailey has asked to go by Neon) played Sims 4 on the computer. Elijah was having a tough morning.

After breakfast, we had a mostly relaxed morning. I laid the baby down for a nap, then the boys played for a bit together. They kept going from playing to fighting, so I had to be right with them.

Winter then wanted to watch a dinosaur video. I used this time to spend some one on one time with Elijah. I told him to pick something to do together. He asked to play roblox with me. We played superhero tycoon for about an hour. We teamed up 😎. I was able to get in some quick cleaning too.

I made lunch. I asked my 3 year old if he’d like to play with Playdoh. My 6 year old joined him and they prentended to make cookies and sell them. I bought many expensive cookies 🤣.

I asked Neon if she wanted to help me out away laundry. She said yes, but her help consisted of tossing clothes at me. I challenged her to a dance battle. She got to pick the music. I say I held my own and got a good cardio workout in 😏.

The kids found an old dart board in the basement and tried to play a game.

We all went outside for a bit and they played in the rain and drew with chalk on the porch.

Neon came up with a pranking game. The premise was simple, siblings teamed up to set up pranks. The more pranks, the more points. There was one unique rule though, you had to dress to represent your favorite country. This was an interesting discussion. She named countries for her brothers to chose from. Then we had to look up some fashion styles and select our clothes. This is an ongoing game and I’m a little afraid to discover the rest of the pranks they have waiting for me 🤪.

We are about to dinner. We will probably read some library book the kids picked too. We have a goal of helping get Neon’s costume for anime convention adjusted tonight.

Feel free to share about your day in the comments if you’d like!

Unschooling around here lately

We’ve been up to lots of fun lately. Hailey has asked to be called Neon, and has been very certain of it. We’re doing our best to remember. She celebrated her 9th birthday with a cat themed day.

We’ve gone to our favorite museums within an hour or so drive, in the past month. Lots of fun playing, looking at dinosaurs, dragons, exploring caves and ocean areas and much more.

Neon has enjoyed hiking and nature a lot more these past few months. We’ve used any nice weather days hiking, exploring, and bug spotting.

Our mulberry season began and we’ve all enjoyed picking and snacking on them daily.

We have went creeking a few times this season. I love headed to the creek. You never know what you’re going to find. The kids really enjoyed seeing water snakes and giant tadpoles.

We’ve spent time baking and cooking together. Pancakes, stir fry, and homemade bread. Yum!

Many evenings have been spent hanging around the back yard, catching firefly, eating ice cream, squirting water guns, and swinging/climbing.

Lots of messy play too. We pulled out the kinetic sand for a few hours in the last week. They made edible slime again last week. We made oobleck today.

We’ve had lots of big conversations around here lately. I am loving the topics that get brought up more as the kids grow older. We’ve had lots of conversations about conflict resolution too if you catch my drift 😏. Today we practiced some mindfulness exercises to help us all calm down before talking it out.

As always there have been lots of Minecrafting, youtube watching, dancing, and library books in our weeks too.

Check out my Guest Post! What is Whole Life Unschooling?

A local blogging acquaintance runs a blog that has been publishing a series on the many methods of homeschooling, and she wanted radical unschooling to be represented. She asked if I would write an article explaining what exactly is our “homeschooling style” and what it might look like in practice. This was a challenge! How do you summarize your life philosophy in the span of one blog post?! I did my best to rise to the challenge, but I would say this really is just an introduction.

So come check out my post Whole Life Unschooling with Multiple Ages.

Unschooling today 4/22/19

Browsing Instagram, it can sometimes look like all people do tons of outside of the house, nature based, super cool activities. We try to do plenty of that, but we have lots of home days that flow with what everyone wants to do. Today was one of those.

Hailey and Elijah were the first ones up today. Hailey walked Elijah through creating a character for a gacha life story she is working on. I made breakfast for everyone.

Elijah spent most of his morning browsing minecraft addons, and trying a few out. Winter slowly ate and watched dinosaur videos. Hailey spent most of her time playing our newest game for the VR headset. It’s called vacation simulator and she loves it. She probably played for for 3 hours or so.

I asked if anyone wanted to do a science experiment that someone had posted about. The boys said yes, and Hailey said she’d come for the end of it.

While the water for our experiment was cooling down, we headed outside to help the time pass faster. It was a really nice day. Elijah noticed a bee buzzing around. We talked about how bees pollinate and how they do a little dance to communicate with other bees. We sat in the shade and picked dandelions and took silly pictures.

We went back inside for our expirent. It was supposed to be rainbow water in a glass but it was a flop. We tried a few different ways to make it work, all unsuccessfully. It was a little disappointing.

