This is a response to a worried mom of an eight year old.
I'm coming into the discussion a wee bit late and have skimmed the majority of responses and have just a few points to add:
Jane McGonical was on TED Talks. You can view here.
The original poster states a few concerns I'd like to address:
"but I miss my cheerful son who in younger years would happily be up for all kinds of adventures."
"if we do go out, a hour or 2 later he's ready to go home."
"I hate to make an arbitrary ban/regulation of this, but it seems like it might be helpful."
We started 'homeschooling when my son was 7yo and moved into full blown radical unschooling by the time he was 8yo. He is now 14 so I've run the gambit of much of what you address in your questions and this is what I have learned.
1) You haven't really 'lost' your cheerful son. He has grown and his interests have grown with him. Ask him what sorts of adventures he'd like.
When my son was 8, I pulled up the Dwarf Fortress website and let him read it to see if he would like that sort of game. (Got the link off the homeschooling Mensa site so I had no clue how my son would take to it.) He liked what he read and is still actively involved with the game/forum/linked branches/etc ever since. To this day if you looked at what he is reading on his iPod, it's usually something linked from this original site.
Do I worry? Not at all! What I have done is stay connected and in tune with what has him so intrigued. I take the time to listen and get engaged with him and his interests. This also gives him someone close that he can talk to about all his discoveries. It has allowed him to ask crazy questions like, 'Can a carp really kill a man?' which lead to us researching everything about carps and how big they grow, the probability of 'man killing carps' and a game designers right to be as silly as they so choose to be.
Along with Dwarf Fortress, I, who was NOT a gamer in any sense of the word, learned to play Runescape, World of Warcraft, and tons of other 'addicting' games. But my learning wasn't limited to just learning games! No! By bringing my boy home from school, I was now his number one person to whom he spent the most time with. I'm the one he talked to about EVERYTHING. This meant I got to enter his world and I considered it my place to know his interests and feed them. I read all the books he read (and he reads a lot!) so he always had someone to discuss the stories and plot lines with.
When his interests expanded beyond my time constraints/desires/and or tolerance, (I got motion sickness from some of the xbox games) my spouse jumped in. The two of them watched every Star Trek, played Halo, and discussed all types of weighty subjects even doing the math to see if the directors got it right. This lead to them getting into Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawkings to name a few.
My point being is your 'happy son' is still there. You might just need to get to know him again as a slightly older child with slightly grown interests.
2) My son also grew to hating to leave the house. To the point at one point, I feared he would become a shut in. He balked at having to even accompany us to the store. Well, turns out it was just a phase. The store bored him and being a typical boy, he really hated shopping ~ unless it was like a gaming store ~ but even then, he could look online at home and skip the actual store shopping. He had grown out of play dates and playgrounds. He hated roller skating and the likes. He always carried reading material and getting his nose out of a book was near impossible.
Sure, we could intrigue him out to things he was interested in like one year for his birthday we spent the day going to the parks that had the big cats (The Big Cat Rescue & Busch Gardens)but that would be cost prohibitive to do often. My spouse took him to see the Space Shuttle launch close up a few times, but even things like this didn't happen often enough to make it a weekly adventure.
The good news is age does in fact change this. When my son turned 13, he began to take an interest in people again. Now at age 14, he is actively involved in taken martial arts classes with adults and teens alike making many friends. Turns out that he really wasn't 'anti-social'. He was simply 'anti-interested'.
3) Arbitrary rules do not work. They never worked for my parents. They've never truly worked for anyone. Sure, you can make all sorts of miserable consequences but does it truly work? You might get compliance but you won't get growth.
Teaching the 'why' behind the reason makes more sense to me. My son knows that if he stays up late on a day he needs to be up early the following day, he will be too tired and grumpy. If he goes to bed too early in the evening, he is going to wake up extra early the next day, etc, etc.... I once had some lady give me crap that if I didn't force my child to sleep 8pm to 7am the next day, he would never be able to function as an adult and I was doing a disservice to society as a whole. Considering all the crazy shifts I've had to work in my life, I can tell you that her concept is totally off! The whole world is not asleep between 8p and 7a. Nor should it be.
So as far as 'arbitrary rules' go, what has worked better for us, is talking about the cause and effect of choices and learning to make wise choices. Yes, kids as young as eight can handle these sorts of discussions.
