My kid and husband are out in the forest, going on a "hike" which these days means talking with them about all the cool sticks and rocks and leaves they find for about a half mile. I just received a text that they were pretending to be Beaver Boy (from Peep and the Big Wide World) and chop down all the trees, saying "nyah nyah nyah nyah," which they find hilarious. This warms my heart for multiple reasons, number one because I'm continually enchanted by their ability to create imaginary worlds and act in them. Number two because they attach themself to a particular character type in many of their shows: goofy masculine sidekicks (Beaver Boy, T-bone in Clifford, Tiger in Kipper), something that I find intriguing and I wonder where it will lead. But of course, this is the opposite of the kind of zen, tree-sitting, nature appreciation that I envision for myself and for them. I've been seeking out nature-education activities, but in these moments I have to wonder how much those are for me, not for them. And whether, if they are mostly for me, they are worth driving significant distances to reach. They love being outside in nature, and I think that's a near-universal truth for children, but I wonder if it would really help them blossom to be instructed about nature. As they get more into their twos, and gets goofier and goofier, delighting in entertaining us and making all sorts of faces and accents and sounds, I wonder if clown-school might be more their style. Not that, of course, they need school at all, but I am beginning to feel the pressure, and the usefulness, of having some regularly-scheduled activity with the same large-ish group of kids so that they can negotiate different relationships and find good friends.
Trusting my child, and what kinds of learning they find fun, often takes me somewhere very different then I've planned. We went to the library last week and I was determined to find some good Halloween book to introduce the concept of Halloween, so they could enjoy dressing up when the time comes. I picked out two Halloween books; they let me read one of them one time, and refused them entirely after that. Instead, they fell in love with Happy Valentine's Day, Mouse! and Chick and Chickie Play All Day. Being a logical adult, with the first I just shook my head, thinking, "It's the wrong time." But they love mouse. Not only that, but if I'm so worried about their longterm process of making good friends, what better model could there be? Mouse makes valentines that reflect his friends' unique qualities, and in the end they all bring him cookies.
The second book I'm more ambivalent about, but it continues to exemplify this process of trusting them to learn. In the second half of Chick and Chickie, they emotionally torment a letter A, getting it to say all manner of "Ah" sounds. Like several children's tv shows (such as Peg and Cat, where they count 100 chickens on a farm by tossing them into too-small cages, launching them in rockets, and basically objectifying them in any way possible), this book walks a thin line between humanizing and objectifying, using the facial expressions and legs and arms drawn on the letter A to make learning interesting while using fear, intimidation, and bribery to get the letter A to do what it is supposed to do, make "Ah" sounds. But they love that book, and so far our discussion of objectification involves me asking, "does the letter A look scared?" Still, what they love more about the book is the beginning, when Chick and Chickie each make masks that are so frightening they scare each other. Then they take the masks off and laugh, and my child laughs and laughs. And when they do, I realize they are learning about dressing up for Halloween, more than any pedantic book explaining Halloween could ever teach them. Because of course they'll need to know not only what their own costume does, but also what all those monster masks on the street mean too.
So as I fret about their social skills, exposure to the outdoors, and understanding of holidays everyone will expect them to participate in, my kid finds the materials and the play and the learning and the knowledge that they need. And I write about it, because as a parent exploring unschooling, I'm looking back to watch how I step along and sometimes step over this line between providing a rich environment and instructing.