Deschooling: What Do You DO All Day?

One of the things that public school-to-homeschool people recommend is taking some time to deschool yourself and your child from the public school mindset.

This gives you both time to get to know each other and gives the child time to explore his or her interests, and find out just who they are and who they want to be. This process can take quite a while. In fact, the recommended time frame is one month for each year your child has been in school.

There are no books, no curriculum, no tests, no assignments.

Now, not everyone chooses this route - in fact, many parents that go from public school to traditional homeschooling skip this step altogether. 

But for those of us that are deschooling (and for those that did in the past) there is one question on everyone's minds:

WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY???

Well, the simplest answer is:

nothing

Now of course, that's not the most ACCURATE answer.

In fact, it's not true at all.
During our time deschooling (which we're undergoing now and will be for some time) we have:
visited hospitals

seen courthouses

played with animals

went for walks

gone to the library

gone shopping

played video games

read books

looked at x-rays

talked with LOTS of people

helped on a farm

watched movies

studied feathers

made art

made gifts for friends

cooked

joked

played

crocheted

made plastic canvas art

snuggled

sang

danced

giggled

To be honest, we didn't do THIS MUCH when Miss E was in public school!

And there are so many other things we have planned:

A trip to the zoo

A trip to a farm

A trip to a dairy

A trip to an art museum

Trips to the park

painting

clay sculpting

more reading

and much, much more.

So, as you can see, deschooling is just doing nothing. 

But at the same time, it's also trying EVERYTHING!

For more information on deschooling your child, visit these links:

Pam Laricchia discusses deschooling on her blog Living Joyfully

Unschooling guru Sandra Dodd's thoughts on deschooling

Tammy Takahashi gives a traditional homeschooling view on deschooling here