EU364: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Including Kids in Decisions

Exploring Unschooling

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about including kids in decisions.

There are many reasons why parents may rush through big decisions without giving children a chance to weigh in, but we’ve found that including kids in decisions provides us with useful questions and information, helps avoid dysregulation and melt downs, and results in so much learning for everyone in the family. Being a part of making important decisions now gives children experience that will help them when they have their own big decisions to make in the future.
We also explored how important validation can be as we’re talking about making changes in a family. Anna mentioned an inspirational TikTok video that is a great example of validation and we have linked that below.

It was a really fun conversation and we hope you find it helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

TikTok video from @youngmi

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The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

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Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about supporting our children’s autonomy. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ERIKA: Hello, everyone! I’m Erika Ellis from Living Joyfully, and I’m joined by my co-hosts, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia. Hello to you both!

On today’s episode of Exploring Unschooling, we are diving into another unschooling stumbling block, which is including kids in decisions. I’m really excited to talk about this one, but first I wanted to give a quick plug to the Living Joyfully Network, which has really been life-changing for me in so many ways.
On the Network, we have amazing discussions about so many topics, since our community has such a wide variety of experiences. I love the community so much, because everyone there is really learning and growing and being intentional with their families. If you’d like to learn more about the Network and check it out for yourself, you can visit livingjoyfully.ca/network or you can click the link in the show notes. We would love to meet you there.

And Pam, would you like to get us started talking about including kids in decisions?

PAM: I definitely would. This has really been a fascinating part of the unschooling journey for me and it grew out of just recognizing how capable my kids were. I mean, even before they left school, I respected their feelings and their needs. But it wasn’t until they were home and I was seeing them in action day in and day out that I came to see how truly capable they were of making choices.
So, I saw how even if I wouldn’t make the same choice, the choice that they made made great sense for them. I got more and more comfortable with them making choices for themselves, and it was just brilliant to see it in action. Once you give them the space to do that instead of jumping in with, “Oh, well why don’t you do this? Oh, why don’t you do that?” it was really amazing to see.

And then let’s peel back another layer. It hit me that the decisions that parents typically make, that impact the whole family, we’re impacting them, even though I was making a decision. And so, that thought bubbled away alongside the thought of how capable my kids were of making decisions. And I was soon drawn to involving them in more choices, not just the ones that affected only them directly.

So, the first big one that I remember was about two years into our unschooling journey, and I went back and just quickly checked the dates and it started about two years in. And that’s when the idea of moving came up for us. So, I remember thinking that this is such a big decision, not just whether to move, but where to move. And it felt uncomfortable at first to fully involve the kids in the whole process. I worried that I would feel the need to override them at some point because they just couldn’t understand the nuance of this, or that, or the other thing that was involved. But I chose to step up and realize that this was my work to do. Let’s see how it goes. Put on that investigator’s hat and get curious about it.

Even though the process of finding a new home took about a year, fully involving them was amazing. They brought great questions with them, questions I didn’t think of asking, but were actually very relevant. They brought thoughtful feedback after touring properties and houses, and even if I didn’t have the same reaction as them, theirs made sense. Because now I was capable of seeing things through their eyes, so I could see how, yeah, that might feel a little off, or that might really excite them. So, their reactions and their feedback was awesome.
Their enthusiasm inspired me to keep going when I was getting tired of this long, long search. And when they didn’t feel like participating at times, they trusted the rest of us to keep their needs top of mind at that point. Because we had been all working together. There wasn’t that power dynamic of parents and kids at that point. They trusted that they were being heard, that they were being considered.
So, all in all, it was a very meaningful experience for me. You know how we talk about understanding something intellectually, but then getting it more deeply once we have our own experience of it unfolding in our lives? Well, after that experience, I understood in my bones that kids are capable of being included, as much as they are interested in, again, not at whatever level we expect them to be participating in it, but being able to participate as much as they wanted in those big family decisions. It reached every facet of our lives. It was just so meaningful for everyone and it just helped in so many ways that we will get into in this whole conversation, but like yes, an example of it in action.

ANNA: Right! And I think what’s so interesting is that it’s really stories in our head that it’s not going to be okay. Because we start thinking, like you said, they’re not going to understand the nuances, or they’re not going to get this, or they’re going to be more self-serving in what they’re wanting.

