[Click here for a larger image.]

I would hate it if I turned out to be the mother in this strip, the one who just gives an automatic no. No thinking, no sharing of the child’s excitement, only flat-out no. I’m not thrilled that mothers take the blame — don’t dads ever put the kibosh on things? — but it still speaks the truth about parenting in general. So I see the strip as an example of what not to do: Don’t just say no. Turn off the “automatic no” switch and instead support my kids’ dreams. Over the past two years or so, I’ve come to see myself as my children’s partner in dream fulfillment. We’ve still got to get through the day-to-day realities of life, but I’ve learned to say yes more and more, and it makes all the difference.

So instead of saying no to some of their wackier-sounding (to me) ideas, Mr. Enigma and I say yes a lot. And then we try to figure out how we can make whatever they’re asking for happen. Maybe we can do it right then and there. Often, we have to work together on a plan to make it happen down the road. Sometimes we tweak the details. But the answer is still, “Yes, we can. Let’s figure out how.” Our kids still think we say no too often, but I know that we’ve made a shift and that we’ll continue to work on saying yes more.

In May, a 13-year-old friend of ours was telling us about a trip to Paris she’s planning with friends for when they’re 18. My daughter, age 10, immediately asked if she could go too. I said, “Sure!” She can go, even though she’ll be younger than the other kids. We might have to delay the trip until she’s 16 and the others are 19. And we’ll have to plan very carefully to make sure we can ensure her safety. If we can figure out how to make the trip safe (within reason), she can go. Maybe I’ll fly over there with them to get them situated. Maybe my brother, who lived in Paris for 10 years, can hook the kids up with some local friends to help make sure they’re safe and have a decent meal once or twice. He might even be living in Paris again by then. Who knows? The specifics are irrelevant right now. The key is that I wasn’t going to say no to that trip. Why would I crush the dream?

Within a couple of days, my daughter and I started to figure out we could make the trip happen. To estimate the cost, we researched current airfares, Eurorail, and youth hostel rates, as well as what other young, cash-strapped travelers have said about food and related travel expenses. We calculated what a 2-week trip would cost in today’s money. And then we figured out how much she’d have to earn and save each year for the next 5.5 years. It came to a few hundred dollars per year. To her, the money seems almost impossible. We’re talking about a young kid with very few opportunities to earn significant amounts of cash. But I explained to my daughter that as she gets older, she’ll have more opportunities to earn money. She also has a savings account she can tap into for the trip. Financially, it’s very doable, and I want her to believe that it’s doable. If she wants it, she can do it.

Will my daughter ever take that trip? I don’t have a crystal ball. Five+ years is a long time. But if she doesn’t, it won’t be because her father and I just gave her an automatic no. We’re not going crush her hopes and dreams.

Link: Zits, 08/02/09

Tags: automatic no, parenting, saying yes, Paris, crushing dreams,

He was not pleased. He did not ask for this new bed, and he did not want this new bed.

But that didn’t stop him from jumping. Jump, jump, jump. For the past five years, that bed has taken a beating. He’s big for his age and a wee bit enthusiastic, so it was inevitable that at some point he was going to crash through the platform. And a couple of months ago, he did.

Mr. Enigma, my husband, had patched the hole with some 1/4-inch plywood, but he was afraid it wouldn’t hold forever. So last weekend, he swapped in the platform piece from our daughter’s old bed. (She doesn’t need it anymore because she built her own bed last year.) But before he did, I made him illustrate just how big the hole was. Look how horrified he was to assist.

Of course, uncovering the bed meant unearthing some major dust bunnies. I swear, they’re alive.

Mr. Enigma has all the right tools for just about any job. He has a staple-puller-outer-thingie to pull crazy-long staples out, and a staple gun to shoot crazy-long staples in, among other handy devices.

The bed’s fixed, good as new, but it’s still rotten for jumping. So now the Duke jumps on my bed. There’s no platform to break, unless you consider the second-story floor a platform.

Um….

Tags: jumping on the bed, broken bed, tools,

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Tags: Lowell Folk Festival, thunderstorm, being prepared, Revolving Museum,

–The Duke of Hazard, 8.5 years

This is what happens when you clean so rarely that your kids find the smell of lemony fresh household cleaners to be offensive.

If you have a child in college or know someone who has a child in college, I highly recommend Maria’s book. Not only is it superbly edited (heh, heh), but the subject is one near and dear to my heart. Maria wrote the book (and started her company, Campus Calm) to help students relax and live emotionally healthier lives while in college so that they set themselves on a lifelong path of fulfillment and success (which each person defines for herself). The book includes chapters on learning again how to love learning, being creative, focusing inward, thinking big, and just plain having fun. Pascucci doesn’t advocate being irresponsible and/or partying for four years; she advocates embracing the college experience by slowing down enough to figure out what you really love to learn and to do and then pursuing those things.