Well that's my $.25 for what it's worth.
May your New Year be blessed with laughter and joy!
Vicki
Showing posts with label Dwarf Fortress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dwarf Fortress. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Enjoying Life
Many years ago, as I was learning about unschooling, a woman in the group I was conversing with wrote a tearful story about her daughter. Someone had been asking about rules and such which had started the conversation towards ambiguous thoughts in the mainstream on the ways children grow and learn. This story has stayed with me through the years as it truly made me consider just what is really important. Having lost my older sister when she was barely twenty and I was only fifteen, has lead my thoughts down this road before and left me to ponder just what does really matter in this life.
I guess I should tell you the gist of this mother's story. This mother had a beautiful daughter whom she unschooled. They spent wonderful days together exploring, and learning, and being as joyful as they could. One day, the daughter died leaving behind a heartbroken mother. She was able to share with us that had she the chance to do it all again, she would still love and spend her days with her daughter the same way. She was so glad their days were not filled with fighting over homework, chores, and other ambiguous things that would have tainted the joy of the every day.
Recently, I rushed my son to the emergency room for extreme abdominal pain. On the way, he told me he couldn't feel his arms nor even his heartbeat. He began to panic. So did I. I called 911. They dispatched an ambulance as the dispatcher, too, began to panic with us. The fire truck met us. (Here Firefighters are first responders trained in emergency medical skills.) They advised me there was nothing to be done accept to get my son to the Emergency Room, and considering where we live, it would be quicker for me to continue the drive myself. So I did.
In the ER we learned that my son was fighting an infection and that part of his bowel was inflamed. It was bad enough that they put him into the hospital and called in a Specialist. Anyway, he has now had further testing that revealed he has ulcers in his colon and severe swelling of his small intestine. The doctor started him on three different meds and has ordered more testing. So far all we know is the first biopsies weren't found to be cancerous but they were very infected. It's looking like he is suffering from Crohns but the doctor hasn't made that a confirmed diagnoses yet. She is still waiting on more tests results.
Last week, during the follow up doctor's appointment, when we learned of the biopsy results, the doctor mentioned that school would be starting soon and that my son would need to learn coping methods for stress as stress is thought to make the attacks worse. My son told her that wasn't a concern as he is unschooled. She started to debate 'school' then quickly altered it to asking him if he planned to go to college. He told her yes, he was. She then went on to explain that school and youth come with immense stress. >.< This is where getting into a debate about the concepts of learning with someone who obviously has devoted much of their life to learning, isn't worth it. Obviously, the GI Specialist enjoys learning as one would require this ability to truly enjoy their work, but chances are, they were also traditionally raised, plodding through school the way most people do.
So later, when my spouse and I were alone, we talked at length about our son's future and whether or not college was really a necessity. If it was a choice between serious stress that would cut our son's life short, or not going to college, we were all for skipping the killer stress. There are many ways to live one's life without throwing a mountain of stress on one's shoulders. College is possible without carrying a mountain of stress, but to do that, is really up to the person involved.
So me being me, I got talking to my son about this and he told me that he wanted to go to college so it wouldn't be stressful to him. Recently, before his trip to the ER, he had read an article about the person he most admires: Tarn Adams, the creator of Dwarf Fortress. This lead to a discussion about how Mr. Adams has chosen to live his life and the point that seems to come across the loudest, is he is happy!
How many people can truly say that they get to be happy in that which they do? It's a wonderful place to have one's life. This is the charm of unschooling. Unschoolers get to be happy about life and learning! So many people hear 'unschooling' as 'un-educated' and that is so far from the truth! The GI Specialist after spending a short amount of time with my son, told her staff she was impressed with the intellectual young man. Yes, over hearing that, did in fact make me smile.
Through the freedom of unschooling, my son gets to learn at his own pace, things of interest to him. He tends to enjoy the weightier subjects of math, physics and computer languages. He has been putting forth effort to write well, as he has become active on a forum where other intellectual types converse. He has found his intellectual peers. I do not need to force him to study. Recently, I came across another online free resource for learning Python called 'Snake Wrangling for Kids'. I had printed it out and left it on his desk for him to peruse should he want to. (He has already learned some Python via other means so I wasn't sure if this manual would be helpful or not.) Last night, I found him working his way through this new manual and he showed me his beginning progress on a simple program he had just written. Recently, there's been other times, I've found him working his way through Kahn's Academy which is another terrific free resource. He is enjoying learning. He does in fact, plan on going to college and therefore, he is making sure he will be ready.
