March 17, 2008 @ 8:26 pm | Filed under: Beauty, Connections, Unschooling, Why I Homeschool, homeschooling
I’ve been thinking through some things in emails (and offline) lately, and I wanted to bring some of those thoughts here. It has to do with patience, a good kind and a bad kind, and their relationship to happiness and learning, especially unschooling.
My children think I’m a pretty swell mom, but they know all too well that I have my faults. If you asked them, they would say (if they weren’t too loyal to rat on me) that my greatest fault is impatience. They’d be right, at least as far as my relationship with the kids is concerned. Impatience comes from frustration, (or does it lead to frustration?), and I think we all know that what spills over from an impatient person’s frustration is scolding, or nagging, or sharp words. Impatience is what you feel when people aren’t doing what you want them to do: it’s a frustrated desire for control.
When Jane was two years old, in the hospital fighting leukemia, people used to constantly compliment me for my patience. Other parents, nurses, doctors—I heard it from many people and it always puzzled me. I didn’t feel ‘patient,’ not in any virtuous sense. What I felt was a keen awareness that my days with this child might possibly be numbered, and I didn’t want to lose a single one of them to a bad mood. I wanted to savor every moment with my baby girl, in case I didn’t have many moments left to savor. So I gladly, gratefully, spent hours playing playdough with her, or giving her i.v. pole rides in the hallways, or holding her while she slept. You don’t need ‘patience’ to live through moments like that.
And through the years, I’ve held on to that sense of ’savor this moment because it is precious’ with my kids. But I cannot deny that as the years passed, and as more children joined the party, impatience elbowed its way into my heart, my words, my actions. I can almost pinpoint the moment I changed, or at least the moment impatience boiled over into sharpness. Rose was three years old, and Beanie was a baby; we were at a lake beach near our home in Virginia, and I got stuck. Stuck trying to leave the beach, with an unhappy, sandy Bean crying on my hip and a bag slipping off my shoulder, and an intractible Rose straining to pull away from me, her heels digging into the wet sand, wavelets lapping at our ankles. We needed to leave. Jane was already halfway to the parking lot (and too young to be there alone). I couldn’t put the baby down without getting her wet (again), and I was out of diapers. Rose refused to budge. I felt helpless, completely held hostage by a stubborn toddler. I had to scoop her up under one arm like a football and carry her, screaming and squirming, back to the car.
I say “had to,” but I’m sure I had other options. It didn’t seem like it at the time. We were there with friends—the dad friend would, in later years, recall that episode with glee, the day he “saw Lissa lose it.” Why I didn’t holler to him to stop grinning and pick up Rose, I don’t remember. I am quite certain that either of the mom friends who were present would have been happy to help. They probably offered to, but what I remember about the moment is that sense of helplessness and frustration.
Moms of small children can run into that feeling often. What it is, really, is a feeling of being out of control. Loss of control is scary. I dealt with it well when the loss of control was due to illness, something out of any human being’s power to alter. But ah, it’s when a person, or people, especially small people who are “supposed” to obey their mama, are flouting my attempts to control—that’s when impatience comes in.
People who try to control other people often find themselves feeling impatient, or worse. The reason mothers (to single out one kind of person) scold or fuss or nag or criticize their children is because they are trying to bring a situation back under control—that is, to make things go the way the mom wants them to go.
When I had three or four children each wanting to go a different direction, that’s when I got impatient. That’s when I became a mom who scolds. That’s when I stopped savoring every moment, only selected moments.
That’s when I started to wonder what had happened to the patient mommy I used to be. I used to be so patient—I would think that all the time, forgetting that in the days when people remarked upon my patience, I hadn’t felt like patience came into the equation at all.
I think when we talk about patience in terms of a quality we don’t feel like we possess (”I used to be so patient”), we are talking about a kind of patience that isn’t really a virtue at all. That kind of patience is about enduring the present moment until a better one comes along. It’s a gritting-one’s-teeth-and-getting-through-it state of mind.
It’s how many of us endured countless hours of our lives in school. The kids who didn’t patiently endure were the ones labeled troublemakers. Patient endurance is how most people get through hours in line at the DMV, or (to poke my own self here) the interminable waits in doctor’s offices. There is no moment-savoring going on in that kind of patience. In fact, often ‘being patient’ really just means ‘being quiet and not making a fuss’ while resentment or irritation is churning underneath.
I think the reason people tend to be less patient with their children is because they can in fact exert some external control over the children—as opposed to the doctors who keep us waiting, or the complicated beaucratic systems directing the flow of traffic at the DMV.
But “exerting control” by nagging, scolding, lecturing, ordering in a drill-sergeant’s bark—these are actions that, sooner or later, will do harm to a relationship. Nobody likes being nagged, scolded, or lectured ‘for their own good.’ I sure don’t like it, I know that much. It’s a complete violation of the Golden Rule, isn’t it? Treating children the way we’d like to be treated if we were in their shoes means finding other ways of dealing with those out-of-control moments.
I think for me, the shift back toward a better way began when I drove the kids from Virginia to California by myself. Rilla was six months old, Wonderboy three. Scott had already started his job out here, and he would have flown back to drive with us but I talked him out of it. If he came along, we’d be on the clock; he could only take so much time off work. If I drove alone, we could amble, stopping as often and as long as the kids needed to—which turned out to be very, very often. I had to abandon myself to the flow of the trip: letting go of the desire to control every move we made. We wound up having a wonderful time, the six of us, and I think a big part of the reason is because that 2700-mile journey was about taking each moment as it came. They were moments worth savoring, and savor them I did.
Not that there weren’t some bumps in the road. There were (are) still five children, not all of them always wanting the same thing. But I found that being mindful of the difference between ‘taking care of’ and ‘controlling’ (or trying to control), and being determined to appreciate the present moment, not just try to to ‘get through’ it—those attitudes eliminate impatience. Really. And then the bumps in the road become part of the grand adventure, challenges to be tackled, puzzles to be solved. It’s so much more satisfying to be creative and fun than to be frustrated and stern.
There is another kind of patience, a good kind. It’s the quality that allows a mother with ten places to put every minute to sit in the driveway drawing chalk figures for her toddler, or blow bubbles until the whole bottle is gone, or take half an hour to walk down the block, admiring every dandelion and ant that catches her little one’s eye. It’s the patience that plays a game of Monopoly with an eight-year-old until every last dollar is in someone’s pile, the kind that listens with interest to a detailed recounting of the latest phone-book-sized Teen Titans collection. That kind of patience isn’t about enduring the present moment until a better one comes along. It’s about enjoying the present moment for exactly what it is, with gusto and gratitude.
