Unschooling Understood With Jean Nunnally

Maureen Spielman: 00:00:00

Welcome back to mystical sisterhood. This is

Maureen Spielman: 00:00:02

Maureen Spielman and I sit down today with Jean Natalie to talk

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about her work her life and her book success without school,

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unschooling, my children from birth to college. There is a lot

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in this episode, everything from veering off a traditional

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upbringing, a traditional path, to do something that was

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courageous and out of the box, transforming people pleasing

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behaviors to standing up for what feels right to you,

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following your intuition and leaning into our children's

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needs, whether we choose to go down a path of unschooling, or

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they're in traditional school. We kind of cover all topics

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today, and I'm grateful for Jean for being here. Enjoy the

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episode, and let's get to it. Hey there, welcome to mystical

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sisterhood. This is your host, Maureen Spielman. I started the

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show to highlight the intuitives, healers and other

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courageous women that I've met along my journey and continue to

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meet. Through amazing interviews, I seek to ask

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insightful questions to uncover ways in which you the listener

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can apply the wisdom and knowledge to your own life. I

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believe that we're all in this together. So sharing healing and

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joy, and bringing community together is both my passion and

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purpose. If you'd like to learn more about the mystical

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sisterhood community I'm building, please visit www

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mystical sisterhood.com See you in the episode. Hey, welcome

Maureen Spielman: 00:01:41

back to mystical sisterhood. This is Maureen and I'm here

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with Jean Nunnally. I am really really excited today Jean to be

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with you. We have a mutual friend Zenith who introduced us

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and in Zenith had this really bright light bulb come come to

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her and say like, Oh, I think these two would be good

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together. And so welcome to our space, we're gonna talk about a

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lot of things. The topic, I always say like the topic is

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this, and then we'll uncover what else is meant to come up.

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But you are the author of a book called success without school,

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and really an expert it within yourself and in your life and

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unschooling, but I just want to start there and say, you know,

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there is so much to share today, but a big hearty welcome to you.

Jean Nunnally: 00:02:30

Thank you so much. And thank you for having

Jean Nunnally: 00:02:32

me. I mean, I'm truly truly honored to be a part of this

Jean Nunnally: 00:02:35

podcast, because I it's, it's amazing for me,

Maureen Spielman: 00:02:39

thank you, I'm so happy. You know, there's,

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there's so many places we could start. And when I was sort of

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compiling notes, and reading through the book success without

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school, just hold it up for those who are going to be

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watching on YouTube, so they can see it. And we'll provide links

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later, but just this idea that, from what I can glean, you had a

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pretty traditional upbringing, and sort of the way you were

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brought up, and, you know, going through college and getting a

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job after college, and it was pretty, you know, what I'd say

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is traditional. And then I, for me, when I think of we're going

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to look at a little bit the differences between homeschool

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and unschooling, but wow, like, to me, it's such this courageous

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embrace of a path for your children to take. And so we'll

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maybe we'll start at, you know, tell us a little bit about your

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upbringing and your home life and maybe even your school life

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as a youngster.

Unknown: 00:03:48

Right. So yeah, you're absolutely spot on. It was a

Unknown: 00:03:51

very traditional, conventional sort of upbringing. Certainly,

Unknown: 00:03:55

my, my, I had a wonderful home life very stable. Mom, dad, two

Unknown: 00:04:01

older brothers, and very traditional schooling, other

Unknown: 00:04:06

than I'd started out at a very small, tiny little rural county

Unknown: 00:04:10

school. And so my schools were fairly small, but again, very

Unknown: 00:04:17

traditional. I was, you know, the a student, I was the people

Unknown: 00:04:22

pleaser, the teacher pleaser, the teacher's pet kind of thing.

Unknown: 00:04:27

And, really, I always thought of my education as being really

Unknown: 00:04:31

good in school being really good. And it kind of wasn't

Unknown: 00:04:35

until I was unschooling my own kids that I started to see that

Unknown: 00:04:41

there was a there was a bit of a damage done to me by school. And

Unknown: 00:04:47

I didn't like I said, it took me a long time to realize that for

Unknown: 00:04:50

a long time, I would say yes, I had a great school situation,

Unknown: 00:04:54

but now I'm doing something different. And now I sort of

Unknown: 00:04:57

realized that a lot of that school This structure was was

Unknown: 00:05:03

creating the people pleaser that I grew into. And it's something

Unknown: 00:05:08

that I'm still trying to unwind today. And I'm still stuck with

Unknown: 00:05:13

being very much a people pleaser. And I know school is

Unknown: 00:05:15

not the only influence on that. But it was a lot of an influence

Unknown: 00:05:21

to try to be, you know, you're set up to be only good if you do

Unknown: 00:05:27

these things. You know, that's what makes you worthy is if you

Unknown: 00:05:31

make these grades, if you do these things, and you're not,

Unknown: 00:05:34

you're not ever given the message that you're worthy, just

Unknown: 00:05:38

because of who you know, just because

Maureen Spielman: 00:05:40

yeah, yeah. So that's interesting, because

Maureen Spielman: 00:05:43

you're saying you had a good experience in school, you didn't

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feel particularly affected by it in many ways. And it led you to

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a big university, and a big job after that. And so that really

Maureen Spielman: 00:05:57

wasn't the reason your that you knew in the moment, the reason

Maureen Spielman: 00:06:01

why you chose to go down the path of unschooling that

Maureen Spielman: 00:06:05

happened for you afterwards?

