I absolutely do not strive to have perfect children. Or even to be perfect myself. Because there is no such thing. Everyone's opinion of "perfect" will be influenced by experience, culture, ability, interest, etc.

This was fascinating! I didn't think I had blocks... I scored high on pressure from family because I worry what others think of our journey. Not in a negative judgy way - my worry is that without test scores for others to praise, people won't be able to recognize or appreciate what my children are accomplishing. My teenage niece recently got into Junior honor society and the whole family celebrated her accomplishment - but unless our family plays a game or have a one on one conversation with my kids, they won't know how awesome they are. I just watched your video on "Falling Behind" and comparing children - maybe that's why I compare my kids to others, because I worry that if I don't toot their horn, who will?

Great reminder about not comparing our children's paths - I constantly find myself comparing my 7yo to others and public school standards because that's what I've been trained to do by my public school upbringing. Though in his case he's on par or ahead of school standards, this can't be productive either, even if it's not negatively meant. I'm going to try to compare his learning journey only to his own, not to others. And my younger kiddo, it's so tempting to compare his learning journey to his brother's but he's on his own!

Hi all! Vickie here, from Olympia WA where I unschool my two kids, ages 7 and almost 5. I started on this journey, I think, when I tried to bring "Pinterest" activities to my oldest when he was a toddler, only for him to approach the activity in his own way, destroy it, or ignore it. I learned quickly to back off and watch how he approached life and was amazed by how much he learned. We were both also way happier when I let go of those unattainable ideals. I'm excited to be part of this community because I love community! When I decided to try the no school route, I realized that we needed to replace it with community, and I've been doing that ever since. I'm not content with just one community though, we have several that each provide us something different - this one is for me!