PAM: Welcome! I’m Pam Laricchia from living joyfully.ca and today I’m here with Amy Hughes. Hi, Amy!
AMY: Hi!
PAM: I have followed you on Instagram for a very long time and I’m so excited to connect with you and learn more about your unschooling journey. To get us started …
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and what everybody’s interested in right now?
AMY: Yeah. Okay. So, we live in California and we have eight kids. Two of them are older and out of the house. They are both in Oregon. So, we have Ian. He’s 26. He graduated from college about five years ago now. He is just living and working in Oregon and loving life. Layla is 19 and she is in her junior year of college in Oregon. And she loves everything she did when she was younger, reading music, writing, photography.
And then we have, at home, Josiah, he just turned 18 a week ago. He has been recording with his band. He has a band called Happy Midnight. They’ve been recording music and he writes some solo music. He also has been working on writing an animated series with a friend of his. They’re been working on that for a while.
Then we have 14-year-old twins. So, Ruth, she just loves learning about history. It’s her favorite thing. She is always reading history books and biographies. She spends hours reading every day and researching history from different perspectives. And she also is learning ukulele. Her twin, Hannah, she loves reading, too, but she’s more into fantasy, fiction. She’s a writer, so she’s been writing her own books for a while now.
And then, the twins and my ten-year-old daughter, Pearl, have recently gotten into roller-skating. So, they go to the skate park every day and roller-skate. They watch YouTube videos on how to do roller skating tricks. So, they’re getting into that.
Let’s see. I’ll try to remember my kids’ names. Pearl, she’s 10. Her top love is animals. Everything animals. So, she just takes care of our animals and plays with our animals all day and that is her big thing. She draws animal pictures and plays with animal toys.
Then we have a 12-year-old son whose name is Moses. He likes making stop motion videos and he gets very detailed and creative with them. He works on his movies. He skateboards. And he just started taking Zoom guitar lessons with the singer of one of his favorite bands. So, it was kind of cool for him.
And then, we have Wilder. He is our youngest. He’s six. And he’s one of those kids who gets into something and it’s just his obsession. It’s all he wants to do and he gets really good at it. So, he was really into WWE for a while. He was just playing with WWE toys and watching WWE. So, we signed him up for jiujitsu.
So, he’s moved into jiujitsu and out of WWE and he really is getting really good at jiujitsu. And he also skateboards a lot, watches YouTube videos on skateboarding. And we take him to the state park almost every day. There’s a bunch of older skaters there and, because he’s really good, like he’ll drop in on the half-pipe and the bowl and everything, they love helping him out. And he thrives off of having these older kids give him attention and help him. I think that’s everyone.
PAM: What about yourself?
AMY: Well, I am a writer and a speaker and I do parent coaching. And so, I’m just really busy. I love writing. And even when I’m not writing for work, I’m writing, because it’s just what I do. And I read. So, reading and writing.
PAM: Oh my goodness. That was so fun to listen to, Amy, just the wide range of different interests and you can just hear through the way you describe it, with a big smile and excitement, how they’re just diving in and having fun with whatever it is that’s catching their attention. And I can even just hear your support through it. He loved WWE, so jiujitsu, the skateboard parks. As it weaves together and flows all over the place, I find that to be such a fun aspect of unschooling is getting to dive into all these things that I probably wouldn’t have personally, but to see it through their eyes and their excitement, and to see their joy as they’re pursuing it, it’s just so much fun for us, too.
AMY: He is so funny, because he moves from things so quickly, but he gets really into them. So, he’ll go full circle and he comes back. And so, he’ll walk into the room one day and he’ll be like, “I’m going to go practice parkour now, because I’m back into parkour again.” I’m like, okay. It’s pretty funny.
PAM: I love that. I love that.
I would be really interested in hearing a little bit more about your journey. I know that you started out with regular style homeschooling and then eventually moved to unschooling. So, I’d love to hear what that move and transition looked like for you.
AMY: Okay. So, we started homeschooling over 15 years ago. At that time, we had a son who was going into the sixth grade and then we had a four-year-old daughter, a three-year-old son, and I was pregnant with the twins.
