Unschooling might not work for your family. Honestly, this is more about the parent than the child. Unschooling is about giving up control and trusting in your child. Which, is one of the hardest things to do. Child-led learning is more about trust and communication than anything.

A type “A” person or a person that needs schedules, or order would have a very hard time. My husband is this kind of person but has learned to trust me and let go. In the beginning, we butted heads, he thought the kids played all day. He did not see any learning going on. So, to compromise I started making videos on what we had learned. He would ask kids questions and over time saw how much happy they were. He also saw that I was much happier. It true what they say, ” happy wife means a happy life”.

He even got in on the action. When we started traveling he would come up with things we could learn about. My husband loves history so, he would lead a discussion. He enjoyed visiting the museums, zoo, historical sites with us. He would help me plan things that were educational and fun.

Get involved with you child learning

Child-led learnings or Unschooling is about getting involved and leading your child to learn. We have taken co-op classes, online classes. The kids have learned math with the Life of Fred, Khan Academy, and pool math games. We visited museums, zoo state, and national parks. The girls took care of bugs, dogs, kittens, and even a squirrel. We have watched documentaries, read books, and movies. Our family has hiked hundreds of miles, geocached, and learned how to make a fire every way possible. On long road trips, we listened to audiobooks in the car, had hours of discussion and arguments.

How to navigate Co-op and online classes

If we start a co-op class or online class and hate it. We drop the class and move on. If there a child that says something mean or rude, the kids and I discuss it. My daughter thought she was behind in reading so asked for help. She was reading at kindergarten level at age 10. I found TTRS ( touch type read spell) and made both kids do the program for 4 years. Now she is reading chapter books faster than I can buy them.

My advise if your having trouble with Unschooling. Get a book, find a tv TV series, let you kids be kids. Pick a day once a week and make three suggestions on what you could do. Let the kids decide their adventure. If they all pick something different do one a day for a week. Go to the library, get books and movies. Don’t make them do workbook pages, book reports, tests etc. Those are for normal kids and prove nothing. The main point is stay out of their way and just watch and listen.