Unschooling?

"Not for us" but an interesting concept. What are your thoughts?

The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling

Post written by Leo Babauta.

There’s nothing I get asked about more as a parent than unschooling, and nothing I recommend more to other parents.
It’s an educational philosophy that provides for more freedom than any other learning method, and prepares kids for an uncertain and rapidly changing future better than anything else I know. My wife and I unschool four of our kids, and have been for several years.
And yet, as powerful as I believe unschooling to be, I’ve never written about it, because the truth is, I certainly don’t have all the answers. No one does.
The beauty of unschooling is in the search for the answers. If anyone had all the answers, there would be no search. And so what I’d love to teach unschooling parents and kids is that the search is the joy of it all.
But I’m getting ahead of myself: what is unschooling? Why should you do it? How do you do it? What should you read? We’ll talk about all that today.

What is Unschooling?

First, it’s a form of homeschooling. But there’s no easy answer to that except in comparison to regular schooling. There’s no one way to do unschooling, and people who do it often do it for many different reasons in many different ways.
However, this is how I describe it — in contrast to school:

• While school has classes with subjects, unschooling doesn’t.
• While school has goals set by teachers and the school system, the unschooler (the kid) set his or her own goals.
• While in school, knowledge is handed down from the teacher to the student, in unschooling the student is empowered to learn for himself.
• While school has specific books or sets of learning materials, unschoolers can learn from anything — books they find, things on the Internet, siblings or parents, the outdoors, museums, people working in interesting fields, anything.
• While school is structured, unschooling is like jazz. It’s done on the fly, changing as the student changes.
• While students in school learn to follow instructions, unschoolers learn to think for themselves and make their own decisions.
• While students in school are asked to learn at pace arbitrarily set by administrators, unschoolers learn at their own pace.
• While in school, learning happens in the classroom at certain times, in unschooling learning happens all the time, and there is no division between learning and life.

Let me emphasize that for a minute: in unschooling, life itself is learning. There is no “doing school” … you are learning all the time.
Unschoolers learn just like you or I learn as adults: based on what interests them, figuring out how to learn it on their own, changing as they change, using whatever resources and learning materials they find, driven by curiosity and practical application rather than because someone says it’s important.
This is how I learn as a self-employed writer, as an entrepreneur, as a parent. It’s how our children will learn when they’re adults. Why not have them learn like that now?

Why Unschool?

Let’s think about what school is about: preparing kids for jobs (and life) in the future … a future that’s probably a decade or more away. Now think about a decade or more of change: how many of us predicted 13 years ago what life would be like today? Did we know about the economic recession, or the changing job market, or the fact that things like smartphones and iPads and ebook readers would be so widespread? And that’s just the start.
If we can’t predict what our kids’ future will be like, how can we decide today what they should be learning to prepare for that future? We’re preparing them for today’s jobs, not tomorrow’s jobs. School teaches kids a set of facts and skills that they might not need in the future.
Unschooling takes a different approach: kids learn how to learn, how to teach themselves. If you know how to learn and how to teach yourself, then you are prepared for any future. If in the future the things we know are obsolete, then the person who knows how to learn anything will be ready to learn whatever is in use in the future. The person who only knows how to learn from a teacher will need a teacher to teach him.
More reasons to unschool:

• It’s how entrepreneurs learn. Schools prepare kids to follow instructions, like good employees, while entrepreneurs take charge of what they need to know and make decisions for themselves, navigate through uncharted waters. Unschooling prepares kids to be entrepreneurs instead of robots.
• It’s much more natural. The school system is a fairly modern invention, and isn’t how humans have learned for the majority of our history. Unschooling is the learning method used for most of human history — including by people like Leonardo Da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Mozart, Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.
• It’s freer. The structure of school is good for people who like decisions made for them, but if you like making your own decisions, and figuring out things based on current needs, you will want more freedom.
• We learn with the kids. While in school, many parents are removed from the learning process, and ask the teachers to take responsibility for their kids’ education, with unschooling you learn with your kids. The most important learning I’ve been doing is learning about learning. We figure out, together, how people learn, what’s the best way to learn, for each kid.
• Learning is unlimited. In school, learning is limited to the classroom and homework time. Then kids believe they stop learning and they can go play and live life — as if learning is boring and they only do it because they’re forced to. But unschoolers learn that learning happens all day long, every day, no matter what you’re doing. If you’re not studying a textbook, does that mean you’re not learning? Can’t you learn from playing games, going for a hike, talking to strangers? How about from figuring out how to cook dinner, or fix a broken faucet, or make a fort? Learning is all around us, and it’s fun! That’s what unschooling teaches us.

