Unschooling and Trust in the Adolescent Years: Teenage Rebellion Revisited

Over three years ago, at age 20, I wrote a post about unschooling and teen rebellion. It remains one of the most popular and most controversial posts I've ever written, yet when I read it now, I wince a bit. Not because I no longer believe much of what I wrote in it, because that isn't the case, but because I would approach the topic so differently now. In that post, I sound so much more, well, rebellious and confrontational than I want to now, I sound like I'm trying to shock people. I don't think I was, for the most part, and because I'm in a different place now doesn't mean that there was anything wrong with where my head was at at age 20. But what it does mean is that I find myself wanting to revisit the topic now, with the perspective I have currently in my life.

I look back on my teenage years now with such a deep gratitude to my parents. As I said on Facebook recently:

My mother has always been the one most into unschooling and respectful parenting, but even if my father had periods of doubt about the whole unschooling thing, both of my parents have always, without fail, trusted me and my sister's judgement. Teen rebellion has long been something we joke about in my family, because it just didn't exist, and both my parents never had a problem with me or Emilie staying out late or going over to the houses of friends my parents didn't know, or going to parties, or anything really. They trusted us. It just wasn't an issue. And looking back I just appreciate that so much.

Probably in large part because we were trusted, we were also trustworthy. Sure, we made mistakes sometimes, but we never did anything horribly reckless or dangerous. We made good choices.

Trust goes both ways. We didn't have a curfew, but we did tell my parents where we were going and when we planned to be back, and if my sister or I were going to be home later than planned, we called. Similarly, my parents also told us where they were going and when they planned to be back, and would call with any changes of plans. I've shared this many times, because to me it perfectly illustrates how parenting in the teen years can work without top-down rules being enforced. This way we were all in touch, my parents were looking out for me and my sister, and they were doing so without placing strict limits. It was just a matter of mutual respect between family members.

Things didn't always go perfectly. Sometimes the "I'm going to be late" calls were forgotten, leading to stress and arguments. But what they didn't lead to was "grounding" or punishments, just discussions once the initial argument had passed, recognition that people make mistakes, and moving on with things. There were problems in the teen years, for sure. It's hard to be a teenager. But the problems were struggling with how to help friends who were suicidal or using dangerous drugs or being abused by their parents; personal struggles with anxiety and depression; friendships falling apart; figuring out personal identities and other things. The difficulties weren't between me and my parents, or caused by us doing things my parents disapproved of. For the most part we got along well, with only the usual arguments and tension found in a house where four very different people are trying to co-exist, two of whom are going through a difficult life stage. Communication channels remained open, and there was always a lot of honest conversations happening in our house.

I developed my own political and social views in my teens. Discovering and developing your beliefs, values, and identity is a big part of being a teen, yet is also sadly often a point of contention when teenagers' beliefs differ from those of their parents. I argued with my father sometimes about politics--real arguments where I was genuinely upset--yet neither he nor my mother ever tried to forbid or stifle my explorations. My father certainly wasn't (and isn't) an anarchist, but he never tried to stop me from going to the anarchist bookfair, or reading anarchist literature. In my teens there were a lot of people who were very condescending towards my views, who were convinced it was just a rebellious phase, and I'd get over it and find more sensible opinions soon enough. This was pretty insulting and upsetting to me at the time, and has certainly not proven true so far. Though I've shifted approaches and views quite a bit in some ways, the core values and politics I discovered in my teens are still the ones I hold today. This is because I didn't decide to be an anarchist because I wanted to rebel, but because I found value in ideals of social equality, cooperative and collective decision making, breaking down hierarchies and re-imaging how to organize and live in this world. None of that has changed, because it was always based on what resonated with me on a deep level, not an attempt to horrify the adults around me.

"Resistance of the heart against business as usual." Prints from Bread and Puppet
in Glover, VT.

Alcohol and drugs were never a big deal, or a big part of my life. I'd like to first mention, because the majority of my readers are from the USA, that here in Quebec (where I grew up and still live) the culture around alcohol is quite different. The legal drinking age is 18, but parents frequently start offering their children a sip of their wine at dinner when children are as young as 10. Yes, teens still sometimes steal alcohol from their parents' liquor cabinet, or drink without their parents' permission, but overall teens drinking isn't considered nearly as big a deal as it is in the US. In my own family, I could taste anything I wanted, and I think my parents were happy that I was discovering what alcohol was like and how it made me feel in the safety of my own house and with my family, so I was better equipped to make choices about what and how much I drank when outside the house in situations which were less safe. Different families will handle things differently, and for people with alcohol or other substance abuse in the immediate family, they'll probably have a very different approach. I don't want to hold up my family's experience as the only good idea, but I do think it worked well for us. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times in my life I've been drunk (and even then never very drunk), and now enjoy alcohol very much in my life, but always in moderation. Drugs being used by friends caused some problems when I was in my teens, as there were times I feared for friends using scarier drugs, and some friends social lives came to revolve way too much around drug use for me to want to spend as much time with them. At this point in my life, I have friends who don't use any substances, and friends who will hand around a joint sometimes, but drugs aren't a large or defining part of my life in any way (and the same holds true for my sister).

I share all of this about my personal experience with mind altering substances because so many people seem convinced that teenagers, without rigid control, will quickly become addicted to every substance imaginable and party constantly, and I want to put that idea to rest. Developing addictions can have many contributing factors, from genetics and family history to unhappiness and rebellion, and there is no magical fix or set of steps that can guarantee someone will never abuse alcohol or drugs. What I can say though is that in general, the vast majority of unschoolers I know are far less likely to be very into drinking or drug use than the schooled young adults I know, and are also more likely to be responsible when they do use alcohol or drugs. This leads me to believe that raising teens with respect and open communication helps teens to make healthy choices about what substances they use and how they use them.

To rebel you have to have something to rebel against. Teenage rebellion and "bad" behaviour became a running joke in my family. When me and my sister were left alone in the house for a few days, my father would mock sternly tell us not to have any wild parties, with the full realization that having a friend over for a tea party was a much more likely scenario. Even now when I'm going out to a party my father, with all the gravity he can muster, will tell me not to do anything he wouldn't do. Similarly, I remember a story told told to me by a friend and unschooling mother, who was relating a conversation she'd had with her young teenage daughter, where her daughter kept suggesting increasingly outrageous things she could do to rebel, only to have her mother shrug at each suggestion (until the daughter got to "well, what if I date a corporate lawyer?" at which point her mother finally reacted with horror "no, not that!").

When life isn't filled with strict rules and lists of things you're forbidden to do, when for the most part you actually like and get along with your parents, there isn't really much to push back against. Rebellion for the sake of rebellion often involves a lot of really unsafe teenage behavior, and a lot of adults have come to think of teens as being somehow naturally irresponsible and risky. Though taking risks and pushing the envelope are to some extent a natural part of being a teen, many truly unsafe behaviours are not born purely out of a desire to take risks, but as a direct reaction to control. Basically? Many teens with poor parental relationships deliberately do things to piss them off or that they know would cause disapproval. Rebellion in direct opposition to the controlling forces in their lives. Many unschoolers I know, myself included, never experienced that, simply because the relationships we had, how respected we felt, caused us not to feel a need to do unsafe things merely for the sake of doing them.

