Ashton

I've looked a lot into Waldorf (Steiner) and Montessori style schooling. You have to remember that each school is different and while some may obey strictly to the principles of each style, others maybe lenient and not obey as much.Waldorf at its roots teach children about fire pixies and racism amongst others. While not all schools will teach this, the die hard schools will. So you have to be careful about Waldorf style.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_educationMontessori style is (For me) the best style as it removes the chaff that might be taught by Waldorf but keeps the wheat. I am biased here, so i will refrain from saying much else.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_educationThey are both VERY similar styles of education and a extremely viable and alternative to public schools.

It doesn't matter who started it, I'll finish it! Wait wrong forum!You need to sit both kids down together and give them both a chance to explain their version of events. Then see if they both agree with the story of the event. It might be the case that they both genuinely believe that the other started it. So for example Alice might take a toy of Lewis, then Lewis hits her in retaliation. Alice believes Lewis started it because she didn't see taking the toy was part of the argument and Lewis saw taking the toy as the start of it.Then you address the lack of understanding on both parts.

How old is your child? We have taken to telling our 3 year old that the TV is tired or broken when we feel he has watched too much and still wants more. Don't feel disheartened by them telling you they enjoy something else at that moment, because until they are older they do live in the moment. So he might value watching the muppets more then playing with you at that moment and later it might reverse. Maybe the child is becoming more attached to the friend? Seeing you as less fun? Try mixing things up, so instead of the park, maybe go painting or to a museum/aquarium? Good luck

Lewis our eldest son was born at 31 weeks and was exclusively breast fed until 19 months. This is when he decided he was ready. He never lost weight, was always gaining and is extremely healthy. Alice our youngest daughter is 13 weeks and is and will be exclusively breast fed. She is currently over the 99th centile for weight. Breastfeeding is very hard for everyone involved, the mother's job is most demanding and all you can do as a dad is support her throughout. As a dad I felt helpless at times because I couldn't help with feeding (ignoring expressing and bottle feeding). When the feeding starts the first 3+ weeks are the hardest, you are getting your milk supply in, getting the nipples used to feeding (which can result in cracked bleeding nipples which I'm told are very painful) and you and baby are getting your routine together. Best advice for men is just support where you can and understanding the difficulties women go through when feeding.

So my wifes cousin is a architect and he had to do lots of standardized tests to be able to become one.My Uncle is a molecular biologist and he had to do a lot of standardized tests.My auntie is a artist and she had to do standardized tests to get her job as a designer and maintainer of stained glass windows.My wife is doing a PhD in child language and had to do lots of standardized tests.I would say standardized testing is quite important. Can you clarify here, are you suggesting that people who don't unschool don't care about their kids education? My comment about burning out was in relation to the research I've read about home schoolers and unschoolers who get burned out with the constant teaching. I really do suggest you read the research. That point was "Not schooling" is doing no education. Worded poorly on my behalf."I don't feel the majority of parents do this and instead say "I unschool!" when in fact they are "Not educating"." One is realistically more achievable then the other.You can definitely say a tuba player who plays in a orchestra is successful, but out of how many people who play it, how many achieve that level of employment?As stef said, if your kid is good with music, they have to be absolutely outstanding to even stand out from the rest. It makes every sense if that wild dolphin was going to live in the Seaworld dolphins world. I would agree that some stuff is taught at the wrong time.

If thats the case, where did the unschooling movement come from? That speaks opposite to your statement, as that's about letting your child develop.

So if you want your child to have a good career in our current society (Regardless of whether or not you agree with it.), you will need to do some form of standardised tests. If unschooled children are scoring lower on these tests then normal school and home schooled children, then i would suggest to people not to unschool if they want their children to have a career in our current society.I have nothing against Home Schooling, but for me Unschooling is massive risk that is not worth taking. I suggested that it was, based from reading this study. So acknowledgements: So McCain fellowship: http://www2.acadiau.ca/acadia-news-reader/items/harrison-mccain-foundation-awards-1-million-to-acadia.1043.htmlNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada:http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/index_eng.aspSeems the study was pretty impartial.Unschooling is currently in a phase of "Its different, so I'll do it to stand out". What I'd love to know is the percentage of kids unschooled who have turned out to have successful careers.As with home schooling, you have to take in the parents academic achievements, the child's intrinsic learning and the parent not getting burn out. I don't feel the majority of parents do this and instead say "I unschool!" when in fact they are "Not schooling".

All to real for me. Extremely hard to watch and had to pause throughout. It portrays the experience extremely well and I came from a very abusive single parent home. Very emotional about this. Thank you for sharing.

Sorry where is the expert? I don't see any qualifications, just about bunch of people who claim to be experts. I see a "unschooler" (No school parenting), a women who set up a website about spanking, a youtube "celebrity" and a counseller relationship coach. My wife has done 9 years of education (So far, maybe 2-3 more years left) to be able to be called a expert in childhood development, yet these can just come along and attach the label of expert?

