If you feel compelled to change something for some other reason, such as that they aren’t learning X, Y, or Z, my advice to you is this: open your eyes and appreciate what you’ve got. Your kids are happy and thriving and growing! Why would you want to mess with that?

We have such a preoccupation in our culture with the content of what kids learn. We get constantly distracted from what’s in front of our faces. The key to making good decisions for your kids—and helping them make good decisions—is to pay attention to what’s happening now. Don’t get caught up with the future or the past. Are they happy where they’re at? Then let them be.

What are the prime conditions for learning? Witnessing my own kids, I can tell you that they grow and learn at an amazing rate whenever it’s obvious that they really love life. It’s when they’re experiencing sustained difficulty or discontentment that we start to question the way we’re doing things.

Some kids are happy, but their parents aren’t happy for them. What’s wrong with this picture? Who has a problem—the kids or the parents?

Here’s a quick summary. First, the ten signs that your child may need a different kind of education:

1. Declarations that “I hate school.”
2. Difficulty interacting with people of different ages
3. Unhealthy fixation on fashion
4. Tiredness and crankiness
5. Complaints about conflicts and unfairness
6. Lost interest in creative expression
7. Apathy toward subjects that were once exciting
8. Procrastination
9. Lack of excitement
10. School recommendations for ADHD drugs

Mintz then goes on to cite a number of educational alternatives. Many parents aren’t aware of what might be available to them:

• Publicly-funded charter schools
• Montessori schools
• Waldorf schools
• Sudbury schools, and other democratic schools or “free schools”
• Public school alternatives:
  • Public Choice/Schools within schools
  • Public At-Risk
• Homeschooling:
  • “School at home”
  • Unschooling

For more details about the signs and the alternatives, see the original article: Ten Signs that You Need to Find a Different Kind of Education for Your Child.

Last year is when I dropped the bombshell. I told Lucas (3) that Sid from Ice Age was not actually real. I then proceeded—cold-hearted father that I am—to show him an interview with John Leguizamo on YouTube. Lucas had a sort of stunned look on his face as his brain scrambled to make sense of what he was witnessing. “That’s clearly Sid’s voice…but that’s not Sid…” It took him a few minutes of follow-up questions and explanations before he finally accepted that Sid was a fictional character. I felt mean, but I also liked that he had this newfound realization. The next thing he asked, looking to me for reassurance, was “But Diego—he’s real, right?” I think I may have (or at least should have) waited until the next day to introduce him to Denis Leary. You can only take so much world-shaking in a day.

A misconception I had when growing up had to do with chewing gum in bed. My mom told me that I mustn’t go to bed with gum in my mouth, because it might end up in my hair. I always wondered at this mysterious process—how the gum would work its way deeper into my mouth, up through my head, out through my skull, and into my hair. In any case, I didn’t want to test it out.

And then there are the verbal idioms we pick up without having any idea what their origin is. This is fine except when we don’t get it quite right. Oftentimes, these don’t surface until we write them on paper. My mom used the phrase “for all intents and purposes” quite a bit. So did I. Except that I always said, “for all intensive purposes.” It pretty much sounds the same when you say it out loud. The fun thing with Google is that you can find other people making the same mistake you made. I didn’t realize my mistake until college, but Google reassures me that there are about 406,000 other people making the same mistake, so I don’t feel so dumb.

Misconceptions are a part of life and learning. They can be funny sometimes. Do you have any favorite misconceptions or delusions you’ve labored under for some part of your life? Or stories about how your kids have made humorous conclusions about what’s true or how things work?

My 3-year-old son Lucas has a favorite book that we read almost every night: The Very Bumpy Bus Ride. He also likes it when Sammy (9) reads it to him. But one night—I can’t remember how this started—we started being silly about how we read the words. Oh yes, I remember that, after Sammy had read it to him for several nights, when I came back, he thought it was funny how I said “Mrs. Fitzwizzle.” All I had to do was say that once and he would crack up. So I tried saying it several times in a row, and he cracked up even more. I can still get him to laugh, just by saying that name.

From there we started messing with the other words. Doing baby talk or talking like a ventriloquist or flipping the sounds around, as in “The Bery Vumpy Rus Bide.” (This spoonerism approach in particular cracks Sammy up.) Now Lucas contributes to the word massacre by mixing his sounds around and being silly about it. He practically has the whole book memorized, so he’s getting pretty good at saying the sentences while flipping the sounds around, saying nonsense words that rhyme with the originals.

In the past, I might have had some concerns about this game, fearing that he’s learning the words the wrong way. But now I laugh at the thought. He clearly knows the words, and adding this layer of processing complexity (starting with the original and coming up with a non-sensical rhyming word) does two positive things, as far as I can tell. It reinforces his knowledge of the words by engaging with them in new ways. And it makes him want to continue by keeping things fresh and fun.

Another thing I like about reading the same book over and over again is that kids start making some pretty astute observations. I imagine that the earliest tendency of most kids, when being read to, is to associate the words they hear with the pictures they see. The letter symbols, to them, are just extra clutter on the page. This was also evident with Lucas when he would ask me to “read” particular things he saw in the picture. And I’d tell him, “It doesn’t say anything about that. The only words are these ones down here.” Once he started to realize that, he made the observation. “Daddy, isn’t it funny that on the big-picture pages, there aren’t very many words, but there are lots of words on the small-picture pages?” That’s when I taught him how to spell “counter-intuitive.”

