the Beginning...

When we started unschooling a year ago, I had read John Holt and Alfie Kohn and a few others. I was spurred on by visions of utopia. Visions of child prodigies and ivy league-bound geniuses, who were self confident, self motivated, content. This of course was in the back of my mind. I wasn't fully aware of it at the time. I knew we would throw out all thoughts of structure and settle into our own rhythm. I had no idea how profoundly we would all change. I now know that unschooling cannot be done just to learn academics. Unschooling cannot be done part way. In order for it to work in the way nature intended, we had to delve deeply into a whole new lifestyle.

My kids are still quite young. When I pulled them out of school, my oldest was in the first grade. I had one other in half-day preschool. They both excelled in school and were well liked. But I never intended to send them to school. While my oldest son was still in preschool three years ago, I researched many schooling alternatives. My search led me to Montessori then to homeschooling. I heard other people talking about unschooling. I was intrigued by it but not willing to let go completely. That summer I found out I was pregnant with twins. I panicked. Perhaps to a mother who can count all of her children on more than one hand, this may seem amusing. But I was no less than terrified. I was going from mother of two to mother of four in a few short months. So I enrolled my boys in the nearest public school and busied myself getting ready for babies. I struggled daily with my son, getting him dressed and out the door, as my body swelled to the size of a walrus. After the twins were born (full term and healthy), I had family members here to help struggle with my son - getting him dressed and out the door. We finished the year. Summer came and went and we automatically started school again. Not wanting to be away from his brother, my second son started preschool. It was my husband this time who brought up homeschooling. My focus began to change as I dusted off my books and prepared myself. This time I was ready for unschooling. I read everything I could find. We kept struggling through the first semester of school. And finally pulled them out at Christmas. Other people were so nervous for us.

After reading about deschooling, I made every effort to make no plans. The first few weeks were blissful, like a forbidden indulgence. We could just be. Then little by little doubts and worries crept in. I doubted myself. I doubted my children. Things got uncomfortably chaotic for me. None of us seemed to know what to do with ourselves. My tension was reflected back to me from my children. We fought and struggled. Tempers flared in my oldest son even to the point of rage. This began my journey toward peaceful parenting. How beautifully my children continue to teach me. We struggled for months. I was holding fast to the fact that we were deschooling. I blamed many things for my children's anger and their fighting.

At home together all day, week in and week out, we were faced with our own dysfunction. It was hard to admit. I needed to stop looking at outside influences as the cause of my children's behaviors and look inside myself. In some ways, I wanted my children to be my "proof" to everyone else that unschooling works by doing something spectacular that they thought of all on their own. I was impatient to see my own "proof." My children felt that pressure. As I learned to question my doubts and worries, I found my fears were totally unfounded. I was learning to trust the process of unschooling. I was learning to trust my children.

I continue to make peace with myself and peace with my children. As a result, I have fallen in love with them all over again. I look at my five and seven year olds with the same wonder and awe of a new parent. I see the curve of their bellies, their excitement and their struggles as little miracles. They now reflect that love and peace back to me. My oldest son had a major breakthrough with his rage. Nonmanipulative, peaceful parenting has changed him. It has changed my expectations of him. It has changed me. He still yells when he gets angry. But I figure for every time I ever yelled at him, like an echo, I will hear it back from him 100 times. He is far less aggressive with his brother.

My children continue to learn all day every day as do I. My oldest son began reading soon after he came home. He learned by reading signs and things on the computer and looking over my shoulder while I read to his siblings. He is now teaching himself math by coming up with problems and figuring them out in his head. He is also working on spelling and story telling. Ironically my focus has shifted from academics. It's clear to me now that they will learn all they need to learn in their own time. It is such a relief not to have to worry them there. As if my stress and guilt and clenched teeth could get them to Harvard! All the energy I was spending trying to get my children to behave and do what I thought they needed to do can now be spent loving them and enjoying them while they are here. We play together. We laugh and cry and stare at the wall together. But mostly we're all busy doing our own thing. I have been able to explore my own interests like music, art, food and nature. My daughters, now almost two years old, will unschool from the beginning. Lucky for me I don't have to worry and badger them into being the wonderful people that they already are. I just have to love them and be here. They remind me to stay right here in the moment.

So much has changed since we started unschooling I can hardly believe it has only been one year. Now we flow from day to day without thinking about what should or should not be done. Many times the kids don't want the day to end. I don't feel like I have to come up with some exciting game or project. I don't get too excited when they show an interest in something "academic." I can love them for who they are, not what they do. They amaze me with their discoveries as I watch them unfold. I am excited every day about who they are -- without expectations. It has taken a year but I feel like I finally get it. I think my children figured it out a long time ago. But they needed me to be at peace with them. And they needed me to be at peace with the process so they could feel safe and fully able to express themselves. Only then have we all been able to discover the freedom of unschooling.