Raising Love: How Unschooling Cultivates Deeper Family Connections
Hey guys,
a few months back I posted a podcast interview with a 27 year old man who has never been to school in his life. His parents unschooled him and his older brother. His name is Lachlan and I had already interviewed his mom, Kathleen, to know more about her unschooling experience.
Both conversations were incredibly mind blowing and today I thought back about the relationship they have. They have a strong bond, something that not many people in our society share in our times.
“How would you describe your relationship with your brother, with your mom, with your dad, and between them?
I mean, they’re all my best friends. We’re extremely close. I speak to them every day.
We’re all kind of all over the place now. So my parents live on the west side of Canada. I live on the east side of Canada, and my brother kinda lives in the state. But, yeah, I speak to them every day. They’re the first person I go to.
When your parents are there and they put the work in and, you know, they’re the person that you’re seeing at 12, they’re gonna be the person that you go to when you get to older years. And now I don’t see my parents as these figureheads that tell me what to do. They’re just my friends. You know? My dad I and my mom to an extent too, I wanna talk about Bitcoin or something. And I’m not talking to one of my friends. I’m calling my dad up. You know? I’m like, oh, do you see this?
Woah. Did you see this news? You know? Or I love cooking.
So I’m like, hey. I tried this new recipe. You guys should try this, and I send it to them the same way I send it to my friend. Right? So, like, if you create that structure at a younger age, you just get little friends.
That’s what your kids become. And now, again, like, I don’t look at my parents and go, oh, those are my parents. I look at my parents and go, oh, my friends are coming to town.
You know? Like, I can’t wait to see them.”
If you’d like your 27 year old child to talk about you like Lachlan does about his parents, you need to start early, cultivating love, trust, respect and connection.
Who do you think has a deeper relationship with their parents? I child who has been sent away on a daily basis to a place that they don’t enjoy being at for over 12 years, or a child who has spent most of their time with the people that love them more than anybody else in the world, with whom they feel the safest and who have his best interest at heart?
The answer is clear.
And isn’t this what we all want? I mean, our children will grow up, there is no way around it, and we will not continue telling them what to do and how to do it once they reach a certain age (If you do, you can be sure that your children will want to send less and less time with you and won’t listen anyway). Don’t we then want them to see us as the people who they can share their thoughts, sorrows and successes with? At least that’s what I want… I always aimed fora good future relationship…
I envied my high school best friend’s relationship with her brother and mother because my family was never very close. In fact, it was so bad that at the age of 18 I had decided never to have children because I didn’t want to mess up my kids by making unintentional mistakes.
When I felt ready to have children at the age of 30, because I had done a lot of work on myself, my main goal as a soon-to-be mother was to create a strong bond with my daughter so that she would feel loved and we’d always be close.
So far so good….
I had home births with both of my daughters, I breastfed Lima until she was 3, Bo continues to breastfeed at the age of 4, the three of us sleep in one bed since they were born, we cuddle a lot, spend most of our time together, I never punish them for making mistakes or a mess, I never get angry or upset when they tell me what they did (something they know wasn’t correct) and so on.
I’m giving them an environment where they can feel save to be themselves, to make mistakes, etc so they know they will always be loved, no matter what.
We talk a lot as well. I answer all of their questions with the truth. That means that very often I say ‘I don’t know‘. We then either do some research or I walk them through my thought process of what I think the answer could be, keeping my wording age appropriate.
Having a strong bond doesn’t mean that I say Yes to everything they want. Absolutely not! And I do get angry sometimes and say things I regret, like threatening with no screen time this weekend if…. (you know the drill lol)
Shit happens, we’re all humans but I know my children know that I love them.
Every day, I watch my behaviour, my ‘good'/correct‘ way of treating my daughters, and my ‘bad/wrong‘ way of dealing with things in our relationships. It’s an ongoing process because, as I said, my upbringing wasn’t packed with connection, and my conditioning kicks in every single day. Only by getting to know myself, my way of being - how I learned to be - can I let go of these deep sitting buttons that are being pushed on a daily basis, which drive my reactions. This is the way to ultimate and true freedom. No book, no guideline, no manual can give you this freedom. Only you yourself by observing yourself.
And here’s another truth:
I want the ‘good/correct‘ behaviour as little as I want the ‘bad/wrong‘ one because both are learned behaviours. Once I identify a deeply routed belief and it dissolves, I won’t be driven to react in a good or bad way, I will simply react according to each moment in time - I’ll be fully present.
This being said, the GUIDELINES I have created for APTB, are not fixed rules. I cannot and don’t want to tell people what to do, but this is what life will naturally look like most of the time, when we observe ourselves and let go of our conditioning. We will stop being mothers and fathers and all those labels and rules that come with them, and we will just be another human accompanying the people we gave birth to because we love them.
What are your thoughts on this topic? I’d love to hear them. You can write them in the comments below or send me an email to info@aplacetobe.me.