If you want to hear more stories about the diverse ways in which kids engage words and eventually learn to read, I highly recommend Peter Gray’s recent article about this topic: “Children Teach Themselves to Read” .

Homeschooling families are all too familiar with this question. I remember growing up as a homeschooler and hearing people express their grave concerns about how we would ever function in society. “They really should be in school—to be socialized.” And then as an adult, unschooling our own children, I remember hearing this question and being defensive about it. For a while, I’d point to all the social activities the kids were involved in, like play dates and church activities and field trips. But then as I continued to read and reflect more about the social institution of traditional schooling, I stopped being defensive. It suddenly became easy to answer the question.

Yes, what about socialization? What kind of socialization do I want for my kids? Do I want them to be imprisoned in classrooms segregated by age? Do I want their lives to be driven by bells? Do I want them to grow up in a social atmosphere in which kids are pitted against adults—a breeding ground for resentment, suspicion, and bad attitudes on either side? No, I’ll spare my kids that sort of “socialization,” thank you very much. It’s too disconnected from the real world. Or maybe it’s all too connected—connected to the dreary lives that people willingly choose, in jobs they hate, serving people they despise. Do I want my kids to learn that it has to be that way? No, thank you. You can keep your “socialization.”

That was my attitude. It was a bit harsh and unrefined and certainly not the whole truth, although I still think there is truth to it. In recent years, we discovered Sudbury schooling and our minds opened to further possibilities and definitions for “socialization.” Merriam-Webster defines “socialize” as:

to make social; especially : to fit or train for a social environment

When we learned about the social environment of Sudbury schools, loosely characterized as “unschooling schools,” we started to see some value over and above what unschooling had to offer. And it almost entirely had to do with the social environment. I still didn’t like the term “socialization,” because it brought up for me what most people are referring to—school-ization. But now we were thinking about it in a new way. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first let’s go back to some basics.

Attachment is foundational

Growing up is about becoming independent. When we’re born, we’re totally dependent on our parents, especially our mothers. We’re not only physically dependent on them, but emotionally too. The quality of our attachment to our parents is crucially important for establishing security and a sense of well-being in life. That sense of security leads into self-confidence later in life. Over and over again, attachment parenting has shown that—far from kids becoming overly dependent on their parents, they establish such a sense of security that, when they get older, they feel emboldened to take things on by themselves. They somehow internalize the sense of security they got from the close bonds they had with their parents so that even when they ostensibly break those bonds, they continue to carry that sense of security with them into adulthood.

And I honestly think that will be true regardless of what schooling environment kids find themselves in (traditional, unschooling, or otherwise). By the time they go to school, it’s relatively late in life. They’ve had a chance to either develop strong bonds with their parents and that attendant sense of security, or not. (Maybe I should spend more energy evangelizing attachment parenting rather than educational alternatives, but I digress…) Even so, people are resilient, amazing creatures. We’re always adapting to our environment, learning new things, refining our model of the world, and growing. The longer I’ve reflected on this, the more laid back I’ve gotten about schooling choices. “Huh?” you may ask. “What about all the rhetoric on this blog?” Well, it’s true, I do want to jar people into thinking about this stuff. It is important. But ultimately, except in the worst of situations, kids are not going to be destroyed. There are plenty of happy kids in public schools. They’re learning to cope and make sense of their world just as much as anyone else.

Parents have choices

So… where am I going with all this? It’s here: It was from a place of freedom and choice that we decided to send our kids to a Sudbury school. We started off with the assumption that, no matter what schooling environment we put our kids in, they would not self-destruct. We trusted them to not do that. Having achieved that sense of clearing, we then felt the freedom to let go of our dyed-in-the-wool unschooling philosophy just enough to allow for a different kind of experience—at least to try it out. And we haven’t been disappointed. Nor have the kids. Otherwise, they wouldn’t still be attending. (And who knows, they may still decide to go down a different path one of these years.)

Trust is contextual

Is sending your kids to a Sudbury school an indication that you don’t trust them to thrive at home? Have you then failed at trusting your kids? This is a trap. I could just as easily apply that logic to traditional schooling. Is pulling your kids out of public school an indication that you don’t trust them to thrive at school? The point is that trust is contextual. Trust as a value in and of itself is a bit misguided. We need to be specific about who and what we’re trusting. Otherwise, we can hoodwink ourselves into thinking that making any choice for change indicates we’ve somehow failed at “trusting.” Can you think of any examples of people or situations you do not trust? Or that you should not trust? Does that mean you’re not good at trusting? More to the point, can you think of two good, trustworthy things and yet choose one over the other?

For my family, unschooling and Sudbury schooling were those two good things. We’d be happy doing either. But we saw even more value in Sudbury than in unschooling.

The positive side of socialization

In particular, we saw that, by separating from their parents for a period of time each day, our kids would learn a measure of independence they would not gain—or not gain as effectively—without doing so. This was not easy. We had to let go of being aware of what they were doing all the time. We enjoyed the privilege that unschooling parents have: experiencing and sharing in practically all their growth experiences. That was hard to let go of. But we could see—and were convinced by everything we learned from others who had gone before us—that there was gold in them thar hills.

