I’m just posting a quick note about these two book series for unschoolers. It’s so great to have some fictional books appearing that reflect some of our lifestyle when most books my family reads about other families talk about school, homework and grades. Both these authors had found the same and created these books to fill that need:

For younger readers:

“I Am Learning All the Time”
Written by Rain Fordyce
Illustrated by Audrey Miles-Cherney

Description: A large, eco-friendly, perfect binding,
soft-cover, 8¼” x 10” full illustration color book.

I Am Learning All the Time is the story about 5 1/2 year-old Hugh as he begins the discovery process of what it means to not go to school. He reflects on life at home and life of his neighborhood friends, who go to school.

A fun, compelling story narrated by Hugh about his life at home. Full of bright, eye-catching illustrations with realistic (and realistically messy) scenes from family life. Your children will love and identify with the characters in this book.

And for older readers:

The series follows the fictional Wright family as they travel the entire United States of America in their RV. The children, Nadia and Aidan, are homeschoolers. Each book is set in a different state with a different fun and educational theme. The Wright on Time books are:
* Exciting and Mysterious!
* Fun and Educational!
* Feature homeschooled children and active, involved parents!
* Contain characters who actually like each other!

Wright on Time: Arizona, Book 1: Explore a desert cave with the Wright family as they begin their 50 state RV homeschooling tour of the USA. What will Aidan & Nadia discover? Bats? Gems? Minerals? Speleothems? A mysterious device? This is where the fun begins!

Click here to see a movie about the book!

Your Recommendations

Do you know of other fiction written about home schoolers or unschoolers?  Please let me know so that I have a look at them and share the details.

Thank you!

The Law of Attraction is something you probably know a bit about by now and as you can tell, something that is really ringing my bell at the moment and cropping up in conversations in all parts of my life. You’ve probably already heard that whether you believe in it or not, that it’s always working, which is why I think it’s so much better to work with it, intentionally, rather than just letting life happen, sometimes bringing great things with it and sometimes not.

Sometimes, all that you need, is a slight shift in perspective for what you’re looking at to make a whole load more sense. When I need that kind of shift I usually turn to books or audios of some of inspirational mentors that have crossed my path in recent years. I can see that they have already walked this road and are a bit further along the route than me, so I enjoy their perspective and know that, just as I help others out who’re walking the path I’ve already passed, my mentors help me miss some of the potholes and suggest less steep bits of the road to make my journey easier.

One of the mentors I spoke of before was Bob Proctor. I first encountered him on The Secret, but over the years, I have really been drawn to his way of explaining things and later even found that some of my other favourite writers or speakers were his students too. He has a few programs out, but one of my favourites is the Secret Science of Getting Rich.

Even as I write that, I wonder if the word “rich” has triggered a response for you like it did for me originally? It’s based on a book by Wallace D Wattles and he writes:

WHATEVER may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich. No man can rise to his greatest possible height in talent or soul development unless he has plenty of money; for to unfold the soul and to develop talent he must have
many things to use, and he cannot have these things unless he has money to buy them with.

A man develops in mind, soul, and body by making use of things, and society is so organized that man must have money in order to become the possessor of things; therefore, the basis of all advancement for man must be the science of getting rich.

I came across a similar quote from Abraham-Hicks this week:

You are right when you think, Money Isn’t Everything. You certainly do not need money to have joy in your experience. But in your society – where so much of what you live is tied to money in some way – most of you associate money with freedom and since freedom is a basic tenet of your being, coming into alignment with money will help you establish… a balanced footing that’ll be of value to you in all other aspects of your experience.

And these two came hot on the heels of a discussion I’ve been having with some friends about wealth and so have had me thinking a lot about it. It seems to me that when I have had little money and have been worrying whether or not I could pay the bills or buy groceries, that my world was a very small place where I didn’t feel expanded, when I was a more stressed parent and a less fun partner and not the best contribution to the world that I could be. And when I have had an abundance of money available to me that the main difference was a sense of freedom. Now I know that having money and freedom do not necessarily go hand in hand, but I do know that having a free flowing abundance of money in a world that operates on a financial basis gives you the choice.

