Incubator home

I love the teen years, as much as they can be fraught with passion and fury coming at you from all directions! This is a time when young people need and must have more independence, opportunities and choices.
At this point, some parents will want to ‘cut them loose’ while still making sure to ‘keep watching;’ that is, maintaining an eye on the kids as they move into teen-hood and young adulthood.

In my own home, the exploratory play, inventiveness and fun of their childhood has not disappeared. Instead it has become more focused, more sophisticated, more goal oriented. My daughters push for who they are trying to become; they want to shine. At any given time, you may find a daughter practicing her instrument, with acute attention to error and determination to improve. You may find a daughter stretched out on her bed, hungrily devouring every classic in the English language with a mind to studying English literature and becoming an author herself. You may find a daughter searching for opportunities in the community to get involved with more sports and athletics.  I’m not shocked if I wake up at odd hours of the early morning to find a daughter interacting on tumblr, rebogging posts and contributing to discussions that range from feminism, abortion, to the latest fashion in tights and leggings.
I’ll often ask my aspiring actor how many movies she has watched that day and won’t be surprised if it’s the sum of four as she studies the fine art of acting and film. She’s pushing; she’s in acting classes, she’s out there seeking opportunities and venues.

Incubator
The home is where it all begins; the home is where they can nurture and grow their dreams.
My home is a passion and idea incubator where my kids can identify interests and have to the best of our abilities, offer the opportunity to explore and pursue their passions.
 I hope to continue to provide them a safe haven in which to forge new paths, anchored by the faith we, the parents have in them as they gain mastery over what they have sought to know. I am not promising that all their dreams will come true; often they do not. Sometimes they change shape.  But my home is dedicated to supporting them as they move forward into the world.
An incubator home like ours offers a practice arena in which the kids can explore and test their ideas.  Every day is an opportunity for evolving interests and ideas; we try to create an incubation environment that is flexible and responsive to each child’s development.  This means being ready to spot opportunities when they come up and helping them to act on these. It also means setting up the structure so that interests can be pursued, and experimentation can continue to happen.
How have you set up your home to nurture learning and exploration? Comments welcome.

Happy!

Happiness Now!

My unschooled daughter tells me her good friend finds her ‘intimidatingly happy.'
"You are always so content, so relaxed so..happy," the friend complains. Yes, complains.
This is a friend who has seen the world; she has traveled the seven seas and visited a crazy number of countries. She has private tutors and her family is heavy on culture.
She is enrolled in a prestigious high school program this fall and her future looks bright. But she is not happy. She never feels good enough. She feels compelled to compete and to continuously prove just how much she knows. My daughter is happy. She tells me that it is important to her that she enjoys her life. “I like to enjoy my life,” she says. It is a worthwhile goal.  

She is happy she tells me, because she is pursuing the things that make her happy- be they difficult or challenging they are her personal interests and that spurs on happiness. Intrinsic motivation is what compels her to push herself forward and ‘up her game.’ 

Too often I hear my other daughters' friends bemoan the fact that they do not have the time to do the things they love to do. School keeps them so overworked.
These are the lucky ones. So many young people no longer believe in their dreams. They have become shy or even apologetic and furtive in what they want. Others have no idea of what moves them.
In the last few months, some of their closest friends have confessed to struggling with depression and feelings of worthlessness and even suicidal thoughts.
I can only wonder at what part compulsory schooling is playing to contribute to such a dismal picture of the world young people will inherit. With all the hussle, stress, competition, constant messages pertaining to scarcity of jobs and resources, it's not an inspiring picture. Kids are told in no uncertain terms that high school is their one and only shot at a ‘good life.’ Of course unschoolers know that is not true. My kids know it’s a lie. High school is not the ‘be all end all’ for a bright future.

When it comes to happiness, it almost feels like there is an unspoken taboo around being happy. 
It begins when we are young and we are indoctrinated into believing that happiness must be earned. It is not a question of contentment being our natural birthright.  Rather, we must not be permitted happiness until we have completed such and such a chore or done our homework etc, etc.
No wonder that to many of us, being happy feels....wrong. We feel guilty if we are happy, shielding our joy from those who might find it offensive. Seems to me that what is socially acceptable is being ‘en route’ to happiness; getting there, almost there, will be happy when this, that or the other is taken care off.
Only the rich and famous are exempt: they deserve happiness. The rest of us should act miserable.
How rotten is that? I find that people who unschool actively work towards refusing this view; instead try to claim for themselves, happiness now. Maybe it’s because unschooling leans towards pursuing what you love to do-right now-rather than, someday, somewhere down the road?
Comments welcome!

Your youth needs you.

"You're lucky. You're kids are grown up. They don't need you anymore," my sister says to me as we sit on the floor playing with her 2 year old. My other sister agrees; her kids are 4, and 6 months.
Excuse me? My kids are 13, 14 and 16. They don't need me?
"Well they can do so much for themselves," they protest.
That's true but they can't do everything for themselves. It is a mistake to think that once they're out of diapers they can 'go make their own lunch'- so to speak.
A youth needs as much support as a young child. I would say- perhaps even more. They need you to be there for them if not always physically, definitely emotionally.
When they come home from wherever they've been, they want a pair of eyes to SEE them, a pair of ears to HEAR them if they want to vent or to share their joy.

A youth needs you to help them achieve the small steps along the path to reaching their goals. This is especially true of the unschooled youth. It's still up to you to help your youth find opportunities and also for you to do some hand-holding. This might mean doing things that we might see as easy but for the youth, quite daunting. For example it might mean making that appointment they're a feeling too nervous to do on their own. It might  mean taking them somewhere where they need to go. It might mean helping them raise funds for a project they are working on.

You need to be there for your youth both physically and emotionally and your youth needs to know this.