For many teenagers, their parents are a large source of stress in their lives. When you remove rigid control and replace it with communication and mutually respectful parent-teen relationships, parents are no longer likely to be a major source of stress. Instead, parents can become the people that a teen feels safe going to when they need help or advice, teens can feel comfortable sharing the big things going on in their life without fear of parental reprisal. This also means that parents have a lot more influence in the lives of their teens, and are in a much better position to help their children make good choices than the parents who rely on a rigid set of rules that their teens may or may not follow once their parents are out of sight.

Control doesn't equal caring. I've heard it argued on more than one occasion that teens having strict rules enforced by punishments makes teenagers feel loved. I'm not sure the people who say this actually know any teens. But I do realize that it comes from the mistaken idea that control is the only way to be involved and show concern as a parent. As the call-if-you're-going-to-be-late rule in my house shows, parents can show that they care about their children, that they're concerned about them, by knowing where their children are and when they'll be home, by picking them up if plans to get home go wrong, by listening when they need someone to talk to, and a thousand other ways. Teens feel loved if their parents show caring, but it's even better if teens can feel both loved and respected, treated as if they're capable of making good choices. People having faith in your abilities makes you feel, and thus be more capable.

There are no guarantees in life. Following steps X, Y, and Z won't absolutely assure that "teen rebellion" will be non-existent. However, respect and trust between parents and teens can make a really big difference in the lives of respectfully parented unschooling teens and their families. It's thanks to the relationships we had and the way my parents treated me and my sister that, while we may have "rebelled" against certain aspects of the world we live in (rebellion that we're both still engaged in), there was never anything to rebel against in our family. We were all busy trying to figure out the messy, emotional, difficult, and change-filled teen years together as a family, not fighting about curfews or grades. One of the best arguments I can think of for treating teens like they can make important decisions in their lives is the relative ease it can bring to the teen years.

It's thanks to the relationships we had that I look back on my teen years with such gratitude for my parents and the way they raised me and my sister. Being a teenager might have been hard, but being treated like I was a capable and trustworthy person made all the difference to me. I've spent my whole life feeling like I was trustworthy, so I didn't have to learn to trust my judgement as an adult: I already knew how to do that. This is one of the reasons I feel strongly that trusting teens is such a positive and important thing not just in the teen years, but in helping young people transition to adulthood. Spending your whole life being treated as if you weren't capable or trustworthy, as if you needed constant supervision, rules, and curriculum to keep you in line and guide you in the right directions, then suddenly being told "you're an adult now, take care of yourself and make sure you make good decisions!" seems ludicrous. If teens are instead given the freedom and opportunity to make important choices and take on real responsibilities while they're still in a supportive family environment, then they'll have been practicing the art of being a capable person for years before they're on their own. That doesn't mean there won't be any floundering in adulthood (my own experience certainly says otherwise), but having that confidence in your own abilities has to be a good start.

I just hope more people can extend a bit (or a lot) more trust to teens, and watch how wonderfully it all unfolds.

Unschooling Doesn't Mean There's No Hard Work

One of the biggest criticisms of unschooling rests on a fundamental belief about children (and teenagers) and their ability to stay motivated and do difficult things.

People say that, if not forced to, children will never do hard things. Never apply themselves, practice skills intensively, or push through challenging material.

I suppose if you believe so strongly that children and teens aren't capable of doing anything difficult, then that would naturally make you rather unimpressed with the idea of unschooling. Because the truth is, a lot of things are hard. Often even things we find fun are also difficult!

Take writing, for instance. No matter how much you love the written word, love reading, love finding the perfect turn of phrase to convey exactly the mood you're looking for, or to explain a difficult concept in a way people can relate to, it's also work. Every writer, whether they're a novelist or blogger, is going to be familiar with the dread of an entirely blank page that needs to be filled; the difficulty of finding a word you know you know, but you just can't think of; pushing through when it feels like you have to fight for every single sentence.

No matter how you cut it, writing is hard.

So is cooking, my other main passion. Only with cooking, the "hard" comes with a big physical component: mixing batter, kneading dough, hoisting around heavy pots and pans, chopping huge bowls of vegetables... Though working in a commercial kitchen is the hardest, I'm regularly drained by home cooking and baking, as well. When I finish a big project--an oven full of entirely from-scratch hand-pies, for instance--I drop down, extremely tired, on the nearest cushy sitting surface, my back aching and sore from hunching over food stuffs for long periods of time, and mentally tired from focusing for hours on getting everything just right with whatever I'm creating.

Cooking, too, is hard work.

Butternut squash and caramelized onion galette with cheddar cheese.
Daunting to begin with, and satisfyingly delicious once it was done!

Now, I suppose some could say I'm an adult, and that's why I manage such things now. But my writing started before I hit my teens, and my ability to write as well as I do now comes from years of facing that daunting blank page.

My sister as a child and a teenager wrote (and writes) voraciously; she started playing marching snare drum when she was 12, started taking lessons in highland snare drum when she was 14 or 15, and now plays professionally, for pay; she's been practicing Ninjutsu since she was 16, and has progressed through several belts; she's completed NaNoWriMo on multiple occasions.

All of those things, too, were not easy to do, not things that came without much work and dedication.

Unschoolers, too, can be prone to procrastination, to avoiding doing hard things that need to be done and dropping hobbies they like when they get too difficult. I wouldn't say unschoolers are necessarily more likely to be motivated and work hard at things than people in school (they might be! I'm just not confident enough of that to attempt to make that claim). But what unschoolers do have is the time to really pursue things, to dig in deep and build skills they care about.

There are important elements that need to be in place to provide the best possible environment for managing hard things. One of those elements is having people (often parents, or mentors or teachers or friends or other family members) who are dedicated to helping you learn, who will cheer you on and encourage you when the going gets tough. Who will help you come up with goals, find the resources you need, and get important projects finished. Who will remind you that you said you wanted to practice violin every single day, and that you swore you'd get that chapter you've been working on finished by the end of the week.

It's hard to stay motivated if you've got no one in your corner who's invested in what you're doing and wants you to succeed at whatever you're trying to succeed at. But we do children and teens a huge disservice when we think, with the needed support, that they're incapable of dealing with difficulty.