To be around your parents constantly, even as you grow beyond 4, 6, 10, 13 years old is to miss out on the opportunity to experience early on what it’s like to participate in a larger community as an individual without the safety net of having your parents nearby. Parents, regardless of parenting style, have an immense power over their kids. We see many parents abuse this power. We also see parents take this power very seriously, doing everything they can to ensure that their influence on their kids will be a good one. Yet if your parents are never far from your side, you are missing out on the opportunity—I know this is a statement of the obvious—to experience yourself outside that context.

We were impressed by the kids we saw in videos like Voices from the New American Schoolhouse. We were impressed by how articulate and thoughtful these kids were, by how considerate they were of other people in their environment, and by how much they valued respect and responsibility. And, yes, we made value judgments. We were making judgments about what we valued for our kids; among those values was the desire for our kids to have the experience of making their own value judgments and decisions about what to do with their time in contexts unmonitored by their parents. We saw that by sending our kids to a Sudbury school, they would be free—even more free than as unschoolers—to grow into the contours of their unique potential.

And of course, it’s not just separation from parents that is valuable. It’s the participation in a wider community—larger than one’s own family, sharing space and resources, learning to respect other people, learning responsibility, learning how one’s own actions affect others, whether positively or negatively. It’s about broadening your social awareness and deepening your social skills by participating in a wider community.

We also saw that we could do this without giving up family togetherness and cohesion. We still have mornings and afternoons and weekends to do stuff together, to enjoy each other’s presence, to love each other and grow closer together. And we are rejuvenated when we reunite. It’s a win/win solution that works well for our family.

Does Sudbury schooling then differ in philosophy from unschooling? There’s no doubt about it. Are there commonalities? Yes, definitely. Are you as parents free to make choices in what to suggest for your kids? This article is an attempt to consciously and honestly influence you to answer “yes.” But that too is your choice.

But one thing I’m learning this week is that I still need to take time for reflection. (Thankfully, the questions in this program naturally drive you into doing that too.) In the past, I actually reflected—or daydreamed—too much. I’ve now become much more action-oriented. Each day, I create a plan of attack, complete with a specific schedule of how I’m hoping to spend my time. And I track how I do—how closely I stick to the schedule, taking note of where I deviated. I’m developing new habits. Rather than habitually looking back at where I just was, I move forward. Reviewing how I did at the end of each day does wonders for my self-awareness, for staying on track, and for finding ways of doing better tomorrow.

This process works very well for my work. Time is the raw material, my schedule is the function, and productivity is the result. A simple equation. But when it comes to family time–time spent in moment-to-moment interaction with my wife and kids, it can’t be so easily structured. And perhaps it shouldn’t be either. We have been scheduling PlayTime, and I think that’s a good way to ensure that we keep it up. But for most activities, in order to be realistic, I have to leave family time pretty open-ended. And I’m okay with that. But I find myself in the position of having this great, new, exciting, effective process for making me more effective at work (basically, a daily schedule) and no corresponding great, new, exciting, effective process for family life.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s mainly just the scheduling aspect that doesn’t work for family time. The rest of the Peer Success Circles process is still very helpful. Setting goals, articulating what I’m committed to, what’s the driving force behind my actions, reflecting on how I did each day, etc.—these are all amazingly effective for making a positive impact on my family life too.

So what am I complaining about? I don’t know. Maybe the “problem” is disappearing before my eyes. It’s not as if I’ve always been a compulsive, schedule-oriented type. I’ve always thought of myself as more of a “dreamer,” favoring unstructured time. (Of course, that appears to be changing now.) So I get to still favor unstructured time when it’s with my family. It is nice to come to the end of the work day and let go of my schedule for a little while.

But I still face challenges, and I think it comes down to difficulty with being in the present moment, wherever I am. What is “time” anyway? I’ve made it this thing that I manage. And that’s working pretty well for me. But it’s really just a concept, not real in and of itself. Maybe I need to find a way to let go of time when I’m with my family. I’ve recently heard that “time is an emotion.” That’s an interesting concept, even if I don’t fully understand what it means yet. But I think I’ll reflect on this some more—you know, do some daydreaming about it. Yes, I think I’ll daydream about being engaged in the present moment. (That was a joke—and it would be funny if it weren’t so true.)

My first exercise will be to take a shower tomorrow morning and engage fully in what I’m doing. When I’m washing my face, I’ll think about nothing but washing my face. When I’m rinsing my hair, I’ll think about nothing but rinsing my hair. Once I’ve started to make some progress on this, I’ll step it up and bring the intention over to my family time, at the end of the work day. (PlayTime is already designed for this. Actually, it’s a sort of present-moment/daydream hybrid…which perhaps is a good characterization of play itself…). The correct word seems to be “mindfulness” (but I wonder if that’s a misnomer…).

I’ll be sure to schedule a follow-up post on this. All in good time.

I have been grumpy this week. There are several contributing circumstances—crummy weather, sickness, and work disruptions. I’ve been up at night with my 3-year-old, so my sleep hasn’t been up to par. It’s easy to see the reasons, and it’s comforting to know that these too will pass.