And then when we start peeling that back, it’s so interesting, because anytime we’re making a decision, we’re all kind of self-serving and thinking of what we want. We all have our thing top of mind. And so, what I loved about it, because we actually did a similar one with moving, and people did not understand, because in our case, we ended up not moving in large part because the girls weren’t ready to move. And people did not understand that. Like, what? Why are they getting to have the say in this big decision? And I was like, well, it is their life, too.

What I found was that they weren’t coming up from a place of being difficult or whatever. We were just able to talk about what it felt like to them. And then David and I were able to say, well, here are the things we’re concerned about. Here’s the things we’d have to change if we decided to not move versus move. Here’s these pieces.

And so, I feel like we talk about narration a lot and transparency, and I think that’s a big piece of that, because we can’t hold back the information and then think that anybody’s going to make a sound decision. And so, it’s so much about that interplay of sharing information. And this really goes back, for me, to each of us having the self-awareness to understand our needs, be able to communicate our needs, and then we’re working together to solve them. That’s really the dynamic that we tried to create, the environment that we tried to create in our family.

And so, it was interesting to see it play out. And so often, with little decisions and big, I learned so much more about them. They did bring incredible insights. They learned more about me, which was interesting, too. And I think they learned more just in general about how to approach a big decision and what are the different factors, and I felt like that has served them as they’ve been making big decisions in their own lives.
ERIKA: At first, they don’t even know what big decisions there are to be made. And so, it really is just cool to get to have those experiences as they’re growing up. And I was just thinking, the mainstream expectation is just that adults get to make decisions, because they’re the ones who have the money. They’re the ones who have all the knowledge about all the parts and the kids better just not complain about whatever decision is made and go along with it.

And so, I see that play out all around me in our culture. But I also remember being a kid, and at that time I was intelligent, fully human, had my own ideas, and totally could have been a part of decision making.

And so, I think some of the reasons for not including them in decisions can be feeling like it just makes things harder. The more people you have adding into the conversation to make this big decision, it takes more time and now there are potentially more variables that are coming up. So, as an example, we have a couple of vehicles that are getting pretty old at this point, and I know at some point in the pretty near future we’re going to need to get a new family car. And it would be really easy for me to just say, I get to pick the car and I’ll just do it and then that’s that.

But I know that we spend time in the car and it’s their car. That’s their experience of traveling, too. And so, like both of you have brought up, they’ll bring up things that would never occur to me. And so, it actually helps me make a better decision when I find out the things that are important to them and the things that they think, but what about this? Like, I’m worried if we have a new car, we’re not going to have whatever the thing is that they like about the current car and if I don’t include them in the decision, I’ll never find that out. And then, it could be a problem later down the road.

And so, I think it’s wishful thinking that we would be able to make decisions on our own without including them, and that it’s all just going to be fine and they’re going to be fine and everyone will just be happy with it, because it’s important to them. These things are important, where they live, what we’re driving, what we’re eating, what our vacations look like. All of these things that feel like a whole family decision. And there’s just so much learning, like you’re talking about, for all of us.

ANNA: I think one of the things that comes to mind when you say that, and we talk about this in other contexts, too, is this idea that it’s easier. It’s easier for us to make the decision. But to me, it’s just putting the work to the back end, because then the decision is made, and now you maybe have dysregulated kids or upset kids or upset spouse if you’ve just made the decision unilaterally. And it’s like, that’s harder work to me.
The work that you were talking about, Pam, in that long process of picking the house, it maybe took a little bit longer than if you’d just done it on your own, but that was such interesting work. Nobody was dysregulated in that work. You weren’t having to care for all the feelings. I mean, having conversations to care for the feelings, but so different than a dysregulated piece that could happen at the end when somebody’s uprooted from their environment and into another situation.

I’ve just heard so many people that it was just like, yep, I’m moving. And I remember it from my childhood. I still remember my friend being torn away from me. We talk about it all the time. Anyway, it’s just so interesting to think of this as easier, but is it easier?

