Parenting Musings

The term unschooler can often bring up an image of a family living very hands off, letting their children do as they please with no rules. This is far from reality.  Even for radical unschoolers, they are often very hands-on, though maybe with a different parenting style, helping their children navigate life and its decisions. However, as an unschooler that doesn’t fit into the radical unschooling box, I wanted to dispel the myth that you have to let go of all rules, boundaries, and structure in order to still ‘unschool’. This was a hang-up I had about embracing unschooling, and really prevented me from letting go of a more traditional homeschooling style earlier. I’m not going to give every detail on how I parent (I’m still working on it), but rather my thoughts as I’ve looked at scripture, and what it has to say about our job as parents. 

This morning during breakfast we were reading the story of Eli and Samuel. God tells Samuel that he is going to ‘punish his (Eli’s) house forever, for the inequity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever’ 1 Samuel 3:13-14. This is harsh sounding, but the reality is that when we fail our children by not restraining their sin, there are consequences, especially for our children. I was talking recently to a friend who works as a counselor, and she was telling me how many of the kids she saw were struggling because they had never learned to respect the word ‘no’. At that point, counseling can do very little, if changes aren’t reinforced in the home. 

We look at Jesus’ interactions with people in the Bible, and He had this amazing balance between offering grace and forgiveness while still calling them to repent and sin no more. It allowed Him to acknowledge sin for the evil it is, while still conveying love to the sinner. People did not come away ashamed because of their sin, but radically changed, praising God for His goodness and forgiveness. We have the amazing responsibility as parents to emulate Jesus in this way as best as we humanly can.  

Fathers, do no provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.  Ephesians 6:4

This call to discipline and instruct, while not provoking to anger is our call to parent the way that Jesus dealt with Zacchaeus as he sat in the tree and the woman who was dragged out into the streets after being caught in adultery. We acknowledge their sin and the harm it causes, restrain it at times as Eli should have done, and offer them the love of God and the picture of redemption. 

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.   Proverbs 22:6

I am not a parenting expert by any means, but I believe that children, like us adults, have a sin nature. We come to the world naturally selfish and self centered. Part of maturing is being able to consider the perspective of another, and sacrifice for the sake of another. Part of our responsibility as a parent is to teach these character traits to our children. We are to train our children in the ways of Jesus, so they may know right from wrong, and know Him. We are to train and teach them in the instruction of the Lord, without provoking them to anger. The Bible gives us our responsibility as parents in the training (without provoking) of our children. 

Obedience and self-control are a gift. Colossians 3 tells us that children are to obey their parents. While I don’t believe this verse is meant to be shoved in our children's faces or used to guilt them, it tells us that teaching our children to obey is part of God’s plan for families that will allow us to stand set-apart as His community. I don’t want my kids to obey everyone that tells them to do something, but I do want them to learn to obey the Lord, and they can practice that by choosing to obey the parents that God gave them. Just like I submit to my husband as he agape loves me, so my children are called to obey their parents who are doing their best to provide rules and structure for the benefit of the family. I don’t make rules for the sake of rules, but we have rules in our family for the benefit of having a loving and peaceful house that brings Him glory. While kids need more help and guidance while they are younger, they need to gradually have more independence and decision making practice as they get older. If I were made to constantly follow orders, it would be exasperating.  So while we do have rules in our house, I also want to teach my children to be good decisions-makers (and not exasperate them). Because of that, within the set boundaries, my children have autonomy and we often discuss the pros and cons of a decision , while letting them make the final call. 

It is important to me that in general, people to like my children, because I believe that positive interactions with other adults and children will help them feel likable. There are some traits I find annoying, like scraping a fork on a plate and making that screeching noise, so I’ve taught my children not to do that, so I can enjoy being around them. 

When our children become adults there will be times I want my children to know how to submit to authority. They need to learn the tension between not accepting and blindly following everything an authority tells you to do, and how to submit to a boss, a spouse, and most importantly the Lord. Jesus submitted to his earthly parents and to his Father God. If Jesus wasn’t above submitting, we aren’t either. 

My kids learned about the fruit of the spirit in Sunday school this week. While it is great to learn what these fruits are, the practice of taking on these characteristics takes practice. I am not suddenly infinitely patient. I still have a long way to go in fact. But I can gain these character traits through training, practice, and prayer. Our children will need our help to develop these traits. 

So what does unschooling look like as a parent who is still responsible for the training of our children? As I’ve been reading Deuteronomy lately, let's look at the well quoted verse:

6:5-7 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Our primary goal should be to raise children who love the Lord. It is easy for us to feel the weight of academics and have the fear surrounding ‘what they know’ consume our minds so that we forget our primary goal. We have the privilege of living almost all the hours of our days with our children, talking about what we are doing and why in terms of our faith as we travel this path of life with our children. We get to point out the wonders of God, the beauty that He created, the way of suffering and self-sacrifice that He called us to follow Him as Christians. We balance the tension of love, freedom and forgiveness with correction and instruction. We train our children to seek God, turn to Him with our anxieties, and practice those character trait that he calls good.