Walking Down the Street

Well, we found out last night that it wasn't the thermostat that was causing our Jeep Cherokee to overheat; it was the head gasket (I think?). Now, even though I religiously listen to Car Talk, I really don't know much about automobiles. Apparently, a broken head gasket is a Really Big Deal, and means pretty much the same thing as a broken engine. This, in turn, means that we will be vehicle-less for at least a week while the mechanics rebuild the top half of our Cherokee's engine. Hooray. So this morning, instead of doing a good hour or two of homeschooling and then zipping down the hill to pay rent and pick up some groceries before lunch, my son and I put on our walking shoes and embarked on a fun-, sweat- and errand-laden peregrination through our neighborhood.

Living on a small island is much akin to living in a small town: we were constantly stopping to socialize as we made our way through Cruz Bay. From the woman who owns the bakery (breakfast was our first priority this morning) to the two lovely librarians (our library books were of course due today) to the man who sells us our internet service (the internet was inexplicably down this morning) to the hardware store owners (suddenly Parker is fascinated by hooks, especially when attached to a string, so we stopped to get him one, which I tied to a piece of thread) to the Mail Center employees to the woman at the smoothie stand to the grocery clerk to the assorted friends and acquaintances we kept running into (thankfully not literally), my son had ample opportunity to practice his social skills today. To continue with the theme, we ate dinner at my husband's restaurant earlier this evening after returning my husband's partner's car, which I'd been able to borrow this afternoon to shop for enough food and water to hopefully last us until our Cherokee is fixed. (Have I mentioned that we live uphill from downtown? Carrying sacks of groceries, jugs of water and a 42-pound kid up the insanely steep hill atop which sits our island home is high on my list of activities to avoid.) Parker sat at the bar, ate his fish and fries and chatted with his favorite lady friend (blonde and gorgeous, naturally), several of the customers, the bartender and wait staff. My son and I will be fairly isolated--stuck without wheels at home--for a while starting tomorrow, so I figured a day of running around, out and about, would be good, for both of us.

Postscript: This repair on our Cherokee is going to cost us an arm and a leg. While we have our wallet figuratively open, I thought, "Hey, why not spend another arm or so on a printer?" Reading about all the homeschool materials I'll be needing to prepare in the coming months, I'd been realizing that a home printer would be incredibly handy to have. So I ordered one today. Of course, my husband-the-techie made me get a much fancier one than I'd at first selected ("But with this one we'll be able to print from our phones!"), but that's OK. I'll have fun watching him nearly levitate with glee the first time he presses "Print" on his iPhone.

The library books we borrowed today.

Parker's hook (which he's been merrily using to raise and lower a countless number of household items).

Home vs. Un

At the Library

Well, this morning resembled most other Monday mornings for us. Parker and I were both excited to do school (he pulled out the shelves himself almost immediately after I came home from my walk), but we had a laundry list of errands to do before we could start our school day (DMV, library, hardware store, cable bill payment, mail center). However, instead of hurrying through our errands (is it even possible to rush through the DMV?) in an attempt to squeeze in some school before naptime, I slowed down and looked around for learning opportunities while we were out and about. I wrote earlier about how I'm just starting to accept the (somewhat ego-deflating) fact that my son learns just as much outside of school as he does during our homeschooling sessions. (So much for my dreams of becoming a homeschool teacher extraordinaire!) This is especially true when I make a concerted effort to teach him about things throughout the course of the day. For example, on one of our many recent trips to the DMV, I saw a paperclip lying on the ground; I picked it up, told Parker what it was and showed him how it worked. I compared it to the staple that was holding my sheaf of DMV paperwork together and had Parker practice using the paperclip. (Sure, the paperclip was technically trash--who knows how many people had stepped on it already--but we were waiting in line at the DMV. What else were we going to do?) This morning, on our final (huzzah!) trip to the DMV, Parker crawled under my chair and told me he was a baby chinchilla growing inside an egg and that I was sitting on top of him to keep him warm until he hatched. This started a conversation about chinchillas and, inevitably, a debate (OK, argument) about how baby chinchillas are born.

Before I started this homeschooling adventure, I'd thought that choosing to keep one's child out of formal school-like institutions in favor of educating him in the home was as extreme as a parent could get with regard to her offspring's education. Silly me, there's no such thing as "the most extreme" in this country. Apparently, some people consider homeschooling to be too rigid and choose to "unschool" instead. Unschooling is an educational philosophy created in the 1970s that is focused on letting children learn through "natural life experiences" rather than through a traditional school curriculum. Now, I wouldn't say that our homeschool's Montessori-inspired syllabus resembles a "traditional school curriculum" by any means, but I do have to admit (as I did a couple posts ago) that the structure of our homeschool seems to sometimes chafe my son's sensibilities. In light of this (also because I'm just naturally incredibly curious), I've read a bit about unschooling, and I've found it inspiring. I'm not going to quit the Montessori method or anything, but I do find it both exciting and freeing to view the world at large as an (amazingly complex and stimulating!) extension of our little homeschool.

