Oct 6, 2021
My guest this week is Iris Chen, she's an
author, unschooling mom, deconstructing tiger
parent, and founder of theuntigering movement. As
an advocate for peaceful parenting and
educational freedom for children, her mission is
to inspire generational and cultural transformation, especially
among Asian communities. She spent 16 years living overseas in
China, the land of the tiger parent, but now resides in her native
California with her husband and two sons.
In this episode, Iris and I discuss meeting the
educational needs of all kids, including kids with special
needs, in-non traditional ways. Specifically, with an educational
model called unschooling, which is gaining in
popularity in recent years. It’s important to raise awareness about
different educational styles so that parents and children
don’t feel stuck in their current school system and
blindly follow whatever they are told. Thankfully there are many
different educational styles that fit kids’ personalities,
interests, and challenges better. Learn more about here.
Episode Highlights
What is a Tiger
parent?
- Equates to very strict Chinese parenting (but
can also be a term for any strict parents)
- A lot of rules, very authoritarian, high
expectations, particularly in the area of academics
What is untigering?
- Moving away from very authoritarian,
controlling, coercive parenting, but also redefining ideas about
the value of formal education and academics and the push to succeed
and achieve in those ways
Being a controlling parent is
not healthy for your kids
- Parents of kids with special needs, whether
that is neurodevelopmental issues, mental health issues, learning
challenges, whatever it might be, experience an extra set of fears
and concerns, and there can be even more of a drive to control or
to make kids conform to a certain way of doing things, out of love
and a desire for them to fit in, to have a successful
future
- It is important in those situations for parents
to step back and recognize what our fears are around
this
- How do I support the child I have, who this
child actually is, which includes all of their amazing strengths
and qualities, as well as their challenges? Not trying to make this
child fit into a box
Opting out of conventional
thinking
- There is this collective reimagining going on
right now that is so important to the future of
education
- Education most certainly does NOT need to be
done in four walls, sitting down all day
long
- The educational model we choose for our kids,
comprises a lot of their childhood daytime life, we should choose
based on all our options not just the one everyone else
does
- We need to ask, "Is this serving me?" Because
an education is supposed to serve the child, it is supposed to
empower the child and give them the skills
- If it's not serving the child, why are we still
doing it? So are we serving the system? Or is the system there to
serve us? If we're just saying yes to whatever they're asking us to
do, we're not questioning it, it's not an intentional
choice
- One of the most compelling arguments in support
of parents looking at different options educationally, is the
research on educational outcomes in the current school
system
-
- A large percentage of kids are not coming out
of the current school system with great success
- We’re also seeing a generation of kids now in
young adulthood with more serious mental health issues than ever
before
- When we think about parenting kids who are
autistic, kids who have ADHD, kids with mental health issues,
behavioral challenges. All the more need to look at what is going
to constitute success, health, well being, an engaged quality of
life for them in adulthood?
-
- It may not at all be the picture that we have
in our mind of traditionally what's done, and that need to broaden
that understanding
What is unschooling?
- Living, loving and learning with our
children outside the construct of compulsory schooling
- Child-led, no homework, no curriculum, no
particular subjects, no strict schedule
- Unschooling really opens up a lot of options
for reducing kids' anxiety about school or about learning, and by
using their strengths and using their interests, it allows a much
better entry point into helping them grow in their skills, in their
knowledge, because we're approaching it in a way that doesn't
automatically heighten their anxiety and create a lot of distress
for them
How do children become educated
with unschooling?
- They are intrinsically-motivated, they do have
the skills they need and the drive that they need in order to
pursue their individual interests
- There is a lot of parenting support. Exploring
outside, reading at the library, going to museums, these are ways
children can build knowledge
- By giving kids time and room to play and lead
activities it's actually supporting their own developmental pace
too, which again, is really important for neurodivergent
kids, for kids with different kinds of processing systems in their
brain, to be able to operate at a pace that supports their own
development, as opposed to constantly being pushed
Life provides opportunities for
learning
- People learn because we are made to
learn
- We don't need school in order to do
that
- There's so much learning that needs to happen
outside the mind, outside the intellect, where the school
environment doesn't really allow for that
-
- We need to learn how to listen to our bodies,
how to rest and engage with nature, how to meet our our needs to
survive in the world, like cook and do laundry and pay your taxes
and all those things
- For kids who have more significant
neurodevelopmental, behavioral, anxiety kinds of issues,
traditional classrooms often are not the best place for them to be
doing the kinds of learning and development and growth
Follow Iris Chen
- Website
- Instagram - @Untigering
- FB - @Untigering
- Twitter - @Untigering
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