AHA!!!

I had a bit of an "aha" moment the other day.

I have a kid's place app downloaded on my Kindle, where the kids can easily play games without overloading my Kindle. I have many, many educational games on the site, as well as a few such as Minecraft, Temple Run, Minions, etc.

However...

No matter which kid had the Kindle, the educational games were completely ignored. Every. Single. Time.

Enter my "aha" moment. :)

Why on earth WOULD they choose to play the educational games?!? I wouldn't! They scream of "being taught" and are all about mastering things that are needed for SCHOOL.

AHA!!!!!! (And duh)

So, I went into my kindle and started unloading things. All those educational apps?? Gone. Good-bye. See ya.

In their place? I loaded Chess, a Sound Effects app (lol!), a White Board, a couple of Board Games, a Stopwatch, an app about the lunar cycles, a real time map, a weather app, etc. I mean really, how fun!!!!! I also added in some apps I had on my cloud. An Old Time Radio app, a Word Search, a couple of channels, and we're good to go!

Now THAT ought to be FUN!!!!

We are one week in to my unschooling experiment. BeastyBoy and MissesHerMama continue to attack life full-force, soaking up things as rapidly as they can. I also see them beginning to find their own limits. RockyGirl was raised much like this, and she is radically in tune with herself for being only 17.

Corazon however, is struggling. She has been told who to be and what to do for so long (at her orphanage) that it has killed the spark in her. She is one angry and sullen kiddo. She feels like she "not being taught". I can see that for her, unschooling has been too big of a change. My goal for today is talk over with her HOW she would like to learn. I will honor it no matter what she chooses. I am hoping that by helping her guide her own learning, she will gradually see that she definitely can learn herself. So for her, for now, we go with a delight-directed style of learning.

Honoring my kiddos. That's what this is all about. Teaching them that they are valuable people with desires and God-given talents.

What a beautiful way to live. :)

(Chance of snow today...can I just have the glorious days of summer back? :))

Unschooling and Attachment....

Saturdays are often an emotional trigger for me. I've noticed that it on Saturday that I'm highly likely to text a friend that I am "not doing well." I battle depression pretty much every Saturday.

Why?

Because all four younger kids are home here with me. Mr.Mechanic triggers me the most. He has such poor self-esteem, that he spends a good part of the day angry at me. Everything I ask him to do is perceived as a battle on his part. It is difficult and my anxiety kicks into overload. Hubby often takes Mr.Mechanic to work with him, but that also leads to toxic behavior.

Yesterday the sun was shining and I desperately wanted to try meld these kids as siblings. There is almost constant bullying from BeastyBoy to Mr.Mechanic, and in turn, from Mr.Mechanic to MissesHerMama. But unless we address this head on by putting them together, we will remain fractured as a family.

The boys asked to go to a local skate park. We had not done this, and a big part of my unschooling has been to actively seek out activities exactly like this. So after some play time out in the sun, we took off for the skate park.

Mr.Mechanic...wow...the poor kid is willing to do ANYTHING to gain the approval of ANYONE. :( Finally it was just our family left at the park. We had some good discussions on friendship and how to appropriately answer when someone asks you to do something you don't want to. It was a good teaching moment. I tempered a few fires between the kids, and we just figured out how to play together.

MissesHerMama had a great idea for a game, and all of us got in on the action. We all had the giggles, and even Mr.Mechanic was able to take his turn without becoming angry.

At one point I turned around and I saw these four amazing kids looking back at me and I was just swept away. No matter what, I love them, and I will fight for them. The daily troubles can so easily drag me under, and I purposely froze this moment in my heart to hold on too.

Lots of laughter and love. A pop on the way home. Children each wanting to sit near me as we warmed up. Talking. A spontaneous hug from BeastyBoy, just because. Hugs and kisses.

Today I glimpsed redemption.

It is a marvelous gift.

Hmmm.....

I probably spend more time deciding what to write here, than actually writing. The issue I have with that, is that at any given time, I have a million thoughts swirling in my head, wanting to be put to paper.

So...

What if instead of trying to write the "perfect" blog post, I keep this more as a diary. A written journal of my rambling thoughts at any given time? Unfiltered and unedited?

Hmmm.....

I think for November, I'll try it. Just letting my thoughts spill out and going wherever they take me. :) A diary of sorts.

This oughta be interesting.

The Path....

When two of my older girls were homeschooling, we tried unschooling for a time. I had read everything I could get my hands on. At that time, there were a lot of Radical Unschoolers but almost no Christian unschoolers that were writing. I thought at that time I understood what unschooling was. I told the girls to find something they were interested in and to research it. Hahaha! Needless to say, that stint with unschooling didn't last very long. Even though I was clueless (but trying), my girls did actually gain some important knowledge about themselves, and they remember that time with fondness. A little chaos but also we all learned a bit.

This time when I began to consider venturing into unschooling, I again read everything I could. But this time I looked on facebook. I read books. I checked scripture. I rabiit-trailed all over to blogs by Christians that saw this as a valuable and godly way of life. I asked questions regarding adoption and unschooling. How would this work with kids that were battling attachment issues? For kids that need structure and face huge thoughts of failure and shame, would unschooling make them feel rejected? In short, would this work for me and my kids?

We are learning. It is not exactly what I thought it would look like, but little by little, we are slowly figuring out how this works for us.

I still struggle with them "not doing anything". I wonder most days if learning is happening. I think one will require more guidance on the journey for now.

