Thanks, that was very interesting. I must read up more on this. Frankly I had never imagined such a radical approach. I never had any intention of unschooling

Thanks, that was very interesting. I must read up more on this. Frankly I had never imagined such a radical approach. I never had any intention of unschooling my children. I would have home schooled them essentially. I would have tried to reach minimums on a curriculum but I would have tried to use more of my own material and a more play oriented approach. I also likely would have wanted my kids to occasionally attend school just for the socializing aspect and getting accustomed to the rules and rigidity of the school system, simply because it cannot be avoided later in life. However the link you provided gives food for thought. I had not expected such a radial approach to work. Or at least I don't think it necessarily works in general. I think it depends a lot on parents. A play oriented type of education is hard. It requires creativity and work on part of the parent. If I compare my kids with many others e.g, many think that they do well in school because we are very serious about school work. We are not. The main difference as I see it is that we engage the curiosity and creativity of the children more. When my kids ask a question about something. They tend to get quite a long and detailed answer. I also try to make it somewhat entertaining. Not always easy. I try to find fun analogies related to things I know they like. Far too many parents have the attitude of: "Oh don't worry about that," "that is for grown ups dear," "that is too complicated for a child to understand" etc. I don't think I have ever told my kids that something is too difficult for them so don't even ask. I always try to give some kind of answer to every question. Of course you have to point out that it is a simplification, and as they get older you can give a better explanation. We also try to push the envelope more. We care more about what is fun than what is age appropriate. Our kids always had building toys and board games way ahead of their age. We did not care about that. It was more important if they enjoyed it. If we had e.g. a too advanced board game with a theme they liked, we just simplified the rules. When they grasped simple rules, we expanded the rules.