Barbara (2007)

I am a Christian and an unschooling Mum of four home educated offspring aged 32, 14, 12 and 10 years.

I want to address the issues here of teaching one’s children, training one's children, discipline and authority in the context of parenting home educated children from the point of view of my own personal ... testimony, if you like. Sometimes we learn things simply because they are necessary to live life and they come before us - many of these skills are learned in childhood and are what gives us a basic grounding in life skills and general studies just from the world around us. I find children in general very open to this kind of information.

However, I don't actually agree with people studying subjects further than what is necessary for their life skills and general knowledge exampled above, (which learning I really see as unavoidable and naturally achieved,) when they do not choose it or do not have an aptitude or love for that subject. That makes it easy for me to say that I wish to follow the child's own interests and what is the God given talent and direction of that child. (It appalled and shocked me in my short experience of higher studies to find people who did not enjoy or love the subjects, studying them at higher level for other reasons. I think that is corrupt and disrespectful, distorts subjects at a fundamental level and is probably actually bad for the nation and the state of learning in a wider sense of the pursuit of true learning.)

So, to get back to my home education experience and use as an example, literature and language. I love literature and language. When I became a mother with care of children, I shared with them from their earliest days because I loved the children also, my love of books. I did this by looking at picture books with them. I had no expectation of the babies and simply shared joy.

As they became older, the books changed of course. And the literature and reading was supplemented by pictures we made or found elsewhere, films, TV programmes, recorded books, related exhibitions and music. None of this was structured in the sense of curriculum or anything of that sort. I feel now, that organisation and direction is discernable in retrospect, but was not from me, having been driven by the children, and so our relationship was integral to their learning.

I read for the children, sometimes for hours if they wished, and they observed the many different kinds of reading one would do for oneself. When they asked me to show them something, or to explain something related to all this it gave me the greatest delight (for the most part and notwithstanding the usual frustrations of life like too many other duties and dishes to wash, though these are in themselves instruments and examples of learning for a child, lol!) to answer these questions and to provide any resources the child needed to explore such as paper and pencils or crayons, labels, examples of texts in various fonts or writing for them. I had no expectation, only delight that they too were seeking out information about something they had enjoyed.

My children taught themselves to read by different methods at ages 4, 9, 10 and 9.5 years in different ways. The older the child at the point of beginning to actively learn reading, the shorter the period from 'learning' to read to reading. They would say they taught themselves to read and they did. I and every other source they used were consultants or resources to further their enquiry.

In the years that they were not reading I did not feel they were wasting opportunities because there were so many other areas of enquiry and so, although reading for themselves was not happening to further learning, so many other things were. Conversation, observation and practical experience were the learning tools of the day.

When they were not yet prepared to read, their access to texts was their parents and this provided an opportunity for us to observe their development and to guide them until they were sufficiently mature to be more independent of us.

To state what is the fact of my experience, none of this process appeared to involve training, discipline or teaching in a school type way, but in the end it is clear that the children are trained in their interests and habits, that this involves a certain amount of self imposed discipline and that they have been "taught." I would say the process was intensive and interactive, again in retrospect, but it just felt like living together, discussing things of value as we rose in the mornings, went about our day and before we rested for the night and as we continue to do with our ongoing non programme of home education. As far as unwanted activities and loathsome duties go, of course the children have observed whilst being mentored by us their parents, the many times we have to do something we would have preferred to defer to another time or not do at all, the skills we have developed because we had to of necessity such as filling in the tax forms, clearing the drains, planning and budgeting our income to get the most from it, and dealing with other life issues.

I would say they have learned about natural consequences of foolishness from the times we had to cope with them (not that I am saying this is a frequent occurrence, lol, but sufficient is as good as a feast, if you know what I mean?)

They learn what would have been the wise and desirable option because we foolishly took the apparently easy but less wise option of putting off, to use an example, the drain cleaning. So they might observe us saying, I am making a regular habit of cleaning the drains outside, of picking out yucky bits that have ended up in the sink and throwing fat and tealeaves into a special waste bin (rather than the easier option of letting it go down the sink,) to avoid that unpleasant experience of having a blocked drain in the yard and an even worse inconvenience on our hands. And so when they are working in the kitchen we will remind each other to make the extra effort to put used oil or tealeaves and bags into a special waste place. We can even experience doing these loathsome chores with a joyful heart because we know we are making things nicer for us all.

Perhaps I have not touched on authority? I have learned something from my 14 year old daughter recently which I am still pondering on. Gracie told me in conversation that, when she was about seven onwards, she was aware that she believed a child had to do what an adult asked them to do. I never told her this. And I have a tendency to ask rather than command and to accept a "no" or "I would rather not just now," to say please and thank you to my children as I know many parents from differing philosophies all do.

I really do believe that there is a natural authority in parents for their children and that they wish to please their parents. I think we should be very careful about this. How easy it is to discourage or crush a little child who believes they must, or who senses at a fundamental level an urge to, obey, agree with and please their adults. I think it bears heavily on children when we expect something of which they are not capable, or are not pleased, or when we say they have done wrong or have an unpleasant characteristic such as laziness or wilfulness. This has impressed on me how I must use this natural position carefully for the benefit my children so as not to turn them away from what is good and under the guidance of my saviour. We are all sinful, but do not wish to be characterised by our sins. We are not condemned by our weaknesses and sins and our Graceful Father has shown us a loving way to deal with our sinfulnesses.

I know that some children seem very hardened and as though they do not wish to please adults or to obey and what I am saying may seem - soft. I see some of these children and I think they lack the proper guidance and the experience of expressed love and practical application of this in their lives. I am not saying their parents do not love them. I think some of them are injured by schooling. Some children have far more spirit in them and take a lot of input - but I do believe that children want to please their parents and are naturally prepared in their very creation to accept learning, even when faced with the obstacles of a inherent capability and tendency to sin.