jade3•1mo ago

Tried unschooling my kid for a semester and it backfired hard

I pulled my 10 year old out of regular school last fall to try unschooling after reading a bunch of blogs about how great it is for creativity. We live in Austin and I figured with all the museums and parks around here, she'd learn naturally. Instead of diving into science or history, she spent 6 weeks straight just playing Roblox and watching Minecraft videos. I tried to guide her toward stuff like the nature center or art classes, but she kept saying she wasn't interested. By December she was actually asking to go back to regular school because she missed having a schedule and seeing her friends every day. I learned that total freedom isn't a good fit for every kid, especially one who needs structure to focus. Has anyone else tried a loose approach like unschooling and had it go sideways?

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park.troy1mo ago

Give it more time, some kids need a few months to decompress before their curiosity kicks in.

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lee.diana1mo ago

Totally agree with @park.troy on this. Kids decompress at their own pace - pushing them to be curious just makes them dig in harder. Let them be bored for a while, that's usually when the questions start coming.

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