Authentic family living always comes down to trust.

I'm starting to notice patterns in the numbers of people on social media asking questions about particular themes. It shouldn't be a surprise, given how the algorithms lead us around by our eyes and fears.... And also, I once had a restaurant manager who could predict how much of what specific meals to prep based on the weather, so I know humans tend to follow patterns... I digress. Already.

This past week, in the homeschooling and unschooling groups I participate in, everyone was asking the same question, and my answers to these were also the same. Take these two for example: An unschooling mom of a 3 year old asking what she should do when her child ignores her when she's trying to teach simple things in playful ways, like "Oh look at that blue car!" And an unschooling mother of a teen asking how to make sure her child becomes well written and well spoken with a deep understanding of math and a broad enough range of knowledge to get into college.

Oh, those don't seem like the same question? On the surface, I suppose, they seem nothing alike, other than they are both from unschooling moms and about their children learning.

The question I hear both of these moms asking is: "How can I trust that my child will learn enough to live a successful life if no one is forcing them to be taught these things?"

Teaching does not equal learning.

I get it. It is SO HARD to believe that children and teens might be capable of learning without teaching, when all of our own experience as children and teens was of adults forcing us to memorize whatever it was they believed we should learn, based on what they believed we would need to know to achieve whatever their model of success was at the time. Usually 12+ years of bribery and coercion to sit still, be quiet, and memorize things we had neither an interest in nor a need for. Still have no need for in many cases, which proves those adults wrong about what we would need.

If the adults we trusted with our very survival didn't trust us as children and teens to choose to learn what we needed to survive after they released us from their care, how could we ever trust that our children can learn enough, WILL learn enough, of their own choice or with their full consent, to survive as adults when all of our experience as children and teens taught us children and teens are untrustworthy, incapable, flawed, unfinished, empty headed adults-in-training?

Why DIDN'T our adults trust us? Have we not continued learning, as adults, of our own volition and with our consent, all the things we have wanted or needed to know to survive in the adult world, that they didn't bother to teach us? Oh, and all the things we needed that they DID try to shove in our heads, that we forgot because it had no meaning or use at the time? Did we not learn to eat, speak, walk, and run before they sent us to school? Did they not see the proof of our ability to learn?

I mean, I won't lie, there are definitely many of us who have not read one single book since we left school and were no longer subjected to someone else forcing us to read. Indeed, many of us believe reading is boring and there's nothing in books we need to learn and we hate it. And many of us believe that we hate math. And also, both of these reactions are not in reaction to learning, reading, or math... surprise surprise, these are reactions to being forced to perform these activities.

Our parents were doing their best with what they knew at the time.

It wasn't that our parents couldn't see our learning. It is that other adults in power created fears of shameful incompetency leading to failure and destitution, and then created the solution: schooling. It's just business, you create a problem and then offer the solution in return for resources, usually money. The biggest incarceration of the most capable and passionate age groups, the biggest jobs project, one of the biggest wealth funnels ever built... one that is a self sustaining cycle of the schools never delivering the success they promise by making us feel like failures no matter what levels of education we attain, blaming it on us, and requesting more of our resources of time and money and children to fix this manufactured problem that is supposedly all our fault anyway.....

It's fear mongering to control humanity. And they are really good at it. Shame and fear projected into the future, weaponized against the whole of humanity to funnel all our wealth to the top. Gross.

How do we know children can be trusted to learn what they need when they need it?

I know children can be trusted to learn what they need, when they need it, without being taught, without an expert in most cases, with their desires to learn and full consent. They do not need to be coerced into memorizing anything prior to the need arriving.

I know this because that is how learning works. There is a curiosity or a desire or a need, and then you find out where to learn it and possibly from who, and then you learn it; and that learning is retained because it has a place in your mind-web of knowledge, connected to many things. (Linear learning and spiral learning are lies based on the needs of industrial schooling, based in mass production theory.)

I know this, because we have all seen babies discover their toes, and learn to communicate with noise and signs and eventually language, and walk, and eat solid food with utensils.

I know this because I have been surprised, quite often, at the depth of knowledge my children have of subjects I didn't even know they were interested in and topics I didn't even know existed. 

I know this because, despite all the force teaching, coercion, bribery, and obedience training we endured, we have retained the ability to learn naturally, anything we need or want, whenever we need or want it, from a multitude of sources. For example, I recently learned how to change both the oil and transmission fluid in my Subaru... through no mistake of mine, but that's another story for another day, so I'll just say, thank you YouTube.

Learning is a natural human ability.

One that is actually very difficult to remove. We shouldn't even need to trust that children can and do learn, all the time. All we really need to do as parents or mentors is to model where to find information and facilitation. 

On a deep level, under literal tons of fear and shame mongering, you know that you can be trusted to learn, that as a child you could have been trusted. 

On that same level, you know that your child can be trusted to direct their own education.

That there is no need for someone else to decide what, when, how, and where their learning should happen. That there is no need for someone else's vision of success (including yours!) to direct your child's life. That there is no need to compete to learn more of what other people think you should know the fastest. That there is no need for force teaching anything prior to need, and that means there's no need for a timeline of learning that creates "ahead' and "behind," "gifted" and "slow."

There is definitely no need for compulsory education, or the vast army of educational managers that come with it.

(They say education was made compulsory due to a need for more workers who could read. I call BS. If they had simply offered higher wages to literate workers, EVERYONE would have learned to read inside of a week. Still bribery, but not one that leads to future incarceration of half the population, only to generational literacy. Just saying.)

What do children need from adults?

Our children will need some guidance; and if we stick with gentle exploration and consensual learning, we will not damage our relationship, and they will trust us as we trust them because there is no need for force in our relationship. They will definitely need plenty of respectful facilitation, and delicious discussions with passionate knowledge keepers and mentors. They will need endless nourishment and transportation, and probably more money than they can make for themselves. They will need protection from unknown dangers from adults who know the world.

They need these things from adults who love them, accept their authentic selves, and know them well enough to trust them. 

Your job as a parent is NOT to stuff them full of things they don't want without their consent.

Your job as a parent is to love, nurture, protect, model, facilitate, guide, and trust your children.

Is that not true of every human relationship? Why do we not extend respectful relationships to our children?

Trust is integral to respectful relationships (including parenting!), family authenticity, homeschooling, and unschooling. 

Re-learning how to trust ourselves and our children is the purpose of deschooling.

If you desire a step by step guide from socially conditioned fear based parenting and education to authentic unrelenting trust and respectful family relationships, check out my new course, Deschooling with Direction, here. I happen to be running a special Early Bird sale for it, so join us while it lasts!

If you desire a mentor to support you on the path to trust, you can book a 1:1 conversation with me, here.

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