So, I never wanted to homeschool. I thought homeschoolers were weird and I was a million percent against it. My pastor’s wife at the time made the mistake of telling me that my daughter was going to be starting kindergarten in the fall. And I looked at this little baby girl and I was like, “No. She’s not leaving me yet. She’s too little. I’m not ready.” So, we decided to homeschool her and so, it just made sense to pull our son out of school and homeschool him, too.
But our first year of homeschooling was pretty lame. I didn’t know anything about homeschooling at all. So, I googled “homeschool curriculum” and I literally bought the first thing that popped up. And it was this distance learning program. They sent you materials and then you sent them back the work and the tests and they graded it and sent report cards. It was just ridiculous. So, I had basically pulled our son out of school and just took the fun part, which were his friends, away, but was giving him literally the exact thing that he had been doing. So, he hated it. He was so miserable.
My daughter was fine, because I was just teaching her to read. We were reading books and playing games and going on adventures. She was little and I was just like, all she needs to do is learn how to read, so it’s okay. It’d be really easy and simple. And she did. She picked up reading super-fast. And then my three-year-old son saw her reading and he was like, “I want to do that.” So, I started teaching him to read and he picked up reading.
So, I had a four-year-old and a three-year-old who were reading. And I was like, I’m really good at homeschooling. Like, I’m great! But then, our 11-year-old was miserable and crying every day. And he was just in misery. So, it was pretty bad. But then, I gave birth to twins. So, with all of this, I’m like, okay, something has to change. I need to figure out a way for my oldest to be happy and for me to be happy with what he’s doing.
So, I started reading books and that’s when I discovered Charlotte Mason and I really fell in love. Because with Charlotte Mason, I think the philosophy itself is what I would love. I would love lots of books and music and nature and art. And I was like, well, this is perfect. I love this. This is what I want to do. So, it just felt really old fashioned and peaceful and simple. And I’m like, ahh. So, we started following Charlotte Mason philosophy. And my kids flourished and I was really content. We did this for about five years. So, we were full-on Charlotte Mason for a while until my oldest who did really well with it, it was his last year of school. He was graduating. He had already been accepted to college and I felt content with everything.
But my daughter who was 10 at the time, she sat down to read a book, one of her scheduled books, and I just heard her give the biggest sigh I’ve ever heard. And she’s a lover of books. She will dust them off, take great care of them, but she took this book and she chucked it against the wall. She goes, “Why?! Why can’t I just read?” Because in the Charlotte Mason philosophy, you read a chapter of a book a week. So, sometimes you’ll have a novel or a history book and you will literally take anywhere from 12 weeks to a year. Sometimes they schedule them for two years to read one book. I’m a reader. I love reading. I cannot imagine having to read a book like that. I would hate it. I would literally get nothing out of it. It’s horrible.
So, I knew the Charlotte Mason philosophy reason for reading slowly like that. I was opening my mouth to give her that answer, this rote response. But then I shut my mouth, because I couldn’t say it, because I knew it wasn’t true. It was just really arbitrary. It was so arbitrary and I’m really big on authenticity. Like, if I realize that something is arbitrary, that it’s lacking genuineness, it’s over. I cannot do it anymore. I’m just like, nope. I’m done. Because I can’t confidently promote it. So, in that moment, I realized I could not make my kids do that anymore unless they wanted to. I was like, I cannot torture my kids with books that they would actually really love to read on their own anyway.
So, that was really the tip of the iceberg for me. I started breaking down everything, noticing all these things that were arbitrary about what we were doing and that there was no good reason for them. And I just kept stripping things away and stripping them away until it was pretty bare. I guess you could call that my deschooling period.
PAM: That arbitrariness, that was a huge piece for my deschooling when the kids came home from school. And it was fascinating and scary and amazing to discover how many things we were just automatically doing that really were arbitrary, just because. Or, well, we should. Or, that’s what everybody does. Wow. I discovered so much choice when I started looking through that lens of arbitrariness.
AMY: Absolutely. I know. And I just kept doing that until I’m like, okay, we’re unschoolers. There is nothing left.