There are many more reasons, of course, and each person will find her own reasons. These are just a few of mine.

How to Unschool

This is the hard part, because there is no right way to do it, no single way. And parents who are starting out always, always want to know how to do it. I know we did, and the honest truth is, we’re still figuring out the answer.
Why is there no answer? Because every kid is different. Everyone has different needs, interests, abilities, goals, and environments. What would you say if people told you there was only one way to live your life, one way to do your job? You’d hate it, because it would take away your freedom, and also all the fun.
Telling you how to unschool is like taking away your freedom and all the fun out of it. The questions are everything, and the finding out is the fun.
That said, I will offer some ideas of how we unschool, and some ideas of how you might approach things — but these are just ideas to start you out!

• College bound. Our 16-year-old has decided he wants to go to college, and so studies for the SAT on his own, and is taking some free college courses online, and writes practice college essays on topics he chooses. He also learns things on his own, like programming or 3D animation, and plays the guitar.
• Origami master. Our 13-year-old wants to get good at math, so does some math courses on Khan Academy. She also makes origami and weaves friendship bracelets and reads teen novels and Archie comics and plays piano and goes to the park to play basketball and likes to learn to cook.
• Wolves and wizards. Our 8-year-old loves to read about wolves, and often will pretend he’s a wolf. Also a wizard or werewolf. He likes to play games and read with us and make up stories and draw. He’s pretty good at math on his own, though we don’t really study that with him much.
• Forts and restaurants. Our 6-year-old likes to be read to and isn’t into reading on her own, though she’s been learning to read through games and reading with us. She doesn’t like math but will do it in games. She makes forts and art and likes to play outside and pretend she owns a restaurant or store.
• The power of questions. When the kids ask a question, that’s an opportunity to find out something. We’ll look it up together, or look for books on it in the library.
• People you know are incredible resources. If your kid wants to be a chef, you might know someone who is a chef or owns a restaurant. If your kid wants to create iPhone games, you might know a programmer. If your kid is interested in science, you might know a marine biologist. And so on. Connect them with these people.
• Games are your best friend. Play all kinds of games. Don’t be concerned with what they’re learning. They’ll have fun, and learn that life can be play, and so can learning.
• Fun projects. Working on art and science projects can be a lot of fun.
• Pursue interests. If the kid is interested in something, show her how to find out more, or play with it.
• Deschool. If you’re new to unschooling, and your kid has gone to school for awhile, it’s often a good idea to “deschool”. That means to not worry about learning or schooling for awhile — a couple weeks, a couple months. The idea is to get them (and you) out of the mindset of schooling, which can be very difficult, because we’ve been trained to think in terms of school. We think we need to be productive teachers and students, and that school has to be done a certain way, and that if the kids aren’t learning something from an activity, it has no value. All that is crap, of course, so take some time getting out of that mindset.
• Expose them. Learn to give kids a variety of stimuli — books and magazines lying around the house, watch shows about interesting things, play old board games, get out and explore your town, meet different people, find stuff together on the Internet. This exposure will help them to explore new interests — even if they don’t seem interested at first, the exposure will allow them to find new things on their own.
• Learn as you go. The most important thing is that you need to figure out what works for you. Try different things. Play. Make things. Go out and do things, meet people, have fun learning about new things. Fun, always fun, never hard work unless it’s fun, never force, always get pulled.
• Be patient. You won’t see “results” right away … changes in your kid will happen over time, as he learns that learning is fun and can be done all the time in lots of ways. You also might get frustrated that your kids doesn’t want to study or read or write papers or whatever. But instead, let him play music or play pretend games or read comic books or play outside.
• Trust is important. It’s hard in the beginning (we’re still learning to do this), but it’s important to trust that kids can learn on their own, with minimal guidance, and that if they’re interested in something, they’ll learn about it. We all think kids can’t learn on their own, but they can.

