These three things (consumerism rather than pocket money exactly) are the ones we struggle with as unschoolers because they are the things we have had to release control over as we moved from our previous existence as natural, gentle parents. I’ll explain where we are at with each now.
Pocket Money – When Alex turned 5 we decided on weekly pocket money of $5 so that Alex could learn a bit about money management, saving, gratification from purchases etc. We were quite done with hearing the words “can I have…” everytime we went near a shop, and resorted to not taking him shopping (I love the internet!!) However, this is not real-life learning and it’s unfair to say no to things that he chooses when I spend money on things he sees little value in just because I am the parent. So, as you can imagine he spends his money ever chance he gets! He sees something -this week it was an iron man toy, asks to buy it. I tell him he doesn’t have enough, but if he waits for x weeks he will have enough. I think it was a little ambitious of me to think he would savour my words, say “OK, can we come back in x weeks”. Instead he of course identifies a toy he can buy with the money he has. This is hard for me to deal with as I am very conscious of consumerism and material wastage. But this is his journey, his learning. Besides, who am I to judge? I am 33 and still make impulse buys. So yesterday, after exchanging a whole bunch of silver coins for the grand total of $59, he went to KMart and bought a car with a ‘remoke’ (as he calls it) and some sushi for lunch. The car was just like one that we saw recently, an orange lamborghini that Alex keeps commenting about the moving spoiler. So we have found some Youtube clips too.
Food – we were always so smug that our kids would eat almost anything!!! We did have some limits on things like juice, and eating dinner rather than snacks. There’s also been the suspected wheat intolerance and avoidance of milk consumption (we are not cows!) Yet these past few months as we have noticed Alex taking more control over his eating, we are having to let go. My solution so far is to ensure that at each meal there is one thing I know he will eat, though he’s changing his mind about this so frequently I can’t keep up. It’s probably his resistance to meat that bothers me the most, and of course veggies. If he wants to be a vegetarian I have no issue with this, though I have explained that we source our meat as ethically as we can. But he still likes bolognese, tacos and some fish so I don’t think it is an animal rights issue. So we’re talking about how our bodies need fuel, trying not to use words like ‘crap’ and ‘junk’ but this will be our biggest battle I think. His current go to meal is feta and tomato wraps. It’s really not so bad… Alex’s loves ice-cream and chips (crisps!!!) and Daniel loves chocolate.
TV – I’ve talked about this one before. We used to have a movie night, and ny an hour of controlled TV per day. When we let go, Alex held on tightly and really indulged! He watched movies daily, sometimes multiples. After about 2 months of this, he backed off. I guess he saw that the TV was not going anywhere. He still watches a movie frequently, he like Star Wars Rebels and Iron Man. But he can do a few days without mention of the TV, or even Ipad. It comes in waves. He spent over a week watching nothing but Youtube clips of model trains. Barely playing with toys or watching movies. He’s past that now and subsequently didn’t pick up his Ipad for about 3 days. We’re feeling pretty comfortable with ‘screen time’, and really leaving it to him to decide on his limits. Daniel is around when the TV is on and shows no interest right now, though I imagine he will skip past the Thomas Tank/Bob Builder phase and jump straight into the ‘big kid’ stuff.
Sleep doesn’t feature here as we learnt long ago that you can’t make a child tired or sleep – not that we tried anything but gentle methods. So I have been going to bed with kids since the day they were born. There are times now that Alex asks to go to bed, or he just falls asleep. Never alone though I might add. Most nights he wakes up. Yes he’s 5. But he knows we are there when he does. I can only imagine how amazing that must feel. The other night Alex woke after a bad dream. He recognised he needed the toilet – we’ve noticed this about all of his bad dreams, it’s true for me too! – and he came back and asked for Roland. Roland was my childhood companion, and I love that Alex finds comfort in him as he has never been a child that has attached himself to an object. I couldn’t stay with Alex as Daniel woke, though since they share a room I was close by. In the morning Alex commented on what happened with his dream – that the dragon stickers on his wall came to life and fought off the monsters he had dreamt about. And Roland was there with him 🙂