unschooling bad idea

[Lyudmilascience]

Unschooling is form of homeschooling where you set no limits on what your child does, you let them choose what they learn what they want to eat and when they want to go to bed.I am not in favor of unschooling. What do you think of unschooling? is this a bad idea? I am a little worried that one of my family members is going to raise their child unschooled. I dont think this is good for them and I dont think she is considering what is good for her child and the downside of unschooling. I am a strong supporter of learning science, I am really interested in science and I think that if I didn't learn it in depth I would have not gotten interested in it at this point in life. I do think that the school made me fall very behind because English is not my first language and I wish I was in advanced placement science classes but at least i can study it now. Is there any way to talk my family member out of this? this is more for the sake of the kid. How hard is it to get back into school if she felt like she wanted to put her daughter back into school after five years of school lets say? I understand that I am not this child's mother but I still really care about her and I at least want the mother to see the dangers of unschooling before she makes this decision, because from what I have talked to her about she dosent know about the dangers of unschooling and she dosent want to consider an opinion of a person who dosent have any experiences with this.I can understand that as well but I do not think this child or any child will do well in this kind of environment. She will however listen to other peoples opinions but none of them have been significant enough for her to think about them. There are also very few videos online not supporting unschooling, most of them support unschooling. But in reality not all unschool children end up in a good position when they are thinking about going to college.

[iNow]

I'm unfamiliar with the term unschooling, but do know that it largely depends on your onjective.

 

If you want your child to realize as much of their innate potential as possible without influence or direction and without concern for how successful they'll be able to survive in the modern world, then unschooling seems like a good approach to achieve that. It's like tossing an unshaped stone into a river and letting erosion by nature take its course.

 

However, if your goal is to position your child to understand the system in which they exist and to be able to pull the levers that need pulling to acquire income and have security and comfort and safety and protection (basically, to ensure that the lowest layer of Maslow's pyramid is stable and secure), then some more rigid and regimented rules, boundaries, and limitations are almost certainly required to be applied during the childs development.

 

Regardless, it may also help to remember that good and bad are not in any way objective quantitative descriptors, but are instead contingent on the local circumstance and desired outcome and personal preference.

Edited September 19, 2015 by iNow

[Acme]

... There are also very few videos online not supporting unschooling, most of them support unschooling. But in reality not all unschool children end up in a good position when they are thinking about going to college.

Do you have any references other than your feeling that unschooling leads to unpreparedness for college? Moreover, many students in 'traditional' schools also end up in poor positions for attending college. What or who is to blame for them?

 

Here's a page by John Holt -the major early promoter of unschooling- that addresses common objections.

Common Objections to Homeschooling

 

Keep in mind it's not your child and over-intrusion can have detrimental consequences.

[Lyudmilascience]

thankyou for your responses I dont have any personal experience with unschooling but I do have personal experience with this kid. and I have experience with some other kids that were home schooled, one did end up going to college to an art school and the other just started working right away, she did want to go to college though. I just know how my family raises children and shes very leniently, for her fifth birthday she decided to throw her daughter five birthday parties,she lets her eat as much sweets as she wants to ,and basically she eats nothing but sweets I can understand someones reasons for homeschooling or unschooling but I have to look at the specific circumstance, who is going to teach the child and is this better then them being raised in the school system? I think that mabe there are kids that would be better off homeschooled but I dont think she would be, its because of the fact that she wont be getting a tutorshe dosent like spending money on that, she will be teacher her herself and so far, when the mother starts trying to teacher to write letters or read letters she asks to go play and she lets her. she not only lets her do anything she wants, the child is also not wanting to learn or gain self control form that, and i do not think that will be good for her later on in life.I dont think statistics would help me see the out come here because its not about how most people end up after finishing highschool its how she will end up. this relative raised me when i was younger and she decided to only teach Russian to me and teach everything in Russian, I was way behind in the school system and it basically skrewed up my self esteem and the rest of my life. I was put in English as a second language and I refused to learn English, I used to hide from the teachers. I dont know am I overreacting to this based on our circumstance? I just cant sit back and watch this without saying anything to her.