Before you get the wrong idea, I should give credit to Eva for doing most of the unschooling work, and being better at it than I am (Eva is really great, though she won’t admit it). She has read more books and websites on the topic than I am, and does the majority of the unschooling on a daily basis (though I do help out as much as I can). I should also give credit to my awesome sister Kat, who inspired us to unschool, and is one of the most amazing unschooling moms I know.

Our Schools

It's the first week of June and if the teacher strike continues I'm contemplating calling it quits for the year. Don't get me wrong. I support our teachers and our children but it's developing too much stress in our life. Here we are in June. The last month of school that equals chaos anyways while adding an extra day off a week. It is completely messing us up mentally. It's affecting our homeschooling and most importantly it's affecting all our children. This week one of our sons that already struggles within the public system has been removed from school. A mutual agreement between the Principle and I. He's not coping. June is exciting. Then adding the staggered missed days, our son's behaviours have escalated out of control. So before it gets any worse, today (June 6th) was his last day. Not only is it his last day, he will be my 7th child home schooled this coming September. Several of my children have been diagnosed with FASD. (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) For this son not only does he have FASD, he has ADHD. Our son is very endearing but he has a life long hidden neurological disability. He struggles with learning, attention, hyperactivity, he has difficulty sequencing, with memory, with understanding cause and effect, and has weak generalizing skills. Our son is disruptive, and has impulsive behaviours. For example - cutting a girls hair that sits next to him. Throwing rocks at windows. Plugging toilets with larger foreign objects. Urinating everywhere but the toilet. His innocent yet destructive ways are a daily occurrence. Currently he's in grade four. I've been contemplating for over a year now to home school him. I only home school when I know the public system isn't working and its not because it's the public school, it's because some of our children need more one on one, more attention and supervision that the public system lacks. Hence why there is a strike happening right now. I personally don't believe the public system will change drastically to accommodate children like mine that need extra attention. I just don't believe that much in our government. So home schooling is the answer. We are fortunate we have options. When we first started adopting, I distinctly remember our adoption worker asking what we thought about home schooling. At the time I responded, "If we have too" and that "have too" is 100% evident that some of our children succeed learning at home verses the public system. It's interesting for me because some of our children have graduated and do very well within our public system, and some of our children don't. So I don't really have a preference. I believe that our public teachers do an excellent job. They genuinely care for their children they teach. I love most of the teachers I am in contact with. I agree that there is over crowded classrooms, underpaid teachers, and there is not enough educational assistants. Special needs students and students that need extra learning support has risen. I know first hand that special needs children can be disruptive. Not only do they need to be included, they need that one on one supervision and support they're not getting in order to be included and be successful as a successful learning student. I feel sorry this week. The teachers at the public school didn't fail. My son with FASD didn't fail. Our government has. I know my child has special needs funding. I also know that within the public system his funding is spread throughout the school. I also know that his EA time has been limited allowing his behaviours to escalate. I know for a fact that it doesn't matter anymore......because I'm now taking over. I started homeschooling because my children aren't receiving what they need to succeed within the public system, and that's not the teachers fault. Alternative education is on the rise. I'm tired of trying to give consequences to my child/children that are struggling. I'm tired of picking my son up from school for his behaviours. I want him to know he's a good boy, and to learn with what he needs, one on one - in his own unique way to be positively feeling successful. That's why I have dedicated myself to home schooling. I will end this post saying, "I support our teachers, I support our students, I support our schools but I have to support my children that need home schooling because my faith isn't within our government" I need to go with my heart, my directions and it's with Regent, our home school. There was a time I followed man....I don't anymore. I follow that path I'm (we're) being lead on.........and it's in our own unique way.

25 things you might not know about me.......revealed.