As a matter of fact, just as I wrote that, the clouds parted and sun shone through my skylight right onto me, if only for a minute. I’m grateful to be alive, even if I haven’t been acting like it.

Bedtime had been smooth sailing lately—until this week. What do you call that capacity—patience? It’s the capacity for handling loud noises and feet-dragging kids. It’s the capacity for looking beyond yourself and seeing what is going on in other people’s lives. Compassion? When I don’t have it, or when it’s in diminishing supply, I feel like I’m missing out on real opportunities. And I feel like I’m better off staying at home where I won’t inadvertently hurt anyone.

Last night, while I was brushing my teeth, the cat jumped onto my back, sinking in its claws. Hopefully my kids didn’t hear me shout it. “Stupid #@*&#$ cat!” Poor thing. I actually really love our cats. Earlier this morning, I had a nice snuggle session with Brownie. It’s just that Boots picked the wrong time to do that. At least my lash-out was only verbal. And he didn’t appear to be offended.

A little bit of reflection can be therapeutic. At least that’s the idea here. And it’s good to laugh at oneself every once in a while. The clouds are parting again. I’m going to sit and bask a little.

We love unschooling, but we love Sudbury schooling (specifically The Trillium School) even more.

There are definitely benefits that are unique to unschooling, as opposed to Sudbury schooling. When compared to Sudbury schooling, unschooling affords:

• More family scheduling freedom
• More time with one or both parents

Many unschooling parents won’t be willing to let go of these benefits of unschooling. And I totally respect that choice. My point in “Unschooling vs. Sudbury schooling” was to compare and contrast two wonderful alternatives, not necessarily pit them against each other.

But there was one phrase in my last post that hit a nerve, despite my intention to write objectively. Regarding what Sudbury schooling offers in differentiation to unschooling: “For a significant period of time each day…[kids] pursue their interests in a context that’s free from any form of (subtle or overt) parental influence.” I think it’s possible to read that as a factual statement without the connotation that being with parents is bad. Consider this: I wrote it, and I think parental influence is a good thing. Let me repeat: yes, I want to influence my kids—by my example and whatever wisdom I can share with them while they’re living with me. (No, I don’t want to control their choices. I trust that they are learning to make authentic choices on their own, that they will learn what they need to learn, and that they’ll grow into wonderful adult human beings.) By the way, please substitute a different word for “influence” if it inherently brings up negative connotations.

Nevertheless, it did hit a nerve. In “The Dark Side of Influence,” Wendy Priesnitz criticizes Sudbury schools as being based on “faux-democracy” and “substituting adult’s choices for children’s choices.”

The idea is noble: to help the kids make a commitment, to foster cooperation and relationships, and to help them learn about consequences. But, in short, it’s about adults enforcing something on kids because it’s assumed they won’t learn the stuff on their own, that they don’t know what’s in their own best interest, that we have to make them do stuff “for their own good.”

This is a mischaracterization of Sudbury schooling. They won’t learn what stuff on their own? Adults enforce what exactly? What are kids made to do “for their own good”? The only evidence she cites is the attendance policy. The one concrete thing that students are supposedly “coerced” to do is attend school. Yet here is the extent of the “coercion”: If you want to be here, you have to be here. If you stop attending, you may lose the privilege of attending. We ask you to be here for, say, 5 hours per day. Do you want to make that commitment? (It’s up to you.)

There are good reasons for requiring this commitment, not the least of which is cohesiveness and continuity of the community. Regardless of the reasons, this is definitely an adjustment for families that aren’t used to it. It’s an adjustment for both the parents and the kids. But they are entirely free to opt out (as my son did). Oftentimes, it’s the kids (especially when they’re older) that find out about their local Sudbury school and convince their parents to make the commitment that they’re so ready to make.

Note: In practice, attendance, while taken seriously, is flexible, provided that everyone is communicating. Policies will vary from school to school, but one family at Trillium is on a two-week vacation right now. They let the school know, and everyone was totally cool with it.

Ultimately, I get the feeling from Wendy that she thinks that Sudbury schooling represents a fake form of trust. But which requires greater trust? Keeping your kids in your care all day, where you know what they’re doing and who they’re with at all times? Or sending them to a place where they are afforded the same sort of freedom but without you there to watch? Whether or not this is valuable is another question. We’re not having a “parental trust contest,” I hope. I’d rather focus on what’s best for particular families and particular kids. Sudbury has a lot to offer that unschooling doesn’t, and vice versa.

So let me try again, using different words:

• Fact: Sudbury students are separated from their parents for a significant period of time each school day.
• Fact: Sudbury schools tend to be significantly larger and more diverse than individual families. As such, community agreements are made using a formal democratic process.

Please consider that, by pointing out these rather obvious distinctions, I am not attacking unschooling. What I’m trying to do is this: help parents think through what their options are, comparing and contrasting different aspects of each approach.

And I still haven’t even gotten to the benefits that I see as unique to Sudbury schooling. In other words, why might an unschooling family consider Sudbury schooling to be a desirable choice (as we did)? That will have to come in another post.

