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So far you have…

• Thrown out all you thought or were told about education and parenting…
• Gotten to truly know your little person…
• Died to self and put your child first…

Isn’t that enough, you ask? Are you sadistic or masochistic, woman? What do you expect of us?

Yes, I know…HIGH standards. Impossibly high to achieve 100% of the time. Yes, even for me. That is why Step Four is the absolute most crucial…

To home educate and especially to Radically Unschool…

You Must LIKE Your Child!

What’s this BS? Like my child? Of course, I love my child. He is MY child after all!

I said LIKE not love. I believe most parents, even some ‘bad’ ones love their children…as much as they can…in their own way.

Liking someone is a totally different matter. Liking someone means that you actually want to be around him or her. That you enjoy spending time with this person. That you have a deep and abiding interest in her.

Personally, I LIKE most children. It is adults I have a problem with. When you stop believing in magic and Santa Claus, I kinda start having a bit of a problem with you. Even my adult friends…most of them retain that spark of ‘magic’ somehow.

But considering the huge leap you are about to make…remember how we talked about how little time you actually spend with your child if you work and send them to school? Well that is about to change. BIG time.

You are about to be thrown together with this person in the close proximity of your house, car and other common places…practically 24/7…365!

That is going to be a culture shock of sorts. If this is you, I would almost suggest you transitioning slowly to this lifestyle. Perhaps over school holidays. Do those first three steps in smallish doses before committing to this HUGE endeavor.

I always tell everyone that this one is a more important qualification for home educating your children than…

• How much money to have to spend on resources…
• Your own level of education…
• Or even the support network you have…

Because if you don’t like this little person…don’t enjoy being around him…then all of those things won’t make a hill of beans worth of difference!

If you don’t truly enjoy spending time with your child then home educating will live like the hardest job you ever had. You will struggle to survive each and every day. To just get through it all.

And in the end…as much as you may have begun this journey for all the right reasons…

• because the schools failed your child…
• because you want them to the best chance at a productive life…
• because you want them to love learning and not hate school…

Even with the purest of motives…if you do not LIKE your child as a human being…want to spend time with her…

Then you will burn out. You will become angry and frustrated. And take that out on your child…even if in small ways.

Unschooling is a HUGE commitment of time, resources and especially energy. Before any family goes into it, they must count those costs to be certain this is the right choice for ALL of them. And I think that this one question should be the bedrock of that self-examination.

• Do I truly LIKE this little person?
• Does spending time with her energize me and make me see the potential, the best in this world? Or does it drain me?

I will say that with radical unschooling at its best…the child teaches herself what she wants to learn with the minimum of interventions from you…but even in those situations…you are still spending loads more time in confined spaces…without a break from one another…sometimes for days.

Are you ready for that?