PAM: I love that. I love it. So, how did that play out? Was that a quick thing as you peeled that back? Did you just stop asking them to read the chapter for today or whatever?
AMY: Yeah. I did. I just said, “Look. Those are some great books. Feel free to read them if you want, but read them at your own pace. If you’re loving any of those books, go ahead and just finish them. And if you’re hating any of them, just be done. It’s okay. You’ll be okay if you don’t read that one book.” So, at first it was just me telling them, you can read what you want to if you want to, but you don’t have to. And it progressed from there.
PAM: Yeah. Yeah. They seem to have so many diverse interests, so did you find more time opening up to dive deeper into those things?
AMY: Yeah. I mean, books were always a really big part of our life. And so, all of those kids who were there around that time, they just kept reading. But then they just did it naturally.
And then they started thinking, “Well, if I don’t have to follow this schedule, I know I was reading this morning, but now is it okay if I go outside and build a fire?” I’m like, sure! “Or can I just watch this show for a little bit?” And I’m like, yeah. So, it was just slowly like that, gradually they’d ask and I would just say yes.
PAM: When we do our deschooling, we can get to a place where we’re comfortable saying yes or we realize that’s something that we want to do more instead of the arbitrary no’s. I feel like gradually saying “yes” more can be a much more helpful transition, rather than announcing, “Hey guys, from now on, you can do anything.” Because that can be very chaotic and can feel like ungrounding for them, especially if we do it before we’ve done that deschooling work of our own to really understand why saying yes and supporting them more directly in the things that they want to do in the moment is so valuable and why that’s so helpful for their learning, for our relationships, for all those pieces. We can kind of undermine ourselves if we jump too far ahead and just say, “Yeah, do whatever you want.”
But for them saying, “Hey, look, she opened up the reading thing. I would actually like to be doing this,” and then you say, sure. So, instead of opening up the world that can be overwhelming, when they discover what they’d really like to be doing, saying yes to that. I mean, to me, that feels like a more peaceful, yet more engaged transition. Because we’re actually connecting over the things that they’re wanting to do, rather than running wild, for lack of a better phrase.
AMY: Absolutely.
PAM: All right.
So, you have talked about eight children, which is amazing. I am very excited to hear this piece, because I noticed through different age ranges, I think of them as different seasons of unschooling. But with your range of kids, I feel like you’re doing the different seasons of unschooling all at once.
I was curious to hear, from your perspective, how unschooling looks different for you between your six-year-old, your kids, and your teens. Do you see a difference in how you relate to each?
AMY: Absolutely.
When my kids are younger, I strew a lot. I use the concept of strewing a lot. I’ll find shows and toys and activities and books that I think they’ll enjoy. I introduce them to a ton of stuff. We’ll go on lots of hikes and adventures, spend lots of time at the beach. I read to them a ton. I love introducing them to all kinds of books and authors. I’ll read them everything from Charles Dickens to The Hunger Games. I play music all the time. I introduce them to different musicians, different types of music. And I mean, all types. My kids know everything from Beethoven to The Sex Pistols to our favorite Christian worship music. We have family songs. One of our family songs is American Music by The Violent Femmes, unless it’s the Christmas season and then it’s Ariana Grande’s version of Last Christmas.
We will drive through downtown in our big white van with the windows open and we’ll all sing it. We’re pretty weird. Unschooling for my littles and my middle kids is a lot of just connection and introductions. And then, these experiences, they just build passions in them and different interests in them so that they kind of go on their own path with these things. Many of my kids have wanted to learn instruments just, in part, because they’ve had a really strong foundation of music.
We’ve had a lot of kids diving into writing, a lot of writers of books and songs and films and video games, because words and stories have always been a part of their life from reading aloud to them, even while they were nursing. I would read aloud to my little kids. Reading like before bed and random times in the day. And I will pull out books throughout the day and I invite my children to come listen. But for me, the key is inviting, because if they don’t want to come listen, I’m okay with that. And most of the time, they do, just because it’s been a regular part of their lives and they value that experience and that time. But if they’re in the middle of something else or doing something else, they’re like, “Nah, I don’t want to listen right now.”
