Copasetic Flow

 This is a story from back in February. I wanted to share a cool moment in time that Mota, Tawnse, and I had on Monday. Daize had gone off to attend College Algebra, and I was working from the house. I walked into the kitchen and it looked like a portion of the recent bomb cyclone had landed in there. I had 25 minutes to kill, so I called Motaand Tawnse. When they arrived, I was already taking the recycling bag out to the garage. I asked them to empty the dishwasher and they got to work. When I returned, I moved everything off the stove into one sink. I asked them to load the dishwasher back up. While they were doing that, I got to work on scrubbing pans. As I did, I looked around the kitchen. I noticed a few dishes they’d missed, pointed it out, and they plopped those in as well. I asked them to check the rest of the house for dishes. While they were checking, I finished the pans, and got to work on cleaning the stove top. When they returned, I asked the two of them to get all the...

Socialization in the Real World I say we’re an unschooling family with no curriculum, and to an extent that’s true.  To an extent though, it’s not.  I do have goals for the kids.  I’d like them to move more fluidly through the world than I did as a kid.  I was shy.  Sometimes I couldn't’ think of the right things to say.  Sometimes, I didn’t want to speak at all.  To this day, new experiences jar me.  I’ve developed coping techniques, and yet.  If I get a chance to visit a place by myself and take it in, I’m fine.  If I get dropped into a place out of the blue with other people, I’m just a little bit disoriented.  Things are just a little bit harder to do.  I’d like for the gang here to not have these experiences.  I’d like for them to feel okay talking to whoever, wherever, and whenever.  To that end, the gang and I spend a lot of time in places where the kids can practice communicating, where they can see new thing...

I got to visit with friends in New Mexico this week.  I grew up in NM, so it was great to be back, to see out over the wide open spaces, and to breath the crisp fresh air.  Oh, and also to get my fill of green chili.  Yum! As it usually does—especially when I travel with one of the kids—homeschooling and ‘exactly how that works’ came up.  Everything was fine.  I went through the basics of it: how you only have to file a one page affidavit to homeschool in California; how the kids learn new things, how and when the kids hang out with their friends.  I’ve answered these questions hundreds of times at this point, so I have plenty of practice, and it’s nice that our friends are interested in the kids. Upon returning home I was treated to a tweet espousing how great homeschooling might be if only it wasn’t so isolating.  Bleah, the isolation thing again.  So, without further ado, please allow me to walk through how un-isolating homeschooling is onc...

I recently read about a couple who, while waiting for their table in a restaurant, were allowed to sit at the bar, but thanks to Victorian style child ‘safety’ laws, their five and seven year old kids had to stand against the back wall two feet from the bar.  Kids weren’t allowed to sit at bars in that state.  You know, because safety.   On our last two trips to New Mexico, we’ve had similar experiences.  On our most recent trip, seven year-old No. One and I were told we couldn’t be seated at the bar even though they served food there, even though we were in a restaurant., because the state of New Mexico has deemed it Wrong.  The trip before that a waitress warned us away from the high-top tables.  Once again, it was for safety’s sake.  On our current trip to DC, the kid vaulted onto a bar-stool, so yeah, I guess she can handle it. Clearly I think kids should be allowed in bars.  I think it builds both social and real-world skills....

We had another first this Saturday, all three of the kids here—7 y.o. No. One, 5 y.o. No. Two, and 3 y.o. No. Three—got up at 4:30 in time to head out to the Farmers’ Market!  Three has made the early morning trip once before, but One and Two had busy weeks that time, and so stayed home.  This is the first time the whole gang has trekked across town with me to the market.  It was a blast! We head out early because the market is too crowded later in the day.  This isn’t really a problem for us so much as it is for those around us.  When Two was three years-old, he was jostled by passers-by on his first trip.  I taught him how to throw elbows, and the problem was solved.  Sort of.  On our next trip on our local subway Two applied his new skills to a different situation, elbowing his way off the train, causing a few “Ohs,” and “Eeps,” as he went.  So, now we go early.  We beat the crowd, and get first dibs on the really good stuff. T...

The dad-person over at 'Happiness is Here' recently wrote an article to other dads who might be making the decision to homeschool .  As a dad who already has kids who decided to homeschool, I thought I'd chime in with why it's so much fun. As a fellow dad of unschooled kids, I confess that people will on occasion give you meaningful glances--over an apparently harmless statement or question about your kids' education.  Glances that obviously are meant to imply that you should be very, very concerned about this non-standard thing your kids are doing, (unschooling).  I'm happy to report however, that this has only happened a very few times for us. The more common thing, at least for me, are entertaining questions from non-homeschoolers, but those are just fun.  Things like looking with great consternation at the pack consisting of then 1 year-old No. 3, 3 year-old No. 2, and 4 year-old No. 1 wandering around beside us and asking, "Are those your kids?...

"...Oh, that's interesting.  What about socialization?" "Wait, what?" "Do they interact well with others?" "OHHH! Oh.. yeah, yeah they do." As a homeschooler, you hear a lot about socialization.  There are about as many different definitions of the term as there are concerns.  We hear it so much that I've come to think of it as the way that publicschoolers have been taught to break the ice with homeschoolers. It's not that they want to be impolite, or even care about the issue, it's just a common ground with which to begin a discussion.  Prior to starting to home school, and subsequently meeting public school parents, I'd never even heard of 'socialization'.  Here's how my conversations with non-homeschoolers usually go;  stop me if you've heard this one. "Why aren't they in school?" "We homeschool." "...Oh, that's interesting.  What about socialization?"...