There’s “patience in suffering,” too, of course, and while perhaps that kind isn’t about enjoying the present (painful or sorrowful) moment, it too involves a willingness to accept the present moment for what it is. People who are patient in suffering tend to be people overflowing with gratitude for all the other things in their lives besides suffering. This is a very great virtue, and I think it grows out of the peaceful sense of appreciation for what is, now, as opposed to a longing for something different, something better: it’s the good kind of patience all grown up.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about all this in conjunction with unschooling, which is a whole way of living that embraces the present moment, rejoices in what is good about it. Unschooling says: this day, this encounter, this connection of ideas, this moment between us—this is very, very good. Unschooling begins with a dismissal of the kind of experiences that a child must “patiently endure” in order to be “educated,” but it is more than that, more than a rejection of one way of being. Unschoolers see everything in the whole wide world as interesting, connected, something they can learn about. (Scroll halfway down at the link and you’ll see why I linked that page in particular, though the whole site speaks to the point.) Instead of patiently (or impatiently) enduring the long wait at the DMV, an unschooler might look around, notice things, think about them, wonder how and why. Why are all the people sitting in the back two rows in this waiting area, but are scattered among all the rows in that bank of seats over there? What kinds of jobs do the people waiting in line have, and was it hard for them to get time off to spend a weekday morning here? When did the old cameras get dumped in favor of digital cameras? Why are the walls a glaring white instead of something soft and soothing like in doctors’ offices? What is the ratio of DMV employees to customers? Is customer the right word for a person in line at the DMV?
Of course I’m not saying that unschoolers are the only people who approach life this way. Harvard professor John Stilgoe, the author of that book I’m still reading: he gets it. He sees what’s interesting in power lines and telephone poles and manhole covers. He has made these things interesting to me. Reading that book is making visible—even beautiful—all sorts of things that were ugly or invisible to me before. The other day I looked out my windshield sideways down a street and saw, for the first time in my life, how the rows of of drooping wires made a spiderweb against the sky: lacy, delicate, lovely.
It reminded me of Philip Isaacson’s book Round Buildings, Square Buildings, Buildings that Wiggle like a Fish, which showed me ways of looking at buildings that made every building interesting to me, made me see the artistry and story of the Brooklyn Bridge, the white clapboard church, the green glass skyscraper.
I’ll never forget reading, in college, Betty Edwards’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and how one of her students said that after taking Betty’s drawing class and working on portraits, every face she looked at seemed beautiful to her. The drawing lessons taught her to really look at people, and when she did, she saw beauty everywhere.
I know I’m going all over the place here, but in my mind these things are all connected: this way of really looking, really seeing, noticing what is interesting and important and even beautiful about things many people whisk by without noticing. And what I can do for my children is refuse to fill up their lives with things they must patiently endure until a better moment comes. I can savor the moments as they happen, and give them the time and space to find what’s interesting and beautiful in every face the world shows them.
As I was writing that last sentence, Beanie appeared in front of me with a big smile and a present: a bracelet made of safety pins linked together, each pin shining with green and blue beads. “It’s for you, Mommy,” she breathed, so proud and excited. “Jane showed me how.” How patiently (the good kind of patience) she must have worked to slide all those beads in place.
I never noticed before what a work of art a safety pin is!
UPDATED much later: This piece has become my most-linked post ever. It generated some excellent discussion in the comments as well as a series of follow-up posts. Click the “patience” tag below for the follow-ups.
homeschooling, patience, Unschooling
Thanks, Lissa. You have no idea how much I needed to read this today — regarding parenting but also a host of other things. It was like chatting on Lisa’s porch over a cup of tea. Just hit the spot!
Sending you lots of love and a great big hug,
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 4:57 amLaura
Wow, thanks Lissa. I so needed this. I’m new to unschooling but it should be easy. I’m having trouble with the ideas that I will make mistakes and that has to be OK. This was beautiful. Thank you once again.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 4:58 amThat was beautiful. Thanks for articulating it.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 5:06 amThanks. I was needing to see the bright side of Strep Throat. Maybe it’s an opportunity to study biology. Or it could be an opportunity to study subtraction (the amount in the checking account minus the doctor’s visit MINUS the cost of medication…). I see it clearly now. The possibilities are endless.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 5:33 amoooo, THANKYOU for this. Now, what interests me is I know there are some days I get lost in that ‘frustration’ and others where I’m truly savouring the moment and to be honest, I know that the two days are nearly identical (objectively speaking) so why is that I react the first way sometimes? (thankfully less times than I react the other way)
also - hooray, I’m not alone! it’s often me who’s stopping the kids as we go down the street ‘cos I find EVERYTHING interesting!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 5:34 amWow, you really put into words the elusive magic of unschooling. I’m saving this one to read on days when I need it.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 6:32 amPrinting this out so I can read it when I’m feeling the need to control everyone and everything… Thank you!!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:03 amSo much to respond to here, but I’ve spent my allotted time today, so I’ll just note this quickly. There are levels to this thing Stilgoe sees in power lines — and I think it is connected with patience as well as a way of seeing. The other day my 10 year old looked out the car window and said, “Mom, look at the spider web shadows the power lines make on the road.” Sure enough — not only had he noticed the power lines, he had noticed the pattern of their narrow dark arcs on the road! He is a child easy to be impatient with and who often finds difficulty in being patient himself. But if he is able to show me these shadows, and I am able to be still and see them, there is hope for both of us, that we can see, that we can savor.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:14 amThank you Lissa that was truly beautiful. You know, I used to think I was a very patient person…until I had children. LOL!
I do so like the John Stilgoe book. I am highly right-brained and remember so well thinking this way as a child. Somehow as an adult with many cares and concerns I became less this way. By only by habit it seems because when I can relax and let go it all comes back to me.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:17 amI have really enjoyed reading your blog, and in fact it has become one of my favorites. I love your idea of unschoolers at the DMV, and, being an extremely impatient control freak, I promise to try it out at the dentist next week
Thanks!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:19 amThis is a beautiful reflection, Lissa. I get asked about patience all the time from readers. The struggle with impatience is so universal to motherhood, and I think more needs to be written about it.
And like Michele Q., I always considered myself a calm and patient woman….until I had children.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:27 amThere must be something in the air
I just read this post before coming to the Bonny Glen,
http://reluctantmemsahib.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/the-little-things/
I was just telling my husband this morning, as we had breakfast in the kitchen while the older two kids played Canada-opoly in the living room (a continuation of their last night’s game) and the youngest kept darting between his room and the kitchen, showing us his ever more elaborate Lego airplane, that if they went to school in town, they’d be sitting, awfully sleepy, in a classroom after enduring a one-hour bus ride. And probably not too primed to start learning anything “formally” either.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 8:33 am” really looking, really seeing, noticing what is interesting and important and even beautiful about things many people whisk by without noticing. ”
My kids say I’m easily amused, but as it has all unfolded, they are too. Whether it’s nature or nurture, we freely share the little things of the day. I found a stick that looks like a cyclops. It’s on the kitchen table. I dug up a magnet with little particles of natural iron sticking to it. I could have flung them away.
Finding Beauty (in my yard). I like that post. Here’s a similar one, for reasons you’ll see, more recently: very brief tour of my back yard
and some food photos added later…
Holly, 16 and unschooled always, has said several times she really likes going to DMV. There’s one pretty near our house. She’s been as her brothers got permits and licenses, and she’s been for her own permit and license, and went with her boyfriend to transfer an out of state license and found out its not so easy!
She can learn and have fun anytime, anywhere.
When I got to the part about “Outside Lies Magic,” I stopped and ordered the book. It will arrive Thursday. I’m reading “Vermeer’s Hat,” which is about the connections found in the 17th Century paintings of Vermeer, from Delft, Holland. I bought that because of a review in Entertainment Weekly.
Letting go of expectations about what sources are good for what makes all sources potentially fantastic!