It wasn't like I was an automatron mom before I discovered this thing called unschooling. Anyone who has a small child knows that parenting pretty much equals teaching, particularly during the first few years of life. But I can't say I was always seeking out teaching opportunities, and I can say that, since we started homeschooling, I've often felt harried as I've tried to zip through chores and errands so that my son and I can do school most every morning. Well, this morning I had unschooling in mind. I didn't hurry and, though we didn't do any of our homeschool activities, my son discussed anatomy, zoology and pest control with me, practiced tracing uppercase letters and observed commerce in action. And, since we weren't trying to hurry home to do school, we were able to enjoy a pleasant lunch together at our local bakery. (And I was CALM the whole time!)

Postscript: The library had some leftover workbooks lying about on a table by the checkout counter today. Parker spontaneously opened one up, asked to borrow a crayon and started tracing some letters. Also (as I mentioned in a previous post), he's been very interested in his body and how it works. Since he has absolutely loved his two Usborne "Flip Flap" books about (respectively) farms and airports, I purchased the Usborne "See Inside Your Body" flap book for him, even though it's technically for ages 8 and up. He gets very intent when we read it. So far, he likes the sections about the respiratory system and the digestive system best. This morning, as he was drinking some water, Parker said, "And you know, Mommy, when I drink water it slides down my throat into my bladder and then I pee it out." I smiled and replied, "Well, I'm pretty sure the water goes into your tummy first." There was a brief pause and then Parker pedantically responded, "No, Mommy, not my tummy. My stomach."

Lunch

Gratuitous Picture

(Island Animal Life)

Unconditional Parenting?

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Library "Field Trip"

My son's friends (and my friends, the little boys' moms) couldn't make it to the playground for our weekly get-together this morning, so Parker and I decided to head to the library instead. My cousin, Jill, gave him a Skippyjon Jones book this past Christmas and he's lately become obsessed with it. Since I have started to inwardly groan whenever my son pulls Lost in Spice down from the bookshelf, I thought that, at the very least, we could benefit from borrowing a couple different, "new" Skippyjon books. And if we got out of the house for a little bit and found some other interesting books to borrow, too, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, either. The recently renovated library here on St. John is quite nice and quite cool--they always have the A/C on high there. It's situated in a beautiful old estate house and has a fairly extensive children's books selection. There's a large taxidermied iguana lying directly beneath a display of LEGOs, the placement of which I find a little odd (how about moving the dead lizard away from the colorful, enticing toys to somewhere, oh say, in the adults' section?), but this is the Virgin Islands so I shouldn't be surprised. We met a little boy while we were there who lives on the other side of the island, so I guess we did do some socializing on our day specifically set aside for socializing, after all.

In my last post, I wrote about how I would like to start praising my son's efforts--as opposed to his achievements--in an attempt to teach him to place less emphasis on "success." He already shows some signs of performance anxiety, at times not wanting to try things, uttering, "I can't do that!" I feel like Parker would attempt more, and persevere through challenging tasks more often, if he didn't place so much weight upon doing well. My friend, Jen S., commented on yesterday's post, recommending that I read Alfie Kohn, an author who advocates "unconditional parenting." I came across an article by Kohn in the New York Times back in September, in which he stated, "Some people who wouldn’t dream of spanking choose instead to discipline their young children by forcibly isolating them, a tactic we prefer to call 'time out.' Conversely, 'positive reinforcement' teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a 'good job.'" Those words gave me pause when I read them last fall. I revisited them this afternoon upon seeing Jen's comment and, again, I had to stop and think. Later on in the article, Kohn said that unconditional parenting should be accompanied by "explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view." I feel like I do all those things pretty well. What I don't do well is keep mum when my kid does something I find amazing. If I agree with Kohn's assertion that heaping praise upon Parker when he accomplishes something I deem to be great (that is to say, "positive reinforcement") sends him the message that my love is contingent upon what he achieves--and I do tend to agree--then I really need to work on not voicing my judgments. It was so easy to get into the habit of saying, "Wow! Look what you can do!" when Parker was a toddler and just beginning to do things like walk and talk; those were exciting times. Now I'm realizing that my kid doesn't need me to tell him that he's performed well because he can (and should!) judge for himself. This, to a degree, falls in line with the educational philosophy of the Montessori method. The "control of error" included in each Montessori activity lets the child see on his own whether he has made any mistakes; he doesn't need to sit there, waiting to find out whether his teacher will give him a gold star. I think I will read some more Alfie Kohn, starting with his book, Unconditional Parenting. One of the great side effects of this homeschooling experiment is that I'm becoming more mindful of myself as a mother. (Not that I was out to lunch before, but there have been some definite "auto pilot" days.)