A lot of these parents forget most people still take their school going kids to zoos, museums and teach them home skills and take them into nature. They just do it at the evenings and weekends
@@JubbysDragons The things they mentioned are things people usually do in elementary school. I’ve never met anyone who had 3 hours of weekend homework in elementary school.
@@Personwtcats what?? I never said anything about weekend homework of course no one has that what.. I'm talking about going to the zoo like the comment said. These parents act like normal school kids can't go to the zoo too. When they do just on weekends or holiday.
This. My kid is in public school and we still go on hikes, go to the zoo, go to cultural festivals, do DIY science projects, and look up info about bugs on Wikipedia. He's also taught himself how to code, because he wanted to learn it and took the initiative to do so. I'm watching these videos, like, most of us also do a lot of this stuff with our kids too? (If we physically can and are able, of course) ESPECIALLY when you see the low bar some of them set for what constitutes an educational activity... I saw one video where they took their kid to the grocery store to do the weekly shopping and called it "unschooling". Bestie, that's just parenting 🥲
Can confirm. Spending 24/7 with your family is fucking awful. During the summer everyone moves into my parent's room as it's the only one with AC (Not my mum's fault she's great my dad is just a huge cheapskate and refuses to let anyone else except the room he is in has AC) Most days it's alright but whenever i'm upset or feel down I usually hide behind my desk and just stop talking for a while and it feels like shit. because I can't just run off to another room without the threat of literally roasting alive so I sort of just sit and stew while I ignore everyone else and it's hard to actually calm down because you don't get any proper alone time to just have a good cry without everyone else knowing so usually you'll feel like shit and constantly hide it because you're worried they'll just say something rude to you for "crying over nothing" until you sleep and the magical wake up effect makes you think "wow i was upset over nothing". In the moment you really are upset over nothing usually. But telling someone makes them feel like even worse then they are already feeling it doesnt make them feel better. (for more context we are a 5 person family aka me my mum/dad and my one older and younger siblings)
Feels torturous. People do need their recharge time. Even those who share rooms will often escape with books or headphones… imagine doing that but still, your WHOLE FAMILY is there and there’s not even one corner to retreat to.
@@RayLikeSunshine dont get me wrong i love my family but i need time to myself + i feel if your on the road a lot you cant really make a lot of friends or get a job
I was “unschooled” until age 11, and it severely messed me up. I feel like I missed a crucial experience, I felt isolated with my peers, and I still struggle with academics years after. it’s child neglect, entirely.
I do online school these days, and will be going to an actual high school next year, but that doesn’t negate the effects “unschooling” had on me. At the very least, I could read and write
I unschooled my whole childhood. and I relate to this, everyday I feel like I am missing a crucial part of my childhood. I didn't have a friend until I was 18, there only reason I know what I do now, is because there was some eduaction books laying around the house and I felt like I was missing something when the cartoon characters talkde about going to school.
If it makes you feel any better I went to public school and I was isolated from my peers and struggled academically 😅 I feel like I may have benefited from going to a Steiner school. Which is probably what most of these parents should have looked into instead. A Steiner or Waldorf school 🤷🏻♀️
Fun Fact: Jean Jacques Rousseau is the first known person to suggest the idea of unschooling. He also abandoned all 5 of his children at a hospital and told no one about it.
Except that’s not true. Compulsory schooling is a very modern concept thats only been practiced for tiny fraction of human history. So the idea of unschooling actually predates schooling.
@@Clownbabyworldtour Compulsory (for poor people) - yes. But for the elites - no. The elites of society in the past were educated/schooled, just like today.. for a reason. Average people didnt need to know anything else outside the work they parents did and that the kids needed to continue to do.
This unschooling is just being a parent. Going to the zoo, grocery shopping, park etc and teaching your children about life, numbers, and colours? Congratulations you are just a parent. I'm doing the same with my son and he still has to go to school.
@kristijones3307 that may be helpful for older kids, but young children need to learn things outside of their interests. they need to know the basics in order to survive, and by not teaching them those things if they aren't interested, you're setting them up for failure
@@kristijones3307You described basic parenting. That is necessary. Children should go to school to learn “arbitrary facts” that are actually incredibly important facts for their development like history, math, science, reading, writing and hopefully other forms of enrichment and development through arts and sports.
@@kristijones3307 The "arbitrary facts" are literally what our society is made of. Like it or not, but it's undeniable that until end of middle school you learn stuff useful for the day to day life. And in High School, it's more HOW you learn stuff than WHAT stuff you learn. Plus, school is a micro-society where you learn how people works and where you stand in the society. It's critical. So yeah, maybe school system sucks. But being a good parent and acting to improve the system is way better and realistic than sheltering your kids and expecting them to know how to live in a society they never interact with before.
@@kristijones3307Learning how to read, write, do math, and other basic skills is not arbitrary. "Unschooling" should be illegal. Kids need to actually learn things. They aren't learning by you taking them outside and pointing at some birds.
