May 6, 2019

Rules & Boundaries

What's the difference between Rules & Boundaries?

We are a radical unschooling/Freeschoolin' Family. This means we don't use rules in our home. Instead, we use the same tools that cultivate our dearest friendships; respect, boundaries and communication. Why? The reason is in the difference between rules and boundaries. Rules are for others. Rules rely on control and defiance carries arbitrary ( not natural in life outside the structure of the rules ) consequences. Rules implement an impossible one size fits all approach with no input or consent from children who are expected to obey. Boundaries are for self. Boundaries make no attempt to control others. They are for the protection and comfort of ourselves. Relationships with boundaries don't involve punishments. Communication and Respect are all that are needed to assert and maintain boundaries. Our family's goal in the Parental relationship is to assist our young fully until they no longer need our assistance as caregivers while cultivating a friendship that will carry on long after our life sustaining duties have ebbed. With friendship as the goal, traditional parenting methods don't make sense to our family anymore, especially when boundaries fill all needs we have in relationship coping skills. We don't need to control others in our adult relationships. It's unhealthy to attempt to do so. With Boundaries, Respect and Communication we have every tool necessary for relationships with our kids, friends, co-workers, neighbours, family members and even strangers by keeping the responsibility on our selves instead of putting rules on others. For questions or to share your thoughts about how we use boundaries instead of rules please contact us.

This Week

What an awesome week. We hosted a LARP (Live Action Roleplay) sword build event at the 📚Barrie Public Library Painswick Branch. Everyone had fun and ended up with a cool and safe weapon to use for future LARP in the Park events that we host in the warmer weather. The library is an awesome resource for our homeschool community and we are super grateful. The kids played afterward while parents chatted. Our awesome Freeschoolin' friends came to visit and we not only had so much fun, they brought the most delicious and healthy food and taught us how to make it!!! So cool! Love you guys!!! (That cake🍰 did not last 24 hrs between the 3 of us, Hope devoured it!) We had our car 🚘 serviced for the spring ( adulting win! ) and walked around the Barrie ⚓ Waterfront where we watched loons fish and played on the exercise equipment. We made some plans to learn how to take a bus and tour around the city without a car. Finally, we were blessed with a ⛅ sunny day and took full advantage with a trampoline picnic for lunch and fireside dinner, with lots of barn time, forest adventuring and more in between.