Living Joyfully

Helping parents cultivate a thriving unschooling lifestyle in their family.

  • Start Here
  • Deschooling
  • Unschooling
  • Parenting
  • About
  • Contact
  • Podcast
    • Q&A Episodes
    • Ten Questions Episodes
    • Interviews I’ve done …
    • TUC Talks
  • Books
    • Book Clubs
  • Summit
  • Blog
    • Monthly Topics
  • Articles
    • Spanish Translations
  • Resources
You are here: Home / Parenting / Unschooling With Strong Beliefs

Unschooling With Strong Beliefs

April 4, 2013 By Pam Laricchia 2 Comments

In case you haven’t yet come across the idea of rules versus principles as related to unschooling, here’s a super quick summary. Rules are often used as shortcuts—substitutes for thinking in the moment. “In that situation, always do this.” What to do. On the other hand, principles encourage the discussion and evaluation of a situation: learning and understanding. Why you’d choose to do it. More experience analyzing circumstances. More experience seeing situations from others’ perspectives. More experience brainstorming possible paths forward.

Living by principles sounds pretty logical when real learning—learning that is understood and remembered—is the goal. And not only are these discussions an opportunity to understand each other a bit better, the process minimizes power struggles because the conversations aren’t fraught with “do as you’re told” edicts. The downside? It takes time. But without the stress of rushing the kids through a day dictated by a school schedule and evening homework, you have the time to help them develop this valuable, lifelong skill.

But what if there is an area of life that you’ve already spent a lot of time analyzing and have come to some pretty solid conclusions? What if you have some pretty strong beliefs? These beliefs are truths for you. Your life feels better living this way and you believe your child would be better off living this way too.

It is hard to imagine that your child may not hold the same beliefs as you. This subjects your mind to so much stress that many have been reported to have had taken up stress management classes from places like legacyhealing.com. That they may not draw the same conclusions as you from a set of facts. Yet it’s true. Your child is not a carbon copy of you—they are a beautifully unique combination of genetic material wired to think their own thoughts.

Certainly when they are younger you have much greater control over their environment, over what comes into your home. You just don’t cook or serve meat. Or you don’t buy processed foods and you do your own baking. Or you go to a place of worship every week. Or you faithfully recycle and bike most places. Or you don’t have a TV. It’s just what your family does.

The turning point comes when your child becomes aware that other options exist. In that moment, you may feel a rising fear of dissent, a fear mired in all those reasons you chose to eschew those options in the first place. Watch how that fear may push you to let your strong principles become rigid rules. Yet fear is not a good motivator for making choices. And rules aren’t a good tool for real learning.

What else might you do? You can choose to share with them information about why you do the things you do. In digestible chunks as it comes up—not in a big, sit-down, “I’m going to convince you why I’m right” talks. Remember, your strong beliefs developed after you were interested enough to dive deeply into the topic, learning and questioning and developing your own understanding. In moments when they are interested, share a bit more information. Not just stuff edited for your view. The surrounding bits too. Real learning.

Let’s play with an example. Maybe you’re staunchly vegetarian. You have your reasons: maybe they’re mostly health-based; maybe they’re based on your thoughts surrounding animal cruelty; maybe you find the texture of meat in general unappealing. Whatever your reason, that’s great!

Yet when your child discovers that some people eat meat, how will you react to their curiosity? Maybe you share briefly why you guys don’t eat it, in language that is appropriate for your child (remember, don’t try to create fear). Maybe that satisfies their curiosity for now. Maybe they ask some more questions and you continue the conversation until they move on.

But supporting their exploration doesn’t mean you need to toss your principles out the window. Take the time to understand your thoughts surrounding the situation. That’s important, not only so that you don’t feel unduly pressured to act contrary to your principles, but also so that you can share your thoughts to help them understand how you came to your conclusion. Then maybe at some point they’re interested in trying some meat. Let’s brainstorm a few ways you might go:

  • Maybe you are comfortable picking up some meat at the store, or the farm, next time you’re out and cooking it up, while not eating it yourself. Ask what they might like to try and chat about that;
  • Maybe you’re not comfortable buying and/or cooking it, but you’re comfortable with someone else doing it. Maybe your spouse? Maybe your child is old enough to do it? If the smell would bother you, you could go out for a couple hours;
  • If that would bother you, maybe you arrange for your child to visit family or friends for a meat-based meal. Or ask someone takes them to a restaurant to try it.

There are many ways to respect your principles while still supporting your child’s wish to explore.

And if, in the end, you choose to place your principles above your child’s exploration and learning, do so mindfully—understand the potential ramifications. From your child’s perspective, there’s a good chance they will, at some point, be drawn to exploring the topic. In fact, by drawing a line in the sand, chances are your child will probably be pretty curious about what’s on the other side. But with your firm stance, they’ll also know they need to do it under your radar. If that happens, you obviously won’t be there to talk with them, nor will they likely feel comfortable coming to you to talk about it after. That may or may not be a biggie. They may or may not resent the fact that you have forbidden a piece of the world. It may put a strain your relationship. They may trust you a bit less. Make the choice mindfully.