The fact that it's illegal in many countries speaks volumes on it. There's a family in Europe that openly admits that they are breaking that law, and it's why they don't do van life in their home country
I’m italian and here school is mandatory until you are 16. I just don’t understand how in the us is normal to be homeschooled or how parents can just decide to not educate their kids. It’s absurd
@f3nrir94 it is not Normal. I've met like 1 home schooled kid in my 25 yrs of life. It is more normalizes though mainly due to how underfunded schools are
These kind of people are setting their kids up for failure in academics, social interaction as well as stability. Its insane how far these parents will go to stand out and I hope these kids will grow beyond their (weird) upbringing.
the first woman is german so not only everything you said but also here in Germany you can do NOTHING without a degree! Wait, maybe if you have exceptionally good social skills you could try to... oh wait...
@@MaryGershwin.... If she is doing this in Germany, it's illegal. Germany has a mandatory school attendance for children, mostly to protect them from parents and provide them with a social life, education and adults to ask for help if needed.
Some of they say “they dont like math, they will not work with that” I also hated math but i choose to work in a field that have math and I would have such a easier time if i had learned this in school
@@ChadOfAllChadsyes, but unironically, living a life of extreme independance comes with sacrifices and so does settling down and having a family you gotta choose what you want but understand you gotta sacrifice something else to get what you want trying to have both just makes it worse for both scenarios
One of my friends teaches at an art museum summer camp and she said all the teachers dread getting any students who are unschooled. They plan their lessons based on the skills kids should have by certain ages but these kids lack so many of them that it becomes impossible. Last summer she had a kid who was 12 years old and didn't know how to use scissors. Like even the other kids were flabbergasted at this poor girl's inability to do and understand the most basic things. And no, her unschooling didn't give her some incredible insight into art making. Girl couldn't even grasp the idea of primary colors and color mixing, a concept that I teach to literal preschoolers. Unschooling is just laziness on the parents' part and they're setting their kids up for failure.
That’s full on neglect. Just providing a pair of scissors and being around my child so she can watch me use scissors was enough for my 4 year old to learn how to use them. That to me is a sign that the parents did not engage with their child or provide them with supplies to learn.
It's so cruel, because these kids who have been kept safe from "having to compare themselves to their peers" are now absolutely comparing themselves to things other kids can do and are confronted with the fact only kid in a class of 15-30 who can't do something everyone else is confident in, whether it's reading, writing, using scissors or recognising common or standard explanations of things like the concept of "primary colours". That's one reason why classrooms often work; because for a lot of easy basic skills, seeing your friends be able to do something makes you aware that you can do. With the right support, that comparison drives us to learn new things.
I'm lazy af, too. That's why my children go to school. To don't suffer from my lazyness. Oh, and my all-time-in-school son has amazing drawing skills. He is even allowed to draw when he's done with his schoolwork at school.
As another child of an immigrant, it's wild to me how some parents treat school and education. My parents weren't even that strict about grades or class rank. They just wanted me to take school seriously and always try my best. I feel like that should be the bare minimum.
its kinda ironic because if you take the opposite ideal of 'unschooling' and go extremely strict on school it honestly has the same problem. my dad had this dream of me getting into harvard and bought me a SAT prep book in 7th grade (sat test is generally taken in 11th or 12 grade) and honestly sometimes i feel like one of these kids in the unschooling videos because my "schooling" and stress mental muscles have been pushed so far to the extreme that they have kinda burnt out and now i'm in college struggling to be on my own or deal with normal adult levels of stress due to being absolutely burnt out from literally years of that academic pressure
There is a reason the majority of these people are entitled white people from higher class levels. They take for granted the structures that got their family to that place in society, and think they did it all themselves. Its the same idea with antivaxxers- they think they are invincible because their paretns and grandparents did the right thing and worked hard to get them where they are at.
I don’t like the idea of “we teach them to cook, travel, camp, etc.! They don’t learn that in school!!” Bc it’s like… yeah.. that’s the parent’s job???
In my country, depending on what elective classes and extra curricular activities that students pick, they can learn about cooking, camping, traveling, etc. Although there's been significant changes in our education system, some aspects like camping still remains the same. I've seen some countries like Indonesia do these things too, never thought it was that different in Western countries.
@@nurnadhirahsaing6169i can only speak for my province in Canada, but school is seen as a place that is only academic. Arts and music are part of the curriculum, but barely. There used to be home economics classes, and reforms removed that before I started school. Why should the school teach kids/teens how to cook? That's a skill that's learned at home! (Because we all know every child has a perfect family that will lovingly teach those skills at home, of course 🤦♀️) anyway. There are schools that have "funky" classes, but it's really not the norm over here. You'll see a lot of sports-focused schools though, so there's that
@@nurnadhirahsaing6169 Just because you can learn tehse things at school, doesn't mean you're suppose to do that. There are things, that parents are supposed to teach their children. Of course school can teach your children to not bite other children, potty train them, and ensure they eat with cutlery, but it isn't the school's job. [all these examples are real, because I had a classmate in elementary school who did all that cause is parents are "free-range-he's-fine-he'll-get-it-by-himself" type of parents]
I mean… the child’s education is the parents job too. Even if they go to school, it’s up to parents to ensure they’re getting the education they need there, and voting for how schools should be, and stepping in when they need to. Just because we’re used to passing off the responsibility of education and even raising kids to other people or iPads now doesn’t mean it isn’t actually the parents job still. Just means they’re neglecting it.