One of the most important factors for me was also my flow into an unschooling lifestyle. It’s so important to me when I’m unschooling to be able to provide a learning rich environment and to be able to go out and see the world that we’re living in, not only learn about it from books or TV and I wanted to have the freedom to choose to follow a passion and choose what we want to experience because it interests us not only by what we can ‘afford’. Of course we can be creative and resourceful with what we have, however much that is at any given time, and we are, (there’s a great post on that from Unschooling We Stand here) but I also include in my dream vision of our life trips to loads of other places in the world, hands on experiences and having the unlimited resources of materials, classes and more for what we each want to learn and enjoy. Also, for us, it’s important to be able to have both parents involved so that our children see different ways of doing things as well as experience both of us following our own passions and interests so that our children can follow our example. Not least of which is enjoying our children’s company, which seemed so unfair when only one parent could enjoy their best hours and their dad could only see them in the evenings and on weekends.

Over the years, I have found many programs running in my inner world and self talk about wealth, about an either/or type mindset (like either spiritual or rich, work hard or have fun, be the breadwinner or be with your children), judgements of wealthy people, “rules” about ‘honest’ work for ‘honest’ pay and loads of others that I have dismantled and am still doing so and I am truly greatful for some of the resources I have used along the way to give me a perspective from another angle than where I’m standing. Some have shifted me just a little, and when I’ve come back to them again, I’ve been ready for bigger shifts, while some have simply blown me out of the water and a small detail has given me a huge breakthrough.

One of Bob Proctor’s students, Brian Wong has just released a special report and video called the Seasonal Wealth Report which you can access here: Seasonal Wealth Report. It refers to the Law of Timing and is a bit sales-y overall, but it may just have a nugget that gives you a different perspective that could help you today if you’re feeling stuck.

I’ve also added a video by Bob Proctor in the side bar, but feel free to post any questions or comments you have about the program, or wealth, or unjobbing or whatever else stirs you about this. It’s something that’s got me fired up and I love talking about things like that while I can feel the energy flowing in that direction.

Anger is such a great emotion that has such
a huge taboo over it. “Nice” people don’t get angry:  that’s the message I grew up with.  Instead of developing healthy ways of feeling and expressing anger, I was left hanging, feeling shame for feeling it and no reasonable way to deal with it. When I eventually came across Louise Hay’s work on how specific diseases can be linked to the suppression of specific emotions, it made sense to me and gave me the motivation to acknowledge and work with my achilles heel, which was anger, but it took many, many years and a lot of healing to clear the backlog and learn to work with it as an ally in the present moment.

I love anger.  It’s a clear signal that something you are experiencing in the present is not in alignment with who you are and what you are wanting to create in your life.  It is a force, a huge rush of energy that you can use to make change, take action, improve yourself, but the key is to keep that emotional energy IN MOTION.

Abraham talk about the Emotional Guidance Scale* and how hard it is to move instantly from a low state to a high state and especially, to maintain a higher state if you haven’t moved steadily through at least some of the stages of emotion in between – the difference in vibration is just too great.  It’s why you can feel on a such a rollercoaster of highs and lows when you start working with self development and spiritual ideas and why many people end up feeling inadequate or guilty that they haven’t maintained the peak experiences they felt when they were in a workshop or with someone who’s inspiring and uplifting to be with.

That steady progression needn’t take more than a few minutes but it can even take months or years depending on where you are in your personal journey and where you tend to steady out emotionally on a day-to-day basis (in the health field they call that your set point but you shift it with practise).  The fact is that many of us start off pretty low and may have gotten used to feeling depressed or powerless or insecure and so we need to feel angry because anger feels better than feeling powerless or depressed or scared.  The problem is that anger is not ‘allowed’.  People around you may prefer you to be in one of the lower states than moving into anger because anger is a BIG emotion and, especially if you haven’t had enough practise at owning it rather than directing at other people, it can be very uncomfortable to be around.

How often do you see parents pacifying their angry children, trying to get them to ‘quiet down’ or people telling an angry person to calm down or pull it together?  If every time you reach anger, you’re sent back down to shame or powerlessness, it can be hard to feel the relief and freedom that lies just the other side of it in blame, or doubt or boredom, let alone hitting hopefulness, optimism or joy as your regular inner feeling.  Of course it’s useful to know how to ‘be angry’ without directing anger ‘at’ another person, but I should think that’s a whole other post for another day.