When I had three children under six, I sometimes had to carry two while one walked, and it’s hard! I have several times picked one up against his will, but I always found soothing words and touch and consolations when we got to the stopping place, and pretty easily made him (it was often Marty, the middle one) better and happier in no time.
I’ve seen a parent coax and coax and discuss with one child while the other two get more and more irritated and the coaxee isn’t too impressed either.
When people tell me I’m patient with my kids, I tell them it’s FUN to be with my kids.
When people say I’m patient with new unschoolers, I tell them it happens when someone really wants to get it, and I know what benefits there will be to the children and the family. I’m working on a new page:
Spouses. It’s not finished, but there’s a photo of me and Keith (and some other couples) there.
And when people say I’m NOT patient with new unschoolers, it’s that I’m not patient with people who are determined not to even try to understand it.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 8:57 amSorry that last link didn’t work.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 9:00 amSpouses
links for 2008-03-18 « Charlottesville Words says:
[...] Melissa Wiley » “Every Face I Look at Seems Beautiful” Things I wish I had understood when my children were small. [...]
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 9:25 amWill you come to my house and mentor me, Lissa? LOL, no wait, I want to live where you are (my favorite city in the world
), so I’ll bring my whole brood to your house. 
Seriously though, thank you for this. When I’m alone, I’m extremely patient. I can while the time away, happy as a clam, enjoying the moment - even at the dentist, even at the DMV. But add my kids to the mix and WHAMMO I don’t know what happened.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 9:51 amIt’s funny, Amy, I don’t feel like I could mentor anyone because I have so much to learn myself. (Not that anyone ever stops learning, not even the wisest of mentors.) People could probably learn more by watching my mistakes, seeing what *not* to do, than from following my example. Look at the pages and pages of curriculum reviews I filled up this blog with before I finally decided to commit to unschooling. It has been a long, slow transition. It was hard for me to finally admit that while I have loved Charlotte Mason’s ideas *in theory*, in practice we have always come to a place, sooner or later, where I see the kids’ enthusiasm waning, saw them “patiently enduring” because they love and trust me. (That’s the point at which I have always ditched the plan, as I’ve written about here many times, because I have always been clear in understanding that people don’t learn when they’re not interested.)
With the one child (so far) who is not the type to patiently endure, I began finding myself in more and more conflict. And I don’t want that, don’t want an adversarial relationship with any of my children. I had to really think deeply (and long, this has been months in coming) about it, about relationships and control and the golden rule and peace, to come to a place where I feel like I GET it, I understand something about relationships that was eluding me before. (Maybe I understood it better when I only had one child, a child who got very sick.)
In my first post about the Stilgoe book I said the book was transformative. It really has been, for me. Seeing the message of unschoolers like Sandra in this totally different context–it got through to me in a new way. I had been reading a lot about motherhood and joy on sites like Sandra’s and Joyce Fetteroll’s, and reread CM and others whose ideas I’ve respected, and I had a lot to think through (am still thinking) about how unschooling and Catholicism work together. I kept coming back to the golden rule, how we ought to treat others the way we want to be treated, and it struck me that very few parents treat their kids the way they, themselves, would like to be treated. This was a few months ago, and then I started reading Outside Lies Magic, and things came into sharp focus for me. My religion says to treat other people the way I would like to be treated: unschooling, as understood by Sandra and Joyce and others, is a way of living that out, day by day, moment by moment, with the people I have the most contact with. My religion says to “count it all joy,” every moment, even the tough ones, and to give thanks in all things. You can’t be thankful about things you don’t notice; being more observant and seeing something of interest in everything, everywhere is what lets you count it ALL joy. Ooh, I’m squeezing too much into too few words here! Anyway, I guess what I am saying is that after spending a lot of time closely examining certain sets of ideas (Waldorf, CM, others), the principles that make the most sense to me in terms of the real people I live with and the doctrines of my faith are those articulated by unschoolers. Not that I haven’t learned a lot from other sources: I have. And I’m glad to have read and thought about everything I have read and thought about.
But the idea that made a real and practical difference when applied has been understanding the distinction between patiently enduring (and putting others in a position to have to patiently endure) and savoring the moment. It’s a mental shift. I no longer grit my teeth to hold everyone in check until we get through the grocery store: I take the kids to the grocery store for an adventure. I’m not impatient with them because I’m busy *being* with them. I’m not worrying about whether they’re “behaving” because we’re engaged in an experience together, talking to each other, sharing observations, noticing interesting things. It is radically different from the old “okay, now everyone be good and stay close to the cart, and we’ll get through this as quick as we can.” Some people feel that way about math, but we never have. For us it has been the errands, the doctor appointments, the business of daily life. As I had more kids, I had more of that business, which meant more and more of life was being “gotten through” instead of lived.
I have always cherished and celebrated (including here on the blog) the moments of connection, discovery, and fun–the difference is, now they last all day. It sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t. Being connected is better than being controlling. Being interested is better than being bored. Being fun is more fun than not being fun!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 10:40 amWonderful, inspiring. Impatience is one of my major flaws (sigh, yes I have several major flaws) and I know it is about control issues. I get into a tizzy even just waiting five minutes for a bus. And yet, like you, I draw gasps of admiration for my patience from those who don’t understand that what I’m really displaying is gratitude and love and truly feeling the blessing of the moment. What I now need to grasp is that even the difficult moments, the moments when someone is annoying me, are blessed too.
Lissa, won’t you take a quick plane trip over here and do an unschooling consultation for me?
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 10:46 amPatience, here’s my consultation:
Moving a Puddle by Sandra Dodd
Outside Lies Magic by John Stilgoe
This post and others by Willa at In a Spacious Place
(It would have been more fun to deliver the books in person.)
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 11:09 amLissa,
You wrote: I never noticed before what a work of art a safety pin is!
Another book to add to your list: The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski . . . fascinating and delightful.
I too picked up the Stilgoe book from the library today . . . I’ll enjoy reading it “with” you.
And thanks for the reflections on patience. They were beautiful, and such a good reminder for me. I’m especially working on being patient while we try to get out the door for the (few) scheduled events we have . . . this is the hardest thing for me, and I know my hurried mood diminishes the excitement about the event to come. I know that getting there is half the fun . . . guess I just didn’t realize that, with little ones, getting to the car is half the getting there.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 11:11 amThank you so much for this — I’ve never left a comment before although I read your blog on Google Reader, but I found this so inspiring today as it speaks to the our highest ideals as mindful, or aspiring-to-be-mindful, parents.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 11:18 amI hope you develop this further in future posts! Specifically, I found myself wondering, when you mentioned the difference between patience and exerting control — any examples of how this applies in those moments that ARE frustrating, and hard to enjoy? Like when you’ve asked your 4-year-old six times to clear her dishes from the table, or to brush her teeth, and she’s just lying on the floor??? I hate the overpowering nag that wants to, and often does, leap out of my mouth, but it’s hard to find a more connecting, genuinely patient (yet appropriately authoritative) way …
“with little ones, getting to the car is half the getting there.”
