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The Resistant Child
By Laura | December 11, 2008
My heart goes out to the mom over at AK Homeschool Fun after reading her post ‘Friday, Please!‘
She writes:
Homeschool is frustrating. He just isn’t doing his work. Nothing has helped motivate him this week. No punishment, reward, or even bribe has made much difference. He just wants to play Legos. He also runs and yells and literally bounces off the walls this week. Normally he’s not quite this hyper. There are several reasons which could be part of the problem. He’s staying up and sleeping in way too much so his sleep schedule is off. He says he’s hungry a lot. Not sure if this is true (growth spurt?) or just an excuse since he is eating good. Our days are very short so sunlight deprivation could be part of it. The chilly house could be part of it.
I remember the days when this kind of behaviour in a child would have frustrated me and drive me almost nuts. *I* was the teacher, after all…how could a child not do what I demanded of them? I fought, I threatened, I begged and I bribed…but no way; they didn’t want to work and that was the end of their side of the discussion…that is, until I discovered Sandra Dodd.
I had inadvertently joined an unschooling mailing list and quickly put my foot in my mouth when someone asked a question about disciplining children. I was chewed out pretty quickly by the other readers and then pointed to Sandra’s website where she has extensive articles on unschooling.
I started reading and it was as though a new path had opened. I learned how children need to be free to explore their interests in order to have a true education. How even apparently small things can have a large educational benefit for those doing it. Taking the Lego, for example, it teaches colours, math, physics, architecture, imagination and drama (I’m sure there are many other lessons that I can’t think up right now). Its possibilities are endless and how many toys can you see your children playing on for hours on end?
I’m not saying that everyone should drop their curriculums and run to unschooling. It takes a certain type of attitude to approach it properly…something that I’m still working on, but if the child is stressed and unable to focus, give him a break and a chance to explore his own interests. Maybe an extended break is exactly what he needs. As for my children? We are excitedly waiting the shipment of 2500 pieces of Lego I ordered off of eBay. 
Topics: unschooling | 15 Comments »
December 11th, 2008 at 5:11 am
You guys do a wonderful job! Keep up the good work.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Just thought I’d give you an update. Today is a little better.
I know Legos and blocks are educational. This fall there was a student at our local university who made a scale model of one of the buildings on campus with Legos. My son gets lots of time to play everyday with them but needs to also learn responsibility. There are days I’d rather play then work but have to work.
As for following his interests, he chose what curriculum to use. I gave him a few options based on his interests. Now he needs to do the work. We use a mix of literature, activity, workbook, and now textbook based programs so he has a good mix. He also gets to pick which order to do the work. I agree that just sitting and drilling in textbooks without any personal interest isn’t really learning.
We tried unschooling and it was awful for us. The current mix seems to work the best. He’s just having a bad week. We all have them sometimes. Like everything else, this too is a learning experience (for all of us). Still, this was a good post and hopefully can help others who may be struggling where curriculum is at fault.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Thanks for your update! I totally understand how kids (and parents) have their good and bad weeks…God knows that my girls have theirs!
I like the fact that you gave your son the chance to choose his own curriculum…most parents don’t give their children that option and it’s a good step in the direction of empowerment.
I’d love to hear about your experience with unschooling. What attracted you to it, and why did you feel it didn’t work for your family? There are lots of unschooling issues that I still deal with and wonder how to “figure them out” so-to-speak.
Keep up the good work and don’t get despaired. I think that ANY homeschooling is better than school. I started reading “Dumbing us Down” by John Gatto and it only convinces me more that the institution of school is no place for children.
December 12th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Laura,
Thanks for the encouragement. I read Dumbing Us Down years ago in college (on my own, definitely NOT part of the dept. of education curriculum).
Let’s have a discussion. I don’t mind sharing. That’s why I started my blog and apparently yours as well. BTW- I love your layout.
Well, that depends upon how you define “unschooling” since there seems to be several different ways lately. For us it was not getting many boxed curriculum items but letting him explore everything with many library trips, the internet, etc. The few curriculum we did use, we skipped around as to his interests (mostly Montessori style when he was young).