I don't agree with unschooling, so does that mean i am "a lazy parent" and "suck at parenting"? Considering unschooling is currently the lowest quality of child education, i'm glad i don't unschool.A rather large amount of assumptions in that statement.

I don't discount your ideas, but i think your treading a thin line between homeschooling and unschooling. They are both different ideals.I'm not going to continue the discussion here as i don't feel its the right thread for it, but if you want to carry this on, you could create a thread and we could carry it on in there.

Are you confused as to why Maths, Science and English (If you're native) are important to learn? Or are you asking me why they are important? Because i'm confused at how you don't see these subjects as important. There is no reason why they couldn't, but without having a child with intrinsic learning and an attentive parent, children will do what they think is fun. Learning maths for most children isn't that much fun, so they'll play Minecraft all day and then when they are older, fail to understand why they can't build a house. Right, but you can't use trigonometry to understand 20% off at Walmart. I can go outside and build a fort and never use maths once. Lets say that kid loves building, he'll NEVER be allowed to build any structure because "he built forts when he was growing up." He'll need to understand much more then what he can learn from his environment and he will need to get a degree in Architecture to even build a building. Textiles is art and art requires less structure to learn. Ok, now your confusing Culture with Geography. Unless the parents are teaching him about how the land works, he isn't learning Geography and is instead just going on holiday. The podcast by stef showed that a child left to make their own choices, will often never challenge their understanding and will only learn to a satisfy understanding. I completely disagree. When they go into the world and want to work doing their passion, they will realise they don't have the society demanded qualifications and they will struggle.

I completely agree she is not causing harm to her children. But i would say she is being neglectful by providing no structure at all. Kids need guidance, not to be left free range in the whild. While supporting them to have emotion, empathy and all the good things is very important, its also equally as important to learn maths, languages, science, geography and so on. And this is where you have to take the reins and say i know its boring, but its very important to learn this information. Like brushing your teeth, kids hate doing it, but if they want teeth they need to brush them. She is not instilling the value of self respect in her kids, by allowing a hormonal and emotionally volatile tweenager to make decisions that can potentially damage them, is dangerous. What if the 13 year old decided she wanted to have unprotected sex with someone? I'm pretty sure the child hasn't thought through their actions and are instead acting upon hormones and emotion. I understand that unschooling is about giving the child control of their own learning, but without structure, you end up with the podcast that stef did recently about the dangers of unschooling.

I found Dayna's way of life extremely dangerous and extremely blazay. Its everything i dislike about unschooling. But like wise i found the other families way of life far too structured and disconnected from each other.

Mercury in vaccinesBy:Hessel, L (Hessel, L)BULLETIN DE L ACADEMIE NATIONALE DE MEDECINEVolume: 187Issue: 8Pages: 1501-1510Published: 2003 Hope this has been helpful.

So are you implying that because my son enjoy's his pre school, that his family life is poor? Well there is no need for me to respond about it. I don't believe in it, nor do i practice circumcision. The study was talking about it. I'm very sorry for your situation, but with regards to my household, my son spends <16 hours a week in a montessori pre school, with a 6-10:2-3 child/teacher ratio.I appreciate the evidence he has presented, but that maternal abandonment was around infant age if i recall correctly?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8520033/Stephen-Hawking-tells-Google-philosophy-is-dead.html Quite an old article, so some of you might have already seen this. So what do you all think about his claim? Has Philisophy been abandoned for so long that people who do practice it, are swimming in a quagmire of repeated phrases unable to escape to push philosohpy forward?

So it turns out that unschooling is worse at academic intelligence then home schooling and normal school.Study:The Impact of Schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence From Homeschooled and Traditionally Schooled StudentsBy:Martin-Chang, S (Martin-Chang, Sandra)[ 1,2 ] ; Gould, ON (Gould, Odette N.)[ 2 ] ; Meuse, RE (Meuse, Reanne E.)[ 2 ]CANADIAN JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE-REVUE CANADIENNE DES SCIENCES DU COMPORTEMENTVolume: 43Issue: 3Pages: 195-202DOI: 10.1037/a0022697Published: JUL 2011

So do you have any scientific evidence to back this up? Just a case study?You seem to have skipped over the evidence i have presented. The overall consensus i got from them was that there is positives and negatives. A bad nursery in a good household will only negatively effect the child, where as a good nursery and good/bad parenthood will result in positive effects.Toxicity isn't a 1 shot bullet, its more of a glass you fill up. Just because your child played with a kid who was spanked, doesn't automatically make them morally compromised.

You could check out https://www.khanacademy.org/

Exactly!

