Ok, the title has a lot of assumptions, but that was the easiest way I could think to describe what I am asking. I know 'good' is not a great choice of words there. What I am trying to ask is actually this:

We hear on this list, and others, and Sandra's website, and many other RUers websites, etc about all the great kids who have come through this lifestyle. And that is really wonderful. But critics could come along and say to me, "Sure, the great cases are what's talked about... but what about the bad cases?" And I think they ask partly because so much of this is anecdotal, unschoolers don't seem to be 'studied,' there isn't much in the way of statistical evidence (or is there? please point me to it!). Homeschooling study results probably don't even apply to RUers.

So, I'm curious. Are there any Radically Unschooled children, who have grown up, who are not 'good' people? Who cheat, steal, treat people badly, lie, etc...?

Is it possible for someone to grow up to turn out that way with the RU set of principles in place? With parents who are genuinely 'good'?

Thanks,
Shira

On Dec 28, 2009, at 8:54 PM, shirarocklin wrote:

So, I'm curious. Are there any Radically Unschooled children, who have grown up, who are not 'good' people? Who cheat, steal, treat people badly, lie, etc...?

If someone says they've radically unschooled, have they really?

While it's fairly easy to grasp what to let go of to radically unschool, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is understanding what to replace it with. Someone who says they're radically unschooling could have let go, but not done the replacing. They could be unparenting.

Another stumbling block is a parent who doesn't "get" their kid and can't figure out how to help them.

And there are other factors: bad biochemistry. Abuse. Divorce (not merely the act itself, but everything around it: parents tearing at each other, the idea that love isn't unconditional, kids feeling guilty or abandoned).

Which all sounds like words to cover unschooling's ass ;-)

The actions you've listed are all strategies to get what someone wants. So the big question is why would someone adopt those strategies that hurt people when there are strategies that can help them get what they want without hurting others?

There are understandable reasons! If a child feels he can't get what he wants except on his own, cheating and stealing and so on can be good strategies. If the child feels like the people around him put their own agendas ahead of his, if they've shown they aren't to be trusted to help, if they've shown they don't respect him, why would he care to put in the effort not to hurt them?

If a child knows the parents objective is to help him get what he wants, if the parent is offering strategies that are kind and safe, then the parent is creating an environment where cheating, stealing, etc aren't advantageous.

Being what the parent thinks is trustworthy and respectful isn't enough. The parent needs to direct trustworthiness and respect to the child. The child needs to feel the parent trusts and respects who they are. The child needs to trust the parent is someone who wants to help them.

It's not a straight cut path to lying and stealing prevention ;-) Asking how to prevent kids from lying is sort of like asking how to get a steeple bell 50 feet into the air. The answer begins with building a foundation on the ground which hardly sounds like a way to get something into the air ;-)

Joyce

It does here, so far- my kids are 16.75 and almost 13. My sister-in-law told me that I was lucky to have such good children. Hers did all the scary"bad"stuff - teen pregnancy, heroin, drug busts, etc, etc. I think she is pretty aware that how she parented had something to do with it. She is raising the grandchild and is trying to do better - though from more of a strict christian perspective, rather than ignoring. Maybe it is a little better- at least she cares, and has some kind of awareness.

I have a cousin who at just 18, was arrested for arson and spent 2 years in jail. He was able to come out, reclaim his life, and has been at MIT lately, and has a new job as a video game programmer, and feels really lucky in that he gets to do things he enjoys every day. His mom never homeschooled him but had considered it, and was reading Growing Without Schooling- she had all the back issues from the beginning which she gave me. So I see her as a decent parent, though perhaps his dad wasn't. There was a lot of intense stuff going on when he was a teen at home. I think having her, always believing in him, really helped.

I don't fool myself that my kids will never make any choices in their lives that could be considered bad, by others, or by them, later. What is different here is that I unfailingly see my kids as good people, who are able to learn and grow from their "mistakes". I believe that it makes a huge difference, having someone in your life, even one person, who sees you that way. Who trusts in your inner goodness even if you behave in ways that are seen as "bad." Though so far my kids haven't felt the need to behave in those ways, not for a long time.

There are no guarantees, no matter what you do, in parenting. You really have to do what feels right, for now. Really that is all you might have, anyway. Kids don't always grow up. Whether kids go to school, or not, it is possible that they could grow up and feel confused, or not, or unhappy, or not. I don't radically unschool for the results, though I think they will be good, and so far they are. Having a teen that people frequently remark on as being a great kid, and who is well recieved and surprises people wherever he goes, seems to me to be a really good start- so I am going with it.

