The calls for allowance are getting stronger. And I want Mighty to have her own money. But this #deschooling process makes you think about ALL the systems, not just school, and how they are all intertwined. Our household is our child’s first community. We learn how to interact with other people and the world from how we interact in our house. The values our children take into the world are greatly influenced by what we do in our house. If we want our greater communities to change, I think we have to start imagining how our households need to change in order to ripple outward. In essence, it’s future-making. I’ve…

Lately, almost every time I suggest something, Mighty says something different. Want to clean your room at 4:00? She immediately says 4:30. What movie are we watching Friday night? She says let’s watch it on Saturday. And on and on. It feels like a constant negotiation. Earlier in the day, she told me she wanted Chinese food. So when I was about to leave, I asked what she wanted from the restaurant. Actually, she now wanted pizza. I felt hot. Like temperature hot. This too much. The only reason why I’m even getting Chinese is because you wanted it and I’m trying to take your suggestions seriously. Nope. You can’t…

Mighty and I were watching KC Undercover together with the lights off, like a movie theater, when she decided to get a bowl of ice cream. When she came back in the room, she turned the lights on. I asked, kind of whiny, why she turned off the lights. I was already comfortable and the lights were super bright. They were disturbing my watching experience. She said she wanted the lights on so she could see her food. Of course, in my mind, she don’t NEED the lights on to see ice cream, so I told her to turn them off. She said, more forcefully, no, I want them on.…

What I’ve been thinking about lately – how we categorize Mighty’s things as “mess” that needs to be cleaned up and our things are “house” – as in that’s just how the house is. That feels unclear. Let me explain. Almost nightly as Mighty prepares for bed, we often tell her to take these socks that you took off, these toys that you brought down here, this book you were reading, these papers that you were doing your artwork on, this iPad, all of this stuff – take it back to your room or put it up. But, I have forgotten socks on the floor. I’ve left my laptop. I…

Lately, our family has been watching Netflix’s Family Reunion. It’s a cute modern family show with storylines that incorporate all ages. The grandparents are the Pastor and First Lady of a church and that’s REAL familiar to our family. And the parents have a progressive bent, so that too is familiar. So Mighty and I are watching this with my sister. In the first episode, the son, his wife, and their four children return to Georgia for a family reunion. Now Grandma done told them that children are not allowed in the parlor. But the kids go in there anyway, end up fighting, and break a whole bunch of stuff.…

I was so ready to jump on Facebook and ask my fellow unschoolers how to deal with my child and what’s happening in our house around food. I was already writing the post in my head: “We’ve done a lot of deschooling and releasing of control around food in my house lately. We no longer require everyone to sit at the table and eat dinner at a certain time, my daughter often makes her own plate, she eats when she wants, and snacks all day. Full disclosure: we are still working through that one. But nevertheless, we have come a long way. But lately, she makes a plate and then…