Unschooling

Today, I am SO THANKFUL I unschool.

After weeks of brainstorming, evaluating and considering, I came up with a "daily list" that is going to work for Taiger...I hope. It is a colour-coded list of things to do daily. Not a "job list". Not a "school list". Taiger NEEDS structure! He gets SO distracted he MUST be able to visualize and SEE what is going to happen next, or at least have a defined statement of what should be happening now. Otherwise, the day is spent so distracted nothing is accomplished, nothing is focused, and life is kind of directionless.

This list tells things from "Get Dressed" to "Mop". Taiger was SO EXCITED about his new chart! The "Purple" area is "Free Time", and he was so excited to get through the orange and blue and red sections so he could have "Free Time" (yoga, playing outside, reading...HE gets to choose from (another) list of Free Time Activities"). However, sometimes, as you all know, Taiger has "off-days", and today turned in to one of those. I am not SURE if it was because of the new list, or if it was because of a bathroom incident (another story), but he lost his center.

I had some fun Saint Patrick's Day activities planned to do during his "Free Time" today.

But we didn't get that far.

He lost his center, and when that happens, he sleeps.

He slept.

And slept.

For about four hours.

When he woke up, his center was back! YAY TAIGER! He completed almost everything on his list (all except "Brush Teeth"...go figure). And he played outside with Aunt BeQin and my cousins during Free Time.

I was disappointed there was no time for the crafts I had prepared. :( But it reminded me of how thankful I am for "Unschooling"!!!!!!! I can easily get caught up in the goals. If his list had a time line on it (I have tried those, by the way...SUCH a disaster for a Taiger!), it would have been so stressful that he was sleeping during his math/reading/playing/lego/Chinese time! Everything would have been messed up, and I would have thought I was a "Bad Mom" and a failure as a homeschool Mom! As it is, I recognize what TAIGER needs and we have the flexibility to go with it. I was so excited to see the stickers on his chart next to so many things because I can see that, even though things don't go "as planned", we CAN get things DONE! It was rewarding for BOTH of us to see him accomplish so much today! And all without me telling him to hurry and get something done, or saying no because right NOW isn't nap time and he has to wait a specific amount of time before he can take a nap, or have a snack, or do something else.

I am so happy I chose to unschool Taiger! It was a difficult leap of faith, but I it works so well with his personality! :)