Heather (in NY)

So, I'm curious. Are there any Radically Unschooled children, who

have grown up, who are not 'good' people? Who cheat, steal, treat
people badly, lie, etc...?

Unschooling families have their problems, too, that can lead to their kids having problems. If someone is looking for a guarantee that their kids will "turn out" great, sorry, but there are no guarantees. First, life circumstances can throw any family into turmoil. Second, unschooling parents can have their own baggage that impacts their children in negative ways.

Unlike conventional parenting and conventional schooling, unschooling doesn't set kids up to lie, cheat, and steal, though. So, other things equal, I like our odds.

-pam

-=-Are there any Radically Unschooled children, who have grown up, who are not 'good' people? Who cheat, steal, treat people badly, lie, etc...?-=-
Are there any parents who become radical unschoolers who are not 'good' people?

I think it's a fantastic question, and Joyce's answer was so cool I stuck it here. Will probably add Pam's, too.
http://sandradodd.com/guarantee

The background is some blown glass I have, the first photo I took with a new camera some years ago (in case anyone's wondering).

There are some unschooling parents who are not sterling examples of integrity. So the eternal questions involving nature and nurture apply to unschoolers as much as to anyone, anywhere, any time.

If there is anyone reading there who is unfamiliar with the "nature vs. nurture" debate, I recommend the movie "Trading Places." It stars Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, backed up by Denholm Elliott as the butler (very good character) and Jamie Lee Curtis (25 years ago, VERY pretty and funny). Two millionaire brothers make a bet about nature vs. nurture. They're played by Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy. Those older actors have all since died, and they were awesome and famous when they were younger so it's fun to have seen them all in one movie, too. And Frank Oz plays a cop (as he played a prison officer in The Blues Brothers).

To Pam's list of damaging factors, things that could easily mar a person's confidence and progress, I'd like to add step parents (a by- product of divorce, and adoption. Some step parents are awesome and practically perfect in every way. Some adoptions work out glowingly for all involved. Not most. Some. Not lots. Some.

Some kids are unschooled their whole lives starting with attachment parenting and breastfeeding and family bed. Others are spanked and yelled at and sent to school and told without school they'll be homeless beggars, or worse. Then if their parents switch to unschooling and start working to make up for that, how long will it take for the child to recover from the initial ideas that the parents were wrong before and could be wrong again, or maybe that the parents were right before and don't care that the child will be a beggar in prison.

It's possible to put all kinds of obstacles in a child's life, or to bring all kinds of trouble home. The question is asked about whether a radical unschooler could turn out bad. ANY person could turn out bad, or have a great 30 years and then factors could overwhelm them, or have a terrible 30 years, and somehow rise above it to become saints of some sort.

How many obstacles can a person overcome? It depends on the person, largely. I can handle a lot of stress, but if I'm pre-loaded with stress and deadlines and guests coming, a small thing can seem HUGE to me in that moment.

This page might be worth looking at too:
http://sandradodd.com/screwitup

If you think of what you could do to make things worse, that creates an immediate set of what to do to make things better.

When my boys were little they took swimming lessons and would recite the safety reminders in opposite terms:
Never swim with a buddy, always swim alone.
Swim in a storm.
Run by the pool.

Because they could do that, I knew for certain that they did know the list.

Sandra

-=-Having a teen that people
frequently remark on as being a great kid, and who is well recieved and
surprises people wherever he goes, seems to me to be a really good
start- so I am going with it.-=-

That's a result, though, when the person's still a teen. <g>

In my life, two of the most frequently remarked upon teens who came
immediately to mind were severely schooled. But their parents are
(one of each sets of parents) some of my favorite people EVER, and so
there must be some natural genetic predisposition to be so awesome I
would like them for 30 years. <bwg> And I got Christmas cards from
both the parents. And those two boys, last time I saw each, beamed
huge smiles and said all the charmingest things to me. They like me,
too. Not unschooling stories.

-=-I don't fool myself that my kids will never make any choices in their
lives that could be considered bad, by others, or by them, later. What
is different here is that I unfailingly see my kids as good people, who
are able to learn and grow from their "mistakes".-=-

I suppose this is a good time to tell the follow-up to Holly's pudding-
wrestling incident. Was she "a good child" that night? We knew where
she was because I helped her find the place, and looked it up again
when she was driving around and confused in that neighborhood. She
had our car, and we knew it. She called us when the trouble arose,
and she sat politely (shivering, and embarrassed) while the police
waited for us to come and get her. She cried on the way home (she
rode with Keith; I drove the car she had taken there). The police
weren't there because people were being great kids, though. There was
too much noise for the neighbors and they discovered a den of pudding
(well, a kiddie pool of pudding) and some underage drinking.