LOL and amen to that!!! I swear, nothing brings out the Frankenmommy in me like the getting-ready-to-go rush. My friend Eileen told me about a book called, I think, Margin (there’s another one for our list), which talks about how much of the stress in people’s lives is due to a lack of enough margin–he talks about margin with finances, a safety cushion, but the part I was interested in was about “margin of time,” allowing enough time (REALLY enough) to make transitions, to get ready, to get places. I tripled my “getting ready to go” margin and that (when I stick to it) makes a world of difference!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 11:21 amExcellent read, and I’m totally loving the Stilgoe book too, so many good points! You have the best way of saying the things that are the most important, hugs to you!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 12:05 pmI’d noticed that you were somewhat absent for a while. I was wondering if you were working on a new book. Hopefully you are, but I can now see you were re energizing your blog a bit. I love the remodel, and this post is proof that you are still thinking the big thoughts and taking the time to share them. For that, I thank-you.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 12:10 pmWhen you begin thinking about what you learn from that one child who “isn’t one to patiently endure,” doesn’t that give perspective as to why that little soul was sent to you?
How much less far I might have come without this child to learn from.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pmLissa, if you see someone checking your website from the same ISP over and over again in the next week, it’s me — reading and rereading this post and the replies.
You are discussing something I don’t quite get yet, but am *desperate* to have after 10 long years of searching and praying for it and taking my kids down with me. I think I “get” how to do this with schooling (or unschooling as the case may be) but I have a total disconnect when I try to merge “enjoying the moment” with being the authority figure I believe parents should be (and think my kids Who Will Not Be Controlled seriously need - maybe that’s my mistake - because we seriously butt heads over this. I think they need a heavy hand because they don’t listen/learn, but even that doesn’t work, only causes problems). But I am totally against “unparenting”. Who knows, if I get a free hour for thinking (ha ha) maybe I’ll try to blog my thoughts on it. If I have any! 
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 12:33 pmMonopolizing your comments
to say “I’m with Hannah”who posted in the looooong time it took me to finish my comment — this is my problem (or part of it). I know the AP party line of “be creative, make it fun” but multiply that by 5 kids and I start to twitch and honestly, get very resentful that I have to jump through hoops all day just to get my kids to do something. I grew up with the impression that kids should do things because their parents said so! LOL
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 12:54 pmYour words have revived me at a much needed time. There is much to absorb and sort through. My joy has trickled away lately but your words help me to unravel *why*. Grace and peace to you and yours.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pmAmy,
It’s really NOT about jumping through hoops but rather being present and available to your children. I don’t say yes to everything but I WILL listen and entertain the idea and my kids know that and feel confident to ask. I’m not an “unparenting” advocate either but being in authority doesn’t have to mean being in control or being what we imagine as “authoritarian”. Jesus is our best example of this. He was Lord but he came to serve not to be served. If I can remember this in my role with my children things go much better. I am here to facilitate their learning, serve them in their needs etc. I don’t give in on non-negotiable issues (the three year old cannot play with the stove!) but I am trying to constantly be open to what will better help them learn, discover who they are and become the person God created them to be.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pmGorgeous. Positively gorgeous. Thank you!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 2:52 pmLissa, I have been thinking about this post ALL day, friend!! It’s so good to have you BACK :))) I like Michele’s quote about Jesus, I need to remember the serving part more often when I’m ready to blow!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 3:14 pmMelissa! You are changing lives (3 that I can count in my own house alone) with this post! I keep rereading it and gaining more and more courage to let go of all that… that… whatever it is that needs letting go of!
Please (please!) keep posting about unschooling and the nuts and bolts of your days and how the tide is staying low - you are such an inspiration to me!
Thank you times a million billion gazillion!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 4:31 pmMichele, I loved your last line - I need to focus more on that: ” I don’t give in on non-negotiable issues… but I am trying to constantly be open to what will better help them learn, discover who they are and become the person God created them to be.”
Maybe it was just the specific example you used, but it seems like you are talking about the positives, like when your kids come to you asking to do something, and my problem lies more in the times that have already gone downhill by my children’s “childishness” - when I’ve nicely asked more than once and my child is still arguing, or disobeying, or demanding (is it just because I have girls? Is this all over emotional girl stuff? LOL). The jumping through hoops I’m talking about in those cases are the “positive parenting” (I mistakenly labeled it “AP”) injunctions to try to gently convince the child to behave. Be creative! Ask the child to be an elephant to clean up their room with their trunk! LOL Problem is, I still have 10yo’s who like to argue and not obey, and the elephant thing doesn’t work anymore.
Nor does it work on the current almost 3yo. *This* is where I get impatient. I’m tired and have no creativity left, and I just want my kids to be nice to each other, to obey me, and to be happy, darn it! LOL! 
I have been greatly encouraged by these comments, however, to realize that A) most moms have their impatient times, and B) I’m a better mom than I think because I already DO many of the positive things people are saying. Yay me!
I love the discussions that go on in your comment section, Lissa! You always have such wise readers, present company excepted, LOL.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 4:44 pmReading that book is making visible—even beautiful—all sorts of things that were ugly or invisible to me before. ….
Watch AUGUST RUSH!! We just did. You will also hear the world in a new way. It falls right into Stilgoe’s book of observation! It was my sons movie pick for the night. It was great.
Now I will go back and reread your post and the line up of comments.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 4:54 pmKay
wow! this has been really eating at me lately - since the birth of number 3 (all of them about 2.5 yrs apart) a little over a year ago i keep asking myself when did i change? how can i get that “patient” person back? the mama who took long walks without stepping on cracks, watching ants, collecting everything?
now i see i really can blame my one year old. ha! just kidding.
the “business of life” is truly what gets to me. bread baking - i’m there. sewing - bring it on. other cooking, glueing, glittering, reading, writing, math, coloring, drawing, dancing - i am so there. but the grocery store? the trip to the library? drug store? doctor? long car rides? bleh bleh bleh.
i love the last lines of one of your comments - “being connected is better than being controlling. being interested is better than being bored. being fun is better than not being fun!”, and michelle’s advice, too.
so many words to say “thanks”
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:03 pmMelissa,
Thank you so much for this. As a committed unschooler, who went through many a phase of trying to be like everyone else, because for some odd reason I thought I should (odd because I have never been a conformist type), I loved every word of this post. Lately, I have been bolstering my commitment to unschooling on a philosophical level by reading Alfie Kohn’s Punished By Rewards, and Ellen Langer’s The Power of Mindful Learning. I find I need reinforcement sometimes, even of the things I *KNOW* are true…like the books above or by Holt, Gatto, back issues of GWS, Sandra’s site, and your blog are all places I go to remember why I am an unschooler.
God Bless,
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:43 pmRachel
i love the last lines of one of your comments - “being connected is better than being controlling. being interested is better than being bored. being fun is better than not being fun!”
Rereading that, it sounded to me like something from Sandra’s site, and may very well be a paraphrase. There is a LOT of helpful writing there on parenting.
Amy, I was thinking about your comment at the dr’s office this afternoon (and how different from dr visits a few short months ago! Rose and I speculated about the purpose of a curious fixture beneath the skylight in the waiting room, which led to her mentally designing an entire dream house as we sat there…I’m glad to report her dream house has a room for me in it
)…Far from being unparenting, I think parenthood a la unschooling requires being a lot MORE engaged than the controlling kind of parenting. It takes more time and energy (at first? when they’re little? when you have a bunch?) to think about how you’d want to be treated if you were the child in that situation (each different situation) and to act upon that than it does to issue an order. Now of course if you issue the order and the child doesn’t comply, you’ve got a power struggle to deal with and I think that is the most exhausting and time-consuming situation of all. And such bleak rewards: bad feeling between parent and child.
my problem lies more in the times that have already gone downhill by my children’s “childishness” - when I’ve nicely asked more than once and my child is still arguing, or disobeying, or demanding
OK, this is really important stuff to talk about. I don’t have all the answers, not by a long shot. But I’m keenly interested in working toward them.
