I’ve always known I wanted to be different. By different I mean my own person. As an adult I never really liked the idea of being told what to do and how to live my life or raise my children, but a part of me went along for the ride anyway because that was all I’d known at the time. I now know that part of me wasn’t the ‘me’ I truly was. It was the Me I believed myself to be. The Me I had created to fit in. The Me that could not find a way out but secretly wanted to. The Me who wanted to be a special kind of mother, but didn’t know how. The Me who was always searching for more. It wouldn’t be until many years later that I would first begin to open my eyes and see a whole new way of living, of seeing my children for who they truly are, and realizing myself beyond who I’d thought myself to be.
Of course there were many milestones along the way that helped to point me in this direction, and I am grateful to this day for all that I have endured as a mother, for these were my lessons. They were the catalysts that challenged me to face my fears and question them, the lessons that have brought me tears and pain, yet even greater understanding and happiness. I have come from being a ‘control freak’, where I used rules, limits, punishment, rewards, bribery and judgement to get my children to do what I wanted, to allowing them complete freedom in every area of their lives. I have come from listening to teachers and my conditioned thoughts, to listening to my children and my inner wisdom. I have come from blaming my children for their behaviour, to understanding and supporting them.
But I had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was in the public school system. A place I believed would provide my children with everything they needed to be smart and successful. A place I thought they belonged, a place where they could fit in and be part of the real world. By the time my eldest son was 10, I no longer believed this was the place for him, for any of my children. What I thought would invoke courage, confidence and support, induced low self-esteem, unhappiness and fear. This would be the beginning of our journey from mainstream schooling to unschooling, with many more challenges ahead, including facing my own worst fears and self-doubts. It is a journey that has brought much freedom into our lives and seen confidence and trust rediscovered.
This space is about everything I have experienced through unschooling, motherhood, and deep, connected parent/child relationships. I will share my most inner-most secrets, my struggles and triumphs, suffering and healing, and how I parent with ease and fun. I want the same for you too, and it is my pleasure to share with you my story.
As a young adult with a child approaching school age, things were looking good. I had done everything that was expected of me so far – protected, nurtured, loved and taught my son what I believed he needed for a happy life. Now that it was time for school, I believed he needed to get out into the world and get an education. I believed my children needed to be raised with rules, limits and expectations, and that school was an important step for them to take. Although I was determined to be different from the rest, I followed everyone else.
I decided that I was going to be a part of my son’s schooling. I had always wanted to be a teacher, and loved the idea of helping children in the classroom. I became the ‘Parent Helper’, and participated in every school year my son attended. I enjoyed staying close to him and had not yet recognized within myself the empty feeling I had every time I had to say goodbye and leave him. I would look forward to the time I could bring him home to be with me.
Over the years I got to see how things happened in the classroom. I got to see that children were either ahead or behind, good or bad, and rewarded or punished. My son wasn’t any of those to me, but he fell under at least one category at all times. He was considered behind his peers in most learning areas, and I was reassured that extra learning support was what he needed. He was placed into a separate group of children every day, and made to do extra homework at home.
Year after year of extra learning support only saw him struggle even more and believe he was not smart enough. I continued to feel helpless and argued many times with teachers about the pressure he was being put under. But I still believed I had no other choice. I continued to fight the system. He faced judgement constantly from those around him. He complained often of teasing and bullying at lunch time, and of getting into trouble for simply being present during an argument, whether or not he was involved, and I often heard him say he wasn’t as smart as the other children.
Things became a lot worse towards the end of year four when my son began to develop anxiety most mornings before school. He would beg me not to make him go in, sometimes grabbing hold of the gate until I pried his hands off and walked him to class. The phone calls from the sick bay became more frequent and there were times I gave in and let him have days off, but most of the time I didn’t want to do the ‘wrong’ thing by the school, and in the process was missing all the signs that my child needed me to do what was right for him, for us.
Half way through that year we decided to leave the city and move to somewhere more rural. I believed the large city schools were the problem and was desperate to give anything a go. When there were only four weeks left of the school year, I told them that my son was leaving early. In those weeks leading up to the big move, he had become more alive than I had seen him in a while. Spending extra time together brought us closer, and I secretly wished it never had to end.
The New Year saw us in a new town and both my boys enrolled in a much smaller school with about 140 students. Compared to over 800 students in the previous school, I thought this was the change they needed. I had decided my eldest son would repeat year four, and my younger son would start Prep. And so began the struggle once again to get children into bed early every night, bags packed for school, uniforms washed, lunches made, up in the mornings, and off to school in time.
I also once again saw sad kids not wanting to say goodbye in the mornings, and grumpy kids not wanting to say hello in the afternoons, as well as homework that always had to be slotted in somewhere between playing, eating and going to bed. Within a couple of months, my youngest son began to withdraw from the family and mostly kept to himself, while my eldest son continued to lose interest in subjects and fall behind, and because I now had another child, I could not participate in class. The ‘sick days’ became almost daily, and I began to feel helpless when my youngest son started to cry in the mornings for me not to leave, which would also leave me in tears.
Then it happened. One evening while the boys were getting ready for bed I heard my husband say “Did you know you can Homeschool?” Somehow I already knew the answer to that question, but had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Sure enough there it was on the computer screen. My boys could learn from home! It was as if I had won the lottery, because I ran straight to my boys’ rooms and said “Guess what? Guess what? You never have to go to school again!”
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Leisa Coleman 