PAM: I love that you always bring that up, Anna. When we have conversations around these things, the time invested beforehand or after and which feels better. And, for me, my mind so often goes to, like you were saying, Erika, it’s like more irons in the fire, more aspects to consider. The context grows, the more people are allowed to contribute to the context. Yet, for me, what I lean on is that, oh my gosh, the choice that we end up making is just, through my eyes, so much better. Even for me, right? Because I have missed things, like you were talking about, and it may not even be because I don’t care about it, it’s because I didn’t even tag it as something to consider. And when they tag something, I go, oh yeah, that’s a good point. So often, yes, it makes sense through their eyes.

And also, when I can understand it and I learn more about them and they learn more about me, but so often, the stuff that they bring up is also valuable for me and applicable to me. And that, in the end, when we make that choice together, looking back, I just see so many times that’s a better choice than the one I would’ve made unilaterally. So, that’s where my mind goes. But, absolutely, having to recover from having made a choice on my own, that is a whole other can of worms, too.

ERIKA: And all the parts joining into the context is so interesting, because whether or not you hear those parts, they’re there already. They already have their opinions about things, whether or not you’re asking them. And so, I think it’s just bringing all of the needs to light to help make the decision easier.

And I was also thinking about another decision that’s coming up for us is we all, I think, want to get a treadmill. All four of us do. And yet there’s still this process of trying to figure it out. It’s going to change the way our room is laid out. Do we all really understand that and how do we feel about that?

And so, I think Josh sometimes can be like, well, we want it. Come on, let’s just get it. Are we going to order it? And I’m just like, well, we haven’t seen what the room looks like yet. And I just know from previous experience, my kids are sensitive to change. And so, that’s just all part of our decision-making process now. Really thinking about, okay, let’s make sure we all really are settled in this and understand what it means and talk about all the possibilities, because once we start brainstorming, there are tons of possibilities.

ANNA: Okay. So, I’m going to take it in a slightly different direction. And, Erika, you may have to help me with this, but what I want to take it into, because I can hear the people out there saying, but sometimes, they have these attachments to things like, we can’t change the couch, or we can’t get the new rug, or the different things. And there’s this attachment that we don’t understand.

And somebody on the Network recently shared a TikTok from @youngmi, and so, Erika, I may need you to summarize what it was about, but that piece of just how we can brush through what they are saying when they have this attachment to the couch, we’re not giving attention to what it is they love about that.

In the moment, we just kind of get frustrated, so we go to that place of frustration like, “But the couch is 20 years old and it needs to go, and this is ridiculous.” We don’t leave space for those emotions. And I just think our kids really teach us these life lessons. And that’s kind of what that TikTok was about.

But do you remember what I’m talking about? The boba tea.

ERIKA: The mom was talking about her son having a really big emotional experience about her throwing away his last sip of boba tea. She said she could get him the exact same one again, same flavor. It’s going to be the same. And he was like, but it’s not the same one. That one is gone. And he’s crying and crying on the floor, and she’s just like, I don’t get it.

Then all of a sudden, she did get it. She was like, oh, he is just realizing this fact of life for the first time, that that cup, once it’s gone, is gone and there will never be another one of those cups. And so, it’s this really heavy existential realization. And he had it for the first time.

And so, once she realized that that was what had happened, that he was having this big a-ha moment about life, she was like, oh, I get it. That was the last one of that cup and it’s gone. And that is so, so sad. And he was like, yes. Finally, you understand what I mean. And he was able to move through it.

So, that’s the kind of validation that works, to actually move through. He felt like, yes, I was able to get you to understand what is going on for me emotionally. And she really did get it. And so, her message to other parents was just like, as kids are learning about what happens in life, these are really big and heavy concepts that they’re just realizing. And so, if they’re getting really upset about something that seems so little, it might be that it really means something much bigger and they’re realizing something big about life.

And so, with the couch and moving the room and not wanting to get rid of things, some of that feels so heavy and deep to them. And so, if we just keep saying, “That doesn’t make sense, it’s old, it’s whatever. Throwing it away is no big deal.” They’re not going to feel validated by that.

ANNA: Right. Because it’s impermanence, right? We’re learning it and we’ve had decades to wrap our head around how we lose things, things go away, and we have to change things and those different pieces. But for kids, it’s very new. This is the couch that they’ve known their whole life. This is the couch that they snuggle the dog on. This is the couch that means these things.