Unknown: 00:06:07

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have

Unknown: 00:06:10

terrible situation in school. Like I said, I was a good test

Unknown: 00:06:14

taker, so I make good grades that came in things came very

Unknown: 00:06:17

easily to me. Yeah, it was, it was after I actually had kids

Unknown: 00:06:23

and started to meet people who were doing things a little bit

Unknown: 00:06:27

differently and seeing how their kids were, well, a lot of it was

Unknown: 00:06:33

at the beginning, I you know, people were talking about

Unknown: 00:06:35

getting your kids into preschool at really what I felt like, was

Unknown: 00:06:39

a very, very young age. And I motherhood was such an amazing

Unknown: 00:06:44

time. For me, it was such an amazing transformation. And I'm

Unknown: 00:06:47

with my, you know, my daughter, who's the older and just loving

Unknown: 00:06:52

being a mom, and suddenly I'm getting these messages that

Unknown: 00:06:55

well, you need to start looking for a preschool and I, I

Unknown: 00:06:58

thought, well, I don't want to, I'm not ready to give her up,

Unknown: 00:07:02

you know, I'm not ready to hand her over to some stranger for

Unknown: 00:07:05

the better hours of the day. And that kind of threw me into a

Unknown: 00:07:11

little bit of a panic. And that's when someone handed me a

Unknown: 00:07:13

book about that was a compilation of different

Unknown: 00:07:17

homeschooling methods or philosophies. And I read this

Unknown: 00:07:22

one, you know, this one article by John Holt, who kind of became

Unknown: 00:07:26

the my guru. And it just totally resonated with me, and it made

Unknown: 00:07:31

me realize it just made me realize that's what I wanted for

Unknown: 00:07:36

my kids. I wanted my kids to, you know, I just seemed, it just

Unknown: 00:07:39

seemed like the right thing. I don't know, I'm just guessing

Unknown: 00:07:42

the universe was speaking to me in that way. But yeah, it was

Unknown: 00:07:46

just very, very powerful. John Holt's the one that coined the

Unknown: 00:07:49

term unschooling. So, and he's kind of he was a champion of

Unknown: 00:07:55

that methodology, really a very amazing guy.

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:00

That's amazing. There's a lot of a lot

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:03

right there. You know, I want I want to talk about unschooling

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:06

in a minute. But the first time I met you, when we had the

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conversation, it was striking to me that, to me listening to your

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:15

story, you were leaning into your intuition from a really

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:18

young age, let's just say or a young place in your life. And we

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:22

don't always know that intuition is the thing that's guiding us.

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:27

And it's our it's, it's unique to us, because the path that you

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:30

have walked is unique to you. And so, but the story was around

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:37

when you were a very young mom, and I believe breastfeeding, but

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:41

you were around the other Lecce mothers and you saw like a way

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:46

of being with their children. That was super like you're

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:49

saying, when someone handed you the book, The John Holt book is

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:52

like you saw something in it that spoke to you that made

Maureen Spielman: 00:08:56

sense to you? And do you think of that as intuition? Or do you

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:01

now know that it may have been or how did you follow because a

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:05

lot of times, we see things we like, but then our our, like

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:09

cultured mind is the one that says, but that's not possible.

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:13

That's not That's not possible. It's not reasonable. It's it's

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:16

kind of ridiculous, whatever

Unknown: 00:09:17

it is. Yeah, no, I think it is. I think it was

Unknown: 00:09:20

intuition. I don't know that. I would have called it that at the

Unknown: 00:09:24

time or noticed it, but maybe I just always had I don't know,

Unknown: 00:09:30

because I always grew up thinking that there were

Unknown: 00:09:32

possibilities that there wasn't anything that was impossible.

Unknown: 00:09:36

And for some reason, I can't really tell you because I did

Unknown: 00:09:40

grow up in a very conventional sort of family. I don't know the

Unknown: 00:09:45

unconventional sort of appeals to me and things just when

Unknown: 00:09:49

things resonate with me they're, they're strong than the idea is

Unknown: 00:09:53

strong.

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:54

So yeah, sure.

Unknown: 00:09:56

I

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:56

you had a couple examples in the book to

Maureen Spielman: 00:09:59

the One, you had a story about when you were little, because

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:04

what you're saying to me right now, I believe to be very true

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:07

is how you said it was just attractive to be unconventional

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:12

or. And I remember those parts of me that too, like when I was

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:17

a young girl, there were things that maybe a parent would say,

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:24

and I'd rise up a little bit indignantly and think like, oh,

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:27

that's not my truth. And isn't that interesting? Because we do

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:31

have these, the, the beauty of, you know, when we're born and in

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:37

just our light, and all those things, and then we get kind of

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:40

pulled away from it from school and from our family, and

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:43

whatever happens to us in life, but I can remember those times

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:46

as a kid, of, of being like, gosh, dang it, that's not my

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:51

truth. And so you I think you have a story about a project

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:54

when you were a little girl, and just that it just didn't fit who

Maureen Spielman: 00:10:59

you are at the time, it was just it was constraining you and

Maureen Spielman: 00:11:02

keeping you in a box in a way. I thought that was important. I

Maureen Spielman: 00:11:07

have,

Unknown: 00:11:07

I think very strong, that like not specific

Unknown: 00:11:12

instances, but many, many little instances of feeling dismissed

Unknown: 00:11:17

as a child, by adults, well meaning, but adults that said,

Unknown: 00:11:23

oh, there's no you can't understand these things that

Unknown: 00:11:26

we're talking about. Or you shouldn't be in this

Unknown: 00:11:28

conversation. This, you know, because you're a child. And in

Unknown: 00:11:32

my, in my side, my brain, I was thinking, I, I have all the

Unknown: 00:11:38

capacity to have this conversation. I don't understand

Unknown: 00:11:40

why you can't see that in the. And so I think because they

Unknown: 00:11:45

really remember that feeling of a very frustrating feeling. It's

Unknown: 00:11:49

still a kind of a trigger for me, if somebody if I feel I'm

Unknown: 00:11:52

being dismissed by somebody unfairly, I didn't want my kids

Unknown: 00:11:57

to feel that it just felt so disrespectful. And so I think I

Unknown: 00:12:01

always wanted to treat my children as though they were

Unknown: 00:12:04

already they came into this world existing as whole beings.

Unknown: 00:12:10

And as people that granted, they don't have the experience yet.

