What about when the kids just don’t want to?

Asking questions and remaining curious about boundaries and expectations.

Recently, we had some (loosely) pre-organised adventures for one of my children’s birthdays. Once the day came around, all the birthday kiddo wanted to do was play alone with his new birthday toys, go for a swim and play on the caravan park water slides.

Another recent experience was signing up one of my children for a zoom class on dinosaurs, she LOVES dinosaurs. It’s been her major area of interest for 6 years! And yet at the time of the lesson she chose to go to the jumping pillow to play with friends she made the day before instead.

Sometimes a challenge of parenting, especially unschool parenting, is knowing when to push, when to make them stick to the plans and commitments and when to listen to their inner knowing and needs and trusting that they are guiding in their own ways. And other times knowing if we do encourage them to get out there and do the things that they will enjoy it and be grateful for the experience. But where is that line?

Something that’s been interesting to come to terms with especially in our travel life… is letting go of our expectations of what we thought it would be like. Those beautifully curated social media accounts showing daily content of adventures and perfectly aesthetic happy families has proven not very realistic. Well not in our case at least. There is a lot more just normal lifing going on here. Maybe in part because Michael (husband & father) is still working full time as we travel. And maybe the fact we are slow travelling also contributes.

Do we have amazing adventures and experiences? Absolutely! Is it every day? It’s definitely not.

And sometimes our kids just outright refuse our ideas of what fun travel and learning would look like.

When you live in a family, it’s important to consider everyone’s individual thoughts and needs but also keeping the bigger picture in mind and holding everyone thoughts and needs in balance. This is not always an easy task.

Listening and communicating is always important. And no I absolutely don’t do it perfectly all the time (but I’m trying). Forcing children to do things they don’t want to do doesn’t feel good to me. It’s a big reason for choosing homeschooling and a more flexible lifestyle in general for me. But is it sometimes necessary?

Is this a skill that will be helpful for them to learn in the long run? Or will it cause them trauma with feelings of being unheard and unseen? Does it belittle them or can it ultimately be a way to empower?

In many ways I honestly just don’t know! I guess it’s important to come back to the truth that our children are human. They change their minds just like I do. They have bad days. They have days where they feel more internal and days where they feel more social. It’s not always so clear cut! Sometimes answers seem so obvious, other times not so much.

When it comes to encouraging our children is it just that? Ensuring our input is that of encouragement rather than pressure. But will they sometimes experience that encouragement as pressure regardless?

There are so many things I don’t have answers for. I bumble through trying to prioritise connection and deeply loving my family in my own imperfect way. Trying to create pathways for learning, trying to listen, trying to work with my children. Sometimes I’m successful and other times I feel like a failure. But I suppose in many ways this is the work of motherhood. Trying, failing and trying again.

People can get so dogmatic about homeschooling and parenting methodology, I’m sure I have also been guilty of this. Unschoolers are perhaps one of the the worst for it. Some will tell you that you can never ask your children to do anything, never force or push, always allowing children to captain the ship. I’m not so sure. Of course we should honour the personhood of our children, recognising their individual strengths and weaknesses. Having grace and understanding for their needs and their wants but never needing to draw the line around activities or behaviours feels neglectful. There is also so much juicy goodness of life our kids can miss out on if we don’t! Does getting caught up in dogma distract from the true humbling process of working it out in connection with our kids?

I’m obviously still questioning and working this out for myself. Asking questions and remaining curious.

How do you approach being child-led and finding the boundaries in your family? How do you manage these expectations both of yourself and of your kids? Have you worked it out or are you also lovingly bumbling through making the best choices you can as you go?

Thankyou for reading my loves. Apologies for being quieter on here recently. Life has ramped up so rapidly in the past weeks but I’ll endeavour to keep sharing when I have something relevant to say.

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Until next time 💗