As you might imagine, the book’s stop-and-smell-the-roses theme resonated with me. Many of the things Maria writes about, from anxiety-ridden, over-scheduled students, to kids who take courses only to check off graduation requirements, to students who care only about their GPA and not what they’re learning, reflect perfectly what Mr. Enigma and I hope our children can avoid by being homeschoolers. They have the time to follow their interests and the environment in which to truly know themselves. We don’t ever want to hear them ask, literally or figuratively, “Will this be on the test?”

Seriously, I know I’m biased, but Campus Calm University is a great book and a great read for anyone — even us old folks out in the so-called real world — who has found him- or herself caught in the rat race and who feels stressed out and stuck. If you need some calm, on campus or off, check out Campus Calm University.

Tags: Campus Calm University, Maria Pascucci, Independent Publisher Awards

Can we have it so the kids can take it apart? “Sure, have at it!”

Mr. Enigma spent some time late last fall emptying the gas and oil tanks and removing the engine from the chassis. He covered it up and left it near our shed, where snow promptly buried it for a couple of months. Over the long winter, the kids forgot about it. Then I mentioned it a couple of nights ago. My daughter wasn’t terribly interested, but there was no holding The Duke back.

The next morning, we peeled back the tarp and unveiled the hardware. As I lifted the engine to move it to the grass, The Duke said, “Hey, that’s a spark plug!” It was — I didn’t know he knew what a spark plug was! When, exactly, did he acquire that knowledge?

[What’s behind curtain number one?]

Before any project, it’s important to gather the right tools. The Duke has his own toolbox, complete with several screwdrivers of differing sizes and heads, an adjustable wrench, a hat, and measuring tape, which he apparently thought he’d need but didn’t. I also brought out my toolbox in case I had some tools he was missing. (I’m not sure which we have more of in this house, tools or books.)

[Carefully choosing the right tools.]

The Duke patiently examined the engine from all angles, planning his attack. We agreed that he should remove the plastic engine cover first since it was covering so much. It took us a while to get the sockets on the handle, but once I figured out we needed a pesky little adapter, the Duke was all set.

[The first piece came off easily.]

The socket set was our friend today. The Duke removed a lot of bolts surprisingly easily. Others required a little more oomph and some better leverage. My inner (and outer) feminist was not going to be happy if neither of us could budge any bolts and I had to ask big, strong, manly Mr. Enigma to loosen them for us.

[Gaining some leverage.]

Occasionally, a less, um, refined tool was needed. Did you know that when a part is really stuck, you can sometimes smash it off?

[Descendant of Thor swings his mighty hammer.]

Overall, I was impressed with The Duke’s careful attention to detail, his patience, and his use of different tools to do different jobs. He even grabbed a very small, thin flathead screwdriver and used it as a lever to bend some metal flashing that was blocking two bolts.

After about an hour, which included a couple of short breaks on the swings and zip line, The Duke announced, “That’s enough for today.”

[A day’s work.]

Tags: take apart, learning by doing, lawnmower

It’s so good, it deserves a trademark, doesn’t it?

Too bad it’s not my phrase. I plagiarized it from an acquaintance who was explaining why she enrolled her daughter in a Friends school: she wanted her daughter to grow from the inside out, and not the other way around. That’s it, isn’t it? This mother felt, as many homeschoolers and parents who chose nontraditional schools for their kids do, that conventional schools don’t allow children to grow naturally, that they spend essentially all of their energy trying to squeeze all those young, excited, unique individuals into the same small box. It’s not that the people in the schools are big, bad, kid-loathing meanies; obviously most of them love kids and love teaching. It’s that the system itself is designed for just this purpose, to turn out legions of young people who think alike, behave alike, and know the same body of information (which they often quickly forget).

Our family came to homeschooling after a few years of thinking and learning about what homeschooling really means. We ended up with a laundry list of reasons for taking the plunge, some more pressing than others. But I can honestly say that “growing from the inside out” perfectly encapsulates the entire list. Each item points back to respecting and loving our children for who they are today and for giving them the space and time to grow and develop with as little outside/institutional pressure as possible — especially while they’re still so young.

My hope is that my kids will never feel pressure to give up an interest because it’s not considered “cool” enough, that they’ll never have to spend time on meaningless assignments just to pass a class (I’m all for meaningful assignments, if there has to be an assignment at all), that they’ll never care more about a letter grade than about what they’re doing/learning and why. I want them to follow every interest to see where it leads them, regardless of what other kids their age and/or gender are doing. And I want them to be happy, content kids (and later, adults) who feel loved and respected and free to follow their hearts.

Jeez, this is getting high and mighty, isn’t it?

But it’s true. That’s really what I want for them. And it’s happening. Yesterday, The Duke (son, 8.5 years) said to me, “I really like my life. I get to do so many cool things.”

Growing from the Inside Out™. That’s why we homeschool.

Tags: homeschooling, why homeschool,

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Tags: tree climbing, learning when ready, patience, motivation, hard work

The constant state of making means that we throw almost nothing away. That old egg beater would make a perfect laser blaster on a space ship, dontcha know! Of course, that means you must keep a lot of parts lying about just waiting to be recycled into something cool.