A whole lot of what feels exciting and interesting is going to come along with a certain amount of difficulty and hard work. That holds true no matter your age. Beyond that all-important support, I think several other things contribute to people working hard:

• Doing things you're genuinely excited about, things that feel joyful and fascinating. I feel this when I'm enthusiastically telling someone about the process behind a fermentation technique I've been reading about, or when I embark with determination and a deep breath on an intimidating yet exciting new baking project.
• Finding meaning in your projects. When you choose what you do, instead of having someone else choose what they think you should be learning or doing, you're doing it because it has meaning to you. It's something you care about, something that actually seems important and relevant to you. You're going to put a lot more effort into something if it has importance in your life than if it's something someone else says you have to do.
• The time to devote to learning and skill building. While deadlines, either self-imposed or imposed by a relevant external force (the print deadline of a magazine, the entry deadline for a contest, or the date for a performance), can certainly prove helpful, if you're tired out and mentally drained from too many things then you're not going to have the energy to truly apply yourself to something. I feel like this is something that gets in the way of school students focusing on what's really important to them. All the hours spent in school, going to and from school, doing homework, and often plenty of extra-curricular activities besides, suck up time and leave little left over for other pursuits. Hopefully some of those extra-curriculars are things the student really cares about, but with too much time taken up by school, it can be difficult or near impossible to focus on what the individual truly wants to be focusing on.

None of this is a guarantee: sometimes unschoolers don't feel challenged enough, are frequently bored, or have great difficulty sticking with things they care about when they get difficult. Sometimes maybe something in the environment or parental approach or personal attitude needs to change for things to improve, and sometimes, because we're human, no matter how good the surrounding circumstances are, hard things are hard.

We can do them, though. Unschoolers are proving every day that you don't need schools, don't need teachers or parents, to force young people to do hard things. Young people are more than capable of working, and working hard, because they care, and want to improve, and enjoy the warm glow you get upon accomplishing something difficult. All that's needed is for the individual to have access to the tools and support to help them in achieving all the things that children and teens are excited and motivated to do.

Learning is exciting, and learning is also hard. Let's start realizing that kids are naturally great at learning, no matter how hard it can sometimes be.

Teenage Rebellion: An Unschooling, Respectfully Parented Perspective

There seems to be the almost universal belief among North American parents (I'm sure this is a phenomena found elsewhere as well, but I'm just talking about what I've personally seen) that their kids, whether these are theoretical future children or actual kids, and whether they have yet to reach their teen years or not, will hate or at the very least dislike them.  Teenagers hate their parents: everyone knows that.

My mother has told me that when my sister and I were small, she used to say to my father that he had to take over primary parental duties once we hit our teen years.  She's told me that she loved being a parent, and loved spending time with us, right from the get-go, but being surrounded by warnings of "wait until they become teenagers!" she always thought that would change when we got older.

Out for a Fall walk in 2008. We so obviously hate each other.

I suppose it's actually a very reasonable belief that your teens will dislike you: after all, most teens I know and have known do dislike their parents!  What isn't true though is that that dislike is inevitable.

The dreaded teenage years came in my family, and likely to my parents surprise, nothing horrible happened.  I mean, problems came up in day to day life, for sure, but looking back, I actually think that in terms of parent-child relationships and issues over "discipline" type stuff the teen years were (and are, as my sister is still a teen) smoother than when we were younger.  I attribute this to the fact that it was a constant progress over the years from more traditional parenting to more respectful parenting (which mirrored our transition from relaxed homeschoolers to unschoolers).

Though there are definitely unschooling parents/teens who don't have very good relationships with their teens/parents, it seems that the majority of unschoolers really and truly do.  Which to me, is a wonderful thing to see.  And I believe the reason for that is actually pretty simple.

When the subject of "teenage rebellion" comes up now, my mother is fond of saying "why would you rebel, since there wasn't really anything to rebel against?"

Now, I think there is an important distinction to be made here: some parents proudly brag about how their teens aren't "rebellious," and what they really mean is that their children are obedient to their parents wishes (or, possibly more likely, are simply very good at hiding the aspects of their life that their parents would disapprove of).  When I say that most unschoolers I know, myself included, don't or didn't "rebel" against our parents in our teen years, I don't mean it's because we fit the perfect-child model of some narrow-minded authoritarian-parenting suburbanite.

While I've never been very big into alcohol or drugs, I definitely drank long before the legal drinking age (though admittedly the whole culture in my home province of Quebec is very different from the rest of North America, in that virtually everyone drinks at least some amount from the time they hit their teens, with the parents knowledge).  My sister, who turns 18 (legal drinking age in Quebec) this summer, has been going to bars since she was 15 or 16, with my parents knowledge (again, very common practice in Montreal).  Both my sister and I have been openly anti-state, anti-hierarchy, and anti-authority for years.  I've dyed my hair unusual colours, shaved the sides of my head, and worn clothes throughout my teen years that plenty of parents I know would have disapproved of.  Sometimes we stay out late into the night.  We've been known to participate in Pagan religious rituals.  We swear frequently.  We hang out with people who are big into drugs.  If all those things were listed entirely out of context, it would probably sound like we were the people that many parents warn their kids about (then again, for all I know, parents have warned their kids about us...)!

This was taken last summer, but I still have the same haircut (though I need to shave the sides again).

So why do we get along so well with our parents?  It's pretty simple: control.  Or, more accurately, the lack of control.

Think of the things that most commonly cause friction between teens and their parents: breaking curfew, bad marks in school, skipping school, using drugs, subscribing to different religious and political views than their parents, disobeying parents...

Compare this to a respectful unschooling parent: no school, no marks, no curfews, no orders, and a belief that teens are entitled to their own beliefs.

I want to make it clear though that being a respectful parent doesn't mean agreeing with or approving of everything your teen does: it just means accepting and not attempting to control what they do.  Thus a parent that's strongly anti-drugs of all types might share all their opinions on the issue with their teens, give them information on why they believe what they do, etc.  Yet despite that, they wouldn't ground, punish, or shame their teen if they came home high.  In a mutually respectful relationship, teens are far more likely to genuinely take their parents opinions into account when deciding what they want to do, but teens are still their own complete and autonomous people, and will make the choices they deem best for themselves in the end.

My mum, sis and I all attend this event, and my father cheerfully lets me tell him all about it.

Parents in general, from the most to least mainstream out there, all seem to frequently express a wish that their children communicate with them and be honest with them.  Yet what the more authoritarian and punitive parents seem oblivious too is that no one is going to be honest with someone else if they know that by being honest, they're opening themselves up to be yelled at, punished, shamed, or treated with anything less than respect.  Those parents also don't seem to realize that good communication has to work both ways: parents can't expect their children to spill all the secrets of their lives, all their important thoughts and deeds, to someone who thinks their own personal life is none of their kids business.

I also want to make it clear that I don't, and didn't when I was still in my teens (having just turned 20 a couple of months ago, I still have trouble remembering I'm no longer a teen!), tell my parents everything.  I'm my own person, with my own life, and some things stay private.  Sometimes because it's something very personal, or a secret not mine to share, and sometimes it's because I know it would worry or upset them to know something.  Yes, occasionally I keep things (and have kept things in the past) I know my parents would disapprove of away from them, not because of any fear that I would "get in trouble" or anything like that, but simply because I don't want them upset or worried about things they ultimately have no control over. 