I feel it works pretty well when they are young but for us it got harder as he got older to insure a rounded education. Plus he needed continuity and structure, especially after he learned to read. The logistics were a nightmare at times. We have state high school exit exams. I didn’t want to find out sophomore year we had a big gap so he couldn’t graduate. That’s a long way off yet, but still a factor to move to more structured approach.
Some would say what we’re doing now is a form of unschooling since everything comes from a different place and uses many different forms of learning. Plus we let him choose what he wanted to learn this year. Others would disagree. Most associate unschooling with a unit studies approach, which we don’t do.
I did a lot of research and with my son, finally decided on the mix we’re using now that fits his learning style best. We still add quite a lot to his basic curriculum (especially science) as his interests direct. See my posts on Switching from Abeka and Literature based schooling as to why I use different approaches.
I hope this answers your question.
December 12th, 2008 at 1:45 am
I’m wondering if you have a link for that first picture? I often envy the artists who got lucky enough to find a way to get paid for playing with toys! It’s one of the first things that led me to unschooling – the idea of having fun with life…
December 12th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Here you go, Debbie:
http://www.techchee.com/2007/09/02/biggest-lego-model-in-the-world-a-30-foot-dragon/
December 15th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Legos are amazing for sooo many different reasons! Thanks for submitting to the Carnival of Homeschooling!
December 16th, 2008 at 10:41 am
AK Homeschool Fun — your life sounds just like ours! Without the high school exit exams.
Radical Unschooling doesn’t work for us, even though I adore the philosophy. My son is hyper and bounces off the walls… and he helps choose his curriculum and which workbooks to do each day. Very minimal “academic” stuff… but I do insist on SOME certain specific things and structure for him.
For the most part he agrees with the whole plan and certainly prefers it to the idea of going to school. But some days he just has no interest in working at ALL and only wants to play… and most of the time, it’s not just the natural desire to “learn through play” and explore etc that should be encouraged… with him, it’s mostly selfish, self-entitled laziness. I know what people will say about that comment, but I also know my own son.
He does love his Legos too – 2500 pieces? Sounds great! Can I ask what kind of system you use for storage? When my son wants to play Legos all day, I consider that a *good* day!!
December 19th, 2008 at 10:37 am
@ Heather
I don’t think I could ever become a radical unschooler. I enjoy the freedom that unschooling offers, but at the same time, I also feel the responsibility of sending my children in the right direction. My goal is to allow them to learn in a way that THEY enjoy learning.
BTW..still haven’t picked up my LEGE< though I think that it’s at the post office. I haven’t thought about storage until you mentioned it. Will have to buy a plastic storage box to put it all in, LOL.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:45 am
AK Homeschool, do you have a name that I can call you by?
You are right that we need to define unschooling, but just like homeschooling, it can be a very broad term.
There are the “purists” that believe that unschooling must be radical and absolute, then the more relaxed unschoolers that say “anything goes”. Then there’s me who loves the idea of unschooling and am trying to incorporate it into my life, but at the same time, keep some sort of balance so my (non-Western) husband doesn’t get turned off by it. It took me 6 years to constantly point out the fallouts of the school system so that he’d support my desire to homeschool our children.
I think that Montessori is awesome. I taught it when I was living in Saudi Arabia and use some of it with my daughters. They enjoy it and it loosely follows what unschooling is about–that the child learns in his/her environment and has an innate desire to learn.
For me, I will continue to expose my daughters to as much natural learning as possible while poking and prodding with various resources that I have. So far, they have been fully open to is.
What you’re doing with your son is what is known as Eclectic Homeschooling, which means you’re grabbing curriculum and resources from here and there to use as you see fit. It’s an awesome way to do things, but many parents find it daunting to have to collect and organize everything themselves. As for me, if I ever homeschool formerly rather than also playing with the unschooling world, I’d probably be eclectic.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hi Laura,
Hope you all had a merry Christmas. Guess what their grandpa gave the kids for Christmas? A bucket of about 90 legos.
They are the regular small size so my husband isn’t too happy about opening it yet. They aren’t doing well picking up their other toys lately.