We had to go to re-education class. Keith was out of town or we both
would have gone. Had we both gone, she would've been the only kid
there with both parents in attendance. There were forms the kids had
to fill out (a questionnaire) and a test to take (not hard) at the
end, and each child was given paper and pencil and told to draw the
most important person in his or her life. There were graphs and
statistics on drug abuse and alcohol consumption. There were videos
of drug users and their ugly, awful lives. There was a video of a car
wreck. There was video of the inside of the new improved boys'
detention facility. If that was the new, improved one,the old one
must have been bad. (I saw the old one, when my half brother was
there years ago, 1986 or so.) Holly teared up a couple of times
during all that. Each teen had to go up and show the picture and talk
about who it was and why that person was important. Holly drew me.
Most kids drew the parent who was there. One boy's drawing was like a
professional portrait. We could have found his mom in a big crowd
with that image. Some parents were sweet and gentle with their kids,
there that night. Some were aloof and harsh and the parent and kid
ignored each other, it seemed, even though they were sitting together.

It was a rough few hours, and Holly leaned on me and held my hand a
lot, and felt awful for causing us to be there. They had to
understand and agree to a deal that said if they didn't get in trouble
in the next full year or until they were 18, they could request that
the charges be removed from the public record.

Did unschooling fail because I had to go with my kid to a substance
abuse education class provided by the juvenile justice department?

I think of it not as an absolute fail or succeed situation, but would
Holly have acted differently toward us (or in the situation, or toward
the police officers) if she had been in school all those years rather
than at home?

Sandra

***We hear on this list, and others, and Sandra's website, and many other RUers websites, etc about all the great kids who have come through this lifestyle. And that is really wonderful. But critics could come along and say to me, "Sure, the great cases are what's talked about... but what about the bad cases?"***
 
What I find really fascinating about this particular aspect, and I've heard it too, is that most people would look at my older daughter and think "bad", or as one person at a 7-11 said as she walked past, "misguided".  It's an image though, one that she loves and lovingly created for herself.  If anyone takes the time to get to know her though, they'd be stunned with her honesty and empathy and her altogether sweetness.  She smart and creative and deeply compassionate, but she gets kicked out of malls and security gaurds follow her in stores to make sure she doesn't steal anything.
 
She's admitted to stealing a gatorade at 2 am at a grocery store near our house, on her way home from playing around in the middle of the night with a friend and getting very thirsty.  They stopped at the store thinking that it was a 24 hr store and it wasn't and they had a huge pile of gatorades sitting outside of the store with no cameras pointing towards them.  I wouldn't have done that, even if I was very thirsty.  Still though, she's 15 and has never stolen anything else ever before, so if gatorade is the worst offense, then I'm ok with that!  We know kids that regularly steal from stores and other people.  It's a huge problem in public schools, so much so that it's a worse offense than assaulting another student.  My mother in law, who has worked in the public schools for many years will attest to that, we just had a conversation about it the other day.  My daughter knows stealing is wrong, there was no need to lecture about it or tell her
even, she already knows and I think part of why she told me about it was to get it off her conscience.

***So, I'm curious. Are there any Radically Unschooled children, who have grown up, who are not 'good' people? Who cheat, steal, treat people badly, lie, etc...? ***
 
I see both of my kids making good choices among many terrible ones all the time.  I truly believe that because their parents believe in them and their power to do good and be good, that they strive for that.  They mess up all the time, just like I do, and just like their dad does.  Who doesn't?  There are no gaurantees that any person will grow up without ever doing something terrible that they regret, or something stupid that they get caught doing. 
 
I have a cousin who is older than I am who was a great kid, happy and smart, he got married and they were very happy until, while working he was severely electrocuted.  It changed the very person he was.  Everything about him changed because of that one accident.  He lives in pain all the time, his bones break easily, he lost is ability to think clearly, he lost his wife because he couldn't cope as a decent person and he barely keeps jobs.  Nobody could have perdicted that outcome.  He wasn't unschooled, but even unschooled kids are people, susceptible to the unpredictable things in life.





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