Yesterday was another beautiful day. I went on a run and stopped by at our beach to enjoy the sun. After I got back, it was PlayTime with Morgan again. She said she wanted to go to the beach again, but she ended up getting upset about not finding the clothes that she wanted to wear. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to budge, I suggested that we just do a regular PlayTime at home. But no, she still wanted to go to the beach. I asked her to “climb out of your hole”—a phrase that my wife recently started using with me when I’m in a bad mood, but that didn’t help either.

Then I noticed her American Girl doll and said, “Shall we play with dolls at home instead?” And just like that, she jumped up and said, “Okay!” and we were off. It turns out that Samantha and Kit are actually long lost sisters, with amnesiac parents named Paul and Polly, both of whom faint a lot. Also, Samantha loves horses but has never had one of her own. Imagine how excited I was—I mean she was—when she got a new horse for her birthday. Polly taught her all about how to groom the horse, brush its hair, curl its mane and tail, and even fix up a broken leg. Polly knows her stuff; she could barely get it all out when talking a mile-a-minute. The rocking horse still has its paper cast on this morning, but it should be able to come off soon.

That’s why I like PlayTime. Even in the face of a near melt-down, playing dolls with your Daddy can have an instantly positive impact on your emotional state.

First, it’s challenging for me to focus on and visualize the scenarios they create. I have to listen and concentrate. And even though it’s only 30 minutes, I still find myself losing focus and asking, “Can you say that again?” I want to be clear on what it is I’m supposed to be doing. It’s better to fall slightly behind and then catch up quickly than to fall way behind, reveal it obviously by saying something dumb, and then witness that look of betrayal and disappointment. “Where have you been, Daddy?” But I’m slowly getting better. And I have hope that it will get easier. I haven’t reached that plateau where I’ve gotten caught up effortlessly in the play. There have been moments, but they’ve been isolated and short-lived.

I wonder if 30 minutes isn’t long enough for me to get past the hump of inertia? Maybe I need to expand the time a bit. This might help me let go of any clock-watching tendencies and lose myself in the play. Yes, I wonder if PlayTime just needs some tweaks.

If the kids love it so much, why would I want to change it? Well, I definitely take comfort in the fact that they love it regardless. Even if it never gets easier for me, that alone makes it well worth the effort. But making it more engaging for me, I think, would also increase the quality of the experience for both of us. And if my first tweak is to extend the session by 10 minutes, then I’m sure they’ll have no problem with that. It does always seem to end too quickly for them.

The second aspect that’s challenging is related to the first. Not only do I have trouble getting the play going, but sometimes the kids do too. At first, I thought this was just a matter of age. Sammy (9) had no problem at all getting started. All I had to do was keep up. He didn’t need any guidance, just supportive energy. My first PlayTime experience with Morgan (6) was a bit slower-paced, and it took her a while to get started, but soon she was off to the races too. With Lucas (3), I had to be more of a leader and be creative.

But since those first experiences, each of my kids have had their off-days. Sometimes it’s indecision about how to use the time. Other times it’s just a matter of not being inspired. So this is another reason I want to get better at it. When they’re not feeling particularly creative, I can contribute more and get the juices flowing.

Last night, I did PlayTime with Lucas. It took a little while to ramp up, but gradually he got more and more into the fantasy. He loves to shrink himself and go in tiny cracks in the floor or walls and then emerge out from some other surface. He’s definitely getting better at PlayTime. If he can do it, so can I. Right? Starting today, PlayTime will be 40 minutes long.

I was homeschooled from 3rd to 9th grade. (I’ve related some of my highschool experiences already.) I’ve always been proud of the education of my youth. My mom was truly a pioneer in education. Whereas now there are homeschoolers everywhere, very few people were doing it when I was a child. My mom and a small group of other parents had convictions about education and the sort of environment they wanted to raise their kids in—and they did something about it. They pulled their kids out of school and taught them at home. I have fond memories of homeschooling and the freedom it afforded us. We could go skiing on Mondays when the slopes were clear. We could go on impromptu outings and field trips to the Science Center or play dates with our fellow homeschoolers. This experience had a definite impact on the choices I planned to make as a parent.

For one thing, I had experience with alternatives. Many people grow up without ever considering educational alternatives, but for my family, it was totally normal to do so. Just the fact that we did this—even if the education my kids are receiving today looks very different from the education I received as a child (“traditional” school-at-home)—the fact that I had this experience made it that much easier for my wife and I to consider educational alternatives for our own children from the get-go.

Since I was so fond of my own homeschooling experience, I grew up thinking I would probably do the same for my own children. When Sammy reached preschool age, we took the opportunity to enroll him at the budding preschool at our church in Seattle. We had a generally positive experience there with both him and Morgan, who attended for a couple of years also. But as they continued to grow, I continued to do research and reflection on what I wanted for my kids and whether what they were doing (preschool) was what I really wanted.

One of the things that bothered me about preschool was how set up it was for kids to please the teachers. Don’t get me wrong. The teachers were very nice and loving to the children, and the kids did love to please them. But something seemed strange and fake about this to me. I had always tried to have genuine conversations with my kids, assuming they were smart and could understand what I was saying. I would also try to speak to them as if to another adult, at least insofar as respect and honesty are concerned. I wanted to afford my kids as much respect as any other human being, and be honest with them as I would with any other adult. In other words, I wouldn’t act fake just to make them feel a certain way or get a certain response out of them. But at preschool, some of the interactions I saw—when dropping off and picking up my kids—seemed very fake to me. Teachers would act so over-the-top happy about seeing my kids arrive or tell them how cute they were. Etc. The thing that bothered me the most was how much my daughter Morgan ate it up. I didn’t like witnessing her so easily manipulated by their well-intentioned, but nonetheless manipulative, overtures.