My (and my sister's) relationship with my parents is really good.  We talk to each other about everything from how we've been feeling, what we've been doing, interesting links online or news stories, what our friends are up to...  We don't stray away from subjects such as drug use and other illegal activity.  I'll cheerfully announce that a friend is taking up graffiti, and Emi will call to say she's headed out to a bar after band practice, so expect her home late.  I've never worried about coming home smelling like weed.  And because of the relationship we have, my sister and I have never hesitated to get our parents help when we're worried about a friend doing hard drugs, and we'd never hesitate to call instead of driving home with someone who's drunk. 

I'm incredibly grateful for the relationship I have with my parents, and that my parents are the people that they are.

So in conclusion, here are my very inexpert opinions on what makes a good parent-teen bond: respect, honesty, communication, and a lack of coercion and control.  Basically?  Treating each other like full and complete human beings, with different desires, beliefs, aspirations, and experiences.  It's such a simple concept: don't be your teen's enforcer, be their partner.  And if more parents acted this way?  Well, then I think we'd start seeing a hell of a lot less of this "teen rebellion" thing!

Unschooling Beyond High School (Unschooling is Forever Part 4)

I give you the 4th and final part of the speech I gave at the Toronto Unschooling Conference, dealing with a subject I'm currently very interested in thinking and talking about: Unschooling beyond the traditionally compulsory schooling years. Unschooling as true lifelong learning.

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3.

The college & university years

This Fall marks the first time that both my sister and I are officially past the high school years.  Now at age 19, I would have graduated two years ago, and had Emi been in school, she would have finished up this past spring.  This is probably a good time to explain that in Quebec, high school only goes until grade 11, so people graduate at age 17 (or 16, depending when their birthday is).  "Higher education" in Quebec consists of CEGEP (sometimes called College), which is free for Quebec residents and usually takes two years to complete the chosen program, which is then usually followed by university, which works the same as everywhere else, except that if you've gone to CEGEP, university only takes three years for a bachelors program.  This is what both my sister and I are watching the vast majority of our peers doing, while we follow very different paths.

I know that to some, unschooling is simply an educational philosophy that covers the traditional elementary and high school years, something that's a good preparation for moving on to higher education, perhaps, but something that does have an endpoint. Yet to embrace unschooling as true life learning (learning as something that's inseparable from life) means to accept that learning never ends, and to truly become a lifelong unschooler. Now, to me being a lifelong unschooler can definitely include college or university, but it can just as easily not. It's all in how you approach life, and how you think about learning and education, not in whether some of your life learning happens in a school building or not.

For me, I doubt college or university will be part of my life, and if it is, it certainly won't be in the near future.  I know it isn't the right choice for me right now for several reasons:

1. I have a fundamental disagreement with the institution of schooling.  With the structure, how it's run, how it's looked at and what it means to most people, the hierarchy and the commercialization of education.
2. The thought of spending my days in a classroom seems positively stifling to me, which tells me that's definitely not where I should be right now!
3. Of all the things I'm interested in doing with my life, all of the things I think I might do to earn money, a degree is necessary for none of them.
4. The cost.  Especially considering all of the above, to go into debt for a degree I don't want and will likely never use seems ridiculous!

I've managed to learn everything I've wanted and needed to know up to this point without going to school, so the idea that a school building it absolutely necessary all of the sudden is counter intuitive to me, and feels just wrong.  I've quoted it many times before, but this quote by Eartha Kitt always comes to mind:

"I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma."

Learning, the knowledge and skills and experience that's absorbed every single day simply by living life, can and does continue past high school, even if you choose, as I have, to pass on institutions of so-called higher education.

As I happily go through another not-back-to-school season, and while many of my peers are heading back into the classroom, I'm instead following  my own personal, ever changing and evolving "curriculum" (though it looks startlingly like just living life) that currently does or may well include:

• Speaking at the Toronto Unschooling Conference, and at other events, about freedom based education, and specifically unschooling;
• Organizing, with the assistance of a great group of co-conspirators, a freedom-based education conference in Montreal, which will include a wide range of speakers and workshops that give people the knowledge and tools to step outside of the mainstream views on education, learning, and life;
• Continuing to write regularly on my blog to an ever increasing audience;
• Starting to write the first draft of a book about unschooling;
• Finding and implementing creative and non-traditional ways of making money;
• Publishing the second issue of DIY Life Zine, a self-published magazine;
• And helping to further the cause of freedom-based education in Quebec, which includes collaborating with people involved in both starting a freeschool and a lobby group, among other projects.

As you can see, my life currently revolves around both unschooling and writing, two things that I hold very close to my heart.  I feel like I'm following a calling right now, and doing what I'm really *supposed* to be doing in my life.  That doesn't include college, and that's quite fine to me!

I also want to address the frequency with which I see people, even unschoolers, putting a huge gap between pre-eighteen and post-eighteen life.  As if, along with the end of unschooling high school and the start of college, turning eighteen means there suddenly has to be a huge shift in the way you act, what is expected of you, and how you’re treated.  I know that leading up to my eighteenth birthday I felt a HUGE amount of pressure!  To be doing something vastly different suddenly, to be taking on a ton more responsibility all at once!  As if eighteen was a kind of magical number and age.  Yet, I was still the same person on the day before my birthday as I was on the day after.  Still growing and changing, yes, but not making any huge jumps in that growth just because I’d passed a day that a bunch of people have decided holds special significance!  I see much talk among unschoolers about allowing your child to grow at their own pace, respecting their natural timeline and not attempting to force an external measure of when they should be doing what upon them.  Yet many seem to think that philosophy no longer applies after age eighteen.  You’re an adult now: act like one!

I encourage parents to realize that there is no magical age, and that their kid is still the same person, and no matter what their age should not be held to any external measure of what they “should” be doing.

So, Where do I go from here?

At my age, people now want to know what I’m going to do with my life.  Because seemingly, a decision must be made before age 20, and changing your mind frequently, or heaven forbid, moving into and through adulthood without a solid plan, is unacceptable.  People think that you have to have answers: goals and 10 step plans and ‘where you want to be when you’re forty’.  The time to decide what the rest of your life will look like is now, so many people think.  Yet to me, over-planning feels stifling.  I’d rather take life as it comes, make short term plans only, try lots of different things, focus on what’s truly important to me at each point in my life, and just do my best to make things work out.  Sometimes, the sheer spontaneity and lack-of-certainty of this non-plan seems terrifying to me, but looking at people I admire who are in their thirties or forties and have basically lived this way for years gives me courage.  They don’t usually have much money, but they’re happy: and to me, that’s what’s important!  I don’t want to be rich, I just want to be happy, to contribute my best self to the world, to do good, and to live by and act on my personal ethics and morality.  To me that’s true success, not the gaining of social station or monetary profits.  

