Ep 266: Starting a Journey of Trust and Discovery with Unschooling

A 6-minute offering for the beginner’s path.

Start a journey of discovery, trusting that learning comes from various sources - many of which can't be measured on a conventional scale. May this bonus 6-minute offering on Fare of the Free Child serve you well! Be sure to listen to Episode 265 for more on the starter/beginner path too!

We're throwing some critical questions in the mix with some MQA, inviting you to question the rules and agreements we've held ourselves and our children to.
 As we navigate the path of unschooling, we'll explore the profound impact of trusting the autonomy of children, and of avoiding performance and external validation in favor of self-inquiry and self-knowledge. This is your ticket to embark on a journey of trust and discovery. 
 
Join us again in the next episode for more tools to walk the talk in this work of raising free people.

Transcript

Akilah: 0:05

Six minutes, six minutes, six minutes. Kila, Kila, you're on, on, on, on on what y'all know about it. I could not add another minute to last weeks' episode, But there was some more. There was some more. One of the main focal points of this last season of Fare of the Free Child is to offer some guidance for different paths in the unschooling walk, and last week episode 265, I focused on the beginner's path and this little six minute offering is aligned with that beginner's path.

Speaker 2: 1:38

We often think about these safer ways for our children to be in relationship with their evolving selves, with their discovery, with their learning, with their peers, with their inner worlds, and really unschooling is not a solution or a prescription. What I'm noticing as I have moved beyond the perception of unschooling as a destination is that really the point? The focus is not on some end result in terms of whether it worked or how it compared to conventional school. The journey, the decision to move away from convention, whether that is in the form of not going to school, not ever beginning or not continuing, or an adult supporting a child who is in conventional school To begin unschooling is to begin to allow for the discovery to be at least as much of a priority as the curriculum. To begin unschooling is to be more inclusive about where learning comes from and more trusting of learning that cannot be measured. To begin unschooling is to trust that what you can see and measure in learning is surface level shit. To begin unschooling is to slowly detach from the comforts of clarity. To begin unschooling is to begin to notice all of the ways that you, as an adult in particular, have not questioned, shit that needs questioning, rules and agreements that you have held your children to, or a child in your life to, or your inner child to, rules and agreements that you have held them or yourself to, that now get to be questioned. Unschooling is less about what to do and more about what can I stop doing and when I stop these things, what am I noticing? What am I witnessing? What am I beginning to be in a different relationship with? What am I witnessing Every time you set out to do something in unschooling?

Speaker 2: 4:44

A question you can ask right here at the beginner's path is in this decision, what am I trusting? Am I trusting a long held, unquestioned pass down fear? Am I trusting the possibilities of what can happen when my love and support is met with a child's autonomy? Am I trusting that if I don't force or manipulate that, things still happen, that I am not the controller and the light and the way of all the things in a young person's life? Am I trusting the currency of being able to say to another adult or parent that my child is doing this, this and this. They're in line, they're thriving, they're smart, they're beautiful, they're worthy?

Speaker 2: 5:43

Am I trusting that I need to perform that or am I trusting that building a relationship with this child in my life, or this inner child, is less about performing and external validation and more about self-inquiry, knowledge of self, trusting one's capacity to do and be without being told what to do, how to be. What am I trusting in this moment? And if you wanted to say that in the affirmative, because questions can be mantras what am I trusting in this moment? Questions can be mantras, and if you wanted to turn that into something in the affirmative, to play with the energies and see what really sits with you, you can say I am trusting and then say what you want to trust after that.

Speaker 2: 6:50

I am trusting that building a relationship with my child can no longer mean forcing them to do what I think they should do. I am trusting that, even though this child still wants to go to school, even though I'm so sure that they don't need to be there, that there are things I can do in support of that human as they make the choice that feels right for them. I am trusting that I will not be sending my six-year-old to school because something in my gut says it's not going to be okay. I am trusting that feeling, even if it's just for now. What am I trusting on this beginner's path?

Akilah: 7:38

So you know. The full transcript and show notes for this is available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Find Fair of the Free Child on YouTube, on Instagram F-A-R-E. Fair of the Free Child. Thank you for listening and chat to you next week.