After our Kindergarten run-in, we decided to start “unschooling” both our kids. We had been reading a few books here and there. Lisa had read The Unschooling Handbook, and I was starting to read some of John Holt’s books, including How Children Fail, which was very powerful and made me re-think so much of what I thought I knew about education. That book really got my wheels turning. I even thought I might start blogging about it (resulting in this false start)—so many were the insights and aha moments that were stimulated by reading that book. My library copy was full of little strips of paper used as bookmarks on every few pages with my responses to all the thought-provoking stuff I read in Holt’s book.

Another author that influenced me greatly was John Taylor Gatto, particularly Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and a couple of other books he wrote. I’m a sucker for impassioned rhetoric, and he had me nodding my head vigorously right off the bat. We continued to go through a phase of reading all we could about education and parenting, including other authors, such as Alfie Kohn’s exhaustively researched Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes. Also, Scott Noelle’s “Daily Groove” continues to be a thought-provoking resource full of helpful parenting ideas. We also attended the LIFE is Good unschooling conference a couple of years in a row and very much enjoyed ourselves there.

But we had a spur in our boot that made us want to keep looking, perhaps even beyond unschooling. Despite our misgivings, Morgan did love the social atmosphere that preschool provided. And I did see some benefit in their spending time apart from their parents on a regular basis. We had heard something about an “unschooling school” in Bothell, WA. I looked it up and read all the great essays on The Clearwater School website. I was quite inspired by what I saw. In fact, whereas I assumed Morgan would love it, I saw even more potential for how it could help my oldest, Samuel (then 6) grow through interaction with a wider variety of people, away from his parents.

So I made some more trips to the library and came home with books like Free at Last, Legacy of Trust, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Reflections on the Sudbury School Concept. These all came straight from Sudbury Valley School, founded in 1968 and the original source of inspiration for the 30+ Sudbury schools around the world. (You can get all of these books and many more at their online bookstore.) I very much enjoyed Daniel Greenberg’s scholarly look at education and what it means. Also, as one of the founders of Sudbury Valley, he had lots of stories to tell about their experiences. I was inspired—even more inspired than what I had discovered about the “unschooling” approach to education.

In fact, I was so inspired that I became a little jealous of kids who get to go to a Sudbury school, despite the fondness for my own schooling that I mentioned above. In the summer of 2007, I even started Googling for what that might look like. What would Sudbury schooling for adults look like? I searched for “synthetic village” and didn’t find much. But then one day I stumbled onto to the Clearwater Commons website, a co-housing project that some of the Clearwater School people are working on. It was then that I discovered the term “co-housing” and “intentional community” and was only a few clicks away to finding the house that we were to buy only a few months later, in Indianola, WA, home of both Wise Acres (where we now live) and The Trillium School (where my kids go to school).

Last summer, I had a chance to attend a staff conference at the Sudbury Valley School campus, and I’ve continued to be nothing but inspired by what I’ve seen. One of the most inspiring things I’ve witnessed is how dedicated the founders of various Sudbury schools are. The strength of both their intellect and their commitment is astounding. I’ve never been so exhausted after a conference. The discourse went from morning til night. I thought some of the technology conferences I’ve attended were pretty intense, but they were nothing compared to this one.

I remain fond of homeschooling, and unschooling in particular. But the Sudbury model is what inspires me. In a future article, I’ll look at some of the distinctions between unschooling and Sudbury schooling.

But the robot is old hat now. I recently looked on eBay and was surprised to discover that used ones are in pretty high demand, presumably because they’re not making any more of them. Sammy was already interested in selling it, and was excited to hear that he might be able to get $50-$100 for it (we paid $100 originally and new ones are now selling for $500!!). He has already saved up enough money, from gifts and allowances, to buy an iPod Touch. Selling the robot will make the decision that much easier for him.

Selling the robot is kind of like the closing of an era for me. I won’t particularly miss its shouting and burping and farting, but I will miss the giggles it engendered in all the kids. Mostly, it’s just another reminder that life is transient, and now—not later—is the time to enjoy and appreciate and be thankful for my loved ones.

The book is not exactly a children’s book. It’s a modern-day “Scrooge” story, and it deals with some heavy themes, like death, divorce, and cancer. But it’s been a really neat way for me to connect with my daughter. She is very engaged by the storytelling, as made evident by her astute questions. She’s learning about the adult world, and we’re getting a chance to talk about it. If I ever go on too long in answering a particular question, like “What’s a lawyer?”, she’ll tell me I’ve said enough, she wasn’t really that interested, and please keep on reading.

You never know what kinds of connections you might make with your kids or what will strike their fancy. This one caught me by surprise. I’m so impressed by Morgan’s attentiveness that it makes me want to go out and buy a bunch more of this guy’s novels to see how long I can sustain these special moments of connection.