One trap I think parents fall into is the worry that if we don’t instill certain habits now, the children will grow up to be lazy/inconsiderate/selfish. But it reaches a point where you realize you’re doing all this nagging and lecturing or even punishing for what? So that they’ll be nice people when they’re older? But does anybody EVER listen to nagging or scolding and think “wow, that lady is so nice!” I would rather be nice right now. And the fact I couldn’t escape, when I really dug deep and thought this through, was that no matter how noble my intentions, no matter how “nice” and full of love my desires, THEY did not think I was being nice when I was scolding. And (golden rule again) I really like people to be nice to me.
So if they didn’t think I was being nice, I wasn’t following the golden rule.
Does that make sense?
When I started rethinking how to handle conflicts, a shocking thing was how immediately and drastically the number of conflicts dropped. Oh, this is turning into another big long explanation and maybe it should be its own post. I have to finish up now anyway, but we’ll come back to this. There is so much more to say. But where I was going right now was that I think a lot of times, we moms get mad because we feel like our kids ought to do what we say. And we forget how much we resent being told what to do ourselves. I’d so much rather be asked. So one little easy shift was to stop TELLING and start asking, and not to be annoyed or disappointed if they said no. They love to do things for me, when there are no sour consequences for choosing not to.
But I’m MASSIVELY oversimplifying here (writing in such a hurry), so I’ll hush for now. Someone else’s turn!
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 7:44 pmMelissa Wiley » Blog Archive » Stuff from Today says:
[...] Meaty discussion in the comments. [...]
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 8:06 pm-=-I’m not an “unparenting” advocate -=-
I don’t know anyone who is. It’s a common insult and common misconception, though, because it’s used by people who want to belittle and dismiss unschooling without even looking at it. It’s a boogeyman. I’ve never known a single “unparenting advocate.”
-=-i love the last lines of one of your comments - “being connected is better than being controlling. being interested is better than being bored. being fun is better than not being fun!”
-=-Rereading that, it sounded to me like something from Sandra’s site, and may very well be a paraphrase. -=-
It’s something on my site now, because I added it to the random quotes generator here:
http://sandradodd.com/unschooling (upper right)
-=-my problem lies more in the times that have already gone downhill by my children’s “childishness” –=-
Whole and Real (mature or immature?) That’s something I wrote just lately, about the state of my children.
I know unschooling can sound crazy, but it’s not. And it can sound lazy, but it’s not. What’s crazy is working long and hard to gradually but solidly destroy the relationship between parents and children. Some of the damage school does can be done at home, but where can the children go for relief “after school is over”? There is much sorrow in trying to “make children learn.” There is much joy in learning along with them.
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 8:25 pmLissa, Thanks for this–I came back to read the comments tonight but I was thinking of the original post this evening when my 2 year old was being especially 2
She would not eat, protested the bath etc. Inspired by your post, I took a moment and really thought about how she would want to be treated. Golden Rule. I did ask her to sit at the table with us (she ended up snuggled in my lap) but didn’t force her to eat. We ended up skipping the bath. She was crying and I finally asked her if she would rather have a bath or go right to bed. She asked for bed (!) but she happily agreed to a teeth brushing. She fell sound asleep after half a book. She must have been soooo exhausted poor thing.
Anyway, long comment, I just wanted to thank you for all the crying you saved us this evening. I was a little bit amazed that I could have a rational discussion with a distraught 2 year old but that saved us all a lot of grief. And really, she’ll probably get clean tomorrow
Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pmI hope I didn’t make it sound like I think unschooling = unparenting. Far from it! But I *do* personally know several people who I think “unparent” - they do exist. They’re not homeschoolers though.
I would say at least one of them is an “unparenting advocate” - the rest may just be working from a lack of knowledge/support/time/care?
Lissa, I hope you do write more on this! Solve all my life’s problems and hit on what to do when YOUR needs clash with their needs, when each child “needs” something different and opposed to each other, and oh, what to do with my 2yo, LOL!!
Thanks a million for starting this conversation.
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 3:54 amJust to come along with some book recommendations — try Kurcinka’s book on Kids, Parents, and Parent Struggles and Faber/Mazlisch’s book on How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Also, Kenison’s Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers In a Hurry. Three very different books, but those of us seeking patience and connection might find the blend to be an effective and inspirational trilogy. If you can only read one - Try Mitten Strings. No, wait, try How to Talk. No - it has to be Power Struggles. You get the picture — these are valuable books!
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 5:56 amLissa,
Would you mind more contemplation on this subject? I have often wondered at how patient and engaging I used to be a room of 4-6 year old while I taught Sunday School at church. Why can’t I be that way at home? I blame so many things–the housework, the appointments, etc… I dreamed of starting over with another child to do it right and to read all those toddler books that I sped through with my 3 children under 3. To have a chance to savor it all again.
So, God blessed us with another baby. There’s a 6 and 8 year gap with the other children. At first it was such a babymoon. She was so pleasant and compliant and happy. I felt my heart overflowing. I even thought to myself, “I’m finally getting the hand of this parenting thing.” Then she turned 2.5 yrs old and became a teenager almost! She is very active and demanding of attention, and moody. I’m struggling to juggle homeschooling and housework, and appointments, and everyday life with 4 children each needing something different from me and a husband with his needs too. I get impatient. I cringe to hear myself become Sgt. Mom. Those toddler books remain unread on my shelf. I have lost something in the busyness of these years.
I think what I “hear” you saying is that there is another way to deal with these things. We do have an option to react or respond in a different way.
I tend to go from one extreme to the other: making sure everyone feels good and that there are no conflicts, at times being weak to the point of allowing something that is not really in my children’s best interest just to avoid conflict to saying no to everything and acting like everyone is in my way and not enjoying the journey. When I say yes too much, I find that sometimes it’s out of not wanting to deal with whatever issue is at hand and I have seen this in my 4yr old start to back fire in some ways. I have also done the opposite and start to lose it when I sense that I’m losing control. I hate becoming Srgt. Mom. I struggle to find a balance.
Aren’t there times, though, where we do have to be tough moms and stand in the path, lovingly, to do what’s best in the long run for our children? Isn’t this real life? We have to brush our teeth, there’s no compromise on this, for example.
Unschooling is something that is new to me, I do pray for your patience with me as I try to understand what this looks like fleshed out. In the few examples I have seen, the parent’s main goal seems to become their child’s buddy to the point where there’s no real authority in the home, where the kids don’t know their limits, and the children have what appears to me an unnatural arrogance in talking with other adults. These are probably unusual examples, but the are the only ones I’ve seen.
Somewhere there is a middle line, a balance. There’s a guy Mark Hamby who talks about being a shepherd. Shepherds LEAD their sheep, they don’t DRIVE their sheep. This is what I want for myself and my home. I’m not sure my dh is on the same page with me yet.