1. I was born in Campbell River. Lived one year in Chase River, Nanaimo then moved to Parksville in my grade 7 year.

2. On my twelve birthday I received an old style big clunky "push to the side" typewriter, then when I turned seventeen I received my first electronic typewriter. I loved to write stories (like Steven King) and my dream job I wanted to write and be a reporter for the National Geographic while traveling.
3. I hated my curly hair. I would go to bed and lay completely still to try and flatten one side, then half way through the night, I would turn and try and flatten the other side. I would awake and go to school like that. I was teased. (In my late thirties I started loving my hair)
4. I was and can be very shy. Well reserved. I love being social and having friends but I need to trust first. Throughout my life I've had several good friends. I have been burned a couple times. I believe a friend should be trustworthy, honest and non judgemental. I would love to have a handful a good friends so when I'm 80 years old and can't remember my own name - they will come and reminisce over shots of tequila with me!
5. I don't eat meat but I love seafood. I love sushi (but not raw)
6. I love the great outdoors. I love hiking, traveling and experiencing our world. (Even just with day trips) In the future I plan on traveling to Nepal, trekking the Himalaya's and experiencing the city and culture of Kathmandu.
7. I used to make hundreds of wind chimes of out driftwood and shells located on our local beaches. I made each one with a hand drill until I purchased a drill press, realizing that tools are AWESOME! All my proceeds went to Child haven.
8. I'm a hippy at heart - a free spirit and I believe accepting differences, and all walks of life.
9. I started writing a book. It will take ten years, a bibliography of my life and adoption. I also write on my blog "here" 2-3 times per week.
10. My favorite color is green.
11. I have 16 children, 1 grand babe and 3 dogs. I advocate for adoption, I hold support events and speak on AEP's. (Adoption Education Panels)
12. I love to bake, and cook. I punch (knead) bread the old way. I love "Little house on the Prairie" and if reincarnation exists, I believe I was one of those woman living back in the horse in buggy days, and also living in India. Definitely an old soul I've been told!
13. I love culture. All cultures. I love learning and experiencing everything. I love the First Nations culture.
14. I love freedom of expression. I love being unique.
15. The only outings I do in the evening to release my brain.....is bi-weekly I will go to the movies. I love stepping out of my reality and into a good movie!
16. I home school. I'm on my third year homeschooling six children. I only home school my children when they struggle within the public system. Otherwise I have some of my children attending the public system.
17. I love my forties! I feel more assure of myself, and I feel I can step out into our society feeling good being me - finally! I wonder what else is in my closet!? lol
18. I love babies! I love little children. I love all my children BUT I am (we are) done adopting. I'm at an age now while raising my family, I'm starting to think and question, "What about me?"
19. I am very organized, routined and structured. I love cleanliness and order. Although I can flip, and I love being spontaneous embracing unknown crazy adventures! I want to live life to its fullest. I often wonder on how I can take most of my children and just travel......
20. I love all music. Except that screaming nonsense lol I'm learning to play the guitar and I love playing the bongo drums!
21. I don't know what the future holds. I try to live day by day understanding that everything happens for a reason. I do love "trying" to make a difference.......
22. Years ago I went to University for SEA (Special Education Assistant) it was called back then. Then I started obtaining my tickets in first aid. OEC (Outdoor Emergency) OFA 3, CPR C and I volunteered with the St. John's Ambulance before starting working at Mt. Washington for 10 years. I worked as a first aid attendant at several job sites, and in Costco. Before this I worked at Dairy Queen, a Chevy dealership detailing cars, and I waitressed (night supervised) at Smitty's. I also cleaned house, cooked and supported several elderly people every week. I still keep my first aid tickets current and up to date! :)
23. I tried to get on the show Survivor! My favourite reality television show! I even went to the extent making snow angels in my bathing suit because they wanted a video explaining why I wanted to be the next Survivor! I was acknowledged, although denied because I'm Canadian! I truly think they should have a Canadian verses American Survivor series!
24. I've been pooped on twice by birds! Once by a pigeon outside the Vancouver hospital. I was heading home. I had to travel with this dried grit oozing down my scalp! The second time I was driving with my top down........
25. I've skinny dipped! There's a side of me that no one is aware of.........

"Nice to meet you"

Last week we had a home school field trip to the Kinsol Trestle. It was amazing. A place we plan on visiting with our whole family for a picnic very soon! It's located in the Cowichan Valley. It is one of the tallest free-standing timber rail trestle structures in the world. I can not wait to sit underneath this trestle while our children swim in the Koksilah River. What's even better, it's wheelchair accessible!Here is some pictures from our field trip.

 The picture below with the walk ways that look like roads, those little squares are picnic tables!