I guess I should tell you the gist of this mother's story. This mother had a beautiful daughter whom she unschooled. They spent wonderful days together exploring, and learning, and being as joyful as they could. One day, the daughter died leaving behind a heartbroken mother. She was able to share with us that had she the chance to do it all again, she would still love and spend her days with her daughter the same way. She was so glad their days were not filled with fighting over homework, chores, and other ambiguous things that would have tainted the joy of the every day.
Recently, I rushed my son to the emergency room for extreme abdominal pain. On the way, he told me he couldn't feel his arms nor even his heartbeat. He began to panic. So did I. I called 911. They dispatched an ambulance as the dispatcher, too, began to panic with us. The fire truck met us. (Here Firefighters are first responders trained in emergency medical skills.) They advised me there was nothing to be done accept to get my son to the Emergency Room, and considering where we live, it would be quicker for me to continue the drive myself. So I did.
In the ER we learned that my son was fighting an infection and that part of his bowel was inflamed. It was bad enough that they put him into the hospital and called in a Specialist. Anyway, he has now had further testing that revealed he has ulcers in his colon and severe swelling of his small intestine. The doctor started him on three different meds and has ordered more testing. So far all we know is the first biopsies weren't found to be cancerous but they were very infected. It's looking like he is suffering from Crohns but the doctor hasn't made that a confirmed diagnoses yet. She is still waiting on more tests results.
Last week, during the follow up doctor's appointment, when we learned of the biopsy results, the doctor mentioned that school would be starting soon and that my son would need to learn coping methods for stress as stress is thought to make the attacks worse. My son told her that wasn't a concern as he is unschooled. She started to debate 'school' then quickly altered it to asking him if he planned to go to college. He told her yes, he was. She then went on to explain that school and youth come with immense stress. >.< This is where getting into a debate about the concepts of learning with someone who obviously has devoted much of their life to learning, isn't worth it. Obviously, the GI Specialist enjoys learning as one would require this ability to truly enjoy their work, but chances are, they were also traditionally raised, plodding through school the way most people do.
So later, when my spouse and I were alone, we talked at length about our son's future and whether or not college was really a necessity. If it was a choice between serious stress that would cut our son's life short, or not going to college, we were all for skipping the killer stress. There are many ways to live one's life without throwing a mountain of stress on one's shoulders. College is possible without carrying a mountain of stress, but to do that, is really up to the person involved.
So me being me, I got talking to my son about this and he told me that he wanted to go to college so it wouldn't be stressful to him. Recently, before his trip to the ER, he had read an article about the person he most admires: Tarn Adams, the creator of Dwarf Fortress. This lead to a discussion about how Mr. Adams has chosen to live his life and the point that seems to come across the loudest, is he is happy!
How many people can truly say that they get to be happy in that which they do? It's a wonderful place to have one's life. This is the charm of unschooling. Unschoolers get to be happy about life and learning! So many people hear 'unschooling' as 'un-educated' and that is so far from the truth! The GI Specialist after spending a short amount of time with my son, told her staff she was impressed with the intellectual young man. Yes, over hearing that, did in fact make me smile.
Through the freedom of unschooling, my son gets to learn at his own pace, things of interest to him. He tends to enjoy the weightier subjects of math, physics and computer languages. He has been putting forth effort to write well, as he has become active on a forum where other intellectual types converse. He has found his intellectual peers. I do not need to force him to study. Recently, I came across another online free resource for learning Python called 'Snake Wrangling for Kids'. I had printed it out and left it on his desk for him to peruse should he want to. (He has already learned some Python via other means so I wasn't sure if this manual would be helpful or not.) Last night, I found him working his way through this new manual and he showed me his beginning progress on a simple program he had just written. Recently, there's been other times, I've found him working his way through Kahn's Academy which is another terrific free resource. He is enjoying learning. He does in fact, plan on going to college and therefore, he is making sure he will be ready.
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