When I was in school (I'm born 1988) in sweden we have a class named "home knowledge " we're we learn how to cook, home economics, cleaning and so on, and some years we went camping, canoeing and stuff like that.. when I was in high-school we even had stuff like riding a horse once a week outside the regular physical education class... it was a communal school, nothing fancy....
I don't care how much fun you're having being a Bohemian Nomad. As soon as the pregnancy test pops positive and you've Chosen to continue the pregnancy, it's time to grow up, drop the dead weight in your life, pick a place to park, and put down roots. Children are more important than your Van Life. Settle into one place with access to proper education, sanitation, and healthcare and save the Road Tripping for the Summer! If your lifestyle has CPS constantly on your ass like white on rice, the. it's not the right lifestyle to live. Kids need to learn how to function in society and most of all, they need to learn how to think critically. Unschooling doesn't do that. If your Van Life asthetic and Clout are more important than your kids, then don't have them in the first place or give full custody to a relative/trusted friend that has sense so they'll be safe while you live out your Dream Life. And you better send any Cash for Clout you've made directly to them after covering your living expenses. Period.
You Do it BEFORE. Pregnancies don't magically pop up. Couples choose to stop the Contraceptives. It's to late to get your 💩 together when she is already pregnant. 40 weeks aren't much time for a big change
@@stepfaniehawkins205 At least more than only gettting told one/ their parents side. Even if the school in your country only teaches one opinion, you still get a multitude of opinions, perspectives etc by the dozens of other students you interact with.
Years ago I saw a video of homeschooled kids. The mom was so proud because the kids played at a creek and a saw frogs. She said something like "they never would learn stuff like this in school." (There was way more talking. Its sounded like she thought her 5 year old was more knowledgeable then every scientist). Lady, your daughter didn't discover the existence of frogs. We already know about frogs.
plus, they WOULDVE learned this in school. kids have field trips to go be in nature and go head on into what theyre learning about; parents like this just wanna shelter their children.
Right? Like my school (and like every other school I've heard of) had science camp. Yk, where we stayed in cabins in the mountains/ wilderness, went on hikes, saw wildlife and shit. Like, even outside of normal parents taking their kids out on the weekends, we definitely saw stuff at school. My elementary school even had a reptile show/ petting zoo come through every year or 2 so kids to get to learn about and touch animals.
I had a friend who volunteered with Teach for America and he taught for a year in a New Orleans public Jr high school. He told me horror stories of how ignorant and neglected many of the kids were. For example he had carrots in his lunch and some of his students asked him what he was eating. When he answered “carrots”, those students asked him what “carrots” were. So I can understand why some parents want to homeschool their kids.
fun fact: nadin is most likely is from germany judging by the accent and name and guess what fellas, thats right, the german government considers any form of homeschooling as child abuse and is grounds to lose your kids real quick, so what im implying is that shes on the van life so that the government doesnt know where she is to take them rightfully away
@truthnotlies in the UK the local council can hold an enquiry to check homeschooled kids receive a suitable education. The council are able to fine/prosecute if you refuse to send your kid to a physical school if their education is deemed insufficient, seems like a good way to give parents freedom but minimise neglectful situations
School has multiple tasks: 1. Education with standards 2. Socializing kids to function in community and in a system that is adjacent to a workplace 3. Forming kids to be citizens that know their rights and duties and know about host of ideologies and religions 4. Giving guidance to children, especially for those who don't have good parents. All of this is extremely important for a good society. I don't doubt that certain special children would profit from house tutoring, but only from people who are qualified in educating. I like the English way better, but with the history of denazification and looking at what nut jobs in Germany want to teach their kids at home I really understand why the law is how it is.
@@harri7179as someone who homeschooled my daughter in the uk due to severe bullying and was quite involved in the community (before sending my daughter back to school in AU) - the homeschool ‘checks’ in the UK are a complete joke. Many families just refuse to partake in them and even for the ones (like me) who did allow them, it’s just an officer who pops round for half an hour, has a cup of tea and a little chat then disappears for another 6 months. When I called our officer and told her we were moving to Australia, she just updated her notes, didn’t ask for anything other than my word, and we never heard from her again. I remember thinking it was a little scary as people who aren’t looking after their children really aren’t monitored at all once they decide to homeschool. As I said, most people refuse anyway and no one does anything about it. What you’re describing sounds good in theory but it’s not the reality at all. We came across loads and loads of ‘unschooling’ families in the UK whose children received no education at all. I always remember one 11 who couldn’t read or write ‘yet’. No one in the UK enforces anything. Germany on the other hand is very strict. I knew several German homeschool families who moved to the UK or Spain as they couldn’t slip under the radar there.
"Moving kids around a lot is bad for them" *zones out remembering all the times I moved house as a kid because my dad was in the military and got moved around a lot* ...that explains a lot
Real. I’m a military brat too and I did a research paper on the adverse effects that moving has last year for my psych class. Safe to say, it’s not good.
Not military kid but immigrant, had to move places because better job security for parents and we were struggling hard, this and combined that I had to learn another language and that I was constantly being bullied for accents and such and I wonder how in the hell did I turn out ok in the end.
A family in my church does unschooling. and just as an outsider watching the kids interact with others their age, I see these unschooling kids get isolated because of their poor social skills. They're only used to talking to Mom and dad, not other kids who have zero patience for their shenanigans.