Unknown: 00:12:15

So the difference in our lives is, you know, I would tell my

Unknown: 00:12:19

kids, I'm not any smarter than you. Because I mean, how do you

Unknown: 00:12:23

measure smartness? How do you measure IQ, I, the only thing I

Unknown: 00:12:26

have is, I have years of experience on you. That's my,

Unknown: 00:12:31

that's my only difference. And my experience is not necessarily

Unknown: 00:12:35

going to be relevant for you. Because you have your own life

Unknown: 00:12:39

to lead. You have your own path to go. So I can share my

Unknown: 00:12:43

experience. And you can choose to listen to it or not, but it's

Unknown: 00:12:47

your life, your life. You're living your life, not me. I'm,

Unknown: 00:12:52

I'm here to help you to facilitate and guide you. But

Unknown: 00:12:55

I'm not going to tell you that is above my paygrade to tell you

Unknown: 00:12:59

what, what you should be doing based on what I think you know,

Unknown: 00:13:04

so yeah, so a lot of it was just that memory of feeling what it

Unknown: 00:13:08

felt like to be dismissed as a child that drove drove me. Yeah,

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:12

that was operating inside of you. And I'm

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:16

blown away. Because, you know, when we got together is a lot of

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:21

what you speak about are the tenants of conscious parenting,

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:24

you know, that I studied and Dr. Shefali is Institute they really

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:27

are conscious parenting is seeing your child is that whole

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:30

being is taking away that hierarchial type of structure

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:36

that is like I know more than you therefore you should listen

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:38

to me and do all of my roles. And just a willingness to let

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:44

your child be your guide. Because what I'm hearing you say

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:48

to is you didn't go into this with any master plan of I am

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:52

here to teach them. It was more it sounds like it was more. I

Maureen Spielman: 00:13:56

want to empower them to be internally driven by what is

Maureen Spielman: 00:14:01

guiding them, right. Yeah,

Unknown: 00:14:03

we can collaborate. We can work together. But yeah, I

Unknown: 00:14:07

never wanted them to see me as, and that's why I really don't

Unknown: 00:14:12

like the word teacher. Because it has this connotation in our

Unknown: 00:14:16

culture of I must impart to you something that's important. It's

Unknown: 00:14:23

one thing if I go to someone, like if I come to you and say,

Unknown: 00:14:26

Maureen, you have this information, Will you teach me

Unknown: 00:14:29

this? Then I've given you permission, okay. And I And I've

Unknown: 00:14:35

asked, I've requested teaching, but for you to say gene, you

Unknown: 00:14:39

must know you must learn what I have. And I say well, I don't

Unknown: 00:14:43

necessarily want that. That to me is it's it's bullying kind

Unknown: 00:14:50

of, you know, it's it's, it's an we you know, we downplay it but

Unknown: 00:14:54

to me, a school situation is kind of a bullying situation

Unknown: 00:14:58

where there's a Each year at the front of the room that's telling

Unknown: 00:15:01

the kids what they need to do when they haven't necessarily

Unknown: 00:15:06

wanted that.

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:07

Yeah, so it's really an invitation to take a

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:10

look at how conventional school is structured, which we know

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:14

it's such a behemoth that it's, that will change. Right? Yeah.

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:19

And I like I do like your messages, though, because I

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:22

think that, you know, for whatever a family chooses for

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:28

their kids, the elements that, you know, this is why I think

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:32

it's, it's sometimes interesting, like your book is

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:35

called success without school, unschooling, my children from

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:37

birth to college. But this is, there's so much in this book

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:41

that's valuable for everybody. So we sometimes we can't be

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:45

fooled by what the title of a book is, yes, if that particular

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:48

population wants to read this book, then this is for you. But

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:52

I think there's so much more that's for everybody. And for

Maureen Spielman: 00:15:56

me, like, looking at these ways that well, how does my child

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:00

feel like if they're in conventional school? How are

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:02

they feeling if this is, if it's presented in a certain way, or

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:07

even as a teacher, or, you know, we can we can do things at home,

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:10

like, oh, I as your parents, I consider your your teacher, your

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:14

guide, you know, and just start to so I think that conversation

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:18

is so valuable for anyone on either side of, of the choice, I

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:24

guess, because I think that one thing I was thinking about when

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:28

I was reading the book was like, how things can also I'm trying

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:31

to jog my memory is just like sometimes how, Oh, I know what

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:35

it was that there can be the rightness or wrongness put on

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:39

things and that it's like, this choice is good. And this choice

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:42

is not good kind of thing. But what I saw, and we can jump into

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:46

the unschooling part of it is where I'm not, I'm, I'm a

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:51

listener today to in that I don't know a lot about

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:54

unschooling, and I'm, I'm fascinated by it. I, I feel like

Maureen Spielman: 00:16:58

like my projections on to unschooling have always been

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:02

like, wow, you know, those families are super brave,

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:06

because I don't know if I could take that on yet. I love this

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:10

concept of really learning driven in from internally,

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:17

instead of the outside, you have to have these grades, you have

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:20

to take these, ask anyone that, you know, I know locally. And

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:24

just like standardized testing, I just never really vibed with

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:28

it at all. And I think I don't think it's great. And when I

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:30

would drop off my daughter for the LSAT and she would be just

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:33

in complete tears and just to see those that fallout from it

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:37

that really does does affect children deeply. And I don't

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:42

know where I was going with that, but just the continuum,

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:44

and I think it was around. When you talk about that your kids

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:49

were at home being unschooled, yet they would have playdates

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:54

with kids who went to a traditional school or they would

Maureen Spielman: 00:17:57

have you know playdates with kids who were homeschooled or

Maureen Spielman: 00:18:00

unschooled. And they so one of these misperceptions was that

Maureen Spielman: 00:18:07

you don't have as rich of a social life if you're

Maureen Spielman: 00:18:12

unschooled. So I mean, we can start there with unschooling,

Maureen Spielman: 00:18:15

but what are like? And what are your kind of hallmarks of the

Maureen Spielman: 00:18:19

unschooling experience or John Holt's or whatever you want to

Maureen Spielman: 00:18:22

share?

Unknown: 00:18:24

Well, definitely to your point about socialization,

Unknown: 00:18:28

which is something that we get asked a lot, and it's probably

Unknown: 00:18:32

easy for people to think about it as you must be in a vacuum,

Unknown: 00:18:36

you know, maybe your kids don't see because we're so used to the

Unknown: 00:18:41

structure of school, a bunch of kids all together with one

Unknown: 00:18:44

teacher at the front. And the idea of, you know, you don't

Unknown: 00:18:48

have that classroom setting, how do you meet people? But so yes,

Unknown: 00:18:53

there's some intention will be there was some intention on my

Unknown: 00:18:56

part around trying to find a group of people, which I did, I

Unknown: 00:19:03

was lucky to we were in Houston. So we had a big city, lots of

Unknown: 00:19:06

people around and, and enough to find a little core group of

Unknown: 00:19:11

families with kids roughly in that same age range, who all

Unknown: 00:19:16

were interested in just playing or doing things. So we didn't

Unknown: 00:19:20

all have the exact same educational philosophy but we

Unknown: 00:19:22

had very similar parenting philosophies. So I feel like all

Unknown: 00:19:26

of us were very respectful parents, we had similar values.