The power of life learning

In closing, I want to reiterate what I said earlier: that true life learning never ends.  We’re always learning, growing, and discovering.  And as unschoolers, we’re in a marvellous position to think, see, and live outside of the box.  I make YouTube videos about unschooling sometimes, and in one video I interviewed my sister.  One of the questions I asked her was what does she think the best thing about unschooling is?  And, after saying she can think of LOTS of good things, she said:

“You get to have freedom in shaping yourself, and I think you really come to know who you are and what you want to do...in life. I often encounter people in school with the mindset of ‘oh, this is just the way things are, well I’m just going to do this, I guess’.  I think not having that sort of close-minded, narrow path kind of outlook on life is the best thing you get from unschooling.”

If you know and trust yourself, if you feel confident in your ability to direct your own life, you have the tools to see where you want to be, where your unique skills and passions can best be put to good use.  You have the courage to change your mind, and choose a new path when the old one no longer feels like a good fit.  By giving children and teens the power over their own lives, you create individuals who can enact important changes in their lives, the lives of those around them, and the world itself.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with another quote by Wendy Priesnitz:

"Personal empowerment begins with realizing the value of our own life experience and potential to affect the world.”

Unschooling is Forever Part 2: The Teenage Years

Here is part 2 of a talk called Unschooling is Forever that I gave at the Toronto Unschooling Conference.   

Part 1 can be found here.

How did my parents support me?

Unlike with traditional homeschooling (where a school-like environment is set up at home, and the main tenets of schooling are still adhered to, just on a smaller and more personal scale) unschooling parents do not become teachers.   Instead, they become facilitators, supporting and helping their children when needed, and getting out of their way when that seems to be the best course of action!  But what does that support actually look and feel like during different stages, and how does the parental role change as a little one grows up?

During what would have been my elementary school years, my mother, always a stay-at-home-mom, was very hands on, often suggesting projects, experiments, and crafts, doing them happily alongside us; answering, or helping us to find the answers, to any questions we came up with; making at least one trip a week to the library, where my sister and I would find a multitude of books, tottering out of the double doors toward the car with as many bags of books as our small shoulders could carry.  She was always available when needed or wanted, always happy to participate in whatever my sister and I wanted to do, be that a science experiment or setting up a Playmobil village across the entirety of my sister’s bedroom floor.

What strikes me most about my mother and the role she played, though, besides the fact she’s always been a terrific mom in general, was how very enthusiastic and genuine she’s always been.  She loves learning, loves finding new things, and nothing she ever suggested or did (besides those brief stints of attempting to teach math) was forced or duty driven: it was always done in honesty and honest interest, excitement, or passion.

Changing parental roles & relationships in the teen years

That parental role definitely shifts and changes once you reach teenage-hood.  As a teenager, obviously you’re far more capable of finding the answers to your questions, organizing social outings, and similar things.  So throughout my teenage years, my mother has really become much more of a friend, and someone who is a great sounding board to boot.  Bouncing ideas off of both her and my sister Emilie has been immensely helpful to me for many years now, and the discussions the three of us have are truly amazing and mind-expanding.  When asked how I learn, I like throwing out a bunch of verbs to try and get my point across that learning is everywhere.  But a type of learning that I really love is that of respectful discussion, and I treasure the terrific conversations I’ve had with wonderful people that have really had and continue to have a real impact on my life, how I choose to live it, and how I treat others.

Before my teen years we were definitely not whole-life unschoolers.  As I’ve said, we weren’t even quite at the unschooling stage yet, though we were certainly close!  But during my teen years, things have definitely looked a lot more like not only unschooling, but whole life unschooling.  I’ve marvelled at the amount of control I see, and especially used to see in my younger teens, among my schooled peers.  Constantly grounded for minor infractions of a long list of rules, strict and ridiculously (in my mind) early curfews, personal food choices entirely disrespected, etc. etc.  I’ve also always observed that the parents who wield the most control are also the parents most likely to have the worst relationships with their offspring: the parents whose teenagers are most likely to go against all of their rules, by simply going behind their backs and/or lying to get away with it.

In stark contrast, my own family, with no curfews and having never been grounded or had “privileges revoked” (note the quotations there), no fighting over homework or bad grades, my sister and I have a MUCH better, more honest, genuine, and joyful relationship with our parents.  And not only do we consider our parents to be allies instead of enemies, but so do our friends, who will speak openly in front of and too my mother about sexuality, drug use, and other normally taboo subjects with no worries of recriminations.  They trust, as my sister and I trust, my parents to behave more like friends than so-called authority figures.

And this is not to say that life has never been hard for me: my family, though we were practicing it, still didn’t necessarily fully trust in unschooling during my early teens, which was a really hard time for me in many was.  In my very early teens, being a naturally shy and introverted person, I was a bit of a hermit, refusing to participate in any activities and not really wanting to do much of anything, while at the same time feeling rather lonely.  At age 14, I agreed to try out the Air Cadets, and was part of that program for three years.  I went by choice and stayed by choice, and to this day don’t regret doing so, but it really was a horrible environment.  I feel like I got a small taste of what many people experience in school, as I was spending time three days a week in a highly competitive, hierarchical structure, where an individual’s needs and wants were rarely if ever considered important.  People were demeaned and bullied, and I never felt like I belonged, always felt like an outsider.  During my early to mid-teen years I struggled a lot.  I was often depressed, had feelings of low self-worth, thought I was uncool and un-likable for a while.  I wondered if unschooling was really a good idea, and if all the naysayers were right and I really would be better off in school.  Things didn’t look or feel very good.

Letting go of fear

However, the spring I turned 17 I was really starting to rethink a lot of things.  I left cadets, started reading the Teenage Liberation Handbook, and dove headfirst into any information I could get on both unschooling and radical political philosophy.  And I started to find myself.  I started thinking deeply about a lot of things, questioning things I’d never thought to question, re-evaluating the way I’d been living and thinking about my life.  That’s when I decided that not only had unschooling given me an amazing opportunity to really figure out the world as best I could; not only had it allowed me to truly get to know my self, understand my needs, and where I fit in the world; but I also started really believing that unschooling would be a powerful way of “getting an education” for everybody, as well as an important tool in social transformation.  I started realizing that the way I’d grown up, as well as the way all the other unschoolers out there had grown up, wasn’t just one option among many, but something truly special and important.  That we, as unschoolers, were proving wrong the widely held beliefs of what exactly education was and how you get it, simply by our existence.  Creating another model to live by just by living. 

So I started blogging, writing lots about unschooling and working out my own thoughts and beliefs on the matter through that process.  In the early stages of my new-found love of unschooling, I found it really helpful connecting with unschoolers online.  Here was proof that unschoolers older than me, grown unschoolers, were doing just fine, were doing even better than fine!  And when I started going to various unschooling gatherings (Not Back to School Camp, Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering, The Northeast Unschooling Conference), any lingering doubts I had simply disappeared.  The best way to convince anyone of the efficacy of unschooling, in my opinion, is to expose them to a bunch of unschoolers.  When faced with that, how can anyone not be convinced?