The younger the child is, the less patient and kind they will be. Kids are super rough, you need to understand social cues real fast or you will be the weird and dumb one...
I will say I know a family who did actual traditional unschooling. The children had great social skills, were involved with sports, and all 4 kids went to Ivy League colleges, 2 became doctors, and 1 went to the Olympics. This new wave of “unschooling” is just neglect
@@lou9635 yeah that's true, and a lot of kids struggle with it, especially (but ofc not exclusively) if they're neurodivergent. and as someone who was that kid and who was always left out for reasons i never understood at that age, it's just inconceivable to me why you'd want to actively force your child into the outsider role when they didn't have to be
@@cc-terfay Yeah, I knew a girl unschooled in the same sport club I was. She had still big troubles to connect with us (despite the fact I was usually the weird one in the group). Unschooling is possible, but it's super difficult and asks constant attention on what your kid lacks. The girl finished by entering school at 12 or 13, I don't know why since we weren't close friend but I suspect that the way she was isolated was a factor. It's hard to connect with your peers when your life is so different and you miss a lot of their experiences.
@@overgrownkudzu I am neurodivergent and as a kid I was always the weird one. I had a couple of friends if I was lucky. But kids unschooled or from very religious families were even more isolated than me. Which isn't a good sign when the kid loving to talk to trees and obsessing on a 19th century character has better social life than your kid.
I find this attitude to be insulting to actual homeschooling. Like it's a full-time job that a lot of parents take on when their kids are having academic and/or behavioral issues in a traditional setting.
@@angelbabies7 you have no idea how schools work if you think that they're meant to be profitable. It's also interesting that you have so much more patience for your own kid and that you assume the other children have the same privileges as your child
@@msjkrameywellll most if not all the foundations of schools are meant to increase profits. Modern schools yeah they’re not but they’re still operating on those same foundations
@@msjkrameywhere I’m at we have charter schools that are for-profit. There are even a few technically “non-profit” charter schools where 1/3 their annual budget goes to the CEO salary. (That was the one I worked at. Spent a lot on the CEO/founder salary and the marketing, very little got spent on the kids and teachers were expected to buy almost all the supplies)
It wouldn't make you genius in "cave man days." Paleolithic humans made glue from tree sap and amber, intricate and specialized tools, and used fire to harden different materials. They were innovative scientists. Those kids would get devoured by a giant sloth while mom takes a selfie.
A friend of mine decided that her son would never have to hear the word ‘no’. He quickly became a narcissistic nightmare. He expressed complete contempt for his parents and by 15 had no friends at all…
what does this have to do with unschooling. a person's personal boundaries are important. at school, children learn that they are not allowed to say no to adults in many situations.
7:26 "Grooming them to accept stress?" Yes, I do agree that school can be entirely too stressful on kids. HOWEVER. Kids need to learn HOW to manage that stress. You can't just let them not be stressed for 18 years and then. Expect them to know how to manage that stress by the time they hit 18. Also. As someone who is older than 18 and still lives with her parents. You don't have to kick them out at 18. There's no rule saying you HAVE to do that.
Exactly, I agree how school can become too stressful but avoiding it completely is only going to make things harder for them when they inevitably have to face that stress in the future. It’s a terrible foundation to give your kids in our current society, its cruel.
That's the concept of anti-fragility, and it's basically this idea that some level of sporadic stress is healthy for children to develop normally. There's studies that are starting to show that protecting your children from any and all stresses is making them too fragile, which in turn contribute to anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. Children need to learn how to deal with stress, with conflict, with difficult social interactions, with physical and mental exertion (within safety guidelines of course) so they are prepared to be adults. Real life is not going to protect you all the time, to assume otherwise is setting them up for failure.
absolutely agree! my degree is in education and one thing i remember studying is the optimal level of stress. too much stress is obviously detrimental, but too little stress is also damaging to a child’s development. life is not stress-free, as unfortunate as it is. and kids need to learn how to manage stress. i agree that school, especially high school, can be very stressful for a child, but sheltering your child from stress will turn them into nervous wrecks who crack whenever pressure hits
@@Luumus and every kid is going to get stressed. Their stress might be small compared to the stuff a grownup stresses about but that the biggest stress of their lives! Even just, you can get the blue candy or the green candy and they’re sitting there on edge cause they want both but can only have one and it’s stressful for a little kid
Family of nomads are one of the worst I’ve seen. I felt so bad for their eldest who was hospitalized for an eating disorder. Like how the hell did you not notice until she needed to be hospitalized? On top of that when she was in the hospital did they take a break from traveling to stay near their daughter? Of course fucking not they literally abandoned her and left the damn state. I’m a grown ass adult I asked my mom if I was hospitalized in a different state. She told me she wouldn’t stop at anything to make sure I wasn’t by myself.
@@renbou2577 I have no fucking idea. She was in mental crisis. So it’s possible they barred her from having visitors. But even then I wouldn’t even want to go off on an another damned vacation while my hypothetical kid was in the hospital.