Unknown: 00:19:30

And that was very important to me because I wanted my kids

Unknown: 00:19:34

around other kids who were happy and grounded and feeling you

Unknown: 00:19:40

know, feeling good from that standpoint, because I think what

Unknown: 00:19:44

I've noticed is that when you're happy, you don't you don't bully

Unknown: 00:19:50

other people. You don't you aren't mean you aren't petty,

Unknown: 00:19:54

you know that that usually comes from a feeling of lack in in a

Unknown: 00:19:58

person themselves. So having having a peep having people

Unknown: 00:20:03

around that we're all happy. And on that same wavelength with

Unknown: 00:20:07

her, it was really important to me. And yeah, you know, it was

Unknown: 00:20:10

there's no lack of activities for kids if you look. And if you

Unknown: 00:20:14

don't find what you want, you make what you, you make

Unknown: 00:20:18

something happen, you know, which isn't that hard either

Unknown: 00:20:20

especially because the nice thing about being homeschooled

Unknown: 00:20:23

or unschooled is that you've got all these hours during the day

Unknown: 00:20:26

when a lot of institutions or teachers, music, teachers,

Unknown: 00:20:32

museums, they're not busy, because and so they've got time.

Unknown: 00:20:38

And they're happy to fill those hours with some way, especially

Unknown: 00:20:41

with kids who are eager to learn because the kids that are you

Unknown: 00:20:45

know, when you're doing something, because you've chosen

Unknown: 00:20:47

that activity, that's the thing that all all the coaches and

Unknown: 00:20:51

teachers that we dealt with, were constantly saying about our

Unknown: 00:20:54

group, a group of kids, gosh, everybody is so they're so

Unknown: 00:20:59

happy. They're so enthusiastic, they're so nice to each other.

Unknown: 00:21:03

And I said, Well, that's because they want to be here. And they

Unknown: 00:21:06

know that they don't have to be here, they could leave at any

Unknown: 00:21:10

time they got control, they have agency to, to leave if they

Unknown: 00:21:15

don't like it. And so yeah, of course, they're happy, because

Unknown: 00:21:18

they're always doing something they wanted to do.

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:21

Yeah, it's a beautiful byproduct for kids to

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:24

be able to experience the choice. As a mother, it's also

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:31

you take on a lot. And I imagine that looks like a lot of

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:34

different ways. You know, I think that you were able to stay

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:38

home with your children. And so there's probably, do you see

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:43

certain subsets of the population of unschoolers?

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:46

Working? And then how does that work? Do guides come in? And are

Maureen Spielman: 00:21:50

rotating houses? Or what kind of what does that look like?

Unknown: 00:21:53

Oh, good question. So yes, certainly, I would say it's

Unknown: 00:21:58

unusual for, let's say, working parents to unschool. But it's

Unknown: 00:22:03

not impossible. And a lot of people do it. And here's the

Unknown: 00:22:06

thing is, so instead of thinking about I'm my kids need to be

Unknown: 00:22:12

taught or they need to be in a learning environment. Try to

Unknown: 00:22:17

shift the paradigm to consider that your children are able to

Unknown: 00:22:22

learn, they come wired into this life to learn, they started from

Unknown: 00:22:28

the time they were babies, learning about their their

Unknown: 00:22:31

limbs, learning how to communicate learning how to

Unknown: 00:22:36

ambulation how to get places, that doesn't stop when they are

Unknown: 00:22:40

two, or three, or four or seven or eight, they're always able to

Unknown: 00:22:44

learn. So rather than think I have, they have to be I have to

Unknown: 00:22:49

be there teaching them all they need is an environment that safe

Unknown: 00:22:56

to to work in. So some, what some single moms even have done

Unknown: 00:23:02

is they make sure their children are in a in when they're too

Unknown: 00:23:06

young to be left on their own, that they're in a safe place

Unknown: 00:23:10

where there are some resources for them to play. Because

Unknown: 00:23:14

remember, we think of play as adults in our, in our culture,

Unknown: 00:23:18

we think of play as a bad thing as a frivolous thing. But play

Unknown: 00:23:22

is the work of children it is how they're learning, they're

Unknown: 00:23:26

trying things on they, they try on ideas and, and emotions and

Unknown: 00:23:33

in all kinds of things, you know, from from physical block

Unknown: 00:23:36

towers to, you know, emotional ideas. And so that's what they

Unknown: 00:23:42

need is just an environment to play in for the years until

Unknown: 00:23:46

they're until they're able to really start to teach

Unknown: 00:23:50

themselves. So in a way a parent could, it could theoretically

Unknown: 00:23:57

never be with their kids very much. Maybe No, never. But

Unknown: 00:24:03

during the hours that they're home, they can read together,

Unknown: 00:24:06

they can talk together they can be together. And if the parent

Unknown: 00:24:10

is trusting that the child is in a safe place and can learn on

Unknown: 00:24:14

their own, that's really all that they need. And you're

Unknown: 00:24:17

empowering your child to say I'm able to do this I'm capable of

Unknown: 00:24:23

learning on my own and then all you have to do as a parent is

Unknown: 00:24:26

just provides resources around those can be books, those could

Unknown: 00:24:30

be internet, those could be other people, they could be

Unknown: 00:24:34

teachers, they could be tutors, not necessarily like but so

Unknown: 00:24:37

there's just so many different ways.

Maureen Spielman: 00:24:39

So would you say that wood wood the way you

Maureen Spielman: 00:24:42

structure it in your own home, say okay, you know, roughly from

Maureen Spielman: 00:24:47

this hour to this our our our school hours and so there would

Maureen Spielman: 00:24:51

be that expectation for the kids.

Unknown: 00:24:54

Well, again, I didn't do it that way and we We're just

Unknown: 00:25:01

living life. Like we would get up in the morning. They would do

Unknown: 00:25:05

their thing I would do my thing we'd be in the house together,

Unknown: 00:25:08

they would they could they had access to me all the time if

Unknown: 00:25:11

they needed me if they had a question, but I wasn't directing

Unknown: 00:25:14

their play. And so the idea of school hours is, again, it's a

Unknown: 00:25:19

paradigm that we're taking from our the culture of school saying

Unknown: 00:25:24

that there should be but if you look at human beings, at

Unknown: 00:25:28

sometimes my my role model was, was more j in the cave, the cave

Unknown: 00:25:33

woman, you know, what was what would Jane do used to be what

Unknown: 00:25:37

was in my head, like, she didn't have school, she had a life.

