Busted Open.

In general, Michael and I have been trying to trust that this unschooling thing is going to work out.  We want to give it the benefit of the doubt.  We believe in the concepts behind it, and so giving up on it seems foolish, especially at the end of February.

So last night in the car on the way home from swim team practice, Jonah says, "I think we need some more rules.  I DO NOT want to go back to school.  I love unschooling, but I think that I would like my bedtime to be at 8:30 or 9 and I would like you to make me go to bed at that time." 

This was completely unprompted after a night of being up until 6AM watching CyberChase on pbskids.org.  He has slept through breakfast and lunch, and when he came downstairs at 1:30 in the afternoon he was disappointed he had missed so much of the day.  We built LEGOs for about three hours (a new Star Wars set came in the mail yesterday) and it was suddenly time for me to prep dinner.  He commented on the shortness of the day when you sleep through half of it.  I listened and agreed with him, and went about my business.  The bedtime rule thing was something he came up with on his own.

I was shocked, and there was relief all around the family.  Jonah figured out all by himself what he needed.  He set a time that made sense to him.  He explained that he didn't want to miss parts of the day again.  He enjoys eating breakfast early in the morning and being up with his sister and me during those earlier hours.  He doesn't like to miss lunch, because it makes the day too short and strange.  Incredible.

I admit I'm floored by it.

I don't think that all of the things we've been having trouble with are going to magically go away, but it's one of those "egads!  This really works!" moments that we haven't had in awhile, so it's helping me to press forward.

I'm so looking forward to the conference we're attending in May.  It's going to be so exciting to meet (in person) other families who are on this journey.