I think I must be experiencing another transition. Life seems to be on this continuous curving stream, and I never know what's around the next bend. My grandchild commitment is officially down to two days a week. This is allowing me "down" time.
Through this experience I seem to be going through de-babysitting, as observed by my best friend, relative to de-schooling. I can now officially relate to my children's desire to sit in front of the television all day, or stay in bed for hours, or not get dressed. I get it now. It's like your brain has to shift gears.
There are so many things that I both need and want to do. I just don't know where to start. Tomorrow is the official start of our new schedule. The kids have elected to get involved with this cool, local group called OHG. They are taking an ala carte of classes. Next Monday will be the start of our first full week with our new ambitions.
Since my commitment to grandchildren has lessened I have decided to make one-on-one time for each child. It is long over due and should prove to be more interesting than the way we have been doing things over the past year. The kids seem to be excited about our new plans.
Unschooling seems to come more and more natural to me, but I do still worry. The thing is I don't think it would be any different no matter our scholastic style of choice. Where my current focus has been currently is on mindful parenting. It seems to go hand in hand with unschooling and a natural part of the process.
I have managed to read some information on the subject and idea of mindful parenting and belong to some email lists that reinforce my efforts. It is SO important to immerse yourself in something that you seriously want to adopt as a part of your life. I have successfully moved away from discipline, and I can see the positive effects of trusting my children. The real challenge is training my brain to think differently.
I was raised in a very non-mindful parenting kind of way. Honestly, I think my mom could have been an unschooler if she had known anything about it. In certain ways it would have been natural to her. Where she dropped the ball was the relationship aspect. She never really disciplined me in any real way, but she never really parented me in that area either. Hence, I had no real example of parenting growing up. When you have nothing to refer to personally it makes parenting yourself a little more challenging.
Unfortunately, I fell to the traditional parenting style with my four older children thinking that was where my mom went wrong with me. BOY! Hard lesson learned with casualty relationships to prove it. What a better life we could have if we would just learn to trust ourselves from the beginning and attract positive people into our lives. There would be so much less to clean up later. Life truly would be easier for ourselves and those we love.
