The Kids Who Don't Do Anything

It is not often a week goes by that someone, either friend or stranger, enquires about the schooling of our children.    Do you start your school year soon?   How do you know what curriculum to use?  When will they start to go to school? The list goes on and on.   Their curiosity is not ill intended and I am happy to answer questions.   My parenting choices have not been main stream from day one, it is a given that questions come as a result of that.  The problem begins in that I just am not good at lying.  I proudly wear my heart on my sleeve most days.  So when these wonderfully curious creatures hear my answers about not enforcing a structured school day or the choice to not use adult designed curriculum they become concerned for the welfare of my children.   How will they keep up with other children?  What will they do when they go to university?  Isn’t there a law about what children need to be taught?  How will you know that they are learning without tests?  

I am not quite sure what it is that some people are looking for.  It could be that they want to hear about how successful home education is through the opportunity to give one on one focus to children in order to advance their academic future.  Maybe they would like to tell others about their friend’s super advance homeschooled children.  I do know they are not often happy with my response leading them to inevitably ask the question “well then what do you do”?   

To give them just a tiny sampling of the boy’s educational opportunities I could describe the in depth explorations the boys are doing of both modern and fantastical worlds that concurrently enhance their small motor skills, support our literacy program and develop their advanced problem solving skills.  Or share with them our social studies project that is an ongoing and extensive research experiment into the dynamics of multigenerational households and that affect on families within our current culture in Canada.  It might also be interesting to talk about the intensive fine arts program with a focus on modern styles of graphic art in literature.    Of course I could also just simply say that we just……..live. 

Living is what we do.  It is not any more complicated than that.  The boys have all learned to read, they can figure out various math problems.  They are independent and interdependent children who try to master new things on their own and feel comfortable in asking for support when required.  They are certainly not prodigies.  We have had our struggles as any other family like when dad wants them to go to bed in comparison to when they feel ready for bed, how much video game time I believe they should have against how they see it should be or what vegetables they need to eat for proper nutrition in stark contrast to their distaste for them.  This one I am still holding out hope on and believe that one day they will eventually come to love vegetables.

Our choice to educate our children without an institution or institutional model at home is one based on building healthy people.  Within our family we value, emotional intelligence, empathy, well rounded life experiences, interest in expanding a knowledge base, mastering life skills to name a few.  I am not sure that others would disagree with the importance of these traits.  We don’t happen to believe that for our children an institution is the place to experience life.  Life is what they will have to “do” when they grow into adults. Work environments vary so greatly and only a few mimic the institutional setting.  Spending the better part of 20 years in static environments does not prepare them for the diverse life experiences they will come across as adults.  It makes sense to us that to ready them for life we expose them to it.