Human connection before fixed rules
Hello my dear reader,
this week in our unschooling life I was able to appreciate the freedom of choice we have massively. It’s not just a matter of having a rebellious ‘I do whatever the F* I want!‘ attitude. It’s a sense of putting human connection before fixed rules that we think bring us safety, success, order and control in life.
First of all it’s needless to say that there is no ‘safety, success, order and control in life‘. At any time anything can happen that we cannot control, that will turn our lives up side down.
Secondly, once I’ve told you the examples we’ve experiences this week, you’ll understand better what I mean by human connection before fixed rules.
Example 1: Disrupting routine
On Tuesday my mom’s flight left at 6am and Lima and Bo wanted to take her to the airport by car. We had to set our alarm clock to 4.20am, get up, go to the car and start driving. That’s right, we didn’t even put our clothes on, we drove in our PJ’s. That was planned because it gave us 10 more minutes in bed ;-)
We dropped my mom off, took a selfie and went back home talking about when we’ll see ‘abuela‘ again.
It was an adventure for us because in the girl’s mind we were up ALL night and we weren’t going back! We watched a movie from 5-7am and when the three of us felt like sleeping again we went to bed and had a lie in until 11.
This was possible and fun because Lima and Bo don’t go to school, neither of us has to get up at a certain time in the morning.
Human connection:
We were able to bring my mom to the airport instead of her having to take the airport bus or a taxi all on her own. We made an effort that we chose to do because we love her. Instead of forcing my daughters into bed asap to keep up as well as possible with our natural routine, we hung out together and listened to our bodies for when it was time to recover our sleep.
Example 2: Enough of stuff
It was Lima’s birthday at the end of September and we had come up with the agreement that for our family we want to collect less materialistic things and focus on experiencing something together or with friends. All of Lima’s friend’s respected this wish and 4 families bought her the barbie car she wished for and another family got her a guitar, which had also been on her list of 2 gifts. The rest of the guests gave her vouchers:
a voucher for an arts and craft class with her friend
a voucher for a mandala rock painting workshop together
a voucher to go watch a movie at the cinema together
On Wednesday we spontaneously went to see Aventura Espacial (Space Adventure) with our friends who had given Lima the movie voucher (hand crafted, by the way).
The movie started at 18:35 and afterwards, way past 8pm, the kids wanted to go to the park and so we did. We played and played… It was pitch black and we were the last ones there after 9pm. Now and again my conditioning was teling me that it’s time to go to bed, even though none of the kids had to go to school or nursery the next day. And so we stayed until we were tired and had enough of this adventure, knowing that the next one would come very soon (see example number 3).
As the gate had already been closed we climbed over the fence and it felt like the adventure of the movie continued in real life.
Example 3: Community beats school
The friend we went to the cinema with took her 4 year old son out of school because it wasn’t working for them. She’s a single mom and has to balance work with looking after her son now which tells us a lot about the schooling experience they had…
Anyway, as we live in the same neighbourhood we came up with the idea of working together at ours while the kids play and now and again one of us takes them outside, either to the pool, park, shopping or whatever else the kids are up for.
This way, we all have company, get to do what we want and need to do and connect rather than sending our kids away for 6-8 hours per day. Some days this would probably be possible, necessary and a great idea but the problem with schools is that you’re either in or out. The days that a child doesn’t feel like going or would prefer working on a project at home is simply not possible. Being away from your parents for this long every day definitely does something to the connection because most days it’s a forced situation rather than the child’s choice.
We have found a great solution to our little problems and we’re planning on organizing weekly meetups with other families whose kids don’t go to school or nursery until APTB is up and running.
Yesterday we did our first day of getting together and went super well. We went to the pool, I go to write some blog posts (including this one), create my newsletter, work on the business plan and tick off a few others things of my to-do list while they were out in the park.
Lima and Bo decided to clean and give the wooden floor a good rub before our guests arrived on Thursday morning.
Recap: For us, human connections are more important than following a fixed structure or routine. Life itself doesn’t work that way. To really experience life and the beauty of this world you need to be present and resign from the rules your mind has structured your being with. Take every moment as it comes and question every single thought that takes you away from living the present.
Or what do you think? Leave a comment below….
Sylvia