And if you choose that path, I’d suggest you try not to react judgmentally if you discover they have been exploring “behind your back”. Remember, your choice set up that paradigm. “You had burgers over at Tom’s house? Did you like them? What did you put on it?” Even if you couldn’t in good conscience have arranged the meal over at Tom’s place, it will do nothing but hurt your relationship to condemn your child for trying the meat (or the cookie, or the TV show) when they were curious and had the opportunity.

And heads up, you might also find yourself in the reverse situation—I know I have! As your children get older, they may hold, or choose to explore, strong beliefs that you don’t personally hold. Maybe they choose to eat vegetarian, or vegan, or want to try out a religion. Do you still support them? I hope so! Is your support lukewarm? I hope not! The world is full of fascinating opportunities and supporting their exploration and learning is golden. You may find that you and your children don’t hold all the same beliefs and principles, but you do share the passion and self-awareness that drives them. Celebrate that.

Being their partner as they discover the person they want to be: priceless.

Filed Under: Parenting, Relationships, Unschooling Tagged With: Apr 2013, learning, relationships

Comments

  1. Yeshe says

    April 5, 2013 at 6:31 am

    It’s funny because we are vegetarian and my daughter and I have discussed this. I was pretty firm in my beliefs and didn’t mince words, but I know that I can do that with her. I asked her would she like to try it and she said ‘no way!’ And yes, I was pleased because like I said, I really believe in my principals. There have been times when she has asked what meat tastes like and of course I am a bit biased. I say that on it’s own it’s pretty awful but most people cover it with spices and sauces so to them it becomes like another vegetable. I asked again, ‘do you want to try meat?’ She said ‘no way, I’m not eating another living being’. I feel there is space for me to explain, for her to examine but that doesn’t mean I am going to be wishy washy about my belief in that principal so I don’t ‘rock her boat’. She needs to be challenged herself, in an age appropriate way, to look at things and not accept something simply because society says or I say it.

    Reply
  2. Rebecca says

    June 13, 2014 at 9:41 pm

    Thank you for this! Good insights!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Living Joyfully Network community

The Living Joyfully Network

We bring together unschooling parents to support and learn from each other as we question and explore many of the conventional beliefs around learning and parenting so that we can more gracefully navigate our personal unschooling journeys, develop strong and connected relationships with our children, and cultivate a thriving unschooling lifestyle in our families.

Join us in the Network!

free intro to unschooling ebook

Click the book cover to get the book from your favourite online retailer, or click the link below to join my mailing list and download the book directly!

What is Unschooling? A book about living and learning without school.

Exploring Unschooling podcast

click to listen to the archive of all Exploring Unschooling podcast episodes

Choosing to live and learn without school isn’t as intimidating as you might imagine!

The podcast archive is now home to more than 200 episodes, filled with unschooling goodness.

support the podcast on Patreon

Have you read my books?

Free-to-Learn-Cover Free-to-Live-Cover Life-Through-the-Lens-of-Unschooling-Cover Living-Joyfully-with-Unschooling-Box-Set-Cover The Unschooling Journey Libre d'Apprendre cover Libre para Aprender cover Szabadon Tanulni cover

Journey with us to a new way of seeing your child

icon-logo

Join Anne Ohman, Anna Brown, and I in our online Summit where we share the experiences, insights, and tools that we found most helpful on our unschooling journeys. We will walk with you from where you are now, to where you want to be.

Looking for something?

I've been exploring unschooling for many years now and there's a lot of content here! I've been working to tag things to help you more easily find information about the questions you're curious about right now. I'll continue to work on this.

Click a topic to explore:

college

dads

deschooling

food

grown unschoolers

learning

life

math

reading

relationships

relatives

technology

teens

work

Connect with Pam

    Glyph_Logo_png 

Welcome to Living Joyfully

Pam ... an online resource for parents wanting to live joyfully with their children through unschooling. If you're passionate about exploring the world with your children, this site is for you. I'm Pam Laricchia, the author and owner of this site. Thanks for inviting me along on your unschooling journey!

MEET A NEW UNSCHOOLING PARENT EVERY WEEK!

Pam Check out the Exploring Unschooling podcast, with more than 200 episodes in the archive.

SEARCH LIVING JOYFULLY

Living Joyfully participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the iTunes Affiliate Program. This allows me to earn a small commission, at no cost to you. I appreciate your support!

Read my Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

Copyright © 2021 · Living Joyfully Enterprises

I use cookies to ensure that I give you the best experience on this website. If you continue to use this site, I will assume that you are happy with this. Thank you. OK READ MORE
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.