Unknown: 00:25:42

They were they were living life, okay, they were looking for

Unknown: 00:25:46

food, they were finding, you know, making shelter, they were

Unknown: 00:25:50

enjoying nature, they were traveling, they were doing those

Unknown: 00:25:55

things. So, you know, that's the kind of model that I was

Unknown: 00:25:58

thinking about, for, what are we doing? How are we playing? How

Unknown: 00:26:03

are we interacting? So it's just, you know, we talked a lot

Unknown: 00:26:06

we did things we were in the car together driving to this thing

Unknown: 00:26:11

or that but was very non school ish. It's the word unschooling.

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:15

Yeah. Thanks for shedding light on that. And,

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:18

and I love the the, the just taking a look at at a structure

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:22

that's existed for a long time. And just saying, curious about

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:26

this, you know, does this work for our family? Do we want to do

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:29

it a little bit different? I'm curious about your experience,

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:32

as you began to kind of step into getting curious about how

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:39

these days were going to go how you wanted your kids to learn,

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:42

I'm sure that it gradually unfolded as the days and months

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:46

and years went by. But did you see yourself looking at other

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:51

parts of your life differently? I don't know if that makes

Maureen Spielman: 00:26:56

sense. But just like, I feel like you your path, the way you

Maureen Spielman: 00:27:00

describe it, it's a lot of letting go of what you thought

Maureen Spielman: 00:27:05

was right, what you thought, or you may not even thought it was

Maureen Spielman: 00:27:08

right, what you what you were told to do. And so you

Maureen Spielman: 00:27:14

questioned a lot, like, does this work for me anymore? And

Maureen Spielman: 00:27:17

did that become sort of a more of a life mantra is that? I

Unknown: 00:27:20

guess, yes, it did very much. So and I think I talked

Unknown: 00:27:24

about a little bit in the book, you know that there were some

Unknown: 00:27:25

pillars that really fell for me, one of which was our western

Unknown: 00:27:32

medicine sort of fell, because I had always trusted that, as you

Unknown: 00:27:37

know, as a as a young child, that the medical community had

Unknown: 00:27:42

my best interest at heart just that seemed normal to me. And it

Unknown: 00:27:47

wasn't until I had a baby, and was going to see pediatrician

Unknown: 00:27:51

that I realized I was getting advice. Again, well meaning

Unknown: 00:27:56

advice, that that was not really in my best interest. It was a

Unknown: 00:28:02

cultural norm. But it wasn't necessarily what was working for

Unknown: 00:28:07

me, what was working for my baby. And that's that little

Unknown: 00:28:13

shift, that little paradigm shift started to call into

Unknown: 00:28:17

question all of the, of the medical side. So not that all

Unknown: 00:28:23

medical advice is bad. And please don't get me wrong. I

Unknown: 00:28:26

don't mean that at all. But there are times when profit

Unknown: 00:28:31

comes before people. And I I never knew that before. I mean,

Unknown: 00:28:36

this was something that was a revelation to me at the time.

Unknown: 00:28:38

And now I am able to see through a different lens to see, not

Unknown: 00:28:42

everything is as it seems. So that was a one big pillar to

Unknown: 00:28:46

fall. And then institutional religion was a little bit of a

Unknown: 00:28:49

pillar for me too. Again, not all institutional religion is

Unknown: 00:28:52

bad, but there are times when the institution itself is more

Unknown: 00:28:58

important to people than the than the message or the people

Unknown: 00:29:02

themselves that are in it. So that was another sort of pillar

Unknown: 00:29:05

to follow because I really, I wanted a more a more direct

Unknown: 00:29:11

relationship with my Creator. And I like that I can I can have

Unknown: 00:29:16

that now I can have I can choose my own beliefs. It's a choose

Unknown: 00:29:20

your own adventure story. I can choose the beliefs that I want

Unknown: 00:29:23

to keep, and I can let go of the ones that don't serve me. So

Unknown: 00:29:28

it's a it's a very, you know, there's a very conscious choice

Unknown: 00:29:30

on my part for that. And then the third one was kind of

Unknown: 00:29:34

education is stuck because I was already those other two pillars

Unknown: 00:29:37

had sort of fallen for me. In other words, I It's like the

Unknown: 00:29:40

curtain had been open to you know, Dr. Oz had been revealed.

Unknown: 00:29:44

And so I now saw things in a different light. And education

Unknown: 00:29:47

was in the same way I realized, gosh, you know, education as we

Unknown: 00:29:54

know, it isn't really how people learn. You know? We know this,

Unknown: 00:30:00

we know that the best learning happens in a place where you're

Unknown: 00:30:04

able to fail. And you're able to fail as often as you need to, in

Unknown: 00:30:09

order to gain the skill. But you know, most of our conventional

Unknown: 00:30:15

educational are not places where you want to fail, you're,

Unknown: 00:30:18

you're, you're either punished for fail failing, you're shamed

Unknown: 00:30:21

for failing. And so you when you when you stop failing, you stop

Unknown: 00:30:26

learning. Yeah, so we, you know, we know this, this is, this

Unknown: 00:30:32

isn't Yeah, information.