One thing that used to be said about me is that I knew how to be childish with children and get down on their level and endear them to me. It pains me so much that this is not true of me now for the most part. I want to recapture that and find balance. Someone does have to cook dinner, someone has to maintain some sense of order that I think children really crave as well, but does it have to be done in a scolding way? It’s all I know though. I’d really like to do things differently but feel a little helpless.
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 6:02 amGood point about the shepherd - but don’t shepherds also have a sheep DOG that runs around the sheep “keeping them in line”? Where’s my sheep dog? I want a sheep dog.
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 8:27 amThis is shaping up to be one of the coolest and most useful discussions I have been in on in a while. I was reading the post of the mom talking about why she was such a good Sunday school teacher, so patient and understanding, and why she can’t be that way, as much, with her own kids.
It got me to thinking about how I have always wondered this about myself. I teach CCD classes in Summer and am so wonderful to those kids. I have come to 2 conclusions.
1) I know my time with them is limited to a few hours. So, I must think to myself, “Rachel, you can suck this up and be fabulous for a few hours.”
2) They are other people’s kids and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I want to be seen as nice and respectful of someone else’s kids. Along with this I noticed that I am usually so cool with friends having VASTLY differing view points from me. BUT! When it is my own family (ie: husband and kids) I get really upset. As if they are an extension of me and their beliefs are going to reflect on me.
So, once I articulated these 2 conclusions, I realize that I had missed the boat. I needed to flip some of my thinking around. *My* kids are the ones spending all sorts of time with me and *they* are the ones I need to be nicest too (ie: exhibiting the Golden Rule).
What is interesting is that in a prayer group I am in we were discussing the the Golden Rule is really interesting in that in the Christian tradition it is skewed to the positive and in other faith traditions it is skewed negative. For example in many other faiths the idea is put forth: Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself. It makes sense. I am not suggesting that it’s wrong, it’s just limiting. The idea is don’t be mean, don’t steal, don’t etc… But in the New Testament, it was taken a little further. It was not don’t do bad stuff, but instead, *do good stuff* *DO* unto others as you would have them *DO* unto you.” Taking this to it’s conclusion, it involves more action than inaction. It is easy enough not be a jerk to people in hope that they won’t be a jerk to you. Kind of preemptive. But to actively be nice to someone being a jerk to you is really hard.
This is where mindful parenting comes in (and for any of you out there espousing Christian beliefs the ability to exercise virtue) because you can have an 11 year old losing his cool with you over this or that, and the kicker is not to lose yours (which is frightfully easy to do…at least for me!).
Because, when I think about it, when I am losing it, I *don’t* need someone to start yelling at me if I am yelling. I, most likely, need love and calm.
Also, I hate being told what to do and I instantly rebel…even at 41! I need to feel and know that I have come to a decision or action myself. How on earth can I expect my kids to be different. Heck, one of them is really complacent. It’s his nature, one is a total rebel (a little of mom? hmmm) and the other is 50/50. But even the complacent one gets peeved if I am trying to control him. He’s just lots better at hiding his anger.
John Gatto once talked about the genius of Western Spirituality regarding Christ’s policy of non-coercion. In that Jesus would say “Follow me” and you made the choice to follow him or not. I am a “practicing Catholic” I am really into Church teaching. But this is stuff that took me a large chunk of my life to come to and joyfully embrace. I actually was a screaming anti-Catholic most of my life. If someone told me I *had* to use NFP, I would have balked. But when I read about and came to understand it’s importance to me and my spiritual life I happily embraced it. This all comes back to TRUST too. Man, is it hard to trust that one’s kids will find their way in this world sometimes…because it can sure seem like a scary place.
In a weird way, I need to kinda see my kids as not mine. Really, they aren’t. They are themselves. They are unique, unrepeatable human beings, I just happened to have helped get into this world. They have been entrusted to me to love and raise. Maybe, if in ‘acting as if’ my kids were someone else’s, I could come around to being less of ’shrew of mom’ sometimes and more of the ‘coolest mom ever’ most of the time (which was once said to me by a CCD student) in my approach to parenting.
UGH! Who ever said that being a mom is absolutely the *hardest job* you will ever love, was right on the money.
~Peace
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 11:08 amRachel
What a great discussion. I’ve got a couple of random observations to add.
Rachel wrote: “In a weird way, I need to kinda see my kids as not mine.”
I’d amend that further: They aren’t mine, they’re God’s. That’s the realization that has helped me the most as a mother when the going gets tough. My kids don’t belong to me, they belong to our heavenly Father. He’s entrusted them to me for a time and given me the tools (graces) to raise them; but I owe it to him to raise them as his sons and daughters. I need to recognize their freedom and their dignity as persons who are not extensions of myself. And at the same time I also need to recognize that God has placed me in a position of authority over them, that I have responsibilities to them as a parent and that if I neglect those duties I am failing
to do the task which God has entrusted to me.
Also along the same line of thinking, I sense that many other moms are, like me, a bit uncomfortable with finding the balance between being loving and being the one in authority. I see it in those who fear that unschooling may lead to “unparenting”.
There are times when we feel a tension because we know that doing something unpleasant now will be what is best for our children in the long run. It’s like getting a shot. I hate to see my baby cry, and yet I know that the pain is only temporary and the benefits of the immunization outweigh the sting.
I’m thinking especially of this passage from Hebrews, in yesterday morning’s Office of Readings, which seems to be at odds with doing unto others as we’d like done to us:
“You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons:
“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.”
Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards.
Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness.
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”
I totally agree that we are called to apply the Golden Rule, to do to our children as we’d have done to us. But here’s where I think it can get sticky because I think often we have an overly-simplistic
reading of the Golden Rule. Sometimes I do want others to do for me that which I may find most unpleasant at the time. I absolutely hate being corrected (who doesn’t?), no matter how gentle the one who is doing the correction. And yet in retrospect I’m often glad that my friend didn’t let me continue to make a fool of myself. Likewise, I want God to correct me when I go astray and yet I know that sometimes his corrections are not pleasant.
As St Paul says right before the passage that I quoted, “In your fight against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” And here’s the crux of the matter: as Christians we are not called to always be comfortable. Martyrdom is not pleasant or pretty, the cross is a bloody mess. And yet we are called to embrace it. And so I know that we do need to find ways to teach our children to embrace tasks they find unpleasant. And we need to correct them when we see them falling into sinful habits. We must discipline with love just as God our Father does, but children need discipline in order to learn how to resist sin and, as St Paul reminds us, at the time it is administered it will be a cause for grief and not for joy. As parents we are tasked to look at the larger picture. We can see further than our children can and so we can see when the path they are walking will lead to grief, even if it seems pleasant now.
So it seems to me what has been missing so far in this discussion is an acknowledgment of the temporary pain and grief it sometimes falls upon us to bestow upon our children. I’d like to see more teasing out of this tension: keeping in mind the Golden Rule, how do we discipline with love? How do we bring grief to our children in a loving manner while keeping in mind the ultimate joy to which we hope to lead them?
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 12:09 pmThank you Melanie! You put into words what I’ve been thinking on this topic for a long time. It was brought into light when I read some things earlier today along the lines of “Would you do it if your husband said to do something I thought was crazy/useless like scrubbing the garage floor?” Ummm, YES, I would do it, because my husband is the head of my household (God given authority) and I would trust that he had the best interests of the family as a whole at heart, even if I couldn’t see it at the time. In the same way I believe we’ve been put in a position of authority over our children - not to lord it over them, of course - but still I believe in the end my children should trust that I have their best interests at heart and obey - doing what they don’t *want* to do, or accepting discipline from me when they don’t - because God put me in authority over them.
