Just read this book by Naomi Aldort and think it was really awesome. I am not usually a fan of books that provide 'plans' for dealing with things, or cute acronyms, but her SALVE plan is pretty wonderful at least in what it encourages us to do as parents--separate ourselves from our immediate emotional reactions to our kids, step back and figure out what we are really reacting to--some of our own baggage usually. The idea is to help us be with our kids through things like tantrums or other intense emotions without having to 'fix' it or stifle it. This is not unschooling specifically, but it goes along with and supports the the idea of a radical unschooling life.

It's awesome for me. I can't always get present in the moment, but I am learning to do so in a way I never have before and feeling thankful for that. For instance, when I am starving hungry, feeling the blood sugar drop, just finished fixing lunch for the boy and his dad and am now making myself something to eat and the boy comes in, feeling whiney, pulling on my pant leg until my pants fall down around my ankles (I need new pants!) and I have this instant reaction of feeling resentful and thinking 'why will you never let me eat, why does everyone around here get to eat but me?'. Where the heck did that come from? Sam doesn't have some nefarious plan to keep me from eating. He just has a little feeling of loneliness for me that he would like me to help him do something about, that's all. All the other stuff is straight out of some murky past business that has nothing to do with him. It's still hard for me to navigate that one cause if I don't eat right away blood sugar continues to drop and I get really cranky, but I can stop, pick him up, take him to dad and ask dad to take over for a little while, give Sam a hug and a kiss, eat my lunch and then go snuggle with him.

Anyway, not unschooling per se, but isn't everything really unschooling when it comes down to it?