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
  • Network
  • Summit
  • Questions?
  • Articles
    • Spanish Translations
  • Blog
You are here: Home / Living / Can You Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

Can You Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

November 11, 2014 By Pam Laricchia 2 Comments

A few months ago I was in conversation with someone and we ended up at the old saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Us adults being the “old dogs,” of course because when talking about pets you can always count with Stuart Dog Boarding to assist you. It was someone I enjoy speaking with and during the course of our conversation, a couple of light bulbs went off for me about learning and how our unschooling lifestyle may be perceived by others.

Are adults set in their ways?

Well, it’s likely we have some pretty established habits—thoughts and actions we’re comfortable with and return to—if for no other reason than we’ve been doing them that way for so long. We probably have beliefs we haven’t challenged in a while: what’s the point of re-visiting something we’ve already figured out? Besides, change is hard. So I can understand what she was implying when she used the phrase.

But I think we can continue to learn throughout our lives—if we’re interested. I continue to learn new things as I approach my fifties. The list of topics I’m excited to learn more about at some point is long! And I find questioning my beliefs and habits once in a while a refreshing exercise: do they align with the image I have of the person I’d like to be?

Being curious about the world and engaged in the lives of those we love is an invigorating way to wake up every morning, young and old.

What’s the difference between supporting someone’s learning and coercion?

Another piece of the conversation I found absolutely fascinating was the implication that by trying to support change in another adult, I was really trying to coerce them, because adults are set in their ways.

It was interesting to see that the actions I was talking about were assumed to be motivated by me, instead of by the other person. Oops. Though I shouldn’t have been surprised by that conclusion—trying to change others to match our own expectations is pretty common practice. So often adults try to sculpt not only their children, but their spouse and their extended family members as well, trying to match the “perfect” picture of those roles in their mind.

Yet people are individuals, not the roles they happen to inhabit. And they grow and change. As unschooling parents, we can support both our children and our spouse/partner as they explore and decipher the person they want to be and ways they might move closer to their own ideal.

I know we often see things quite differently as we look at life through the lens of unschooling, but it can still surprise me when the motivations attributed to our actions by more conventional onlookers are almost diametrically opposed to our reality. To conclude I’m coercing others to learn or act in certain ways against their wishes? “No way!” is my first thought. Yet that feels dismissive, uncomfortable. My curiosity soon bubbles up. It doesn’t hurt to take a moment to recheck my motivations, nor to confirm that my support isn’t being felt as manipulative, and that it’s still wanted. All good?

These moments do remind me that helping my family do things they want to do, can sometimes look on the outside like I’m “making” them do them. Take something as simple as a teen hugging a parent good bye. The typical conclusion from onlookers? Obviously the parent expects/requires it and is using some level of guilt to receive it because no teen wants to do that. So much of our unschooling lifestyle looks like one thing to outsiders while the actual motivation behind the actions is entirely different.

In those instances of misinterpretation, what seems to have worked best for me over the years is to not react defensively. If asked, a quick answer will do. “Nah, she doesn’t have to hug me good-bye, she wants to.” To not get pulled into trying to explain myself, even if I see disbelief written all over their face. Of course they see it the way they do. Instead, I let time work its magic. Show, don’t tell. Over time they see the action repeated in different contexts and their understanding of the real motivation behind them grows.

That’s real learning, real understanding, rather than me blabbering in their ear.

Moving to unschooling as adults

For adults, us “old dogs,” moving to unschooling can mean a lot of personal work. We sift through so many of the conventional messages about learning and parenting and relationships we’ve absorbed over the years, seeing how they hold up against our own experiences and goals. We re-visit our beliefs, our habits, our vision of the person we want to be. This deschooling is not easy work.

But it’s worth the effort because it’s those deep roots of understanding, along with the strong and connected relationships we develop with our family as a result, that carry us through those moments of disappointment when our lives are misinterpreted by those around us.

And in the end, which is more important: that an acquaintance or extended family member gives us the thumbs up, or that we live our lives the way that makes the most sense to us?

Filed Under: Living, Philosophy, Unschooling Tagged With: deschooling, life, Nov 2014

Comments

  1. forest eastwood says

    November 30, 2014 at 9:16 pm

    I am 72,with a 15yr old daughter adopted from Cambodia in 2001. One could call me,certainly,an old dog who has learned many new tricks as my child and I gravitate more towards homeschooling each year. She now dances more than fifteen hours a week at her dance studio,and has free solo lessons for assisting her teachers. Has earned an orange belt in Aikido, logged in fifty-two weeks of free computer classes at the Microsoft store, ranging from Game Design and Anime to Building Your Own Business (For which she won a $50 gift certificate in a room full of teen boys! )
    This old dog has learned that driving is parenting, that some fast food is nutritious, that a belly ring is ok, and that my daughter loves me for who I am and for all I try to be.
    This old dog is not afraid to say I changed my mind (about switching back from an artificial to a real Xmas tree), nor to say I’m sorry, or to work on worrying less.
    Thanks, I appreciate all that you do.

    Reply
    • Pam Laricchia says

      January 7, 2015 at 3:27 pm

      Hi Forest,

      I love the list of some of the things you’ve learned as an “old dog”! LOL!

      And your daughter sounds like she’s she’s having a great time living and learning too. Lovely. 🙂

      (Sorry about the late reply—I just came across the comment notification in my spam folder. Shouldn’t happen again though!)

      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

The Living Joyfully Network is an online community for parents worldwide to explore unschooling with other like-minded parents who are also choosing to embrace lifelong learning and develop strong and connected relationships with their children. We invite you to join our candid and wide-ranging conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling!

Learn more about the Network here!

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 300 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

Welcome to Living Joyfully

Pam ... an online resource for parents who are curious about 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!

The Living Joyfully Network

The Living Joyfully Network is an online community for parents worldwide to explore unschooling with other like-minded parents who are also choosing to embrace lifelong learning and develop strong and connected relationships with their children.

Learn more and join us here!

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 © 2023 · Living Joyfully Enterprises

By using this website, you agree to the use of cookies. I use cookies to provide you with a great experience and to help my website run effectively. 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.
SAVE & ACCEPT