Not only that, they disclosed her diagnoses and struggles to the entire world online, where it is out there permanently. Everyone, including future employers, can know about it. They made a decision to use their child's illnesses for clickbait and content in a way that could impact her for life and define her future ... which could also worsen the illness and make her more vulnerable for being in the spotlight. All without her consent. You can tell a lot about a parent by the way they treat a child during a physical/mental illness.
Woww. When my daughter was hospitalized and I wasn’t allowed to stay with her I rented a house to be close to her. I slept in my car when I couldn’t afford the house anymore. I truly cannot fathom leaving my child alone in a cold sterile hospital while in a crisis, to go on vacation out of state?!? Not a chance in hell.
I agree that some of the things students learn are completely useless (especially in high school) but even if it was all useless, learning how to focus on work, learning how to work with strangers is extremely important, especially for the future
also imo the useless stuff absolutely doesnt outweigh the useful things. Tho I really wish theyd teach us how to do taxes, how to read contracts, etc where Im from. Imo school needs to focus a bit more on life skills. oh also the way school tends to teach critical reading sucks ass. The good old "the curtains cant just be blue for no reason" thing. I remember being so fatigued by having to forcefully read meaning into every little detail that I refused to look past the surface level of a lot of stories for a while after that. It's absolutely important to teach that things mean things and that stuff can have hidden agendas etc, but then there really should be more political texts and not just random stories.
@@frankie9373 I think it really depends on where you go and what school you go to. I went to a crappy public school in a fairly low income area but I always felt like I could get access to that information if we needed to. I was in a program required projects like essays on top of classes that required you to do research and create a project based on your interests. I think that was helpful in building up research skills and stuff. I think the majority of things you listed about not being taught could be researched the same way and wouldn't really require a full class. I've done research here and there for tax deductions based on education, business, expenses etc.
not to forget learning how to overcome frustration with tasks you really don't want to do but which just have to be done. That's basically being an adult is all about.
One of the things that bothers me sm about this is the fact that you can do both! Your kids can get a formal education AND you can take them new places, go to museums, and give them hands on learning experiences. Kids need structure and to learn things that they dont want to learn not just walk around barefoot eating bugs and crap like these parents think is education.
I randomly stumbled across one of their videos a while ago and I was so confused why so many comments were talking about cucking, now I know the lore 😅
This is coming from a teenager who hates everything, even tho school sucks its helpful you learn skills from school. like the ability to attain new information and social skills. You're not protecting your kids from the world, the kids need to experience new things to grow as a human!
This! So well said!! I feel like being around so many people and situations that I had no control over helped a lot with learning how to regulate my emotions and response to things, as well as how to cooperate and communicate more effectively, in a setting where the stakes were fairly low. I'd hate to have to learn those skills now at my job, as a full grown adult 😬
I'm glad you at least recognise that school is helpful. I don't think I've met a single person who actually found highschool enjoyable, but they are grateful for having an education. I can't imagine how shitty these kids are going to feel once they grow up and realise they've missed out on a ton of life experiences.
school's still useless -you learn basic math from home, i dont know how much you need to learn but honestly multiplication and division should be more than enough -you do have a point with social interaction, but right now our current kids are ipad/screen dependant and pretty horrible, so school teaches you social interaction but doesnt actually make you do it due to how school works, so try harder next time you zealotist school defender
I saw a docu in German tv on this topic. It made me concerned for the children. One 11 year old girl wanted to be a biologist in the future. Knowing the parents did wild schooling, she has very low chances to become that. They robbed her of a future other than van life!
I think the unschooling and anti-vax movements may share a lot. People who take the advantages of modern life for granted to such an extent that they assume their kids will be fine, better even, without those advantages.
It also overlaps with those families who won't have a television in the house yet you can have a television and restrict watching to only so many hours a day or to a certain time of day. When I was a child there was nothing much on TV anyway as there were only three channels and very little day time television. It went off air at midnight or before. Then these families say their children get influenced by other children at school who are influenced by television programmes so they then pull them out of school.
@@lemsip207 Nope! We had no television for a very long time. And we are extremely strict when it comes to mobile devices for our children, yet I'm the biggest advocate for public schools (in Germany) and vaccines. In Germany, usually the people with higher education have no TV. And it is easier to raise your children without TV. You're never beguilled to use the TV as babysitter if you have none. So you need much less self-discipline.
This should be a crime.. these kids are practically victims of being deprived of a normal childhood.... They wont be exposed to anything and wont even be aware of what things can be for them. What kind of dreams will they have and what will they even put on their resume even if they pursue them? my mom occasionally took me to the zoo?!
According to google: All countries except Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, United States and Vatican City have some kind of compulsory education laws (meaning you have to put your child in school at some age for some time or provide home school education by the country standards) so it is illegal in 99% of the world bc it's considered ch1ld negl3ct 🤷
@@kenjako In the US it's very much up to the individual states. Like I live in Pennsylvania and kids don't have to start school until age 8. And even then the state is pretty loose with allowing homeschooling.
@@kenjako For as far as I know: in the majority of the countries which accept homeschooling, the child is not left alone with their parents. There is a social worker checking regurlaly the progress which had been made, if everything is normal and if the curriculum is followed. The kid will pass diploma examens like everyone in a school providing them. So no van life and no random "school" work.