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:34

And it makes sense to that a child, that they

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:37

would be feeling so much if they did fail in the conventional

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:42

sense, because you're talking about failing in a completely

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:45

different way. Right? It's just like, the way you're talking

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:49

about it is like, this is life, we all fail. We all and like, we

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:53

all have our strengths. And then we all have our areas of

Maureen Spielman: 00:30:56

challenges, and, and what are they for you? And how do we get

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:00

through that, but I feel like sometimes in some institutions,

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:05

and it can be across all three that you named, there can be,

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:08

you know, based on what happens to us or our choices, we can

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:11

have overlays of shame, because it just takes away what we

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:16

really know. And then we're being told we don't know. And

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:20

yeah, I related to when we had about the medical because I to

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:24

hold Western and alternative complementary both, you know,

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:28

gently in both hands. And you know, through my journey,

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:34

there's been things told to me that are not resonant. And it's,

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:37

it's a retraining I've had to do to, to trust myself. And that

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:42

was a theme. I think, when I started reading the book, it was

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:47

maybe you said it, but it was interesting, the journey. And

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:51

that that just seemed like a big theme of the book and your

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:54

journey. Yeah, very much so. And like I hear you saying it's just

Maureen Spielman: 00:31:58

like the unfolding the unraveling, the willingness, the

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:02

curiosity. Yeah, I liked it's kind of going back but I had

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:07

written down, because it was a John hold quote, that you use in

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:12

the part one of your book, but it said trust children, nothing

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:16

could be more simple, or more difficult, difficult, because to

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:20

trust children, children, we must first learn to trust

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:23

ourselves. And most of us were taught as children that we could

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:26

not be trusted. And I therein lies the work I do with coaching

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:31

is that everything and this is the part I like, when you talk

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:36

about self care, and you went into that part of the book is

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:38

that or what was being brought up for you to heal in the

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:43

process of unschooling really, and but just this idea, most of

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:50

us were taught as children that we could not be trusted. So

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:53

again, we are taken away from our truth, our intuition, our

Maureen Spielman: 00:32:58

knowing, which is I know, it's a cornerstone of unschooling, like

Maureen Spielman: 00:33:00

we want these kids to hold on to this as much as possible. But

Maureen Spielman: 00:33:06

did you see that in yourself? I know you did. But like in the

Maureen Spielman: 00:33:09

book, talk about what you learned about yourself and what

Maureen Spielman: 00:33:13

what you had to shed from your early days?

Unknown: 00:33:16

Oh, so much. Yes. So much. And I, you know, I was, I

Unknown: 00:33:22

was listening to one of your podcasts earlier, the

Unknown: 00:33:25

relationship, one, I can't remember their names, but they

Unknown: 00:33:28

did such a nice job of talking about it. And he was talking

Unknown: 00:33:31

about trigger points that came up, I think, for him, it was

Unknown: 00:33:36

maybe a son screaming that kind of triggered him. And then he

Unknown: 00:33:39

had to realize through some therapy that Oh, that was a

Unknown: 00:33:41

trigger because of something that happened or didn't happen

Unknown: 00:33:45

for me in my childhood. And now that I know that I can deal

Unknown: 00:33:50

better with that, right. So you it was a wound for him that he

Unknown: 00:33:54

needed to heal. And I all through the time of unschooling

Unknown: 00:33:59

my kids and being with them in this very, you know, natural

Unknown: 00:34:03

sort of very authentic way. I was constantly meeting up with

Unknown: 00:34:08

trigger points that needed to be worked out. And I'm not saying I

Unknown: 00:34:12

was great at it, and there were a lot of things that I still

Unknown: 00:34:15

haven't worked out, but but they were coming up for me and they

Unknown: 00:34:19

were our situation really forced me. At least this is how it felt

Unknown: 00:34:24

to me to look at those and deal with those in a way because I

Unknown: 00:34:30

was, you know, it's kind of like I was because I was wanting to

Unknown: 00:34:34

be very authentic to my kids. I was very naked emotionally in

Unknown: 00:34:38

front of them. They were seeing everything they were so I

Unknown: 00:34:42

couldn't I couldn't hide. And I didn't want to hide because I

Unknown: 00:34:45

realized that everything that I worked through was benefiting

Unknown: 00:34:49

them as well as it was benefiting me. So I used to tell

Unknown: 00:34:53

people that are that are on this unschooling journey that have

Unknown: 00:34:57

started down this journey and they get it The work is not on

Unknown: 00:35:02

your children, the work is on you. And everything that you are

Unknown: 00:35:09

doing just automatically falls into a benefit for your kids. So

Unknown: 00:35:15

the work, that's what I fell is that the unschooling work is

Unknown: 00:35:19

really very personal. And it was, you know, it was hard, but

Unknown: 00:35:26

it was also very fulfilling.

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:27

So that makes sense. Yeah. And it's like you,

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:31

I appreciate the transparency and vulnerability and ties to

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:36

Leslie in Juan's episode, because that was such a nugget

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:40

that he was talking about that is life principle and guide, but

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:44

that you knew you had awareness that you were showing up in

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:49

certain emotions, and in all ways, and hat and, and maybe at

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:55

first thought that, well, this is good, it's got to be good,

Maureen Spielman: 00:35:58

because they can see it all. And we're all we all have the range

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:02

of emotions as humans, and then figuring like all, but maybe I

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:07

need to do more work underneath that, and maybe I and, but I do

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:12

love that portion of so often, because so many homes of our

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:16

origins, we, of course, were coming from parents who, you

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:21

know, my grandpa, my grandfather was in the Depression, you know,

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:24

they didn't have food he didn't, but all the suppression that

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:26

comes down all the, the misplaced emotions and the, you

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:30

know, not expressed, and it's just all like that continuum of

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:34

all of our lives of how do we get to the most healing and

Maureen Spielman: 00:36:38

healthiest expression of ourselves?

Unknown: 00:36:41

Right. So a lot of honesty, and I want to make a

Unknown: 00:36:44

point is this honesty, I, you, you mentioned earlier, that this

Unknown: 00:36:48

book could be for somebody that really isn't even interested in

Unknown: 00:36:52

homeschooling, or unschooling, and one of the things that I've

Unknown: 00:36:55

been asked is, What would I have to say to somebody that, can't

Unknown: 00:36:59

do that, or doesn't want to do that, and there is something

Unknown: 00:37:01

really important that that parents can do, and I know,

Unknown: 00:37:04

you'll know, this from maybe from conscious parenting is, is

Unknown: 00:37:08

to be honest with your children. Because even if you're having to

Unknown: 00:37:13

send your school, your child to school, and maybe they're not

Unknown: 00:37:15

all that happy with school, if you're at least honest, and say,

Unknown: 00:37:20

what the reason I'm sending you to school is because I have to

Unknown: 00:37:24

work and I don't have any other place for you to go, and I can't

Unknown: 00:37:27

or I'm not able yet to to do unschooling I'm, it's, I don't

Unknown: 00:37:32

have the capacity for that right now, I don't have the bandwidth

Unknown: 00:37:35

for it right now. And so therefore, I need you to be in

Unknown: 00:37:38

this place, but understand that I love you more than the grades

Unknown: 00:37:43

you're making, or you know, so just be being honest. Suddenly,

Unknown: 00:37:47

the child says, Oh, they're really that child knows when

Unknown: 00:37:51

you're being really honest with them or not. I mean, they're

Unknown: 00:37:54

totally they got they got the radar down. And so when, when

Unknown: 00:37:58

they hear that you're really being honest and authentic, oh,

Unknown: 00:38:01

my goodness, the relationship goes to a whole new level of, of

Unknown: 00:38:05

credibility, you know, your credibility is, is intact, you.

