Episode 20: Deschooling Imperfectly – The Beauty of Intention

If you’ve been in the homeschooling world for long, you’ll likely have come across the word ‘deschooling’ and may understand it in the context of children having time and space to get in touch with their natural curiosity and learning. Soon enough, it becomes clear that more of the work in this area is actually for parents. We continue deschooling but this almost always plays out imperfectly. Missteps are inevitable. Join us as we discuss how our bigger picture intentions seem to still shine, and we share ideas about how we can have compassion for ourselves in the midst. We so appreciated being joined by Esther Jones of  The Unschool Space podcast and A Place on a Hill blog, which can be found along with her workshops and offerings to parents at www.esther-jones.com.  We Discuss: How deschooling is not a linear process That moments of resistance can be the learning moments  Getting curious rather than being too hard on ourselves  How deschooling perfectly is actually an oxymoron of sorts Noticing some of the places we get caught up by the physical sensations we experience Seeing external expectations as almost a third person in the relationship with our children Outer opinions and pressures pulling us back in our process  Getting comfortable with imperfection, for our kids and for us  Finding our own strategies when we’re feeling shaky about things  That having expanded our own ideas about a range of possibilities as home educating families, people might feel reassured talking to us about their own kids’ paths and choices  Being easy on ourselves about how early messaging we received runs deep and can be very disconnecting from our physical processes and inner knowing   That as parents, we might have some bits of resentment that we didn’t have the same degree of choice and acceptance in our choices that our children have All the messages that we carry into adulthood and how we can be thoughtful about how we model that for our kids  Self-compassion as being key both for ourselves and in our modelling for our kids  Our kids as a barometer to our intentions, helping us be aware of potential manipulation  Personality differences between kids and how they mirror or don’t mirror our intentions back to us  Feeling pressure to “fully deschool” and then making changes more quickly than is ideal Wrestling between one’s intuition and external information/deschooling Considering how we best live as a starting point rather than getting too attached to a particular label  That we can keep checking our responses and reactions Taking note of resistance  Understanding that everyday is a new piece of work to navigate relationship and communication; there will be disconnecting moments and opportunity for repair  The potential for us to feel frustrated toward home ed books and blogs when things aren’t turning out the way “they said it would”  That our certainty can pull us away from the vastness of possibility  How we can trust that our children have wonderful ideas, skills and knowledge to bring to a situation and actually take the pressure off ourselves a bit  That when we bump into an edge, we can stay with it as long as we need to. It’s okay to take the time to work through  The idea of saying “yes” more is not quite so straightforward and that our kids can often read when a “yes” is not an authentic one and can actually better under consent when they see some authentic “nos” modelled as well  Unravelling gently  That we can take some time to make a decision and can communicate that with our kids  That imperfections and working things through flexibly actually help our kids to be well-equipped and self-aware     Resources: Esther Jones blog, podcast and offerings  Virtual Kitchen Table Episode #14: Kids and Screens, Pondering Digital Tech From a Few Angles – Part One