Unschooling could make sense with older kids, adapting their curriculum to what they are more interested in and may want to pursue later in life. But preschoolers and younger kids most definitely need to learn those hardskills, otherwise they will never be able to access the later.
Agreed. Maybe for kids that are in the highschool range of age, this lifestyle could work (although the lack of privacy problem is still kind of concerning).
One of my other hobbies is watching cult documentaries and a trend I have noticed is that almost all people born into a cult who survive can't do math or science and can't even really start with programming. There is a fairly solid cutoff in childhood where if you didn't learn something, you can't learn it later. We only roughly understand it for language but I've noticed a trend where math, science, and computer skills are also affected. I wouldn't be surprised if things like art are as well.
I was removed from elementary school at Grade 6 due to absolutely awful migraines that I only got in school, and then after a few years I went to highschool and I was fine. Homeschooling rocked for me.
I think people underestimate how strange elementare school is. Maybe thats where Im from but jeah I learned Multiplikation which isn important but I also learned like what eaxh oart of a medivial castle was called. And i didnt care about that, walking around a forest and learning the signs of spring would have been genuiely more educational. Some of these things are very Individual which is what the school system doesnt allow for. Of course I dont trust parents who drive around their kids and dont realize The value in Stability while vlogging everything. But the signs of spring or lever thing where genuiely good examples of moments where kids will proably learn better because they are doing something active based on what they already like doing. I learned Multiplikations while jumping on a Trampoline. My mum said it was cause movement helps you study, I say I was fucking bored. I guess my point is like Hey from jsut those clips we dont know how much the kids are lesrning and they are showing some good examples of what part of education as a kid can look like. But I agree and hope that that isnt all, but again I think that actual good schooling takes a lot more efofrt than i trust those parents are putting in while traveling
I am a teacher with a cluster of 5 kids who were unschooled or were in vans. One problem I feel like it’s not talked enough about with kids who grew up in educational environments like this is that they cannot tell the difference between good people and bad people. These kids are so easily manipulated into doing terrible things and bullying others because of it.
Man I love my folks but even as a public school kid I desperately wanted to go to sleep away camp or boarding school to get away from them sometimes. Can’t imagine being stuck with them ALL DAY EVERY DAY. IN A VAN.
Also, not allowing children to form bonds with other adults outside the home (teachers, class aids, other friend’s parents, ect) is dangerous. Its kind of a catch 22 thing. If the parent is abusive, the child needs other adults they trust to tell about the abuse, but the abusive parent wont let the kid form those bonds. Children having bonds with out-of-the-house adults protects them from the in-the-house adults. (To a point. Of course there are the bad bonds that can lead to abuse, but allowing the child to form good bonds and trust with others overall protects them from abuse because they have a safety net that isnt the parents that are potentially abusing them.
@@NotYomama13 oh, yah, the world sucks and theres abuse everwhere. Every time you interact with another human being, theres a chance for abuse. I just think that having the opportunity to have the ability to contact someone, having more resources, is a better idea then having no one to go to if the singular person(s) (the homeschooling parents) are the abusers. Like, no one should be under the watching eye of one singular controlling entity 24/7 because that one singular entity might be the thing hurting you and if you have parts of the day where you can break free of that control, moving location without that person present, might give you the chance of bring up that abuse with someone. (But yah, public school is a hell, not gonna argue there. Totally agree. But being trapped, with no contact with others, under total control of a single person, is also hell)
My best friend was raped as an elementary schooler. It stopped when she had sex ed and learned, that am girl can become pregnant through the stuff the boyfriend of her mother did to her. She shared her fears to become pregnant with her best friend, the friend went to the teacher and the guy finally was removed from my friend's life. Would never have stopped if she was homeschooled.
Yeah, many unschoolers come from a place of privilege and don't see how important schooling is. My mum grew up poor (like, her parents would skip supper to make sure her and her brother ate, and my grandpa would get her winter boots from the garbage dump poor), and she was only able to escape that by focusing on studying and getting scholarships for university (first person in her family to even finish high school!). And my dad was the first person in his family to go to uni too, although his father was considered wealthy for the time since you could get good jobs with only a high school education back then, but when you compare my dad's life who did go to uni, vs my uncle who dropped out to become a DJ in a small town, let's just say one is doing better than the other financially... It's fine to not go to university or even college, but it should be the kid's choice, not the parents', so to make that choice for your kid, especially when they're so young and don't know shit yet, is really vile to me.
My dad was in the military when I was a kid so we moved around every 2-3 years (not nearly as bad as these kids) and I still was deeply effected by not having a permanent home. I never felt like I could make friends. These parents are just cruel to their children!
I was looking for this exact comment I feel you homie 😂. Not having roots to come back to besides a couple holdouts every now and then state to state then moving right when you get comfortable. (Don’t even get me started on moving in the middle of the year or entering late at the start of the year or moving to a school with a different curriculum like Washington State vs Tennessee.) but I can’t even understand how parents can put their kids through this though.
I used to be one of these kids. My parents, my siblings, and I traveled across the country in an rv. I had to ask my parents to buy me school books and I would teach myself things because I wanted to learn and do school. My parents also thought we were learning along the way. Sure, we were but it was mostly random history facts. No where close to a rounded education. It was wild.