And so, I think what I learned was just to slow it down. And I talk about that a lot, because I can be like, get it done. I’m like, we got a new couch, let’s get it done. Let’s change the room, let’s paint it, let’s go. And it’s like, slow it down. Give everybody space to just wrap their head around it, because these concepts that I feel like we all still mess with and think about and think about in the larger terms of life, these are new concepts for them. And maybe it’s the first time they’re having to let go of something that’s important to them.

So, I don’t know. I just love that reminder. We’ve all been there with kids with this kind of attachment, but it doesn’t mean they’re not capable of making the decision, it’s just slowing it down and giving space for all those pieces.

PAM: It’s very funny. I’m just laughing, because just a couple of days ago, Rocco said something to me, very nice. He was trying to manage something and I was like, “You know? I’m not as attached to that as I was years ago.” It can be a different kind of conversation now.

And yes, I remember watching that TikTok and I got goosebumps again as you were describing it, Erika, because it’s like, but how would we know when something’s so big to them? But it’s in their reaction. If their reaction seems out of context or bigger than you would expect or anticipate, those are our clues. Those are our clues. Not that they don’t understand what’s going on, but maybe that they more deeply understand. And just remembering that this might be their first experience of X, Y, or Z.

So, seemingly out of proportion reactions are great clues for us to, like you said, Anna, slow down, take a moment. And it’s like, oh, what could this be meaning to them? Because she was just asking herself, why is this reaction going and going and going? Why can’t we just move through this? But that’s the whole point. She stuck with it. And she finally came to that realization like, oh, because we might think, why are they stuck? Why are they saying the same thing over and over? No, don’t take that couch. No, I want my old bubble tea, or whatever. It’s like, okay, I don’t have it yet. I don’t have it yet. It’s worth the effort and the time and the space to get to the place where we have it for so many reasons. Because now we’ve learned a little bit more about them. Now we can validate them, truly validate them, and they feel seen and heard and understood.

So, then they now can often more easily move through it. They don’t have to keep defending, don’t have to keep trying to explain, to explain, please see me, please see me, please hear what I’m saying. This means something to me. When we’re not dismissive, but we’re like, okay, I’m going to keep trying, I’m going to keep trying, I’m going to keep trying to get to that spot, and then trust builds there.

More connection builds there, more openness to care when it happens the next time, in something completely irrelevant, but it’s more experience that you are building as human beings together. So, it’s just so powerful when we can take that time to invest in the relationship, if you want to put it that way.

ANNA: And I think it gets to where we talk about underlying needs, too. So, we can have this conflict with a decision up at the surface, new couch, old couch, but then underneath that, it’s like, oh, when we slow down, when we take that time, we find out, how are we going to read on that couch? That couch looks different. Then it’s like, oh, well it’s about reading. Let’s create a reading nook that solves that. We can get stuck up here, and then we miss the reasons behind it on both sides. And I want to be able to articulate what my needs are to get the new couch or to whatever it is, so that then they were like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

But if we just stay up here at the authoritarian decision or the across-the-board decision, we lose some of that. And I think that’s what’s so interesting. And so, the question I always asked myself was, what is my attachment to not having them involved? What am I scared of of having them involved? What are the expectations that I have? Because those are the questions I want to ask myself when I feel that resistance to bringing them into a decision about something. And that work really served me, because again, I think it helped us stay in this place in our relationship where we both felt heard and seen as we were making these decisions that impacted all of us.

ERIKA: Right. It’s making me think, too, about that internal and external processing part. Sometimes, if you are an internal processor and you do a lot of figuring things out inside without the narration, without telling other people what’s going on in there, it can feel frustrating to be like, “But I’ve already figured out such a good solution to this problem, you guys. I wanted you to just say, yes, that’s perfect. Let’s move on.”

I think there’s that, and then there’s also just the sense of urgency that is so easy to have once you feel like there’s something that you want to move towards, it can be hard to pull back, but I don’t need to rush it. It’s okay to include these other people. It’s okay for it to take a little extra time. Because in most cases, decisions do not have to be made and executed on the day that it’s coming up.

