Owen's Enlightenment

I was so thrilled to discover the first signs that Owen is 'getting it'. I've read that when you try to teach your kids something, you know they get it when they repeat it back to you. Today, Owen helped E to see the light. The kids wanted to go outside to play with a neighbor. E told them they had to put shoes on. Bridget slid on a pair of dress shoes and headed for the door. E stopped her and told her she had to wear appropriate shoes. Owen intervened and said, "Daddy, just let her wear what she wants. It's essential living." E acquiesced and as soon as they were out the door, started laughing. He knew Owen meant to say 'consensual living' but didn't bother to correct him since it is essential to our living as well.

Later, I asked Owen if I could have the TV when he was finished. He immediately said yes and turned off his video game. He looked at me with a really big smile and said, "I don't really need to play video games, I just like it a lot. You can have the TV." I gotta say, this was the biggest relief for me. Owen had been playing nonstop video games since we started deschooling Sept 11. I trusted that it would take a while and that eventually he would get tired of video games, but it was so hard to just let him rot in front of the tv for hours on end. He's started playing some of the games that he has had for a year and never played more than once. I knew this was the first sign of boredom, I just didn't know how much longer I could put up with his 'need' for video games. We went to Georgia a few weeks ago and he was crying in the car most of the way because he missed his video games. He was noticeably upset for the next two days of vacation. I tried to comfort him, but I couldn't tell him that he really didn't need video games. He had to figure it out on his own. I'm so glad I waited for him. He was so proud of himself. I'm sure he will carry the lesson of 'determining whether a need is authentic' with him for a long time.

I've started reading other Radical Unschoolers blogs. I was surprised to discover that even the people who have been doing this for more than 10 years see it as a continual process. That was kind of a blow to me. I thought if I tried really hard, I could learn quickly and graduate to 'completely unschooling' status and life would be good. I thought that in my head and it made sense, but now as I read it, that sentence is the epitome of the learning I'm trying to erase from my mind. In The Book of Learning and Forgetting, Frank Smith says that learning is not hard; we do not have to try to learn. Learning happens naturally whether we want it to or not. I guess that is why unschooling ourselves is a continual process. I just said to E that I feel like we are giving our children an incredible gift by sparing them from the 'generally accepted' ideas about learning. They are going to be so far ahead of where we are now. What greater gift could I give my kids than the ability to identify their passions and the freedom to follow them? I've often said, "you can do anything if you try." I think I getting to the point where I am truly supporting my kids so they can do anything, not just anything I think is acceptable.