So, I’m just constantly trying to introduce them to things and give them different things that could speak to them or not. They have lots and lots of time just to play and explore and then we do lots of things together at home and in the world. And so, that’s kind of their foundation. And then as they get older, they typically just start gaining focus on the things that they’re passionate about.
I’ve had kids who have wanted to go to college. So, they’ve directed their education in a way that prepared them for that. My twins right now, they’re very serious about their education. They really want to know everything. So, they actually have created their own daily schedule. They get themselves up. They make their own checklist of what they want to do during the day. They schedule things that they want to learn and they get up and they just do it. And it’s 100% their own thing. But because it’s their own thing, they also know that they don’t need to do it. So, some days they get up and they’re just like, “I’m just going to watch Gilmore girls or Parks and Rec all day,” or they just want to go call up a friend and hang out with them. So, it’s fully their thing. It’s totally self-directed and I’m just there to support them and get them what they need and talk with them and whatever.
But my 18-year-old, education was not his forte. It’s not what he cared that much about. He is always making music, writing films. He’s really just project-based. He has a lot of projects going on at one time. So, it’s just fully different, just what they want for their future and what they care about right now.
PAM: I love when they have that space to discover how their brain works and how they’d like to work, whether they outline a day or a week or long-term goals that they want to slowly walk towards by creating schedules that will eventually get them there, or like you said, project-oriented and they like to dive into that and then dive into this.
And you can see threads and connections between the different things as they transition. But it is so beautiful for them to have that time to figure themselves out and have that space without having, not only like other people telling them what to do, but also the timetable in which to do, because we are so different. We’re individuals.
And just having the space to say, “Not today,” too. Just imagine going out into the world as an adult knowing that it’s okay to give yourself that space instead of knocking yourself down and feeling guilty. I think somebody who grew up with that school mentality and brought that forward, we feel bad if we take a day off. Even intellectually, when it makes so much sense and even through experience that rest is important, even though I can’t quantify it and I can’t check it off the productive box. It feels good. It refreshes me and I’m just a better person moving into the next day and in that moment. And do you even need to judge that? It’s just so beautiful to see them in action.
They are our guides, I think, because you can see the choices that they make in the moment and how free they often feel to make those choices. And it’s beautiful to see in action.
Speaking of, I would love to hear what your favorite piece of advice or experience to share is about unschooling in large families. I imagine you might get that question once in a while, so I’d love to hear one of your favorite insights or something to share.
AMY: So, most of the large families that I know run smoothly because they have really set standards. So like, this is our schedule. We wake up at this time. We do this morning meeting. We have chores at this time, math of this time, dinner at this time, bed at this time. I’ve met so many moms of big families who tell me that their schedule and their strictness is what really keeps their family functioning and together and that they wouldn’t be able to do it without it.
And so, I think what happens is that, a lot of people in thinking about unschooling, they get caught up in the individuality of it all. And they think that in a large family, that means that everybody’s going to be sitting on their own. And they imagine all 10 children or whatever, sitting by themselves on their own little screens, ignoring each other, whatever. And they can’t see how things will run smoothly if everyone’s just doing their own thing all the time and no one’s together.
So, they feel like there won’t be any like structure or rhythm and that everything is going to be mass chaos. And I understand those feelings, because I have my moments where I’m like, oh my gosh. It’s so overwhelming right now. But in a lot of big families, the moms have trouble connecting the dots of unschooling all those children. And I think that this misconception and this false idea is the idea that they need to order everything in a big family. It scares a lot of large families off from unschooling.
So, the thing is that things don’t really need to be forced or strict in order to be smooth. As long as the mom herself has some sort of rhythm for herself and is regularly inviting her children to join her. And as long as she has peace about the fact that each child will do things in their own time, things will be smooth for the most part. I always like to call unschooling with a lot of kids “building a nest”. Because a mama bird will hatch multiple eggs at once and maintain this nest for them to grow. They grow together at their own pace. When each one is ready, they learn to fly.
So, we kind of do the same thing. We built a nest for our children, which is really just creating an environment of love and acceptance of comfort and support. It’s a place where our kids can learn and they can grow at their own pace. So, we provide them with the tools that they need. We introduce them to things that we believe will help them along their path and things that they will either grab hold of or let go of.