I need to tie this in better to what Melanie said, but my dd wants to make muffins.
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 12:29 pmSo many thoughts brewing all day from this discussion . . . I’m counting every commenter here among my joys . . .
Like Betty, I too struggle with the idea of balance and unschooling. With my family, I often feel like I follow our joy to the point of our peril. For example, yesterday was a lovely day full of connections and exploring and creating and reading in which I truly felt present to each of my children. However, not only did the dishes go unwashed and the laundry landfill grow and the grocery shopping go undone, but in being present to one child, I sometimes overstepped the limits of myself and the other children, delaying food or naptime or other requests so as not to “cut off” the curious child. Once I have a hungry or tired kid on my hands, I realize that I’ve created the negative situation by not guiding the gang into a transition. Lissa, your point about margins of time helped me think about this problem in a new way (I think my family may need to live in the margins!), but I’d love to hear more about how others find balance.
And Melanie, your comments about the Golden Rule’s relationship to correction are great food for thought. I was thinking today about how I want to be treated when I need correction, and I don’t think I really know the answer. Certainly I want compassion, but beyond that, I think I want different things at different moments . . . sometimes I want to be corrected right away so I can get back on track, other times I want some space and solitude to figure things out for myself. And I can’t help thinking that how I want to be treated isn’t always what would be best for my growth as a person. So it is a sticky question.
Keep talking, friends . . . I could “listen” to you all day!
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 7:34 pmRachel said: In a weird way, I need to kinda see my kids as not mine.
On a very concrete level, a friend suggested that, when my kids’ behavior is bugging me, I try to think of them as someone else’s kids. Often, their “misbehavior” would seem harmless if you saw someone else’s kid doing the same thing. It does help me regain perspective. (Funny side note: when I mentioned this idea to my dh, he actually thought I meant that we should act like the kids aren’t ours. He was looking forward to being able to step away and look around disapprovingly for the “parents” of the little miscreants.:))
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pmMelanie, I hear what you’re saying, and there is an extent to which I agree, but I think when you look at how mainstream discipline methods really play out–what real effect they can have on relationships–I don’t see them as a reflection of the loving relationship God wishes to have with his children. This is hard to articulate, but I’ll try.
You said, “But here’s where I think it can get sticky because I think often we have an overly-simplistic
reading of the Golden Rule. Sometimes I do want others to do for me that which I may find most unpleasant at the time. I absolutely hate being corrected (who doesn’t?), no matter how gentle the one who is doing the correction. And yet in retrospect I’m often glad that my friend didn’t let me continue to make a fool of myself.”
But I do think the “gentleness” of the correction is the key point. If I’ve done something wrong, have hurt someone, I most definitely want to be corrected so that I might have the opportunity of making things right. I don’t want to do wrong. But if the friend is stern or angry with me, or blisters me with her speech, or is sarcastic, or lectures, or does something to “teach me a lesson” (it’s hard to imagine adults doing this to other adults, but I’m thinking of ways parents commonly react when their kids have done wrong–and as I write this, I know it’s not at all the kind of discipline you are suggesting, but I’ll get to that point in a minute; right now I am speaking about the kinds of “correction” I have witnessed other parents give their children, and have (to my shame) given my own children at times in the past)–that was a long parenthetical, so to catch up the thought, I was saying that if a friend were to “correct” me in any of those ways, I would most likely recoil with feelings of defensiveness, anger, rebellion, humiliation, or indignation. My own sense of remorse and desire to make amends might very well be dwarfed by my moral outrage on being spoken to “like that.”
So I think the “no matter how gently” is a key phrase in what you’re saying. If the friend says, “Honey, you know I love you but what you did was totally uncool,” my reaction is going to be very different.
I’ve seen lots of discussions about the parenting aspect of unschooling (including quite recently on one of Sandra’s lists, and interestingly the golden rule came into that conversation too, though my own little golden-rule epiphany was before that conversation took place) and what I see from the people who are advocating a more peaceful, mutually respectful kind of parenting than mainstream discipline-based parenting is a complete openness with their children about certain things being not okay, not cool. They aren’t giving the kids a pass on inappropriate behavior (again–I know no one has suggested that in this discussion; I’m just developing a point and I’m afraid it will take me a while to get there!). They are being frank, and calm, and forthright about how other people are likely to react if a kid does such-and-such.
So I think there’s an agreement here that certain behaviors, certain actions are not okay. I see, too, a parallel in what we Catholics talk about as parental authority and what unschoolers describe in other terms, such as “it’s my job (as the mom) to make sure that everyone in this family feels safe and peaceful here.” (One example, used regarding a situation in which siblings were fighting.) Other kinds of parental authority: it’s my job to make sure my kids don’t break other people’s stuff, or that if they do we replace it; that they don’t hit people, or call someone mean names, or running and shouting in the art museum. It’s my job to be frank with them about the laws of this country, and the (natural) “laws” of decency and fairness. It’s my job to let them know when something is not ok.
So far I see total agreement between the golden-rule discussion we’ve been having, and the points you raise, Melanie. (And by the way, I meant to say: thanks so much for your thought-provoking contribution to the discussion! Glad to see you here.)
You ask, “So it seems to me what has been missing so far in this discussion is an acknowledgment of the temporary pain and grief it sometimes falls upon us to bestow upon our children. I’d like to see more teasing out of this tension: keeping in mind the Golden Rule, how do we discipline with love? How do we bring grief to our children in a loving manner while keeping in mind the ultimate joy to which we hope to lead them?”
Well, here’s where I think it’s necessary to be very specific. You could say that when my friend tells me gently, “Honey, you were totally out of line,” she is bringing me grief in a loving manner–but she is not really bringing me grief, she is bringing me truth, and the grief arises within me from my own sense of regret for my wrong actions. That’s different, because it changes the intent. As parents, we don’t want to bring grief to our children; we want to bring them truth.
Sometimes truth causes the hearer to feel grief (remorse), and that remorse is a very good thing when it generates a resolution to make amends and to not do wrong again. “Discipline” comes from “disciple,” which means “learner,” and you could say that to discipline is to teach–in the sense of making apparent a truth the other person may learn from. You can’t *make* anyone learn anything. You can make information available, and someone who is interested in it will “learn” it, or learn from it.
I can make information about “what you did was not okay” available to my child, but if I’m delivering it a stern manner, or with physical pain, or shaming words, the child is not likely to be “interested” in learning. The child is going to be interested in doing whatever he can do to make the pain or shaming end fast, and then in retreating.
For these reasons, and on grounds of such practices contradicting the golden rule, I have come to believe most mainstream “discipline” methods are damaging. And I know what a hot topic this can be.
So–I said earlier that it was necessary to be specific, but I’ve been mostly general so far–how DO you handle the specific situations where you have to “correct” a child? Or the situations Amy suggested above, where you’ve asked or told the child to do something and she hasn’t done it? Let’s be specific. Of course it’s hard, because every single situation depends on a hundred small details: the age of the child, the state of the child (hungry? sleepy? run ragged from errands that day?), the nature of the task or inappropriate action, who else is around, so many things.