Hmm I'm struggling to believe Stef on this one. He said he started this when his daughter was around 2 and a half years old, yet seems to be having completely fluent and complex language discussions about the tongue and the belly.My son is 2 and a half and either I'm missing something, but if i tried to explain to my son about sugar on the tongue and veg in the belly, he would grasp certain aspects of the conversation, but he wouldn't understand the meaning.I have a tough time believing the majority of this conversation is based around things they are doing for < 3 year olds. Stef claims his daughter has never had a tantrum, again this is something i find extremely hard to believe. Children tantrum for various reasons and nearly every single child in the world tantrums. Ok so stef says a tantrum happens when a child can't explain what it wants in a win win environment. Yet i've witnessed my son throw a tantrum because a puzzle piece wont fit into a puzzle when he's tired. Or when you wash his hands when they are covered in dog poo. Chris Stefanick in that video says tantrums are related to what the child see's from their parents. Well I've never thrown a tantrum, Never hit, never thrown items across the room, never cried or sulked and many other things related to tantrums. So i'm really struggling here.

So unless i'm missing it, no one has posted any studies to back up any claims that vaccinations do/don't work? So i'll provide some to get the ball rolling: THE EFFICACY AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF VACCINATION AGAINST INFLUENZA AMONG ELDERLY PERSONS LIVING IN THE COMMUNITY By:NICHOL, KL (NICHOL, KL); MARGOLIS, KL (MARGOLIS, KL); WUORENMA, J (WUORENMA, J); VONSTERNBERG, T (VONSTERNBERG, T) NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Volume: 331 Issue: 12 Pages: 778-784 DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199409223311206 Published: SEP 22 1994 THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VACCINATION AGAINST INFLUENZA IN HEALTHY, WORKING ADULTS By:NICHOL, KL (NICHOL, KL); LIND, A (LIND, A); MARGOLIS, KL (MARGOLIS, KL); MURDOCH, M (MURDOCH, M); MCFADDEN, R (MCFADDEN, R); HAUGE, M (HAUGE, M); MAGNAN, S (MAGNAN, S); DRAKE, M (DRAKE, M) NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Volume: 333 Issue: 14 Pages: 889-893 DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199510053331401 Published: OCT 5 1995 Effectiveness and cost-benefit of influenza vaccination of healthy working adults - A randomized controlled trial By:Bridges, CB (Bridges, CB); Thompson, WW (Thompson, WW); Meltzer, MI (Meltzer, MI); Reeve, GR (Reeve, GR); Talamonti, WJ (Talamonti, WJ); Cox, NJ (Cox, NJ); Lilac, HA (Lilac, HA); Hall, H (Hall, H); Klimov, A (Klimov, A); Fukuda, K (Fukuda, K) JAMA-JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Volume: 284 Issue: 13 Pages: 1655-1663 DOI: 10.1001/jama.284.13.1655 Published: OCT 4 2000 Effectiveness of meningococcal serogroup C conjugate vaccine 4 years after introduction By:Trotter, CL (Trotter, CL); Andrews, NJ (Andrews, NJ); Kaczmarski, EB (Kaczmarski, EB); Miller, E (Miller, E); Ramsay, ME (Ramsay, ME) LANCET Volume: 364 Issue: 9431 Pages: 365-367 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16725-1 Published: JUL 24 2004 Evaluating human papillomavirus vaccination programs By:Taira, AV (Taira, AV); Neukermans, CP (Neukermans, CP); Sanders, GD (Sanders, GD) EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES Volume: 10 Issue: 11 Pages: 1915-1923 Published: NOV 2004 Population-wide benefits of routine vaccination of children against influenza By:Weycker, D (Weycker, D); Edelsberg, J (Edelsberg, J); Halloran, ME (Halloran, ME); Longini, IM (Longini, IM); Nizam, A (Nizam, A); Ciuryla, V (Ciuryla, V); Oster, G (Oster, G) VACCINE Volume: 23 Issue: 10 Pages: 1284-1293 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2004.08.044 Published: JAN 26 2005 The global impact of vaccination against hepatitis B: A historical overview By:Zanetti, AR (Zanetti, Alessandro R.)[ 1 ] ; Van Damme, P (Van Damme, Pierre)[ 2 ] ; Shouval, D (Shouval, Daniel)[ 3 ] VACCINE Volume: 26 Issue: 49 Pages: 6266-6273 Special Issue: SI DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2008.09.056 Published: NOV 18 2008

I'm not going to derail this thread anymore then i have. Take care

Yes, parents who practice unschooling correctly. Who is generalilizing now? Not all public schools are terrible and bucking social trends doesnt make you a better parent if the social trends are not beneficial to the child. I never said being different was wrong, but being different because you want to make a point or stand out from the crowd is wrong. Because then you dont fully believe in what your practicing. Another generalisation. Stef isn't any of the above, yet he is a product of pre modern / modern society. And another generalisation.You seem to be getting extremely defencive and emotional about this issue. If you'd like to continue without bringing them into this, i'd be more then happy to carry on this discussion.