What my embracing of unschooling also signalled was my acceptance of being different, and my realization that fitting in shouldn’t be my goal, and wasn’t a goal that would ever bring me happiness.  Since that time, even though it’s only been a couple of years, I’ve grown immeasurably, most noticeably in confidence and outgoingness.  Really taking control of your own life and your own education is incredibly empowering.

Read part 3 and part 4.

Notes on Unschooling: From Our Talk at the AQED Symposium

A couple weeks ago, as I've previously mentioned, my family spoke at the AQED symposium.  I think a lot of this has been covered on my blog already, but I figured I'd share the notes for our introductory speech on unschooling!  Most of our time slot was devoted to answering questions, but this is what we started with.  Regular font is by me, italics are by my mother, Debbie.
----
So, what is unschooling?

To use Life Learning Magazines definition, unschooling (also known as Life Learning) is personalized, non-coercive, active, interest-led learning from life. (back to my own words) Unschoolers don’t have a set curriculum, are not “taught” by their parents, and instead learn from the world by living in the world, learning on their own terms with parents acting as facilitators instead of teachers.

How We Came to Homeschooling, or The Very Early Years
I’m told that before my birth, my parents had never even heard of homeschooling, let alone unschooling. It was only when I was a toddler that my mother found out about homeschooling, and started getting interested in it as an option for our family. However, my father wasn’t as impressed with the idea, so when I reached the right age, I was shipped off to half day kindergarten. However, there were some problems: problems big enough to convince my father to try homeschooling, so just halfway through my very first year of school, my parents pulled me out, and that remains my only experience with formal, institutionalized education. My sister, Emilie, who’s a couple years younger than me, has never been to school.

From Homeschooling to Unschooling

We started out as eclectic homeschoolers. My mother bought a few different programs & books from different companies, and encouraged both my sister and I to use them. But even in those early days, she was pretty relaxed, and when we didn’t want to do something, when it wasn’t working for us, it was generally fine with her if we stopped doing it. The only thing that was ever really an issue was math, because for a while, my mother still felt that math had to be “taught”. I think we became true unschoolers when we realized that there really were no “exceptions” to the concept: through simply living, following your passions and interests and curiosity, you really can (and do) learn all that you need to know, including math.

Like homeschooling, unschooling is not one single method, it is a continuum.

Academic Unschooling:

At the end of the spectrum nearest to eclectic homeschooling, is academic unschooling. Academic unschooling is allowing/encouraging your children to be responsible for their own education. It means that you don’t give them a curriculum to follow, but trust that they will learn what they need to by their regular daily activities and choices.

Radical Unschooling:

Radical unschooling is at the other end of the unschooling continuum. Radical unschoolers trust their children to make their own choices in everything that they do. They let their children decide when to go to bed, what to eat, and what to do with their time, or in other words, how they will live and learn. Radical unschooling is really a lifestyle. You trust that your children are capable of making choices for themselves.

Not "Unparenting"

Radical unschooling does not mean unparenting.

You are still there for your children.

When your children are young, you are the main source of new information and experiences.
You are the one to introduce new topics and information.
You are the one to bring them to new places.
You’re there to marvel over the wonderful things they discover.
You’re there to share the wonderful things you discover.
You’re there to share your interests and hobbies, and to be fascinated by theirs.
You set an example by your behaviour, of how people should behave.
Your manners teach your children about good manners.
Your love shows them what it is like to be loved.
They learn how to treat their friends and family by seeing how you treat yours.
You’re there to take them home when they are in situations that they can’t handle.
You’re there to cheer them on when they handle difficult situations well.
You’re there when they need a shoulder to cry on, or someone to talk to about why something happened the way it did (whether it is you or them doing the figuring)
You’re there to listen when they need someone to talk to. Someone who can just listen if that is what they need, or give advice or sympathy if that is what they want.

As your children get older, you are still there to tell them of the fascinating things you discover, and to hear what they are fascinated by. 
You’re there to marvel over the new things that they discover.
You’re there to drive them places until they get their own license.
You’re there for talks about boys and girls and romance.
You’re there to give opinions on drinking and driving, and drugs and teen suicide, and other things that are important to teens.
You’re there to support them when they make decisions they regret, without saying “I told you so”
You’re still there to help them find info that they can’t find themselves.
To encourage their dreams.
To sympathize with their disappointments.

You are still a parent, you are just not a controlling parent. You trust that they will be able to control themselves.

Trust:

For all of this you must have trust in your children, and they must have trust in you. For unschooling of any kind to work, you need to have trust.

- You have to trust that your children are capable people.
- You have to trust that they will want and be able to learn.
- You have to trust that your children are capable of making good choices.
- You have to be willing to listen without judging.
- Your children have to trust that you will not ridicule their choices.
- Trust that you will listen and advise when advice is wanted, but that you won’t insist that the child follow that advice.
- Your child has to feel that you trust her to choose well

There are also many unschoolers who do not believe that academic unschooling is possible. They say that if you trust your children to learn “academic” things, you should trust them in all things. Also, since everyone learns by all their activities, control of food, bedtime, etc is also life learning, and by limiting control of this you limit what your children will learn.

This trust does not include their other life choices. In other words, if you are academically unschooling, you still make the choices, or at least must approve the choices, for bedtime, food, clothes, etc. Anything that does not involve school recognized learning. Sometimes, but not always, academic unschooling leads to radical unschooling as parents see how well their children choose.

Post Secondary…Or Not.

One of the most common questions I get as an unschooler is “can you get into college or university?”. Another big one is “so what are you doing now?” since I’m one of these mythical grown unschoolers, and people are always really interested in hearing my answer to that.

Firstly, unschoolers can definitely get into university. Unschooling is considered by universities to be under the wider banner of homeschooling, and as I think everyone here probably already knows, most universities have a special protocol set up for homeschoolers at this point, and some universities are even specifically seeking out homeschoolers, including unschoolers. Last time I heard, homeschoolers still aren’t able to easily get into CEGEP, if at all, though I’m sure the workshop on legalities of homeschooling in Quebec would have more to say on that subject.

However, I kind of object to this idea that’s so prevalent in our culture that you MUST go on to “higher education” to be “successful”. There are so many different paths out there, and only a few of them require a university degree above all else. The things I’m most interested in, and the things I think I might like to do as jobs in the future, include writing and editing, being a vegetarian cook or caterer, teaching primitive skills, and being an herbalist, or natural medicine consultant. None of these things require your typical university degree. In that vein, I’d like to share the words of of an unschooling mother, Ren Allen:

"I hope my children are not prepared for college at all. I hope they're
not prepared to hand over years and years of their lives for a thin
sliver of hope at a job they'll despise. I hope they're not prepared to
go into debt for that which does not feed their spirit, bring them joy
and ignite their passion for learning. I hope they can't do mindless
recitation of facts that mean nothing to them. I hope they're not
prepared for anything less than exactly what they love.”