Unknown: 00:38:14

So being honest, and you can start that at anytime, even if

Unknown: 00:38:18

you've not been honest. If before, if you've not been

Unknown: 00:38:21

honest with yourself, and therefore you've not been honest

Unknown: 00:38:22

with him. Every little onion layer that you peel off is a

Unknown: 00:38:26

hell, you know, every little, every little change is a step

Unknown: 00:38:30

forward.

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:31

I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:33

think that I mean, the whole conversation is, or a lot of our

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:36

conversation today is how do we put down our fears? And what

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:41

what are we afraid of? And, you know, I think, yeah, there's a

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:46

lot to be said there. And if we are transparent with our

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:50

children, and if we show up, you know, in our emotions, or even,

Maureen Spielman: 00:38:56

you know, I'm pretty transparent about, you know, I don't like

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:00

this particular part of what's going on, or this kind of thing.

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:04

And I think my partner will be more like, Maureen, you

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:09

shouldn't say that. Because the fear is, if I say that, then the

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:15

child's going to say, Oh, well, then heck, I'm not you know, I'm

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:19

leaving. I like if mom thinks that then I'm not studying for

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:23

that test, or whatever it is, but that's not really what's

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:26

happening beneath the surface, what's happening is your child

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:29

find you relatable. They're they think, like, Oh, my parent

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:33

understands me, she, she gets what I'm going through, she's

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:37

seeing that this is hard. For me. It's, I really think that

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:40

that's true. And that that's all our kids are really looking for

Maureen Spielman: 00:39:44

is that relatability

Unknown: 00:39:45

Right. Right. They so thrive on authenticity. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:39:51

And they need us to, they need us to lead the way on that. And

Unknown: 00:39:56

that also kind of comes back to another really important thing

Unknown: 00:39:59

that my husband and I were were, there was a big underlying

Unknown: 00:40:04

underlining of our parenting is personal responsibility. You

Unknown: 00:40:08

know, so when you're authentic with your child, you're taking

Unknown: 00:40:11

personal responsibility for your emotions, and why and the fact

Unknown: 00:40:16

that you feel them, and you don't need to apologize for the

Unknown: 00:40:19

fact again, you're, you're showing the way by being honest

Unknown: 00:40:24

with yourself by opening up and understanding like, again, you

Unknown: 00:40:29

know, when there's a trigger, saying to yourself, gosh, why?

Unknown: 00:40:33

Why do I have why? Why do I have a fear there? What's what's

Unknown: 00:40:37

behind that fear? What's behind that feeling? What's behind that

Unknown: 00:40:41

clench that I feel in my stomach? And go back into that

Unknown: 00:40:44

and and delve in and say, Where did that come from? And is that

Unknown: 00:40:48

true? Or is it if because it may not be true anymore? Maybe it

Unknown: 00:40:52

was true once upon a time, and it's not true anymore. And then

Unknown: 00:40:54

you can go, oh, I can let that go again, or I can, you know, I

Unknown: 00:40:59

can overcome that fear. And so yeah, a person taking personal

Unknown: 00:41:03

responsibility is very important, as the parent because

Unknown: 00:41:06

you're teaching your children, that's what you should do, you

Unknown: 00:41:10

need to take personal responsibility.

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:12

Absolutely, absolutely love that personal

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:14

responsibility. And, you know, the word that before we started

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:17

recording today is just giving yourself permission, because I

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:22

have had to give myself permission around one of my

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:26

children's school experience, and, you know, a spiritual

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:30

teacher of mine had pointed out at one time, and it's just like,

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:34

going to a doctor and speaking your truth or, but she did, she

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:38

did, it was very supportive of me, because she was able to say,

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:43

Maureen, this is a really big deal speaking up to the

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:46

institution, because it's not like a conscious belief that we

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:51

don't want to hear from parents, but that it's running underneath

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:54

the system somewhere of like, we've got a time clock, and

Maureen Spielman: 00:41:57

these meetings are X amount, 20 minutes, and, you know, so I had

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:03

to, I have to take that responsibility, I have to go

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:06

into myself, and, you know, really stand up for my child and

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:09

my belief systems. So it's kind of like we're working some

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:12

symbiotically. I don't know if that's the right word. But it's,

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:16

it's knowing that, you know, even for people who choose

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:20

traditional conventional school, use your voice, give yourself

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:24

permission, because if you intuitively know something is

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:28

right for your child, and you're getting internal information

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:32

that that's true. Don't quiet your voice, keep, you know, keep

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:36

on going forward and expressing yourself. Because, you know,

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:39

we're teaching our kids this, and we want them to be able to

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:42

experience it An example would be I think even I was something

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:48

around advocating for yourself. And then, and then like, I think

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:52

I'm thinking of my son, and like, then he, over the years,

Maureen Spielman: 00:42:56

he's gaining the confidence and the ability to advocate for

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:00

himself, only to be told no, when he did it, you know? And so

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:05

it's like, wait a minute, if that doesn't feel right, let's

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:08

go back and just have the conversation. It doesn't have to

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:10

be. I think another way we were all like a lot of us were raised

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:13

was that communication was confrontation. Or I will own

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:17

that for myself that it felt like if I had something to say

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:21

like it was this big thing. And it's like, no, let's let's all

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:24

retrain ourselves, that it's just a conversation. It's just a

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:27

conversation. And so you don't your nervous system doesn't have

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:31

to go crazy. You don't have to think fear is on the other side.

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:34

Something bad's gonna happen. But yeah, I'm going off here.

Maureen Spielman: 00:43:38

But that's that's true.