I am also learning to distance myself from the unschoolers who say "you must", or "if you unschool you can't do xyz". This HAS to be our journey and it HAS to fit us. It's not an easy path so far but I am determined to use this path to watch my children learn, as well as to help heal them.

Extraordinary....

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
― William Martin

And We're Off....

Today as each of my kids woke up, I asked them what they wanted to do (don't worry, I won't be asking them this forever, just wanted them to realize today was going to be something new and wonderful :)). They were all a little taken aback, and all pretty excited too.

Actually they were giddy. :)

MissesHerMama is always the first up and rolling. She did timed multiplication on the computer for "fun". She loves racing a timer in math and trying to beat her last score. :) As she's doing it, she says to me, "did you know that if you take an odd number times 5 it always ends with a 5?"

Uh...what?!? 0_o

So I did it in my head and sure enough! I asked her, "and what if its an even number?". Without missing a beat, she says, "it ends in a 0."

Wow.

Ok then!

I said to her, "gosh girl! You are pretty darn good at math!". She was just beaming. Then she asked if she could learn about Alaska. I had no idea she had any interest in Alaska. She rabbit-trailed on over to learning about Anchorage ("boring"), the Iditarod ("awesome mom!") And the Alaskan Aurora Borealis ("wow mom, look mom!!!"). She went on to google Guatemala and loved looking through all the pictures she found! She did some math in her math book and played some. She loves this unschooling. :)

Corazon and Beasty Boy woke while MissesHerMama was flipping through pictures of Guatemala. Beasty Boy taught MissesHerMama all about the volcanoes in Guatemala and they all 3 talked about the Quetzal, the national bird. They looked at pictures of Tikal and the ancient ruins.

Beasty Boy asked to do his Tornado unit study so I let him. He rabbit-trailed all over the internet watching tornado videos and waterspout videos and "snownado" videos. It was pretty cool to see. Beasty Boy was never told once to "get back to his work" or "focus on what you're doing." He looked up definitions in the dictionary and copied some Bible passages. He's getting pretty good at looking things up on the online dictionary! His reading is moving along very rapidly.

After going outside for awhile, he went in and worked on his drawing. The kid is incredibly talented! He was trying out color blending. Impressive stuff.

After all that he decided to watch an anime show he found. The voices are in Chinese. He said to me, "mom, this is a good way to learn Chinese."

Again...mind blown.

And Corazon...

She has the hardest time right now with unschooling, and yet...today she did some math in her workbook and worked on her lapbook. She looked up music online and helped me cook. Being in the kitchen with me is by far her favorite thing right now. She's picking up math, reading, and basic chemistry. :) She loves reading the recipe and she loves to be by me! She is watching the BBC series "Merlin" and is learning a whole heck of a lot about Medieval history and such.

Alll this makes me wonder, why did I ever question this? Why did I see school as the only thing of value? Why did I see my kids as "behind" when in reality they just needed someone to walk alongside as they became their own amazing people. I see their self-confidence just exploding. They are amazing.

The bonus for me as a mom who is always, always working on my kids' attachment is that their hearts are seeing that I see them and because I see them, they are feeling valuable and worthy. No small task for kiddos that deeply grieve the losses they have had.

For me, it's a win-win lifestyle. I hope and pray I can remember this all on the days when I feel discouraged.

 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 

1Cor. 15:58

Unschooling Day 1....

Yesterday was our first day of officially unschooling. After much thought and prayer, I am giving this a trial run until Christmas. This wasn't an easy decision for me and I'm not sure I'm totally on board yet. :)

I was a kid who LOVED school. Loved it! I loved learning all sorts of new things. So I tend to glamorize school in my head. I tend to block out the fact that I hated the social pressure, I didn't understand math, science was incredibly hard and confusing for me, etc. What I did love, was history, and art, and English, and drama. Those classes came easily for me.

Something occurred to me last night as I was turning this whole unschooling thing over and over in my brain. It wasn't so much the classes that I loved, it was the other. The reading, the writing about what I read, going home and finding more and more books on subjects that interested me. Drawing in my room. Creating.

Hm.....

So in reality, my biggest so called "school loves" were the things I did ON MY OWN.

Eye-opener.

Seriously wow.

And I thought about all those things I didn't like in school. I realized that those things never interested me, but that in my adult life, I've used some of them.  I used them after I learned about them on my own! I took Chemistry in High School and only passed because two guys helped me through. When I became a nurse, I had to take Chemistry again. Strange thing, but this time round I completely got it. I needed it for the point I was at in my life, and what was previously useless became currently useful.  I am still learning every day. My passions cycle in and out.

What it boils down to is, I. Love. Learning. I truly do. I love to fill my head up with  knowledge of things I have taught myself.

So.....

Why am I asking my kids to do anything different than what I do every single day?

What if I just let them and let them find topics that are interesting to them?

Am I ok with that????

I don't know. It's hard for me. But I definitely see the wisdom and value in it. It's pretty much a leap of faith.

Beasty Boy will love it. MissesHerMama, maybe will be confuesed a little. Corazon will be completely lost. At first. But I do think they can all take ownership of their learning.

It's ME that needs to revamp my thinking and get out of their way. ;)

(On that note, isn't this an interesting map?? My latest desire is to learn about Native American medicinal healing. When I was a little girl, the Native American culture was something more than fascinating to me. I absorbed anything I could get my hands on. Now that desire has come back full force. Unschooling?)