As for what I’m doing now, I often have trouble answering this question, because I feel like what people really mean when they ask this is are you in school, or are you working fulltime, because those are usually the two options people think you should be doing if you’re 18 or older. And I’m 19, by the way. But what I’m doing is organizing local unschooling meetings, organizing, along with my mother, the first ever Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering, an event going on this summer that’s really exciting. I’m putting together the second issue of a zine I publish, called DIY Life Zine. I’m writing lots, blogging lots. I’ve been asked to speak at an unschooling conference in the fall. I’m really putting effort into finding/building local community, because in recent years I’ve found a lovely North America wide community, but I still kind of feel a lack of community here. I’m still learning and growing as much as I ever was when I was younger, and still trying to figure a lot of stuff out. But, I feel like I’m on the right path, and that things are going to work out well. I hope I’m right!
----
Thank you for reading!

Peace,
Idzie

A Teenage Brain

Something I have heard oh so many times is that, because as teenagers and young adults our brains are not "fully developed", we are "bad" decision makers, and not to be trusted.  It's a very frustrating attitude, that really seems to twist scientific data to suite anti-teen feelings in our culture.  What constitutes "bad decision making", anyway?  That's a very subjective opinion.

When I found this post a while back, I simply loved it.  It deals with just that subject, and does so in such a wonderfully positive, pro-people way.  It reads in part:

"Though Teen brains may indeed not possess myelin sheaths that adults brains have, that doesn’t make them 'unfinished', in the sense that the article portrays: foolish, flawed, poor decision makers.

Without Teen’s 'unfinished' brains 99% of the risk taking done in the name of love, art, idealism, adventure, protecting family, would disappear.

Teens excel at taking risks because they have perfectly developed brains for doing so.

Saying they have unfinished brains compares to saying a new moon hasn’t 'finished' until it swells to a full moon. The Teen brain marks one moment in the cycle of the brains life where it has enormous potential for one kind of behavior - risk taking, adventure, romantic expression."

I urge you to read the whole post.  It's not very long.  Personally, I just loved it, and will send it straight to the next person who seeks to silence and dis-empower a teen by telling them of their faulty brains!

Peace,
Idzie

Curfews: Is there a better way?

Most of the teens under 18 who I know (not including unschoolers), have a "curfew", a time by which they *must* be home or face groundings, loss of computer time, or similar punishments.  It's something I've spent a bit of time thinking about. 

During the school year, though I don't really agree, I do understand why parents impose a curfew.  Kids do need to be up early the next morning to go to school.  Now, this often doesn't affect how late teens go to bed anyway, since they just stay up late at home, but I do see *why* the parents want them in earlier.  But in Summer?  Now that, I understand less.  The only reason, when getting up early for school isn't an issue, that I can possibly see making sense for imposing a curfew in the Summer, is worries about the safety of their kid.  But there are such better ways of handling it than a curfew, and groundings in some of a teens only free time in the entire year, when they miss that curfew!  Here's how my family handles things:

We like to know where a family member is when they aren't here.  We like to know how late someone will be back.  When Emi heads out, for instance (I'll use my sister as an example, since she's the one who's out late most often!), one of us will ask "when do you plan on being home?".  She'll give an answer, and our policy is that whatever time is given, you should be home by, or call by, that time.  That is the easiest possible way.  Whoever is at home doesn't worry, and whoever is out isn't resentful because they "have" to be home by an externally imposed time.  And in case you were wondering, we're all pretty good about calling to let HQ know where we are and how we're doing.  I also ask my mother and father that question when they go out at night, and I expect to get a call if they're going to be late!  This isn't just something for the younger people in our house.

If a ride is needed, obviously the driver has a big say in how late the person can be out!  Mum is a night owl, and she really doesn't mind doing late night driving most of the time (I think the latest Emi and I have called to be picked up at was two in the morning...  Maybe a bit later.  She'd known and OK'd the fact we'd be home very late, and cheerfully arrived to bring us home!), but when she does decide she's too tired, or really doesn't feel like it, neither Emi or I are upset or put out.  It's also a bonus that at this point, an increasingly large number of friends can drive, and some even have regular access to a car! ;-)

So much anger and resentment, so much fighting in so many families, over something that really shouldn't be a big issue at all.  Every time I hear of a kid getting grounded for days for missing their curfew by 15 minutes, I just shake my head.  There's enough things to expend your anger and energy on in this world.  Pick the things that are actually important!

Peace,
Idzie

On Being "Childish"

Have you ever heard someone be accused of being "childish", or been accused of that yourself?  You probably have, because that's an extremely common insult.  It's used when you have political opinions that other people disagree with (anarchy, for instance, is incredibly childish!), it's used when you dare to defy authority and stand up for yourself (don't be childish!  Just do it!), it's used when someone expresses their emotions openly (it's childish of you to be angry/hurt/upset!). 

This is so insulting to so many people, on so many levels!

When people use that word, when they say "childish", what they mean is that anything a child comes up with, any thought, opinion, emotion, is absolutely worthless and discard-able.  To be a child is to have nothing of worth to show for yourself.  It's an expression of ageism at it's very worst!

So when someone tells me that I'm being childish, they're not only insulting children everywhere, they're also telling me that my opinions are worthless.  That they're short-sighted, uninformed, unimportant, and simply not worth paying any attention to.

I think that's one of the things that makes me the absolute angriest when someone says it to me.  And I've heard it WAY more often than I'd like!

I've heard that the most marginalized members of society are the young and the old, and I don't have much trouble believing that.  Ageism and disrespect are so very common, that I find it seriously discouraging sometimes.

Peace,
Idzie

Review of The Teenage Liberation Handbook

I wrote this review for Homeschooling Horizons magazine a year or two ago, and since I've been wanting to share reviews of unschooling books, I decided to post it here!

"In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it...and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself."
Grace Llewellyn

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn

This has to be the most inspiring book I’ve ever read. I’m actually at a bit of a loss for just how to get across how amazing I found this book… I suppose I should start with how it affected me personally. I’ve always been an unschooler, and I read some of this book years ago, but the last year I was seriously questioning the path that my education had taken. Was I doing the right thing? Should I really be in school instead? Or at least studying textbooks? Then I picked up the Teenage Liberation Handbook once again, and my worries melted away. Here in my hands I held a virtual goldmine of ideas, resources, encouragement, and practical advice. Written with passion and conviction, liberally peppered with stories of real life teenage unschoolers and the marvelous things they’ve done (least fascinatingly to me getting into prestigious universities, but that means a lot to some people), and continuously inspiring. Although aimed directly at teenagers still in the school system, with advice on convincing your parents that unschooling can work, to legal issues, to worries about socialization, I found it equally useful as an unschooler, with such wide ranging chapters giving ideas for things you can do for every traditional school subject, and some less traditional ones, as well as getting into colleges and universities, finding meaningful volunteer and paid work, doing apprenticeships, starting your own business, traveling the world… If ever you thought unschooling couldn’t work, or you simply need to be inspired, then this is the book for you. I feel like I’ve started my own education all over again. I’m actually exited about learning for the first time in a while. Good job Grace! Grace does have some very strong opinions. Since I agree with most of them, it wasn’t a problem for me, but it may be for some people. That’s the only even possibly negative thing I can say about the whole book! Read it. Love it. And most importantly, love learning.