Our weekend was good. Saturday was interesting. A friend and I went to my favorite place, Hornby Island. I purchased Oprah's new June magazine, packed blue berries, dill pickle rice crackers and water bottles. We set ourselves up for relaxation for the day! An hour later a thirty year old dentist asked if he could sit with us. While sitting, he told us all about his background, his education, his business, his travels and adventures. He never left. He had lots to say. An extremely smart well established young man. He was so intelligent, I thought my brain was going to explode with all his different philosophies. Approximately a hour later an overly dressed couple sat down next to us. Very young. I'm guessing around twenty one. The male started commenting on the jets in the sky and on how the cloud lines are government related possibly protecting us from global warming with their own pollution cloud cover. While his girlfriend (a herbalist) was "rolling" her own remedy (dried herbs previously soaked in vodka) to smoke. I politely declined when offered to try her lit herbs. Not long after a bongo instructor age thirty six arrived, he was carrying his life on his back. He stopped where we were all still sitting and explained he would be back to play his bongo after he sets up camp in his home. (A log structure located on the beach) When he returned he explained that he is currently looking for work on Hornby and until then, his home was a log fort. By this time we had four new individuals that joined us on the beach. Approximately another hour went by when an elderly man arrived. While standing in front of me he explained he was "Reverend Don Hogan High Priest of Pot" who rode his horse from Winnipeg to Hornby Island in 1986. That he comes to Hornby Island every month to visit his dead horses grave. I thought "Wow" that's amazing. Especially getting a horse on BC Ferries without a trailer. Just riding on......not to mention riding a horse clear across Canada! SO I do what I do best, I researched Reverend Don Hogan also known as Galloping Hogan and sure enough his story is all over the internet. And apparently he claims he could be related to Marilyn Monroe. And not only is he a famous individual, this high priest of pot has been challenging Canada's drug laws. Don was innocent enough, a polite friendly older man with many stories and a different belief system. He explained before coming to Hornby his marijuana was confiscated, and this would be why he has several convictions according to my research. While offering me several times over the pot he had left.....I politely denied his generosity. By this time my friend and I were packing up. It was time to leave. I shook every ones hand saying, "Nice to meet you" but we have to catch the ferry. The bongo player played a farewell song as we walked to our vehicle. During my research I didn't find any documentation that proved his story about riding a horse from Winnipeg to Hornby Island but I did learn more about his passions, which is legalizing drugs. Nonetheless it was an interesting Saturday at my favorite place. I don't mind meeting people. Saturday I met five interesting people from different paths. Bizarre how our little beach area was the centre of attention but I seem to attract anyone and that was OK. My only thoughts while driving home was, "I'm exhausted from every one's theories and I didn't get to open my Oprah magazine after all!"

 





Sunday was a day full of birthday party invites. While I waited for one birthday to finish I brought five to Englishman River Falls. It was a beautiful walk. Another gorgeous day in our neighborhood. After our walk we were early picking up my one son at the birthday party that was located at a farm. So we ventured around looking at all the animals. There was an area where children could hold baby chicks. I had my grand babe with me and I thought what I first great experience for her to hold a baby chick! So my one son brought the baby chick to her while I had my camera in hand. I thought I was going to get this awesome picture of my little grandchild holding a baby bird! NO, I clicked the camera and started yelling, "Let go, let go of the bird!" After release I thought......"Oh no, that poor poor bird" My grand babe grabbed that chicks head so quick, all I could see was its back fur and legs with some squawking involved! We believe the bird will be just fine - just a slight shock to its system. After that we left, I thanked for the invite and headed home!

 We don't have to visit Fiji.....it's in our own back yard!

 

Our Sunday night dinner consisted of homemade smoked salmon sushi and egg cheese muffins. My father and mother from out of town stayed for dinner. It was a nice end to a productive interesting weekend. Funny.....when I told my story to my husband about the encounters I had on Hornby Island, he asked, "Why didn't you leave?" I responded saying, "Why leave?" I didn't get to relax and read a magazine that I originally planned. I had something better.....real life stories regardless if they were true or not, different opinions and theories, I listened to experiences and places that I never heard of and most importantly I met some really interesting people that I had no judgement towards. Who am I to say that I'm not as unique as they are? After all I have sixteen children! Too conclude it was a great memorable weekend with awesome people and awesome food. My husband proudly continued on our daughters wheelchair ramp and now we're welcoming the month of June! Bring it on.....summer time awaits with new adventures and new interesting individuals - like me! 

 Sushi!

 Wheelchair ramp almost finished!



