As a young girl my family lived in a small mining town in southeastern Utah. My life was AWESOME! We had farm animals, a ¼ acre garden & all the mud a girl could possible want. My daily schedule in the summer looked a lot like this: get up... maybe brush my hair, but mostly likely not. Maybe get dressed for the day, but almost surely did not. Head out to the garden to forage for my breakfast of strawberries, gooseberries & whatever else struck my fancy. Then it was off to say good morning to my animal friends and play in the mud. At lunchtime I would head back to the garden and forage whatever my little heart desired. Then it was back to the mud.
I would play all day by myself in the mud. Some days I was a world famous French chef and other days I was running a wild west inn. I was a dinosaur, a mud monster and sometimes I would just lay in my mud hole and watch the clouds roll by. The one thing I don’t ever remember was my mom telling me not to play in the mud.
As I reflect to my own childhood, my summers were spent in a very unschool fashion. I just got to play. No forced reading, no math workbooks and no pressure to be anything more than a kid that loved to play in the mud. Now I will say that when I was out playing, I had elaborate plans that involved all sorts of real world skills. I measured things. I built things. I read to my cat when she would lay on the porch in the sun. I wrote stories and poems and I never once did I feel like I was learning… but I most certainly was. And when the fall came I went back to school where I struggled a lot.
My mom was a great mother to grow up with. She was always saying yes to new experiences. If I wanted to learn something new she would gently guide me along my journey. That is the one thing I hope to instill my own kids. Our world is not the same as it was 30 years ago. Life has found a way to make most everything to complicated, too expensive, to dangerous or just not realistic anymore. However, I strive to say YES to as many things as I possibly can. There are times where NO is the only answer you can give. And sometimes that no is met with bruised feelings, and even in those instances there is room for the most wonderful learning moments. I think one of the most valuable skills we can teach our children is to be able to be aware of the opportunities that are all around them. Sometimes the NO can lead to the YES experience that opens new doors to grand experiences.
As we make our way through our journey in unschooling I am finding that saying YES is becoming easier as our kiddos find their passions and gravitate towards experiences and opportunities that a line with aspirations. Saying yes (and the occasional no) has been one of the most powerful tools in my personal unschooling toolbox.
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