On Aug 21, 2023, at 6:06 PM, Miji Kent <mijeezie@...> wrote:

?I would say two or three of the hurdles we have felt severely “bumped up against” personally (husband and I) would be screens/media (like not filtering so heavily what they can see) but majorly strong language and “junk food” as we were both homeschooled and grew up in very religious families where it was so not okay (to show a lot of anger let alone ever curse/use strong language) or do it in a joking manner. We also grew up with a lot of shame and control around food in general but specifically sweets/junk food/etc and a lot of shaming if we ever got sick/had cavities/got hyper/etc “shouldn’t have eaten so much sugar”.?

I think perhaps I personally also have the specific thing of “my kids spending their money on treats” (even though we try to provide an abundance of it as well as lots of healthy options) because I was shamed for that as a kid, when I had pocket money.?

On Aug 21, 2023, at 6:02 PM, Miji Kent <mijeezie@...> wrote:

?I feel like what Sue Elvis shared in her books (she has two but I think it was “curious unschoolers” - the other is “radical unschool love”) helped me some around this area. She “held on” to “some of the basics” for a while and then later shifted (she had 7 children I believe? So shifted as they grew) and reevaluated her choices/regretted “holding on” to the “maths”.?

On Aug 21, 2023, at 5:00 PM, Sandra Dodd <aelflaed@...> wrote:

?On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 02:24 PM, Sandra Dodd wrote:

I'm talking about the bare minimum of helping them learn the very basics:? this is how you write (forming letters, I mean; not sentences) "

"This is how you write..."

Wait.? I'm not forming letters.? I'm touching a keyboard on a laptop computer.? There are other ways to get these words into these messages, but nobody is "forming letters."?

?

-=-or knowing their basic math facts-=-

WOOP!? WOOP!!? The alarm goes off.

"Their"—that one Individual child's, or those two or three children's (I don't know this mom's details, so picture your own)—"facts"?

Facts just are. I don't have my own basic math facts.? There ARE mathematical realities.? Some I understand well, and some less clearly, and yet I grew up and reproduced.? :-)

To the original questioner:? Please read back through the question. It's well written grammatically and the punctuation and spelling are good, and so I don't feel bad about suggesting going to the next level:? phrases, terminology, word choice.

Others might want to read that as an exercise in seeing how word choices revel clues to thoughts and beliefs.??

None of this should stress or hurt anybody.? It's just words and ideas.??

You're all probably sitting in a comfortable and familiar place, safe.? Don't be afraid.

?

Sandra

and the concepts of arithmetic:-=-

And if that child is not yet writing, the for the mom to think to address the child as "you" and say "this is how you write" is a clue to the mom's blockage, maybe.? She thinks there is a way that THAT child must/should/will or should be / will be "forming letters."? In order to write.

?