 

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Steve Jobs

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.
Dr. Seuss

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The shift

Today my oldest daughter and her boyfriend treated me out to lunch. She's been living in Vancouver. It was a quick but nice visit. Its a triangle of emotions being a mother of now adult children that have left the nest. A transition that has to happen to continue to have a healthy happy relationship between each other. Regardless if it's exciting for our adult child to leave, it's difficult nonetheless. A huge shift and change of responsibilities. It becomes apparent very quickly on how important family and parents really are. My oldest daughter is now twenty four. I remember every year and it's a bitter sweet feeling knowing that my job as her guardian is now over. I'm still her mother taking a step back, allowing her to lead her life, make her own mistakes and I'm here for when she needs me. We have four adult children now. I feel confident that my husband and I have done everything we could to support, protect and allow experience during their child/adolescent years but it's also hard to take a step back. I'm learning. Our parenting might be over for these four, but we still have twelve more to raise keeping us busy. Sometimes I visualize having only three to six children and what our life would look like right now in comparison. I would be working outside our home, and more likely traveling.....then that vision disappeared while feeling blessed knowing I get to continue raising children and witnessing what great adults they will become. Regardless of the challenges, the frustration and the ongoing cost raising children - I honestly would be lost today without my twelve that still need my guidance. After a few months not seeing my oldest daughter, we sat across from each other as adults reminiscing. I left proud. Proud of my daughter. Proud of myself. Now embracing a new chapter, (a new chapter for four) and a continuation for twelve more. My husband and I successfully raised four to adulthood so far and we're still sane! lol Us parents never take credit where credit is due. Today my feelings of sadness shifted to feeling a congratulations was in order. We might not have an astronaut or a heart surgeon but we have healthy happy adult children moving forward and that's good enough for us. AND if my older children (adults) are reading....."Our dedication for you is from love" "It doesn't matter if I birthed you twenty four years ago or adopted you ten years ago, you were my babies from that beginning. You might be adults now but my love for you is just the same" We still have an adult child living at home but we've learned to step back recognizing that extended parenting and over-functioning isn't helping to develop the necessary skills for real life. It's actually very educational for parents to learn themselves on when enough is enough and "helping" too much can cause a lack of independence. It's hard when we want to support and show our love by over-indulging as a parent. I have learned this all on my own and it only took four adult children later! I now know that us parents (I am) responsible for the relationships I have with our adult children. If they continue to feel entitled, or they're being disrespectful - it's because I've allowed their behavior to exist. If we want change, and our adult children to step outside the nest, we guide and support them in that direction. I truly know that pro activeness is key to any situation. There was a time I thought none of our children would move out. Not anytime soon......but it eventually happens, it's healthy and we as parents have to let them go. My enlightenment today was its time to step back, allow our adult children to do things for themselves, to make their own choices, learn from their own mistakes, and to start building their own foundations. I know it's a lesson learned for me, and a difficult transition for our adult children to grasp that our roles shift, but it results in being that loving responsible parent teaching our children their own life skills. I gave my oldest daughter a hug knowing I might not see her for another couple of months, I walked away silent and proud.

Every day there's changes!

 

This is the time of year where I become semi-inpatient waiting for summer holidays. I start to look for meaningful excuses to start summer now. At the end of June I'm traveling with eleven of our children up North. I am traveling the B.C. loop visiting family and friends. I feel very confidant as the only adult attending this trip while my husband and a few of my children stay home and work. It will be a journey worth writing about! During our last month of school we're wrapping up IEP's, therapist's and doctor appointments. During our last week of May we're saying not "goodbye" but "Good luck and we will see you soon" to one of our educational assistants. She's leaving us after two years. She's starting a family of her own. We have grown with friendship and we can't wait when she visits presenting her new bundle of joy! As we start to shut the door for the 2013/2014 year, we are preparing to start the 2014/2015 year with many changes. New education assistants, adding another home schooling student. (I will be up to six homeschooling) Our public schools are changing, some are closing and other schools are changing their grades to k-7 then 8-12. Change is good. Besides schooling, therapists, doctors, sports, horse riding and music we have many changes happening at home. My husband removed more then 30 stumps, levelled out or yard developing more land. It's amazing how much land we have that's covered in trees, stumps and massive dirt hills from the previous building years before. Our surrounding deck is being enlarged and we're adding a hot tub. Not necessarily for joy use but for our daughter with Cerebral Palsy. So she can swim, and strengthen her legs in water (nightly) before retiring to bed. We have noticed she loves water, swimming and bathing. Our daughter will benefit from this type of therapy and I believe she will also sleep better at night. It's very exciting and a much needed feature to our home! We're busy but that floats our boat, and manages our fort - productivity not only becomes visible, it feels great! It's Friday again! Enjoy your weekend and if you don't have a project to finish, get one!

