Not to mention...

Why???

 I have pulled Mikia out of public school, for what I believe will be a better educational experience for her here at home. The reason we made the decision to do this is because of the severely strict attendance policy here. And the fact that winter is coming on and she tends to get sick ALOT during the season. Also, I have seen some of the ways and attitudes the school had towards learning and I am not impressed. Derek and I have taken to teaching her and letting her learn thru life experience. And so far, it is working out great. She really looks forward to the time we spend together talking and doing "assignments".

We haven't pulled the others out just yet. I am leaving the decision to be here up to the older to. So, far they both want to stay in public school. Tyler is still struggling with his speech and I want to make sure he gets the best help possible for it. And right now that's also public school. Plus, he doesn't want to stay home either. He likes his school and the friends he has made. :)

What Is Unschooling?

This is also known as interest driven, child-led, natural, organic, eclectic, or self-directed learning. Lately, the term "unschooling" has come to be associated with the type of homeschooling that doesn't use a fixed curriculum. When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world, as their parents can comfortably bear. The advantage of this method is that it doesn't require you, the parent, to become someone else, i.e. a professional teacher pouring knowledge into child-vessels on a planned basis. Instead you live and learn together, pursuing questions and interests as they arise and using conventional schooling on an "on demand" basis, if at all. This is the way we learn before going to school and the way we learn when we leave school and enter the world of work. So, for instance, a young child's interest in hot rods can lead him to a study of how the engine works (science), how and when the car was built (history and business), who built and designed the car (biography), etc. Certainly these interests can lead to reading texts, taking courses, or doing projects, but the important difference is that these activities were chosen and engaged in freely by the learner. They were not dictated to the learner through curricular mandate to be done at a specific time and place, though parents with a more hands-on approach to unschooling certainly can influence and guide their children's choices.

Unschooling, for lack of a better term (until people start to accept living as part and parcel of learning), is the natural way to learn. However, this does not mean unschoolers do not take traditional classes or use curricular materials when the student, or parents and children together, decide that this is how they want to do it. Learning to read or do quadratic equations are not "natural" processes, but unschoolers nonetheless learn them when it makes sense to them to do so, not because they have reached a certain age or are compelled to do so by arbitrary authority. Therefore it isn't unusual to find unschoolers who are barely eight-years-old studying astronomy or who are ten-years-old and just learning to read.

—Pat Farenga, Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling

Articles of Interest

Waking Up to Young Kids' Sleep Troubles

OK, parents: With TV, the Web, homework and social events distracting children, it's time to set limits

By JENNIFER MOSES

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SLEEP COACHES, a new set of specialists, teach parents to get kids more Z's.

We're used to teenagers (SATs! Hormones! Facebook!), college students (can you say "pulled an all-nighter"?) and hard-driving professionals (billable hours!) not being adequately rested. Now we can add a new category of the chronically catatonic: preadolescents.

Take 10-year-olds who routinely wake at 3 a.m. with a nightmare or a wave of anxiety—and just as routinely move into their parents' beds for the rest of the night. Or the sixth-grader who's always tired because she has so much homework that, even when she finishes it on time, she's too keyed up to fall asleep.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, two-thirds of kids in the years through middle school aren't getting adequate sleep, which, for these ages, is 10 to 12 hours. James B. Maas, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, puts that figure higher, at around 85%. A study published in 1999 showed that about 10% of school-age kids through fourth grade fall asleep in school—and parents and experts will tell you that the problem, enhanced by the Age of Internet and iPod, has only grown worse. From Massachusetts to Oregon, middle schools, along with high schools, are now pushing back their start times so that students can get more sleep. Which is a great idea—unless it just gives kids yet another excuse to stay up late and watch TV.

In the meantime, studies have shown over and over again that sleep-deprived children are prone to acting out, inappropriate behavior, inability to focus, depression and even weight gain, because a kid without enough energy reserves in the form of sleep tends to both eat more and exercise less.

These kids aren't merely a pain for teachers, but also can develop serious health and developmental issues. Their sleep-deprived bodies release "counter-regulatory" hormones, particularly adrenaline and cortisol, that not only make them hyper and incapable of focusing (time to get out the Ritalin!) but also short-circuit development, as the brain's repair-and-restore cycle doesn't have enough time to complete its dance.

Yes, America's falling behind, but not because we're lazy. On the contrary. We're so frenzied that we can no longer pay attention.

Educators speak of kids who come to school exhausted because they were out with their own parents, or at a family event, the night before. Working parents talk about how guilty they feel about their schedules, or how badly they want to spend more time with their kids. That makes them prone to allowing their kids to stay up late. Pediatricians talk about parents who don't know how to set limits—to say, as so many parents once did, "It's bedtime, lights out, sleep tight."

But sleeping tight is hard when 42% of children have televisions in their bedrooms, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Then there are after-school sports, music lessons, tutoring, hours of homework. Add a bedtime Internet habit, and you've got one fine recipe for a wound-up kid.

Everyone talks about lack of down time for today's kids, so far removed from those endless hours of long-ago childhoods. Now, nearly everyone knows a prepubescent whose days are so packed that they start earlier and get home later than most working adults.

Sometimes the solution is clear. Dr. Keri Wasser, a Montclair, N.J., psychiatrist who sees school-age children with a variety of behavioral, social and focus problems, says that sometimes "just regulating the child's sleep cycle improves behavior substantially."

So bad has the problem of juvenile exhaustion become, though, that a new class of sub-specialists have cropped up—sleep coaches. At Sleepy Planet in Los Angeles, Jill Spivack puts comprehensive step-by-step programs together for parents: "If an infant doesn't get enough sleep, chances are that you'll have the same problem later on, with kids at 10, 11 and 12 who never learned how to self-soothe, so they wake up at night."

Yes, I know. What would Grandmother say? Mine would say something along the lines of: "What, are you nuts?" Since when did parents have to rely on books or consultants to put their children to bed?
My own hunch is that as women became experts in fields outside the home, spending most of their days somewhere other than the nursery (or the kitchen), we ceded what was once our birthright—as CEOs of our families and homes—to experts.

These parents don't get, fundamentally, that they are the grown-ups in the house, the bosses, the Deciders, and therefore get to say things like "Because I said so, that's why." In sleep-management circles, this is called "setting limits" or "managing boundaries." When my own children were little, my husband and I called it "Go to bed or blood will be spilled." (Probably my husband's: Lack of sleep makes me psychotic.)

They went to bed. As does my 12-year-old neighbor, who not only has a strict bedtime, but also admitted to me—albeit under some duress—that she's more or less the best student in her class. "They stay up pretty late," she said about the others. "They're tired."

—Ms. Moses is the author of "Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou" and "Food and Whine: Confessions of a New Millennium Mom."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204528204577012023299886952.html