Unschooling my Preschooler: What Does Unschooling Mean?

Unschooling, from the word itself, means not sending your child to the compulsory school as an educational method to learn. Unlike "regular" homeschool, it refuses to use standard curricula. This live and learn together method allows you to teach your child using the conventional way of instructing your child in an on demand basis that you, as a parent, may comfortably bear. Certainly, the interest and questions of the child could lead to reading books or doing projects and activities that may explain more about the interest. Unlike in the traditional compulsory school, the topics of interest in unschooling were not mandated because the curriculum were not dictated.

How does this work? 

My little D.C. asked about how a car runs, his daddy would give him images and pictures of the car as well as explain about the engine. Then we go out to apply what we have learned and check out actual cars and its engine. This hands on approach is a natural way of learning things without any arbitrary authority. As a parent, I won’t pretend to be an expert in anything, but the process unleashes the natural inquisitiveness of my son and allows him to gradually learn what he needs to know when he wants to learn about it and most importantly, at a time he feels ready to absorb new information.

  

A child often gets tired and stressed out doing all the things that were required by traditional schooling. In unschooling, I can set the instruction according to how my son wants to learn. However, this method requires you to make all efforts to actively connect with your kid, knowing what he is ready to learn, and finding the things in the world that might trigger some interest. No one tells your child what to learn or you as a parent what to teach. Unschooling is a kind of homeschooling but a bit different, because homeschooling teaches what was required by the school. The key here is exposure – let the child explore the world and the questions would be raised as he learns about his immediate environment.

Beauty of Unschooling 

It lies in its freedom to let the student pick the topic to learn. No one sets the instruction and crammed up any information to drown in his head. My son figured out things by himself with my help. He learned to think by himself and often times, decide what is important to know at the moment instead of just following a teacher. It is play-based, not structured, and is perfect for preschoolers until age 7. 

In school, sometimes or most of the times, kids are being forced to learn and do homeworks that they do not like. In unschooling, the challenge for both parent and child is the search for the answers. It is a learn as you go way of finding information. The choice and the control reside with the learner in all ways. With unschooling, you do not need to coerce your kid on some imposed educational agenda. I let my son take charge of his interests and choices. My role is like a helpful, supportive mom and a friend. 

The World Is Our Big Book: Why I Homeschool My Son?

As a new homeschooling/unschooling parent, i thought of writing my first blog to answer the most famous question of all time, "Why I homeschool/unschool my son?"  

As early as 1 year old, my little D.C. can sing chorus phrases in tune, can comprehend and speak straight, can name 4 kinds of dinosaurs; distinguish wild animals from tame, nocturnal from non nocturnal and can identify animal sounds.

He learned it not from books, but by visiting different places. Educating at home most of the time is boring, so we go out at times and travel. As I always say, “we have the whole world to teach our child.” 

I am proud not because of his early achievement perse, I am proud because we are able to make learning and achieving most things in a very relaxed manner, in his own time and pace. I actually don’t care if he’s advance or not, what’s important is, he is interested to learn and enjoys it. Who wouldn’t? Our field trip is once a week! J

Homeschooling is increasingly becoming popular here in the Philippines. One of the reasons I decided to teach my little D.C. at home to make sure he gets to maximize his potential and creativity being taught one-to-one personally by myself. Though he has enrichment classes on the side, being his mom, I know best how to make him learn without putting so much pressure on him and on me. 

Why homeschool makes better students?

Imagine a classroom with a maximum of 50 students. Your child would be lucky if the teacher, who would soon get exhausted managing 6 classes a day, could even get near him and see what he is doing. Attention is the key to learning.

Although there is a similar potential of exhaustion by moms, it would not be as intense as the regular teacher feels. This means a mom could definitely nurture and maximize the level and type of input a child could get in any required session. The one-to-one type of parent-child teaching provides the child your full attention and let your child learn at his own pace. With the modified input, your child highly benefits a customized academic environment with an exceptionally effective approach to instruction.

Stress and Pressure

Imagine the pressure on having to wake up at 4am everyday just to make it to a 7am class and coming home at 3pm with 7 home works. Isn’t that so exhausting?

The child must develop his natural ability and creativity without any pressure and stress. Research shows that stress may affect child’s brain development while pressure in early childhood may decrease confidence and self esteem, which may lead to early decrease of interest in learning. Also, children with lower self esteem normally do not socialize and may become victims of bullies. Contrary to popular belief that homeschooling isn’t really set up for socializing, it turns out that homeschooled children have better social skills and fewer behaviour problems than their demographically matched schooled peers.      

Building Self-esteem

As a parent like me, you must agree that love and intimacy affect the learning process of any child. Because I accurately monitor how well he is mastering his creativity and skills, he felt motivated by the love and attention I gave, thus more self-esteem. Considering that he is not in a group situation, he has no fear of making mistakes, which made it possible for me to easily target his pace and his skills accordingly. Our high quality, intimate mother-son level of interaction allows a customized level of individual attention that surpass any teacher-student relationship. Plus, my direct instruction is backed up by a good lunch or snack, which in a lot of ways, ensures an almost hundred percent lesson retention. My technique proves to be exceptionally powerful – food incentive! ;)

Music and Travel as Important Factors

What better way to teach your son science, reading, history, geography, and language? Go travel. How do you enhance his creativity, critical thinking, comprehension and character? Make music together! 

My little D.C. has a wide vocabulary and can comprehend easily because i really believe that reading aloud, listening to good music and creating music together help improve these skills. Not to mention, he's a 3 year old with a very very sharp memory. He still knows where we celebrated his 1st birthday, and all the countries we have been to. Music can help sharpen memory too. Music and travel are very important factors to our great learning experiences which we cannot do more often if we put little DC in a traditional school. Letting your children take part everywhere you go and in everything you do is a must in educating for life.