But I guess I can see two categories of situations: 1) child doesn’t do what parent tells him to; and 2) child does something that isn’t OK (hurts someone, takes something not his, etc).
In the type 2 situation, I can say from our family’s experience that “discipline” in the sense of scolding (and I don’t mean yelling, though there has been some yelling in my career as mother too, I won’t deny it) or issuing consequences–we NEVER called them punishments, always talked very rationally about consequences, but (interestingly, and tellingly) the kids ALWAYS, every time, referred to it as punishment–discipline of that sort was not good for the relationship. I can’t put it any more bluntly, or humbly, than that. I have read many books about “gentle discipline,” but going by my personal experience with three children (I am not including my two youngest, because I didn’t “go there” with them)–and in the end, my personal experience is all I have to go by–it didn’t matter how calm and sweet and loving I was in administering a consequence. Punishment (let’s call it what it is, like the kids do) divided us, put me on one side and my kid’s heart on the other. It set up a power dynamic. I know God is omnipotent and “has power” over me, but he gave me free will. He lets me make my own choices and lets me deal with the consequences. He doesn’t turn me loose to fumble through life on my own; in countless ways he provides information (truth) and help; but I can’t think of any single encounter-with-God a person experiences that is analogous to a parent grounding a child, or taking away the child’s toys, or making him write lines, or lecturing, or spanking. Honestly, I’ve been sitting here for the longest time trying to come up with an example, and I can’t. Certainly some bad things might happen to me if I do wrong, as a result of my own actions, but I don’t anywhere see God saying “you were bad, here’s cancer” or “you did wrong, so you’re going to have to do without your favorite things for a while.” (If I do certain types of wrong, the state might say I have to do without my favorite things for the term of my sentence.)
Try as I might, I don’t see where in real life God dispenses punishments. Sometimes our actions have consequences, but that’s not the same as a punishment. That’s cause-and-effect.
As I understand the doctrine of hell, even THAT is not a punishment. It is a state of being cut off, forever, from God, as a result of deliberate and willful rejection of Him (or of natural law, the innate sense of right and wrong, ethics, fairness, hardwired into all people whether they believe in God or not). (And now we’re veering into theology and I’d rather not take this discussion into Protestant vs. Catholic theology vs. other belief systems.) Hell is not a “you were bad, so I’m going to make you suffer forever.” Hell is “you divorced yourself from Love, and without Love existence is nothing but suffering.” I hope this is making sense. Hell is not a punishment. I only brought it up because someone might say God doesn’t punish until after we die, and then if we were bad we go to hell. If some people reading this disagree and DO think hell is a punishment, then we’re probably not going to find common ground on the parenting thing either. (And before I leave this touchy topic, I’ll just say that I know the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the phrase “the punishments of hell,” but in context I truly and wholly believe that is not meant in the sense of “you were bad so now you’re getting punished,” as if God is brandishing a whip. It’s a cause-and-effect consequence, a natural consequence if you will, rather than an *administered* consequence, which is to say punishment. If the Catholics among us want to hash that out elsewhere, we can do so, but I think it’ll kill this discussion.)
OK, so if not punishment, then what? Frankness, mostly. Calmness. Removing a kid from the situation, if it’s a case of kids fighting, or one kid being mean to another, or other similar situations. Again, here’s where it gets hard to be specific without specific situations to address. But I guess the short version of my long point is that I think “parent punishes child” does harm to the relationship. We can talk about that more, if you want.
As for the type 1 situation, where child doesn’t do what parent has told him to? Well, this could be very long too because again it needs to deal with specifics. But what I’m learning is simply to “tell” less. It sounds counterintuitive, I know it does; but in practice it is making so, so much sense to me. I ask rather than order. I say “would anyone” or “would you mind” and if they do mind or no one will, I don’t go all heavy-sighs on them. Most of the time, when they have a choice, they choose to do what I’m asking. It’s free will, I think.
But I’ve talked about needing to address specifics and I haven’t addressed some of YOUR specifics (Amy, Ana Betty), like brushing teeth. It’s such a big topic. I’ve been writing for an hour and I have to go. More later, but others please chime in too.
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pmMelanie I so agree with what you have written. I guess I didn’t think it was missing from the discussion because I felt like it was a given. But then I realized it maybe wasn’t for everyone so it’s good that you brought it up.
I agree that children need discipline but I know in my house there are plenty of opportunities for it without my needing to add to it. There will always be things that MUST be done, cannot be allowed, will be expected and yes even suffered. It is part of life. Correction, even if done gently, is generally not pleasant. But it does not have to be more than necessary either and perhaps this is where I find the most struggle. If I give in to my inclinations and let myself become impatient then that shows in my discipline. It is easy (for me) to fly off the handle and it is tempting because it generally produces a fast and desirable result. Or so it seems. But what it really does is put a crack (even if only a tiny invisible one) in the structure of my relationship with that child. They have certainly learned what not to do (if only not to get mommy to the breaking point!) but has it been effective discipline? No, not really and it’s not worth it. The short term obedience brings long term fracture.
Not that it has to of course we will all fail and this is where I have found my children to be so willing to forgive me when I have fallen and apologized for it. Love surely does cover a multitude of sins and it is what I tell myself all the time.
But like everything else in our lives there needs to be a balance and I have found that putting too much structure and discipline into our learning makes for some very surly and discontented children as well as mom.
I had to stop and ask myself “Why isn’t this more fun?” “Why can’t it be?” Life is already hard enough there are already so so many restrictions that my children have on a daily basis so why not let them be more free in their learning? I had no answer for that and it was in letting go of some of what I thought were the “must dos” of education that things became better, more peaceful and more harmonious.
And I have seen in the long term with my older kids how the things that we didn’t do formally that we “missed” they are always able to get when they need it. My 2nd oldest was pretty well unschooled through high school. I let him follow his interests and he spent a lot of time reading and exploring things that interested him. I wasn’t sure how that would turn out and I got afraid and we went back to more structure with the other kids. But what I see now is how my son who was unschooled through high school is doing so well in college now. How he works hard to get good grades and spends hours and hours working on his assignments because it’s what HE wants. Not what I imposed on him but what he realizes is important to his future. It has been a real eye opener for me and made me really start looking again at what’s going on and seeing how here I was again trying to control everything.
OK this is WAY too long and I have rambled all over the place so I apologize. I’m glad for this discussion as there have been so many great comments as food for thought!
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 8:00 pmLissa wrote: “I ask rather than order. I say ‘would anyone’ or ‘would you mind’ and if they do mind or no one will, I don’t go all heavy-sighs on them. Most of the time, when they have a choice, they choose to do what I’m asking. It’s free will, I think.”
Yes exactly! This is what I do and it has such a different effect than when I rattle off orders. And oh it can be so tempting to give that sigh when no one offers to help (Charlotte Mason warned against using those sorts of methods and it’s always stuck in my head for some reason) but honestly it’s so rare now that no one will help.
I have seen the benefits of this most especially with my 11 yr. old daughter and 13 yr. old son who will regularly ask if there is anything they can do for me. And every night when they go to bed my 13 yr. old will say “thanks mom for everything you did for me today” and he will always specifically name a few things.
But oh we are far from living this perfectly and that frustrates me so because I can see it and I can see the results but I give in to my selfishness and everything falls apart that quick! Argh!
Sorry