60 minutes story on Sunday- unschooling

[emmalee86]

I guess there could definitely be questions when the children are older as to why their parents decided to homeschool/unschooling and perhaps they may feel like they have missed out on something but at the end of the day if that child is successful in life and gets to where they want to be then isn't that all that matters?

For personal experience both me and my DH never went well at school or in a structured learning environment, however when we both left school and found our passion we were motivated to learn because it was something that interested us and we are now both extremely successful in our fields.. And I think , from what I have read, unschooling follows that principal (correct me if I'm wrong) that if a child is interested In something that child will be more involved in a project/subject/lesson therefore they are getting more out of their child, the trick is just to expose them to a wide variety of subjects and see what lights the spark and running with that and exploring all aspects of that curiosity, and I think that is absolutely fantastic! I think that children should be excited to learn and be interested in what they are taught..

There are many things that I was forced to learn in school that, not that I even remember what was taught most of the time, has never benefitted me in life so I would be highly skeptical to say that school is in fact the better option for EVERY child..

There is never only one way to do things, there is never one right way to do things..

The more I follow this thread the more jealous I become that I am not in a position to do this with my daughter as I think she would benefit so much more from this than school!

[Ginger]

but what if the child asks you to get the wii out of the hiding place because that is what they want to do today. isn't it supposed to be about what the child wants?

[Lenny]

isn't it supposed to be about what the child wants?

That's not the message i took out of JFs masses of responses. Encouragement, variety, interests, starting something and seeing where it leads. And a lot of hard work too, by the looks of it!