It also means we have to keep our eyes peeled for treasures wherever we go. In fact, my son, The Duke, has become quite the diamond-in-the-rough finder. “Mommy, look what I got!” is a common phrase here on Sundays, the day before trash pickup on our street. Just a few weeks ago he came home with a nice, old, rusty, electric double burner.

“What do you want that for?” I asked.

“I’m gonna take it apart.”

You can’t argue with that, but you can argue with keeping someone else’s old, rusty, food-encrusted burner in your house. So we put it on our “3-season porch,” and the Duke agreed that after he took it apart, we’d throw it all away. So couple of nights ago, he took it apart, and we’ve tossed the sharp and nasty bits. But even the grownups realized we couldn’t throw it all away. Look at these burners. Can’t you see them on a robot? Danger, Will Robinson!

I love the kids’ projects not only because every one of them is unique, but also because the kids bring so much excitement, creativity, and joy to the table (or backyard, or shop) every time. The result is a creation straight out of their imaginations.

Take this contraption, for example. It’s a DNA scrambler, but I’m sure you knew that. And I’m sure you knew it wouldn’t work without the hat.

Basically, you use the scrambler to turn yourself into another creature. You select the creature (some animals, some magical, some mythical, some newly imagined) from the table of creatures. Next, you use the blue dial to set the size of the creature, and then a bunch of other stuff happens with lights and menus and stuff like that (use your imagination, please!), and then you turn into that creature.

A few weeks ago, The Duke made the scrambler over the course of a couple of evenings. Mr. Enigma was working in the shop, and the Duke went in to check it out. The next thing you know, he had decided to make his own project. (A common occurrence when Mr. Enigma is noodling around in the shop.) The first night, the Duke planned out what he would make and started drawing the different creatures on the hardboard. He finished about half the grid that first night. Then he put it down and came back to it another night, when he asked me for some ideas for other creatures he could add to the grid. Once he had finished the grid, he and Mr. Enigma put the finishing touches on the hardboard, and then they made the hat.

And there you have a new, handmade, unique toy. Lots of imagination went into it, and lots of imagination is required to play with it.

Even though each project is unique, the recent creations have one thing in common: they’re big. So we have big raw materials we just can’t throw away because someone might make something out of them, and we have big finished projects that we can’t throw away because someone spent so many precious hours working on them.

Our house is now officially overstuffed with big stuff. We’ve run out of corners and nooks and crannies to stuff stuff in. Our back porch is full of not-yet-used parts, leftovers, and completed projects.

We have two time machines on our porch, for example. (Doesn’t everyone?) The Firstborn saved a box this summer and made a time machine from it. She put a computer keyboard on the inside so she can program the year she wants to visit. Here she is spray painting it.

Wait, what’s that? Could it be the Anarchy symbol?!

Alas, no. It’s just a T in a circle, the Firstborn’s trademark.

The Duke made the other time machine from an old bike we picked up from someone’s trash.

We needed the bike pedals for another project, a unicycle, that the Firstborn wanted to make from the bike she had when she was about four. Last fall, Mr. Enigma appropriated the pedals and drive train (a drive shaft rather than a chain!) for the Firstborn’s go cart. So we still had a wheel and a bike seat, but no pedals for the unicycle.

Here’s the go cart.

Often, the kids play with their new creations a lot right after they make them and then don’t use them much after that. But playing with the finished product isn’t the point. The point is to make the creations the first place. The kids spend many hours on these projects just because they want to. And that’s why they’re important.

And that’s why, in spite of how much I’d like to sometimes, I can’t ask my kids to get rid of this stuff, even though we have no place to keep it. Besides, how can I even think about asking my kids to get rid of the big stuff they’ve made, when their father has been schlepping this fella around for the past 20+ years?

Mr. Enigma found a large oak tree stump on our college campus many moons ago. Then he fired up a chain saw, and out popped TreeGuy. That sucker is big and heavy. And he’s apparently here to stay, like all the other projects.

Tags: making stuff, projects, kids projects, big stuff

We were among the people who saw all the layers of meaning as equally significant. So we invited some friends over with their 11-year-old son, and we set up our living room to track the results as they came in.

How do you unschool an election?

First, you need a map of the United States. A big one. Then you need some red and blue markers.

Next, a TV. And some kids to mark off the states as they get called. When Pennsylvania goes blue, you need kids to celebrate.

And when your blue markers start running out of ink, you get some blue tape.

We marked off the red states, too; we just didn’t jump around the living room.

Of course, you also need pizza, wine, and champagne to have a proper party.

Champagne is for celebrating. We were happy that we were able to open our bottle when the West was won.

The final results — well, except for three states — told the whole story.

Our friends agreed that last week’s election was too important to watch alone. We wanted our kids to understand that we don’t just go to parties and hover around the TV on Super Bowl Sunday, that once in a while we get our priorities in order and commemorate contests that have true lasting effects on our country.

Here’s to Barack Obama, the first African-American elected to the highest office in the land, who promises to point our country in a new direction. What an night for our children to witness.

Tags: 2008 presidential election, U.S. election, Barack Obama, unschooling