And then I also think that including the kids in these family decisions, even though it’s more work on the front end, like you were saying, then they have investment in the end result. And so, I’ve found that to be so valuable. When we all feel like this was our decision, so many things can go more smoothly in the future. Where if it’s like, you did that and I didn’t want you to, we’ll be dealing with the repercussions of that forever. Like, you got rid of my thing when I wasn’t ready, or you didn’t listen to me about that. And so, really like including them in the conversations, even when it can feel frustrating, because I already figured everything out in my opinion, it helps.

PAM: I think that that is a great thing to remember. I’m so glad you brought that up, Erika, because it’s so true. We can, from a very loving space, there’s something that feels out of whack and we want to try and figure out a solution and us internal processors have thought it through and thought it through and thought it through and we finally came with this awesome idea and we don’t realize that if we haven’t talked about it, if we haven’t mentioned that we’re thinking about it, this is a completely new, out-of-the-blue idea to them. And I do not like out-of-the-blue ideas that are about to happen right now. I need a little bit of processing time. I need some time to just figure out, what are the implications for me of this thing happening?

So, it’s just so funny to think about it that way and just to recognize that if we’re not sharing what we’re thinking about, we don’t even know how much processing they’ll need around things or want around things or information they’ll want or what they may think of. And if we get that initial, “Oh, yay!” and do it really fast, but then two days later, it’s like, oh, but what about this and what about this? And you’re like, well, it’s gone now.

So, like you’re saying, most things, the vast majority of bigger decisions like this, family-related decisions, are not emergencies. They are not urgent. So, giving that space and time to everyone involved, not just inside our head, is just super, super valuable, I think. And it’s such a great point that it makes it so much easier later on, because everybody’s participating in the decision. We’ve had the time to think it through and like it’s like, okay, this is just the answer. It’s almost the afterthought.

ANNA: Right. And I want to touch on the piece that you just said about emergencies, because what we found is, this was our process of making decisions together and taking everybody’s into account and thinking about all the needs, so those times where there were emergent decisions, and they happened, like serious things happened, where it’s like, “We’ve got to make this decision right now. Get in the car, go. We’ve got something happening that’s intense,” it was just not a big deal, because they just knew and they just trusted. I gave them the information that I had. “This is what I feel like we’ve got to do.” And it was like, “Okay.” Because that’s that other piece that people go, “But if you give them that, then they’re going to always be like this.” And it was just not my experience.

The experience was that it built trust. When you were talking about that earlier, Pam, it builds trust in each other and that’s what then allows on either side to operate, whether you see they’re feeling something super emergent and I need to drop everything and go see what’s happening. And so, I think that’s another piece that I felt like was a side benefit that I wasn’t really sure how it would play out until it did.

ERIKA: I think they can really tell the difference. We may try to bring a super sense of urgency, like, but I need a new couch right now, because this couch is driving me crazy! But they know we’re not dealing with an emergency here. So, yeah, I like to remember to slow down when possible.

ANNA: But I also like that reminder about the processor, not just for us, because if we’re internally processing, but to think of the audience like, okay, do I have external processors that are going to want to bounce all the ideas off of me? And so, I need to kind of be ready for that to give space? Do I have somebody that’s going to go away for three days and I need to know that they actually are thinking about it and not think, oh, they don’t care because they went away for three days to think about it? And so, really knowing each other that way, and again, bringing some narration into it can really help us not get caught off guard by that.

PAM: And to not be thrown off if, the first few times through, family decisions are a little bit bumpy, because we’re learning about each other. We’re learning that somebody needs those three days of processing or however long. We are recognizing and learning that somebody will need to talk about it a lot, a lot more than if we’ve already figured out what we think the solution is and then they just need to say, but what about this? But what about this? Oh, what about this? And just to give ourselves that space for and the energy to be able to participate in that conversation, because you know it’s important for them. But we’re not going to learn that level, that depth of each other until we try it out.
ANNA: Until you do it. Yes.

ERIKA: Exactly! Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our conversation and picked up a nugget or two for your own unschooling journey. And if you enjoy these kinds of conversations, I really think you’d love the Living Joyfully Network. You can learn more at livingjoyfully.ca/network. And if you’re looking for individualized support, whether it’s about unschooling, relationships, work, or just life, you can check out all of our coaching options at livingjoyfullyshop.com.
Have a great week everyone, and we’ll see you next time. Bye!