9.19.2011

As I mentioned before, my mother is not on board for unschooling.. and her period of not talking to me lasted a few weeks.. until the weekend before school started.
I got a phone call from her, asking if I was REALLY going to keep him out of school. When I told her that YES, this is what I want for my son, she hung up on me. She called the night before the first Monday of school and expressed her disapproval once more.
Then things were alright for a week or so. I stopped by her house one day and I left a paper explaining the general idea of what unschooling is. I told her to give it a read when she had time, and that she can ask any questions she wants.
She called me the next day, and said the following: "All this paper says is that basically you do nothing and let the kids run wild." Really? That's all she got from it.. 
She has tried to push me into putting a curriculum into place.
And just the general way she treats my son irks me. I can't stand it. She treats him like he is a baby, incapable of doing things himself, of making his own decisions. Just the other day she came over, and Shane had gotten some yogurt out of the fridge.. ate it... and my mother took the cup of yogurt, said something about how there was more left in there while she was scraping it, and proceeded to feed my son like a baby. 

Unfortunately any time I bring something up with her, it turns into a full on argument. I can't have a civil conversation about things that oppose her views. She MUST fight. It must be HER way. And it's very frustrating.

Unschooling, for me, has opened my eyes. It's a bit out of my comfort zone in the sense that when people ask me about Shane and school, I definitely feel some kind of anxiety. If you know me well, you know I have anxiety issues in general, and this has caused a few uncomfortable situations. But it is definitely what I want for my son. I know in my heart it is what is best for him. And I love it. 
Unschooling, so far, has changed the relationship that I have with my son. It has made me look at him differently, and I can see the learning process. I see his eagerness. And it has motivated me to pursue things that I am interested in. It seems it has made us closer. Instead of sending him off to school every day, we are living. We are doing what we want, learning what we want to learn.

Which is apparently video games... :)

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