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.
Paul J. Meyer

Stairway to change

What is the absolutely number one most important word in our vocabulary that we all search for? It's the word that we want to happen every day the moment we awake. Everything we work towards, everything we strive for and teach our children on a daily basis equals what word? Happiness! So why is it so hard for some to accomplish or maintain? My most important mission is to make sure my children are happy, and to grow up feeling confident of themselves no matter who they've become, or what they look like. My oldest daughter told me that I was a good influence for my children and people around me because I teach them to be themselves and to indulge in what makes them happy. That's what's most important. I believe if it's healthy, and it's not harming yourself or anyone else - then live. I openly speak with my children all the time about being themselves. As a large family we have so many differences. Cultural, special needs, and interests. Right now I have my oldest daughter working and living in downtown Vancouver and she loves it! My second oldest son moved to Fort St. John and is now working in camps. He just recently bought his first brand new 2014 Toyota truck and he's full of tattoos. Do I care? Absolutely not. Can I, or will I judge? Absolutely not. What makes me happy is their happiness, and their strength to be who they are and where they want to be. It makes me feel I've done my job as their mother. I teach my children to be proud of not only themselves, but where they've come from and to be proud of their unique family. One fact I've seen with my children above all is they have compassion and acceptance for everyone. For differences. Regardless what the difference is. I hear too many people (from every walk) judging another and it's on my heart to educate that it doesn't matter what we look like, what we do for a living, where we live; only our hearts matter. Besides feeling confident with who we are.....the question will always remain, what makes us happy? For me it's being outdoors. It's hiking. It's experiencing and feeling educated. I'm happy feeling productive. Tonight my fifteen year old son and I accomplished 1,350 stairs within 30 minutes. We have been going to notch hill together. Any form of exercising releases endorphins that make us feel good, we feel happy. This is an hour a day I dedicate for my happiness that I spread to my children in hopes we all can conquer a lifestyle change together. During the stairs tonight my son and I met another man accomplishing 2,825 steps. He was explaining he was 230 pounds and feeling depressed, and unhealthy. So he started doing stairs. 565 steps twice a week. 1,130 x 2 the next week and now he's up to 2,825 steps 4 x a week loosing 30 pounds within two months. He also changed the way he eats, and he never eats after 7pm. After he shared his story while helping me inspire my son to do more stairs, he offered my son a flooring job and that he would teach my son to not only lay flooring but to help him with his lifestyle change. I found the one hour we were away bizarre. What are our odds meeting someone not only inspiring us with his personal life story but to offer future inspirations for my son! After all, children never listen to their parents anyways.....they listen to strangers. It was like God (or our universe) was looking down on us and presenting an opportunity in which my son needs! Opportunities, education (feeling important) equals confidence then happiness. It was a great hour. I've written a previous post called the "Golden Hour" I think that's the title. It has nothing to do about saving a life within that precious hour, it's about maintaining our life through happiness with an hour. An hour a day for ourselves is all we need while continuing to have a non-judgemental life, to accept everyone for who they are, to allow difference and to love each other as we're attended too - we all can live in harmony with peace and happiness. Did you know that judgement and criticism usually is activated because we aren't happy with ourselves? So to conclude - ask yourself, "Are you happy?" And if not, what will it take for you to change your life? To love others unconditionally? To love yourself!? To live as we are intended too? We are all uniquely different, all our answers to these questions are too.....the first step is to recognize our own faults, the next step is to work on change, then lastly to continue to step forward with dedication and commitment for not only our own happiness but to deliver it to others with acceptance, compassion and love. I've offered this before, and if you're interested (living in my area) and you want to join us with our happy hour on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6-7pm we are conquering the stair endorphins, the other days are scattered hours to conquer the notch endorphins, please message me for timing. If this is not for you - figure it out and conquer what makes you happy. AND remember to spread that happiness around either by a smile, by paying it forward, and most importantly accepting every ones differences!