You can find me today over at The Mahogany Way for a second guest post. Darcel asked me to write about living without rules. I think some unschooled families take great care to not have arbitrary rules and some eschew the term altogether. Our family, has an approach that I feel rules are completely unnecessary. It doesn’t mean anything goes. There are times, that no IS the answer. There are also times where I will not allow something. There are reasons I still do not call that rules. Find out more here: The Mahogany Way
Hope you enjoy it!
another great one Heather – keep ‘em coming
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Thanks for such a great post Heather
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Faith Taintor, Faith Taintor and April , Heather. Heather said: New Guest Blog Post: Can Children Learn Without Rules? http://bit.ly/bCfGT2 #unschooling [...]
I love the article you wrote.
I think you are spot on in your observation that kids generally don’t go out of their way to hurt people or engage in destructive behaviour. That being said, of course they are still children and accidents will happen.
But to translate that to a necessity for restrictive, non-trusting, assuming you’re going to be bad to start is contradictory to the whole concept of innate trust.
For me, my difficulty with this has always stemmed from my indoctrination in a religion that states from birth we are sinners, evil-doers and just plain bad. This has always translated to an absolute need for rules, regulations and guidelines…otherwise there would be total anarchy.
Silly when you think about it. It’s actually taken me being a parent and deciding that I didn’t want to believe in, nor raise my children with, such a narrow and uncompromising view of mankind.
And no, so far neither of my kids has taken to swinging from the chandelier.
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Heather Reply:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I can only imagine how fun it might be to swing from a chandelier.
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