Yes, eclectic would be a good label for our homeschool. I just didn’t think any all-in-one curriculum company fit the kids for every subject so I chose the best fit subjects of each and it works. It does take a bit of time initially researching. Attending a curriculum fair where you can look at materials and talk to vendors and other homeschool families helps a lot. However, once you find something that works, you can usually use that company for several years. Plus, I like doing it. They’re worth the effort. Oh, I’m Frankie.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I’m curious to know how many DIY schoolers here have earned their state certifications to instruct students?
I’m of the theory that most, if not all, so-called “unschoolers” aren’t simply malcontents who feel their destinies are out of their control, so by taking advantage of a few laws, they seize the control they think they have lost to traditional k-12 institutions.
I am of the opinion that if you aren’t certified, then you have no ethical business trying to teach your child the school or district mandated curriculum at home.
What if I read a few medical textbooks and declare myself a medical doctor? Should that be permitted to treat my own children?
An autodidactic’s folly is to presume their expert status without formal training and certification. They are assuaging unchecked egos that believe they can do better than someone else. meanwhile, their kids suffer from lack of real structure, order, and discipline, all of which will be expected of them when they grow up and leave the nest.
Tell me what profession will allow its employees to work at their own pace and on their own schedule.
Part of formal education is to prep you for real life. Staying at home with mom or dad playing make believe is not prepping a child for real life.
It’s setting them up for real failure.
What a pity more of you don’t see that. You read some research that tells you exactly what you want to hear that you conclude that all education is rotten.
You’ve failed to learn that a modern education must be a partnership between a school and its parents.
Clearly, the fact that you bailed proves that you did not fulfill your part of the commitment. You expected your school to do everything for your child.
December 30th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Actually I HAVEN’T earned my state certification because know what? I’m not American! I’ve taught as an English Lecturer despite my NOT having a University degree. I was a Montessori teacher for many of Saudi Arabia’s elite and royals.
I worked in the medical field, yet I never studied medicine. Since when is success measured by how much paper we’ve accumulated? I’ve translated several books from English to Spanish, yet (surprise,surprise)I have no formal education in translation.
I can speak fluent French, Spanish and Arabic…yet none of those were learned in schools. I’ve ridden 100km. endurance trails with the ecuadorean military and assisted in their hospitals as a surgical assistant. Financially, I am VERY well-off thank-you-very-much. If my husband (God forbid) were to suddenly drop out of my life, I’d still be able to maintain the lifestyle my children and I live now…not bad for a non-university-degree-holding sahm.
Almost none of this was thanks to the school system. In fact, the school system failed me. I was thought of being merely average and not interested in working when in fact, I am gifted and the system was not able to cater to me. It wasn’t even until college that this was discovered. The very coping mechanisms I used to deal with my boredom ended up getting me in trouble rather than helping me succeed.
Why do you assume that children belong at school…is that real life? Living with a bunch of kids the same age whom you wouldn’t even associate with outside of school and forced to put up with mistreatment and bullying that, in the *real world*, you would bring on asault charges to said-person. Where you are given a one-size-fits-all education regardless of the way you process information?
In the real world, you use the resources you have. Do I need a chef’s degree to cook dinner for my family…or should I study to become a plumber just because my toilet might break down one day? Perish the thought that I might manage to fix it myself!
I’ve seen MANY teachers that don’t deserve to be near children, yet because of self-serving teacher’s unions, they are tenured and no one can fire them. I’ve seen doctors where my own limited experience rivaled their so-called years of medical training.
If you haven’t noticed, parents do just fine at teaching their children to walk and talk. Should we also hand that over to the institution since we are obviously incapable of brushing out own hair?
Humanity did fine for thousands of years before governments stepped in…now it’s time for them to bud out.
December 31st, 2008 at 3:46 am
Laura, I just stumbled onto your site through Sandra Dodd’s. I am really enjoying it so far.
Your last comment was a wonderful rebuttal. You’ve got more patience than I do to deal with responding to that kind of stuff.
January 14th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Yes. I see the troll was here too. I made a post from his questions thinking we could have a good discussion. Well, it was the most pig headed discussion and I finally had to block Mr. Black as his comments turned into insults against me and my other commentors. You made a great response to him though.