The Self-Driven Child Review

As an unschooling parent, I can sometimes feel a little anxious wondering if I made the right decision in taking this less-worn path. Hearing from experts on topics surrounding the multitude of factors that contribute to helping our children grow up to be thriving, successful and Jesus-loving adults is an important antidote to that anxiety... knowing that what I am doing is backed up by research and history gives my soul peace and increases my confidence in our unschooling decision. Although this book is not directly about the topic of unschooling, this book highlights so many of the values within unschooling, and the benefits of raising our children with more autonomy. This book offers evidence for why we do what we do as unschoolers. While you may hear about the importance of autonomy and intrinsic motivation in unschooling discussions, this book is the how-to book for raising a self-driven child. 

In the introduction the authors share how they came to prioritize a child feeling a sense of control over their own life. “We came to a sense of control through research on stress and studies of motivation, which we follow because so much of our work involves helping kids minimize the extent to which stress undermine their performance and mental health. We try to steer them to a healthy level of self-motivation, somewhere between perfectionist overdrive and “let me get back to my video game.” When we discovered that a low sense of control is enormously stressful and that autonomy is key to developing motivation, we thought we were onto something important. This impression was confirmed where we started to probe deeper and found that a healthy sense of control is related to virtually everything we want for our children, including physical and mental health, academic success, and happiness.” (Pg 2)

This book balances the benefits of autonomy while recognizing the experience and maturity that parents bring into the parent-child relationship. They have practical guidance on how to provide space for children to be decision makers, without becoming a permissive parent. They cover how to help our kids make informed decisions, as opposed to just making decisions, and what it does and doesn’t mean to say “It’s your call” to our children. I, personally, love their take on the parental role. I’m not watching them learn everything the hard way, letting kids rule the household,  or overwhelming them by letting them make every little decision that comes up; but I am trusting them and providing space to make informed decision about their own lives. I want to be the parent that guides them in becoming good decision-makers, and allow them to have a sense of control over their own life. 

The authors also discuss developing intrinsic motivation and the best environment for young brains to learn in (flow). Flow is defined as “where time passes quickly and their attention is completely engage, but they’re not stressed” (pg 113). This happens when activities we are engaged in are not overwhelmingly difficult, but also not so easy that we are bored. They share how frequent time spent in flow can sculpt the young brain to become motivated and focused. As an unschooler, this is the space I want to provide for my kids. Activities where they find ‘flow’ and build up that intrinsic motivation and focus ‘muscle’ in their brains.

The authors also cover topics that can influence our children’s ability to become self-directed. Subjects like getting enough sleep, screen time, down-time, exercise are related to our kids' health and decision making ability while approached in a way that doesn’t diminish our children’s sense of control. These sections have been a resource for me personally and as a parent, for example, as I think about prioritizing time for reflection and sleep in my own life, and also giving me ideas for talking about these topics with my kids. (Did you know that sleep deprivation leads to a decrease in your body's cancer-killing cells?! Bring on that early bedtime for me!) 

While a good portion of this book discusses school and homework, we can take these discussions and ask these questions of how we view education in our own children’s lives. Can we help our children to see learning as their responsibility, and see ourselves as their educational consultants. Are we okay waiting until their brain is ready to learn, even though all the other kindergarteners are learning to read and do math?  Being reminded while reading of the lack of consideration of childhood brain development in the educational policy and even the school system serves to me as a reminder as to why we chose an alternative route. 

This book provides neuroscience and psychology research that supports what they’ve seen as they’ve encouraged autonomy in the lives of the kids they work with. They explain what we can do as parents to help build up our children's sense of control, as well as give practical, “actionable steps” for us as parents in each chapter. While the authors are not writing from a Christian perspective, they clearly care and invest in the families they work with, and have seen positive transformations in the lives of children when they are given more autonomy. As unschoolers, this type of research is so important for us to know as parents to give us the confidence to let our children make the important calls in their own lives and the practical tool to act as their guides. 

Stixrud, W., PhD, & Johnson, N. (2019). The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives. National Geographic Books.