My brother and his wife are about to give birth to their first child. I can’t wait to be there to support them and celebrate with them. I remember when Sammy was born, almost 10 years ago, and my brother was right there. I have one photo in particular where he was overcome by the emotion of being an uncle for the first time:

Soon I’ll be able to share the same joy with him. I’m looking forward to it.

It did turn out to be very enjoyable. (What a coincidence! ) I read a book to Lucas (3). Then Lucas said he wanted to know how to read, so Sammy (9) decided to start teaching him. For about an hour, Sammy painstakingly went through every word in Blue Hat, Green Hat, and Lucas stayed attentive the entire time. Sammy got exasperated a few times (what do you expect from a 3-year-old, Sammy?), but Lucas was still enjoying himself. And so they persisted. After all of that, I think they were both a bit tuckered out.

When I say it “went very well”, it wasn’t because Lucas did anything particularly different. It was because I changed my own perspective. (Ironically, he also went to sleep earlier than usual. Perhaps he was expecting to feel my normal resistance, and, finding none, just relaxed.) Even if he had stayed up extra late, my intention was still to remain calm and enjoy every moment I had with him.

Stay tuned for the next bedtime report.

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem to characterize our age.

I read this quote recently, and I thought how appropriately it characterizes the state of education in America. But it’s also a great thing to consider in your parenting. Are you perfecting means but confusing ends in your parenting?

This is as good a context as any to share one of my struggles/failures as a father (as I recently promised to do). I have been known to get in some really nasty moods, especially late at night, especially if I’ve been eating anything sugary. And I’ve recently seen a pattern in myself of dreading bedtime, i.e. putting our kids to bed. Morgan, my daughter, tends to be the easiest. She’s ready for bed the soonest, and she falls asleep quickly. And Sammy, my oldest son, although he takes his own sweet time (he gets that from me), is pretty cooperative too. But Lucas, who shares a room with Sammy, is my 3-year-old, and he doesn’t like going to bed, at least not lately. And I don’t like putting him to bed. In fact, I recently told my wife Lisa, “I hate bedtime.”

On more than one occasion, Lisa has had to come to relieve me, when she hears Lucas crying. In those cases, I’m tired and cranky and impatient. All I want is for him to stay in his bed and let me go to bed. I don’t want to hear any more. I don’t want to snuggle him, I don’t want to rock him, or make up any more stories. I just want to go to bed.

Fortunately, we’ve recognized the pattern and are starting to do something about it. Lisa and I will be taking turns, so neither of us gets burned out and each of us gets a break. This is a good start. Also, I’ve been attending better to my own sleep and eating habits, which helps prevent those nasty moods. As for getting Lucas to bed, we’ve even started talking about using rewards or punishments to get him to start cooperating. (Yes, I’ve read Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards, and, yes, I know this is not ideal.)

This is a sad state of affairs, because bedtime can be a great time for connecting with your kids. One of the things Lisa and I both want to do is start intentionally enjoying bedtime. In other words, don’t just perfect the means of getting the ostensible end: getting the kid to sleep. But ask: what other ends, or outcomes, do we want from bedtime? If getting him to sleep were the only aim, then we may as well just drug him. (I’m kidding, sheesh!) What if bedtime was not only a time to get Lucas to sleep but also a time of connecting with him? Of hearing him and understanding him and deepening our relationship? What if a change of perspective is all that’s needed?

I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re still figuring it out. But I’ve started to step back and ask myself, what’s really possible here? What do I really want from bedtime?

Second, reflection on parenting makes me a better parent. When I have time to reflect on parenting, especially in a public context, it makes me feel that much more accountable for being a good parent.

Third, I want to encourage parents and help them become better at what they do. I want to help them question their own assumptions, and to make choices consciously. In this respect, I see this blog as making a modest contribution to humanity.

Fourth, I want to draw more attention to the Sudbury approach to education. Among alternative educational models, most people have heard of Montessori, and many have heard of Waldorf, but few have heard of Sudbury. I want more people to find out about what a wonderful option Sudbury schools are. I want to see more schools founded and more schools flourishing.

Finally, I want to see my kids’ own school, The Trillium School, continue to succeed. I want my kids to have this option for the full length of their school-age years. This blog will help existing parents of Trillium to stay stimulated and on board. And, by helping spread the word about educational alternatives, it may indirectly draw more local parents into considering Trillium.

Whatever your interest in reading this blog, thank you. Now that I’ve shared why I’m writing this blog, would you be willing to leave a comment, sharing why you’re reading it?

• Setting aside a particular time of the day to focus on writing
• Continuing to let go of perfectionism in both writing and parenting

Perfectionism has always been an issue for me. If I don’t have something written perfectly or thought through perfectly, I tend to get stuck. Writing has always been difficult for me, but as I’ve learned to let go of perfectionism, things have gotten easier. I’ve embraced this mantra: “Done is better than perfect.”