Elijah took a turn on vacation simulator for a bit. Hailey napped because she had only slept for a few hours the night before. Winter watched a show, while I used the baby’s nap time to clean up and prep food.

Elijah asked for ice cream comes and we took them outside so we wouldn’t wake up Hailey. They wanted to play in the water for a bit. It was play then fight, then play again type of deal.

Back in for dinner and welcoming Papa home. We then watched some americas got talent–the champions. The boys showed us their talents of headstands, picking up heavy boxes, and jumping off the couch.

Most of us are winding down now. Hailey is playing a game on the computer and having a late dinner after waking from her nap.

Collecting Adventures interviewed me!

If you haven’t heard of Collecting Adventures Community, you are missing out. I first discovered them on Instagram. I loved the theme of sharing adventures with others. So inspiring! When they asked if I would be willing to do a community spotlight question and answer session, I was immediately excited. Admittedly, I was also intimated because there was so amazing global adventure collecting people featured.  It was a lot of fun to write up my answers. Come check my interview out!

You might be an unschooling family if…

I saw a pretty awful homeschooling meme. Awful as in, I felt it didn’t represent us as homeschoolers, and honestly felt like it gave homeschooling a bad name. So I started to think about what unschooling might look like, and I polled some local friends too. Then I came up with this.

Instagram friendly version:

Feel free to share and tag me!

Working on my Triggers

I spent some time at the nature playscape, enjoying fresh air with the kids. We were playing, climbing, and exploring.

Everyone was having a good time, until my daughter just wasn’t. She was frustrated with her brother not playing a game she set up for them in a way that she intended. She was having some big emotions. I sat down and talked it through with her.

She wasn’t exactly happy, but she went back to play. Then she scraped her finger. Hailey has always felt little hurts as big hurts. She feels deeply. The hurt added on top of her already big feelings sent her over the top. I could tell that this tipped her into a sensory meltdown.

Papa stayed with the boys, while I took her over to get some space and sit down. She was feeling her big emotions and I tried to comfort her. I know from experience, she has to fully feel her emotions, often loudly, almost inconsolably. She will not be distracted, or persuaded from them. In a way, it’s admirable, to truly honor where you are at and what you feel.

I rubbed her back, listened, validated. Her sobs were loud. We had moved away from the playscape, but the people nearby definitely heard her. This is my trigger. I feel like everyone is looking at us, thinking bad things, wishing she’d be quiet, judging my parenting. I hear society’s voices in my head. “Children should be seen not heard.” “Stop crying, it’s no big deal.” I have flashbacks to all the times my own mother struggled with us having big emotions in public. It was her trigger, and now it’s mine.

I’ve spent years working on accepting that all emotions have a place, and that none are bad. I know happiness isn’t the only emotion worth feeling. I know denying sadness and anger do not make them go away. I know what it looks like when someone buries their feelings until they can’t anymore and then explode in rage. I know the shame of being told you’re being too sensitive.

In the minutes I’m sitting with my daughter, I hold all these thoughts. I acknowledge them, and remind myself to breathe. I think to myself that these strangers opinions of me, are not more important than my child’s opinion of me. I remind myself that my daughter feels all the emotions and then is just suddenly ready to move on, and that this will be over soon.

In a few minutes, we are talking about the trees, then tossing little sticks at them to see if we can hit them left handed. A few more minutes, and some giggles later, Hailey and papa are checking for bugs under bark.

Was the rest of the the a breeze? No, it was pretty clear that Hailey was feeling a little heavy today, maybe not as rested or something is else going on. Later on, she got hurt again and we quickly headed home. I predict the rest of the day will involve cuddles, rest, and comfort food. Today was challenging, but I’m grateful to recognize and work on my triggers.

Unschooling today 2/27/2019

We’ve been without a van for about 6 weeks now. Trying to keep our days at home interesting has been a challenge sometimes. If I stay on top of being present with the kids, and paying attention to our connection, the days have gone much more smoothly. Today was a pretty good day.

Me and the boys ate breakfast together, then played in the living room. I put the baby on my back, started waking up Hailey, did some quick chores and get her breakfast and us lunch. Throw in a little dance party.

The 3 year old played with our homemade Playdoh for quite a bit. We all sat around talking, snacking, and listening to music. I read a couple chapters of “diary of a minecraft zombie” out loud.

We had some tea in the special cups. The kids loved that.

Elijah played on minecraft for a bit, showing me what he was creating. Then the boys went outside to play for a while. Hailey spent that time drawing.

When they came in, I helped them get dry clothes. My 3 year old wanted to cuddle and watch TV, and the baby was ready for a nap. I played roblox with Hailey while I sat with them.

Dinner time, then I went to the store to buy some fruit, while the big kids played minecraft some more at home with Papa.

A simple day, but a good one!