We invite them to do the things that we do, whether that be cooking dinner or reading a book, going on an adventure, cleaning the bathroom. And we find peace when they turn us down, but often they don’t turn you down. And that’s the thing. I think as a mom of a lot of kids, for me at least, things only stop running smoothly and only become chaotic and overwhelm me when I stop inviting my kids. When I get in that mentality of, “Oh, my kids are busy, so I’ll just do everything myself.” And I will stop inviting them. That’s when I get overwhelmed and things get crazy, because I’m not opening space for my children to join me if they want to join me and help me out.
So, I would say to moms of large families, you can unschool. Build a nest and invite your children. That’s the key for me.
PAM: Oh, that is so beautiful, Amy. I love that image. It really connects with me. I’m sure it will be helpful for people. And I love the way you said also, as part of the nest, you’ve got your flow and your routine. And that is grounding and keeps the nest inviting. It also ties so beautifully with remembering to invite them to do it, because that is something I found with three kids. I found when I started to feel overwhelmed and my first reaction was that I need to organize this more. Like, I need to schedule. And then you just naturally, it’s like, okay, I’m going to do this. And then I’m going to do this. And yes, I found, sure, I could make myself a beautiful schedule. But within two days, it didn’t feel good, because I realized I was more and more disconnected from the kids.
If I was trying so hard to follow my schedule, if somebody came to me with something, it would be like, “In an hour,” rather than that open and inviting ability to really prioritize that connection with them and that flow and to invite them to me as well. And yeah, it really becomes less about following a schedule and more about following flow. That’s the way I imagine it. But that building a nest is such a beautiful image of love and comfort and connection and invitation. And the piece for us to work through, too, as we’re deschooling is, a “no” is perfectly fine. That can be a hard one, I think, at first.
AMY: It can be. It’s true. When we first started unschooling and I was deschooling myself, I started telling my kids they didn’t have to read everything and this or that, I told them that if I said “no” to them, that as long as they were kind about it, they could ask me why. Because it was helpful for me to really break down my ideas and find out if what I was saying had value to it.
If I was saying “no” just because I felt like I should say “no”. Or if I really should be saying “no” here. So, I let my kids start asking, “Well, why can’t I do that?” And then I would be able to work it through my head. Is this a good idea? Or is this not a good idea? Instead of just jumping to some rote answers for them.
PAM: Yeah. And doesn’t that help them, as well, to see the bigger picture of the context of the moment? Maybe the why is, “I’m really tired right now.” Or, “I’ve got something else on my plate that is a priority right now.” There are real reasons. There are always real reasons for whatever answer and to take that next step to share that also helped me feel good, because it took away the arbitrariness. It’s like, oh yeah. There is a reason why.
And sharing that also helped them better understand me. It helped them maybe notice some context of the moment that they hadn’t seen that they could pick up for next time. There’s just so much value and we have the time and the space to have those conversations. They don’t have to be 20-minute-long things. But 30 seconds where they say, “Why can’t I?” And you say, “Oh, well this, this, and this.” And they go, “Oh, okay.” Or they say, “Well, that doesn’t make sense.” And maybe the conversation goes longer, but there’s so much learning in that space.
AMY: Absolutely.
PAM: I love that.
Now, one of the more common questions that comes up as people explore unschooling is definitely, what about college? And you have mentioned you have a couple of year older kids who have chosen to go that route. So, I would love to hear your experience with them choosing to go to college and how that’s working out.
AMY: Yeah. So, my oldest two both went to college. Although the oldest child was not unschooled. He was fully Charlotte Mason homeschooled. So, that’s a different story. But my second child was unschooled from age 10. She’s the one who threw the book against the wall and started the whole thing. And then my third child just turned 18 and he’s not really interested in going to college at this point. So, he’s working full time right now, making music, writing music. He’s got things going good for him. And then the next in line, our 14-year-old twins, they don’t seem to want to go to college right now. But only time will tell. So, at this point, I have one unschooled-to-college child.