Peace,
Idzie

Sex and Drugs: An Unschooler's Perspective

I feel a little bit intimidated to be writing about this topic, since I feel it's a fairly big one, and something that many people feel very strongly about, and wonder about how unschoolers handle them. It doesn't really help that it's really late, and I'm not sure I can do the topic justice right now. However, I can always add more, edit things, or write whole new posts later on, so I don't really need to worry if I'm not entirely happy with what I write now!

A while back on Facebook, I was tagged in a note from a mother asking for advice on how to have "The Talk" with her 11 year old daughter. I thought about that a lot, but never answered, because my family never did have that much-talked-about Talk. When I was under two my mother became pregnant with my little sister, so of course I wanted to know how! Her answer was that Papa puts the sperm in her then a baby starts growing. After mulling that over for a while, again, I'd ask "how?" and get a more in depth answer. My mom never glossed over things, but neither did she push unwanted information on me. When I asked a question, she'd simply answer honestly. And so I learned about the very basics of sex at a young age! It also helped that when I was young we had an, erm, very sexually explicit dog, so I got a bit more of an idea from that, as funny and slightly embarrassing as it is to say it! :-P

When I was older, in my preteen years, my mom simply took a huge stack of books on sex ed. out from the library, and I'd surreptitiously flip through them whenever I felt like it. I went through a stage where I found talking about such things incredibly embarrassing, and would have completely flipped out had my mom attempted to "teach" me sex ed. As it was I learned from books, peers (and since I was always smart, I double checked peer learned information with much more reliable sources :-P), the internet (as much as the net is filled with pornography and bad information about sex, there is some good info if you look for it), and my mom (as a last resort!). The only kind of information I remember her kind of trying to force on me was about birth control. At that point, I already knew about everything she was telling me, and was quite peeved at her for embarrassing me by bringing up the subject! Suffice it to say, I learned sex ed naturally, through books and conversations and LIFE, just like an unschooler learns everything else!

In terms of menstruation, that was just normal. We never had closed doors in our house when I was young, and I simply learned about that through living with a grown woman! Again, I was embarrassed about such things, but my mom made it clear I just had to ask for supplies if I needed them, and other the that, I didn't need to talk about it unless I wanted to. I really was a very embarrassed child in many ways, looking back on things!

Nowadays in my family, sex isn't nearly as taboo a subject because, well, neither my sister nor I are really embarrassed anymore! My mother, sister, and I have had multiple really good conversations about various aspects of sexuality, both physical and emotional, and I think that's wonderful! There's absolutely no feeling of my mom "teaching" or "instructing" or the conversation in any way not being equal between us, because, well, it is equal! We're all just discussing something that is relevant and interesting to us, and although the three of us have had vastly different experiences in the matter, that doesn't change how we discuss things. It's a free sharing of ideas, opinions, and experiences, like all of our good conversations, and that's a wonderful thing. Also, my parents have never been advocates of "abstinence". The only thing they've been forceful about is safety. BE SAFE! Is the most my mom has ever said to me in terms of whether or not I "should" have sex. My parents trust that both my sister and I own our own bodies, respect ourselves, and know what we do or do not want to do with our bodies. I won't necessarily be happy (and haven't necessarily been happy) with every decision I make, but it's always MY decision and no one elses.

I actually find it rather amusing, if exasperating, that some people seem to think that un/homeschoolers will have inferior sex ed. knowledge, because my sister and I have actually been in the position of giving accurate info to schooled friends, who have very limited knowledge and a shit load of bad information! Our local high school doesn't even teach anatomy properly, because I know several guys who go to that school and have absolutely no grasp of female anatomy!

Alcohol consumption was never made into a big issue in my household, either. From the time I was young, I was always offered alcohol when my parents would have a glass of wine or similar. Neither of my parents are big drinkers, and I've never seen either of them drunk. Drinking alcohol was, and is, something consumed for the enjoyment of the drink, not to get drunk, in my family. I tried multiple different types of alcohol as they became available at different family functions and similar, decided what I liked and didn't like. And to this date, I have never been drunk. I've been slightly tipsy (emphasis on 'slightly') twice in my entire life. And honestly, I never plan on getting drunk. The thought does not appeal to me in the slightest, probably in large part because I really don't like being around people who are drunk. I have a strong sense of personal space, and one of the first thing people seem to lose when drinking is a sense of personal boundaries and other people's space. That, and I just find it gross!

In terms of drugs, I don't remember any "don't do drugs" type talk. I have a cutesy sticker stuck on my bookshelf in my room that says "Say Neigh to Drugs" with a picture of a horse, but I'm not even sure I knew what they were referring to when I got the sticker, and the main motivation in sticking it to my bookshelf was that I liked horses! :-P So really, my opinions on drugs have been formed by myself. And unsurprisingly if you've read my blog for any length of time, I do not believe that drugs should be illegal. I believe that every person has an absolute right to decide what they do or do not do to their bodies, as long as they don't infringe on another person's absolute right to do or not do whatever they want with their own bodies! It hasn't really been much of an issue so far, since neither my sister nor I have ever done drugs. However, I've made it clear to my mom at least (possibly both parents, but I'm not sure I've made it quite as clear to my dad, since he's more anti-drugs than my mother is) that I will try marijuana at some point. I don't feel it's something I need to keep absolutely secret. The reason I haven't yet, although I've certainly had the opportunity, is because there are several factors affecting my decision. I need to trust that what I'm taking into my body comes from a reliable source, and is not contaminated in any way, and I need to trust the people I'm with, because I want to be surrounded by people who will take care of me when my judgment is impaired. I'm not even that worried about what I'll do in terms of safety, because from what I've seen, marijuana doesn't really affect you to an extant that you're likely to do anything particularly dangerous, unless you're driving or similar. I just don't want to even do lesser things, embarrassing things, or anything I'll regret, really. The main thing is that before I'm willing to tamper with my state of consciousness, I want to feel that I'm in a comfortable and safe environment.

I think that's good for now. I may want to elaborate on some points in later posts, or talk about some points I've forgotten, but this will do for now. Also, I'd LOVE to hear from other unschoolers on how you handle the issues of sex and drugs. You can either leave your answer in the comments below, or write a whole post of your own on it! If you do decide to do a post, please leave the link in the comments, and I'll add them to a list at the bottom of this post. I actually decided to write this post after seeing a comment and her subsequent post on Michele's blog, so I'll start by adding that link!

Links to posts on sex and drugs on other unschooler's blogs:

Drugs...Sex...? by Michele of Natural Attachment

Sex, drugs, but no rock 'n roll....Sorry! by Stella of Not An Ordinary Teen

What's on a Teenager's Mind by Rochelle Blue of Penmanship of a Teenage Writer

The Talk and Other Things by Danya of Made of Carbon

Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll by Kaya of The Important Stuff (plus a few other things)

Peace,
Idzie