So weird. I love going on trips and learning the random history facts now but to imagine that was my entire education growing up? Like you would have no context for any of the historical facts without having taken a regular social studies course lol 😂
I've been unschooled/home-schooled for the last few years and have moved a lot, it sucks. You suffer academically because no one person can teach a child everything, even if like my mom you're a former teacher. I also have like no social skills, I don't know how to talk to people or keep friendships, this along with just not having the opportunity to make friends has led me to staying in dangerous relationships because I didn't want to be alone. Unless you have a very specific reason, home-schooling in general is not good for kids. I'm going into actual school for the first time in years soon and am terrified but excited. The school system isn't great, I've had my fair share of bad experiences but home-schooling will fuck kids up in new and special ways
I don’t know how it works in where you live but in my country you're mostly taught the basics by the same teacher for the first few years of school, but at some point when you start getting deeper into the subjects, they all have their own teacher. One teacher can’t teach every subject at a middle school level.
Homeschooling and un-schooling are completely different. Bad homeschool experiences are normally due to bad parents, not homeschooling itself. That's why following the criteria your government has laid out for you is important when homeschooling your kids.
Agree with you entirely, but you are clearly bright enough to gallop forward once you are given a chance. Remember all the other kids are feeling just as insecure socially, tho' in different ways. You will be interesting to them and therefore have an opening. Remembering my primary schooling as a crucial formative, I am totally against unnecessary home-schooling.
A lot of these van life parents act like taking their kids on hikes and teaching them basic skills is something that caretakers aren't already supposed to be doing outside of school… I feel so bad for the kids, they're given such a bad foundation and its going to be hard work UNLEARNING this unschooled lifestyle :(
to be fair, a lot of parents are not teaching their children basic skills and neither is the public school system, so I do think this is something that everyone needs to put more focus on.
The ones who claim that children in normal schools don't do these things aren't doing them with their own children either because they like to project themselves onto parents who send their children to school. They not only lose out on school trips but all trips out. You only see the homeschooling parents who take their children to classes, swimming pools, museums, etc. You don't see the ones who isolate their children as they are under the radar until the children manage to escape the home. Homeschooled children aren't playing outside with other children as much as children who attend school do. When Ruby Franke pulled her children out of school neighbours reported that they didn't see her children out on errands or taking the dog for a walk like they used to when they went to school.
10:55 It's funny to me that, instead of having peer interactions/learning how to take turns/learning how to share, etc, parents are sitting their kids in front of computers and claiming that's somehow better?
and the funny thing is that a lot of these parents stress the importance of "being natural" while using an app for teaching is about as unnatural as it can get
I was "unschooled" my entire life, I've just turned 18 and I am entirely physically and emotionally dependent on my mother, I am years behind my peers academically, my social development has been so severely impacted that I was misdiagnosed with ASD, and have spent the last five years constantly in and out of hospitals and ICU's with severe Anorexia. I'd like to think I could have been somewhat functional as an adult if I had gone to school.
The problem with things like unschooling is, it doesn't work in the modern US. If they lived somewhere, where they're basically inheriting their parents jobs, they would definitely benefit from being included in their lifes like that, because it'd basically be job training. But if the parents job isn't what they're showing them and instead for example social media or remote work it doesn't really prepare them for their future job.
This is so frustrating as someone who was homeschooled growing up. People confuse this with actual homeschooling, and it gives it a bad name. Growing up, I had an actual curriculum. I also went to a homeschool group at least once a week. My mom also used these "teaching moments," but she combined them with a real education. She let us study our interests, along with all the necessary information we needed. Homeschooling isn’t for everyone, and that's okay. But parents like this make all homeschool parents seem neglectful and lazy.
I was homeschooled too! I definitely agree! I had a very complicated curriculum too. I had to apply everything I learned practically. The studying I did was kind of harsh actually 😂 so I was definitely pissed seeing this lady give us a bad rep
Nope. We can see the difference. I am pro homeschooling! Not unschooling. There should be some type of curriculum and structure to schooling. It may not look the same as traditional schooling necessarily. However for students to be successful that's what they need.
that's exactly the problem. They don't trust the school system, but they're not able or willing to do it themselves, either. In this case, I would say, they should try to fork some money over for a private school.
@@NotYomama13 Private schools aren’t always great either. At the one I was enrolled in [before my mom started homeschooling me] I was bullied badly and those kids got off the hook because their parents worked there and just didn’t fill out the paperwork
It'd be one thing if the parents were both extremely educated and disciplined instructors who made their children's education a priority, but the _vast_ majority of "unschooling" bohemians are not even close to approaching that level.
Reminds of some stories and movies where they'll depict a family (usually of three people) living in remote areas like the Amazon rainforest because one or both parent(s) work as professor(s)/researcher(s). I think there's one that is a real life story though where a girl survived in Amazon rainforest for like 10 days (?) after a plane crashed. Her parents teaches her a lot about survival skills and some other stuffs which really helped.
being a child of divorce where I couldn't settle down because me and my sibling were forced to switch houses/parents we stayed with every other week messed me up so bad. feeling like there is no place for me in this world and never feeling comfortable making a space for myself because "what if I have to pack and live from bags again?". I can't imagine how much worse living on the road is. sure, maybe they don't have to pack their things every other week because they live in the van, but they need to do it with connections and places they could have gotten attached to. To me, it's quite obvious that instead of never being comfortable being unpacked and having a space they most likely are never comfortable forming attachments because "what if I'm ripped away from this again?"