So, she decided around the age of 14 that she definitely wanted to go. So, from that point on, she planned her education to make sure that she could. She would work on math every day on Khan Academy. She took college courses on Coursera. She read so much. I could not keep her stocked up on books. That was hard. She was the most voracious reader. It’s funny actually, because I was in this unschooling group at the time where parents were always asking, but all my child wants to do is play video games and watch TV. Isn’t that unhealthy? And then the moms would respond like, “Well, why don’t you ask the question, rephrase it, my kid only wants to read books all day. Is that unhealthy?” But I’d be like, “My kid only wants to read books all day and I feel like this is unhealthy.” I had that experience. I literally went into an unschooling group and I was like, help. All she wants to do is read!
But she wrote novels. She wrote music. She’s actually a really brilliant songwriter. She actually played one of her songs that she wrote at a Wild and Free conference in Portland back in 2018. She used to play music at the local wineries every weekend.
And, to be honest, this has actually been one of the hardest parts of unschooling for me is letting go when your child decides that something isn’t for them, because that’s what she did. She’s a brilliant musician, but she didn’t want to do it. She is very talented in singing, playing music, writing songs, and she decided, “I don’t love it. I don’t want to do it anymore.” She just decided she wanted to go to college. She could have done both, but she didn’t want to do the music. And I desperately wanted to be like, “No, you’re really good at this. You have to follow this path. You don’t understand how good you are.” But I knew that wasn’t right.
So, we encouraged her a little bit and gave her a little advice, but she was very firm and maybe one day she’ll pick it up again, but I don’t know. For now, she’s decided to stop making music. So, watching that passion and talent go has been the hardest part of unschooling for me, but she decided to go to college. It was hard!
PAM: That is. It’s hard. And it is so fascinating to peel back our layers around why it’s hard. Because, like you said, intellectually, they’re just not driven to that. They’re just not interested in that anymore, but we saw this future of so many awesome things. And you snuck something in there too. “You just don’t know how good you are.” That’s another really interesting piece that I have said and experienced and come to the realization that, it’s very interesting.
It’s a very small sample size with unschooling kids, but it’s not about comparing themselves against other people. It’s not about the talent. Like, “I’m really good at this, therefore I have an obligation to do the thing.” It actually has nothing to do with how good they are in comparison with other people. It’s what it feels like for them, how interested they are, what their vision is for themselves. So, yeah, it’s hard. No, I don’t want to interfere, but it is so hard to release that.
AMY: I look at like an unschooler like Billie Eilish. I’m like, you could have been Billie Eilish! Just kidding. But, she went to college and it’s been beautiful. When she was 15, she came to us and told us she wanted to go to college a year early, that she didn’t want to wait until the other kids her age were graduated and going. So, she wanted to be in college when she was 17. She didn’t want to go to college locally. She wanted to go out of state.
So, we weren’t fully prepared. We weren’t committed to letting her do that. We just didn’t know. It was hard. And we still hoped she’d drift towards music, but we did tell her, “Okay, so why don’t you apply when you turn 16? And we’ll just see what happens.” So, she turned 16 in July and then early admissions for the colleges she wanted to go to opened in September, I think. So, she applied to a few colleges then. And then right before Christmas, she got accepted to her first-choice college with a hundred-thousand-dollar scholarship.
And so, we were kind of like, we hadn’t committed yet, but my husband and I looked at each other and just laughed, because how can you say no to that? She may never have that opportunity again. So, we were like, okay. A month after she turned 17, my husband drove her to Oregon and moved her into the dorms. And she’s now in her third year, her junior year. And she’s not even 20 yet.
So, it’s been an experience, but she’s happy.
PAM: I love the way you described it. For me, that’s the same kind of thing.
It’s like baby steps. It’s like not saying “no” now to something that looks really out there. Like, oh my gosh, my 17-year-old at college out of state, that sounds really uncomfortable. But the next baby step doesn’t mean that we’re going there. So, sure. And we’ll see what happens. Because you can always change your mind along the way. Every step gives you more information. More information like the scholarship.
AMY: I might not say yes, but you got that scholarship. I don’t know.
PAM: So, she’s enjoying it there?
AMY: She is.
PAM: And how did she find the transition?