I’ve noticed that, luckily, kids move through their Emotional Guidance Scale much more easily than us adults who’ve had the process hampered a little.  It can be really easy to help them to keep the energy in motion by simply allowing them to express themselves freely until they shift on their own, or by validating them by just stating what you see they’re feeling without judgement or adding to the drama of the situation.  However, sometimes they need a little more help, especially if they’ve already learned some less effective ways of coping from parents who are a work in progress, like me (raises her hand).  I like my children to have control over themselves, so rather than do any surrogate tapping for them, I prefer to show them how to do it for themselves so they can have a tool for life.

In line with that, here’s another video from Brad Yates and his adept assistant to help your child deal with anger.  EFT doesn’t deny the emotion, it just gets the energy flowing where it’s gotten ’stuck’ in a person’s ’story’ or field, freeing their way up the scale.

Happy tapping to you and your family:

Brad adds this note:

*Once again, thanks to Vickie for her post on the Emotional Guidance Scale here.

Wow!

My kids love this book.  I love this book.  Does anyone not love “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak? And now we can look forward to the movie inspired by the book by Spike Jonze.

Being True To Yourself

As Forest Whitaker says of the movie’s main theme in this interview:  It’s about finding your own place in the world.  Max “wants to find comfort but still wants to be himself.  It’s about wanting to be true to himself.  That’s the universal principle”.  I know it’s what I strive for in myself and my dynamic with my family and in my life as an unschooler and an Abraham-Hicks student or someone trying to live a passion led life.

We’ll definitely be seeing this movie and I’ll report back with our review.

Movie Notes

Released in the US on 13 October and coming to the UK on 11 December 2009.
Other release dates can be found here.
Rated PG, you can read a full parental guide here.

You can visit the official movie site here where this Behind The Scenes featurette can be seen along with other lovely goodies:

How do you control your kids without rules?

This seems to be one of the main questions that comes up for people when they encounter Unschooling: “No Rules?” they ask incredulously while imagining the unschoolers’ home to be a zoo. The same no rules thing seems to confuse some unschoolers who read it as an instruction to never say “no” to anything their children are doing nor to discuss their family values or principles with them. My understanding of Unschooling is of a very hands on approach: guiding when asked, sharing options (and opinions as long as you label them such), even leading by being an example of what you want to see, but without coercion or manipulation, but not one that expects children, especially very young children to be able to be left alone to figure everything out for themselves.

The House-Guest Analogy

If you had a house-guest from another culture who was behaving in a way that was inappropriate for your family or culture, you’d sit down and compassionately explain why their behaviour was uncomfortable for you or others and share what was the norm for this culture and allow them to come to their own decision about it. You wouldn’t let them just carry on oblivious to the hurt or discomfort that was being left in the wake of their actions, nor shout at them and punish them, or even ignore them and then reward them when they behaved in a way you were more comfortable with.

Living by Principles

It’s that thought and approach that I try to use when I find my children, or my husband, doing something different to how I would do it.  Or not doing something I wish they were doing.  I try not to demand, make arbitrary rules or feel like they must have taken their action just to ruin my day (yes, all scripts from my own authoritarian upbringing).  I like the NVC approach of talking about it where I state what I am observing without judging it, say how I’m feeling about it and what my underlying need is and then make my request to see if my family would be willing to help me out with whatever it is.  It comes back to the principle which can have many expressions, rather than a rule that is so rigid for life which is so dynamic.

Sandra Dodd on Rules

It’s an approach for me that is summed up well by Sandra in this video, that we try to live by principles rather than by rules. Have you ever noticed how many exceptions you have to make once you’ve made a “rule”?  Rules can be so arbitrary and have so many exceptions to make them laughable and, as their primary purpose within the home is to make the lives of some family members easier by removing autonomy from other members, it is a breeding ground for rebellion and deceit.  I’m finding that living by principles rather than rules is taking the struggle out of life and parenting (and partnering!) for me.  It’s not easy overcoming the patterns I inherited and learned during my own childhood, nor do I succeed every time, or even every day, but it’s well worth persevering!  I’m definitely getting better at it than I was and that’s all I can do.