Bloggers lead double lives. There’s the life we live on the Web—our online persona (perhaps one of many). And then there’s the real, day-to-day life we live at home and at work. It’s funny how a book, or even a blog post, creates a static representation of an author in the reader’s mind, since that may be all they have to go on. When reading a self-help book by an “expert” on self-help, we assume that the author is probably a high-functioning person, having mastered and applied the techniques they espouse. Or when reading a book about spirituality, we assume that the deep insights therein come from a person who is spiritually grounded, devoted to God, [insert whatever ideal picture of spirituality you have]. And clearly, for someone to have such insights, they have to have been in touch with a truth that’s greater than themselves. But the thing I unconsciously forget is that they’re people, just like me. They might be getting old. They may die soon. They may be going through a tough time. They may be “backsliding”. They may have been failing. The point is that they’re changing, and the book they wrote is just a snapshot of what they were thinking at a particular time in their life. The book may be quite popular, and the book itself doesn’t change. But as soon as it’s published, the writer and the book begin separate lives. The writer goes onto live their real life, perhaps writing more books, or perhaps not, but in any case, the writer is not the book. In a certain sense, this is so patently obvious that it seems silly to be saying it. But I have to remind my less-than-conscious mind not to equate a book with its author.

I think that one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging is that I feel like I haven’t been a very good parent lately. And I have this (increasingly conscious) belief that, to write about something, you must be an authority on the topic, or at least you must practice what you preach. And I accept that these are good principles to follow. But what do you do when you fail to practice what you preach? Or when you start feeling like you don’t know what you’re talking about? Is the only option to stop writing? (That’s what I’ve done.) No, I don’t think so.

I think there’s another option that has integrity and that can create value for readers. Of course, it’s easy enough to think of options that have neither. (Keep on B.S.-ing to sell more books. Live a double life. Pretend you’re something you’re not.) And we all know that the world has no shortage of pointless blogs. I think the key is simply this: honesty. Let people know you’re not perfect. That way they’ll relate to you better. Share what you can, even if it isn’t already perfectly thought through. People may still yield some benefit from what you have to say.

So now I’m doing something to overcome both of the things that were blocking me: lack of a scheduled time for writing, and perfectionism. First, I now have someone keeping me accountable for writing during the times that I say I’m going to write. And second, I’m going to start sharing about my failures as a father, not just my successes. And maybe get more, ahem, personal.

He quickly came up with an idea for some role-playing. We both found ourselves stuck inside a massive labyrinth with all sorts of nooks and crannies and walls and hidden doors and chutes and stairways. We had to be careful not to step on any floor tiles that released arrows or trap doors. Our task was to find our way out. Along the way, we came across strange creatures (played by our kittens) that looked benign but actually secreted dangerous green slime. We also came across a room full of treasure, and we almost met our doom when the treasure became so alluring as to make us mad with greed, losing our minds. In one case, I saved him; then it was my turn to be weak, and he saved me. We also changed size several times, whirled our way across dimensions in a magic elevator, and narrowly escaped being eaten by a 10-headed monster with 40,000 arms.

At one point, I had him laughing hysterically, and, in accordance with Cohen’s advice in Chapter 5 (“Follow the Giggles”), I tried to see how long I could sustain it. After cracking up and saying, “That was hysterical,” my son told me, “Okay, let’s get back to the game.” Heh, I was making him laugh, yes, but I was getting off task. I’m clearly still learning.

We started at 3:49pm, so I thought to myself, “We’ll wrap it up at 4:20,” rounding up to the nearest 10. But I was so exhausted by the time 4:18 came around, I was thinking 4:19 would be a good stopping point after all. As it happens, when he saw it was just about time to finish, we extended it slightly and wrapped things up nicely at 4:23pm. We made ourselves wake up from our dream and found ourselves lying on the floor, grateful to be safe and at home.

We’re interested in trying out one technique in particular. In chapter 9, “Follow Your Child’s Lead,” Cohen introduces “PlayTime,” a scheduled, more intense form of playing with your kids where you make an explicit, concerted effort to follow their lead, wherever they want to go, for a specific period of time.

The basic format of PlayTime is quite simple. The parent or some other adult sets aside regular one-on-one time with a child. The adult offers the child undivided attention with no interruptions and with a clear focus on connection, engagement, and interaction. In a sense, PlayTime is just Playful Parenting Plus, where the “plus” means more enthusiasm, more joining, more commitment to closeness and confidence, more fun, a more welcoming attitude toward their feelings, more willingness to put one’s own feelings aside, more active and boisterous play. In addition, you don’t answer the phone or cook dinner or take a nap during PlayTime.

One of the things that attracts me to this particular technique is that it is a commitment for a specific period of time. It is “time-boxed.” I get to go all-out, knowing that I don’t need to worry about pacing myself beyond the agreed-upon length of time. It’s a safe way to start building my playing muscles. A high-weight/low-rep strength training program. At least that’s one way to look at it. And I don’t have to feel guilty when I’m not doing it all the time.

Another thing I like about it is how much the kids will love it. We’ll be upfront with them about what we want to do. And we’re going to schedule specific times. With two parents and three kids, that’s six sessions total. We’re going to cover each of these once a week. And we’re starting with a 30-minute period. That may seem short, but we want to be realistic.

During PlayTime, I’ll let my child know that what we do is entirely up to them. I’ll follow along, infusing the play with whatever energy I can muster. And I’ll let them remain in charge for the duration. It will be hard work but it will also be rewarding. We’re going to forge some nice connections, and I’ll have a chance to get some deeper glimpses into each of my children’s worlds.

After I’ve had some chances to try this, I’ll be reporting back on my experiences. Stay tuned.