Gentle Schooling

Image from Feedfury

Gentle schooling and gentle parenting certainly get a bad wrap. What some see as giving children freedoms, other see as being too permissive. What is the balance? I think it lies in setting healthy boundaries, but presenting them in gentler ways.

I was reading a thread on FB today where a parent was dealing with a son who has given her an attitude about homeschooling from day 1. He has a particularly difficult time during their math lessons. With such little info, it's hard to know if she is unschooling, but one would have to assume NOT, because otherwise there would be very little issue regarding math time.

People were chiming in with their advice about how to deal with her situation. The responses ranged from "Get his dad involved, and make Dad the principal. Dad needs to assert his authority and the son will respect it" (or some similar sexist gibberish) to "Don't teach him any math, if he's that against it".  I personally believe there is a happy middle. I believe that you can still get the subject matter worked on during the school year, even if the child isn't showing a lot of interest.

There are many games and stories you could incorporate into your day to get the same lessons across in a more gentle way. Getting up and moving the body also helps children become not only more interested in the lesson, but to actually absorb the lesson into their very bodies as they move.

You do not need to have tears during learning time...but neither do you need to avoid those subjects. Learning can (and SHOULD) be gentle and fun. If it's not, that means the right approach that your child will respond to hasn't been found yet. Don't give up!!!  And for crying out loud, please don't threaten your child with "Just wait till Dad gets home!"  or "If you don't do this work that I command that you do, I'm sending you back to public school"! Those methods are neither gentle nor are they going to be particularly effective in creating a lifelong lover of learning! They also could instill a sense of distrust from the child at a time in their lives when security and dependability of their loving parent(s) is so very important to their growth and development.