the penny drops a little further..

I had a bit of a wobble the other day about unschooling.
I firstly have to point out that it wasn't my first choice to do unschooling. I completely understand the reasons for it and I absolutely love them, but my life is quite chaotic for a few reasons, Alex brings a lot of chaos too with his constantly changing mind, his impulsiveness and his short attention span. I crave structure, and I would love to spend at least half an hour a day doing some workbook type stuff - handwriting, spelling, maths etc because I think it would be of benefit to him, but Alex will have none of it - occasionally he will do some writing of his own accord, and he does a read a book or two a day(which is pretty good I think). I think a lot of Alex's refusal may be because he has trouble processing information and also his fine motor skills aren't too good so he finds using a pen quite difficult.
But recently, probably because I've been busy with mundane things, I had felt that nothing was being achieved for Alex, and started to question unschooling a bit.
So I've been really giving it a lot of thought, and I asked around on a forum for unschooling parents, and I'm stating to 'get it' even more :) it's like as the penny drops even further, the more I love unschooling, it makes so much sense to me.

It occurred to me that most people only get to really study what they want to at university, sure, they have to get certain grades to be able to get into university, but uni is where it all gets going with peoples subject of choice, but imagine if you could study your own area of interest without anything getting in your way, right from the beginning of your life! think how knowledgeable you'd be. Instead of 9 whole years of possible time wasted being forced to learn subjects you have no interest in whatsoever, you could be free to be whoever you're supposed to be! I wish I'd had that opportunity when I was young.

So now I realise that Alex IS achieving something, he's learning who he is, he doesn't have to be doing loads of sums, or workbooks everyday to be himself! Learning happens while you live, through doing things and going places and achieving your own goals.

Also I've realised that I can follow my own interests and love of learning and be passionate about the things I love, because while doing that, I'll be exposing Alex, and all of my children to lots of things in life and maybe I'll inspire them to be passionate about something too!

It's all good :)