AMY: She did great. She loved living in the dorm. She loved her classes. The hardest part actually was being 17, because her first year of college, they have all these freshmen activities, but you had to be 18, so she couldn’t do them. So, that was the hardest part. She was actually left out of quite a bit in her freshman year because of her age. But she’s of age now and she’s up there and she’s working and she’s doing school and she’s doing great.
PAM: That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful.
We’ve talked about the hardest part of your deschooling. I would love to hear what has surprised you most about how unschooling has unfolded for your family up until this point.
AMY: Yeah. So, I’ve actually been surprised by the deeper learning and the deeper connections that have come from unschooling, because you think there might be some deep learning here and there, whatever. But I feel our home and our educational life or whatever has been way stronger, because it’s more authentic. So, there’s a more powerful meaning to everything that we do.
For example, when we used the Charlotte Mason method, my kids would have to narrate their readings. So, they’d read something and then they’d come and they would tell me about it. It was just essentially a spoken summary. Really rote. And more than half the time, they’d be mumbling, they’d be annoyed. They would just rush through to get through it and move on. But it really changed with unschooling. We started really having spontaneous, meaningful discussions.
A while back, one of my daughters read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. And when she finished the book, she went to her room and she closed the door and she put a sign on the door and it said, “Processing. Keep Out.”
And then she was in there for about an hour and then she came out and she said, “I have to talk about it.” And so, she did. She just told me the entire story, even though I’d read it before. And she prepared me for hard parts. Like, “This is really difficult. Just listen to this.” She told me all her thoughts. And she was really animated, hand motions, and you could see the passion in what she was saying, telling me this entire story.
And when she finished talking, I literally had tears in my eyes. And it wasn’t just about the book. It was about everything, because I was thinking back to when we used Charlotte Mason and I’m like, the difference. I’m like, that, what I just saw, that’s narrating! That is a beautiful, raw, spontaneous narration. And it was something that she just had to tell me and talk to me about. And so, I think that removing the forced in our family and just allowing for the natural, organic, authentic, it’s just really created a deeper and more meaningful education, relationships, life.
PAM: That is a beautiful example, Amy, because it really shows the difference between something that we’re told to do versus something we choose to do. And just the stark difference between getting through something because you have to and the enthusiasm that comes with, like you said, it being authentic, something that they chose, that they were interested in. And just the enthusiasm to share it with someone else, I think that is something that was totally foreign to me before we moved to unschooling. Because we were all just doing what was expected of us and we only did what we were asked. Everything else was just private, because there wasn’t a lot of time for anything else beyond what we’re asked and expected to do.
So, the space and, and just that openness that an unschooling environment, that nest that you’re talking about, invites that connection and gives them the space to share their enthusiasm. I’m thinking about her enthusiasm sharing the story and thinking about your son’s enthusiasm at the skate park for the older kids sharing what they know. It just feels so open.
“Open and curious” is one of my favorite phrases just because when we live our days open and curious and just inviting ourselves to see what it’s about, inviting ourselves to be open to the connection when it presents itself, open to inviting people to join us. It just creates such a different atmosphere that I couldn’t have imagined beforehand.
When I first did it, it was, this is what we’re going to do instead of school. And you found Charlotte Mason and that was very comfortable. And the kids were enjoying it up to a point and you can’t imagine really the difference until you open up and realize whatever the little thread is for you. And for you, it was that arbitrariness of what was being expected. Whatever the opening is that kind of gets us curious to see what it might be like, it is just amazing how different it is. It’s unexpected, but beautiful. So, I guess the question was what surprised you most, so that makes sense! It came back full circle.
AMY: Yeah. That is true.
PAM: So yes, I loved your answer. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, Amy, for taking the time to speak to me. It has been so much fun. It was such a pleasure. Thank you.
AMY: Oh, I loved it. Thank you so much for having me.
PAM: Wonderful. And, before we go, where can people connect with you online?
AMY: I am at on Instagram @SimpleLittleAmy. And then I also run the @Unschoolers account. Those are my main places.
PAM: Oh, perfect. And I will put links to that in the show notes for people. And thank you very much again, have a wonderful day.
AMY: Thank you, Pam.