Unknown: 00:43:40

That's true. And I think there was something that

Unknown: 00:43:44

you said about I've lost it. Cold, I know, like when you're

Unknown: 00:43:54

if you're when you're speaking up for your child, one thing

Unknown: 00:43:58

that might be helpful, and this was something that I used to

Unknown: 00:44:01

kind of keep in the back of my mind is, you know, what, if you

Unknown: 00:44:05

were Einsteins mother, or Edison's mother or Steve Jobs,

Unknown: 00:44:11

mother, Beethoven's mother, and everybody's pressuring you, to

Unknown: 00:44:17

have your kid be the same as everybody else, you know, but,

Unknown: 00:44:23

but they're not the same as everybody else. And no kid is

Unknown: 00:44:26

the same as everybody else. So that's why I say like, I truly

Unknown: 00:44:29

believe that every child is a genius. And and the reason I, I

Unknown: 00:44:34

mean, maybe I use that word in ways that other people really

Unknown: 00:44:37

don't like. But to me, every unique individual is so

Unknown: 00:44:42

important to our cosmos. And it's so important that that

Unknown: 00:44:47

unique individual is is allowed to express in their unique way.

Unknown: 00:44:53

So if you if you're going to advocate for your child, try to

Unknown: 00:44:59

think of it and to herbs have not that they're all not not

Unknown: 00:45:03

like a snowflake. I mean, not that everybody's you know, too

Unknown: 00:45:06

delicate to do but but that everybody is unique and that

Unknown: 00:45:10

it's important that everybody is able to express that. So maybe

Unknown: 00:45:15

that would help for a mom, mom or a dad that needs to advocate

Unknown: 00:45:19

for their child and feels nervous about that. It's hard to

Unknown: 00:45:23

do that in an institution because the institution is, is

Unknown: 00:45:28

not set up for that. It's it's just the nature of an

Unknown: 00:45:31

institution. That's how, you know, that's why I didn't that's

Unknown: 00:45:35

really why I wanted out of that institution, because I wanted

Unknown: 00:45:38

the freedom to be able to move.

Maureen Spielman: 00:45:40

Yeah. And do that was also well said, thanks

Maureen Spielman: 00:45:44

for sharing that beautiful wisdom with the listeners. I

Maureen Spielman: 00:45:48

will we haven't even talked about your kids. I know we're

Maureen Spielman: 00:45:50

nearing the end. But your kids are, I think in their older 20s

Maureen Spielman: 00:45:54

now. And they did, they were homeschooled from birth to 18,

Maureen Spielman: 00:45:58

and went on to college educations, which might be

Maureen Spielman: 00:46:02

something that people don't know does happen, and you can have

Maureen Spielman: 00:46:06

this non traditional approach to education, and still make that

Maureen Spielman: 00:46:13

choice when you come to college age.

Unknown: 00:46:15

Right? If that's what you want. I college isn't for

Unknown: 00:46:18

everybody. But yes, absolutely. And in fact, a lot of colleges

Unknown: 00:46:23

love to have homeschoolers, because those kids come in,

Unknown: 00:46:28

they're not burned out, they're not already fried from testing

Unknown: 00:46:33

and everything that they've done, and they're and they're

Unknown: 00:46:36

still very eager to learn. I mean, I know my daughter will

Unknown: 00:46:40

vote, both of my kids went into their classes really engaged,

Unknown: 00:46:44

because that's how they had always been engaged in learning

Unknown: 00:46:47

with, with other teachers or with other kids. You know, when

Unknown: 00:46:51

we did classes, ad hoc little classes, they were always

Unknown: 00:46:55

excited about, about learning it hadn't, learning hadn't been

Unknown: 00:47:00

given a bad name for them. The way it does for some kids, you

Unknown: 00:47:04

know, you say something to a conventional kid about, oh,

Unknown: 00:47:08

this, we're going to do this educational thing, they're going

Unknown: 00:47:10

to be like, I don't want any part of it. Because education

Unknown: 00:47:14

and learning has been given a really bad name for them. It's

Unknown: 00:47:18

distasteful, because they know it's been kind of pressed down

Unknown: 00:47:22

on them. Whereas my kids never had that association. So

Unknown: 00:47:25

learning and educational just seem like Oh, interesting. And

Unknown: 00:47:28

they're still, they're both still super engaged in in

Unknown: 00:47:32

learning and have all kinds of interesting things. They're very

Unknown: 00:47:36

enthusiastic learners.

Maureen Spielman: 00:47:38

Wow, that's, that's amazing.

Unknown: 00:47:40

It didn't shut down, which I love.

Maureen Spielman: 00:47:42

I know that there's so much more that I'd

Maureen Spielman: 00:47:44

want to ask around that. But I'm just, I think the touch points

Maureen Spielman: 00:47:48

for me during our interview were, you know, your journey as

Maureen Spielman: 00:47:53

a mom, as a woman going through these new choices and new

Maureen Spielman: 00:47:58

directions, a new path in your life, trusting, shedding,

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:01

letting go of what no longer served, and creating this space,

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:07

and also seeing children as a whole and humanity as

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:11

individual, unique, creative, you know, abundant, like all

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:15

these things that we want for them all, and not for them to

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:19

feel limited or told they are something that they never even

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:24

were, you know, they didn't give permission to be called

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:27

something or limited in that way. And so, I think there's so

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:31

many beautiful themes. If people are interested in finding your

Maureen Spielman: 00:48:37

work, where should they go, Jean.

Unknown: 00:48:39

So my website is called success without school.com. I

Unknown: 00:48:46

also am on Facebook success without school and on Instagram

Unknown: 00:48:51

success without school. I also have a Facebook page called

Unknown: 00:48:55

trust your child.com. In fact, trust your child. Sorry, trust

Unknown: 00:49:00

your child.com will get you to my web page as well, if they

Unknown: 00:49:04

both do, and there's some blog entries there that I've written

Unknown: 00:49:07

that will help people I think get a little bit more of a view

Unknown: 00:49:12

besides the book, of course, so the books available as an audio

Unknown: 00:49:16

book and ebook or paperback on it all your normal book selling

Unknown: 00:49:20

options.

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:22

Thank you. Thanks for sharing your story,

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:24

your experience. It's just the beginning. And I'm so happy to

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:28

have you here as part of our sisterhood.

Unknown: 00:49:30

Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Yes,

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:33

we'll put everything you shared in the

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:36

show notes. And yeah, to the listeners. We'll see you next

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:41

time. Thanks for listening today.

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:44

Thanks for listening to this episode of mystical sisterhood.

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:47

If you love what you heard, please visit Apple podcast and

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:50

subscribe and leave a review and share with a friend if you're

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:54

called to do so. To learn more about my one on one coaching

Maureen Spielman: 00:49:57

programs, or join the mystical sisterhood membership Visit

Maureen Spielman: 00:50:01

Maureenspielman.com or mysticalsisterhood.com Thanks so