The Freedom of unschooling

I love the freedom we have now that we are ‘unschooling’.

I love it that the kids can go to bed when they want without worrying about getting up in time for school the next day.

They can wake when they want – when they were in school here we used to have to wake them at 6.30 am to get ready and start school at 7.50 am (yes they really do start school that early here!) Also, we save a load of time now that they are at home as we live over 20 miles from the English school they went to so it would take an hour for the round trip at that time of the morning and then another hour going to pick them up so it was a waste of 2 hours of my day just taking them to school and picking them up not to mention the cost of petrol.

They can go to the toilet when they want. This one is especially good for Ellie who has Selective Mutism (a fear of speaking in public) and was too scared of speaking to her teacher to ask to go to the toilet so would either avoid going to the toilet and holding it all through school or would wet herself.

They have the freedom to speak when they want and not have to sit there and raise their hands in order to say something and it is something that neither of my kids had the confidence to do. Josh says that he was too worried about getting the answer wrong and Ellie was too shy to talk to anyone at school even though she probably knew the answer.

I love watching Josh & Ellie play together. They play so lovely together and invent all sorts of great imaginative games. Lots of learning occurs through play.

I love that they have developed such a close bond with one another. Joshua is very protective of Ellie and really looks after her. On Friday they were in the Lion King show at the hotel where we have our business and Ellie hurt her knee backstage and Josh looked after her and made sure that she was ok.

I love that Josh, my previous book hating boy, who when at school would run a mile rather than read a book, loves sitting and reading either on his own or to me and Ellie.

I love that Ellie has pretty much taught herself to read with no formal teaching from me. Ellie has always loved looking at books and when she was at school she would bring home reading books and read perfectly to me but because of her Selective Mutism was unable to talk to her teacher so it felt as though she was being held back with her reading at school as the teacher said that she was unable to assess her even though I was telling her how good Ellie’s reading was and Ellie was consistently getting full marks in her spelling tests at school. I’m glad that she never went to school in England as she would have been labelled as ‘Special Needs’ because she wouldn’t talk. She loves reading and wants so much to be like Josh and read what he reads to the extent that she really surprised me last week by coming and sitting down and reading Tut’s Mummy Lost and Found - a US grade 2 – 3 book (UK Year 3 – 4) and she is only 5 and a half and would have been in Year 1 in the UK and Kindergarten in the US. She continues to amaze me with her reading and I have never had to say do you want to read to me.

I love having the time to play with my kids and read aloud to them. When they were in school Josh would often have 2 hours of homework a night which at age 7 I thought was ridiculous so by the time we got home he would have to be coaxed to do his homework and read his reading book and by the time he had done that and had his tea it would be time for bed as they had to get up so early for school. It left hardly any time to play together as even at weekends he would have a project to do that would take up lots of time too. It was ridiculous. Now I love snuggling with them on the settee and reading great books to them.

They can watch TV or play computer games or DS games when they want and since we began deschooling in November they have gone through playing on the computer all day, playing their DS all day, watching TV all day to spending most of their time playing nicely together.