Even worse would be to attend a boarding school. You are stuck sharing a dormitory with children you didn't know before you started at that school. You become estranged from parents, siblings and the friends you had back home. There are school holidays but a few months is a long time in a child's life so their parents don't recognise them after one term. There is very little adult supervision in the evenings and at weekends during the term time. House masters would have up to 50 children to look after. Ex boarders say that the friends they made weren't real friends but ones that became a substitute for family amd that had common enemies. They were friends made in adversity. They could not confide much with their school friends.
You know. I had learning a learning disability (ADHD) and my parents sat me down after 5th grade and told me… “Great job! You graduated! Now we are pulling you out of public school and putting you in homeschool with your sister who is a year behind you. Oh, yeah! We can’t pay for 2 years of curriculum so you will have to repeat the 5th grade with your sister!” I ended up readying “curriculum” from a binder, doing the lessons with no oversight and crammed 4 years into 3 going year round. No wonder high school was so hard! I didn’t learn anything in middle school!
I absolutely loved the raising your hand to speak system. I'm autistic and struggled a lot understanding social rules, one of the hardest things for me was knowing when it was appropriate to ask questions and that you shouldn't talk over someone else. As such, I started raising my hand when I had something I wanted to say even outside of school. My family would know I had something to say and let me know when was good to speak. After doing that for a while, I understood when it was appropriate to speak and when it wasn't so I didn't need to raise my hand anymore. Throughout my childhood, if I was ever confused or unsure, I would raise my hand again. It gave me security and comfort knowing that if I ever had any trouble socially, I just had to raise my hand and my family would be there to help me understand.
Thank you for making this video funny. As someone who studies educational technology and pedagogy, without any humour in it I would've had a panic attack and went into depressive episode. Unschooling is cool if you can provide your kids in high-class education and ensure their growth on all levels. Letting your child learn only the things they're interested in is extremely harmful, seeing these babies in clips that were shown made me cry. If they're happy now, it doesn't mean it's good for them.
it’s so frustrating to me as someone who is the first generation college student/grad student. my mom was literally addicted to drugs and my entire family has been in deep poverty. education is the only way i was able to escape that cycle. these people are screwing over their kids for no reason. education isn’t just good for intelligence but also for all the social experiences that come from being in some sort of educational pathway (a ton of people do homeschooling and have homeschool groups that seem to do wonders!). i feel so sorry for these kids
As an education major, a lot of the things that these people talk about goes against everything I’ve learned so far. It is incredibly difficult to provide a fully comprehensive education without formal training and access to a lot of resources. Children can learn independently, but that will never be on the same level as what they are capable of when provided with an appropriate learning environment + instruction. The lack of care of these parents show for their children is extremely concerning and saddening. The kids deserve better 😢 (This is not to say that all teachers are great, either! I’ve had my fair share of horrible teachers over the years, and I know that some make learning difficult, if not impossible. Unfortunately, this movement is not a solution. It would be great if it was.)
The parents are German (at least she is) they used to travel around as a couple with their infant kids. Homeschooling in Germany is also forbidden by law but there are very few exceptions with tight restrictions (e.g. when a kid is a professional athlete and has to travel a lot). In these cases there are highly specialized schools/teachers who do online classes. Apart from that the parents also have to provide the mandatory school books etc. So what the parents in the first video are doing is actually illegal.
If the family is not registered as residents there is no way the goverment knows those children don´t go to school. It seems that they move around a lot, and probably the kids don´t even have an ID
@@andromedamessier3176 But there is a difference between whether she is from germany or also living in Germany. For example, homeschooling is outlawed entirely here.
@@Ayisakithat's insane that you think the government can tell you what to do with YOUR KIDS. It's not the governments property to literally punish you if your don't obey the state's idea of education.
@@DoubleDwarf I think it's more 'insane' that you think It's negative for a government to have laws *ENSURING* *proper* *education* and stating that everyone has a right to be educated. The legal framework around truancy in Germany emphasizes compulsory education because it's one of the best methods (not saying it's not flawed, but it makes sure that there is a proper routine and curriculum in the children's lifes and social lifes), and the consequences are generally focused on ensuring school attendance, which includes fines where the amount varies in each state, rather than imposing severe punitive measures like jail time (or, one example; unless there are multiple cases of truancy for a child under 14, which counts as child neglect.) Yeah, really insane.
Oh gosh I can't imagine the TORTURE! as I kid all I wanted was to see my friends and hang out with them. Being with my parents 24/7 in a cubicle on wheels? No thanksss
Playing is learning for children AND the parent should observe their play and extend the concepts by adding books/guided activities and having discussions based on their interests. Play based learning is intrinsically motivated and requires a lot of attention from the adult. It's a way to keep learning interesting and within a natural concept. Their interests can be used as a stepping stone for any subject.
This unschooling sounds very helpful for learning until they are like 7. Children at that time are trying to understand the world and going into the forest, the zoo etc helps a lot. But honestly after that, the child will loose a lot of potential. Children don't become doctors or engineers by living in nature. Or else we would have had these jobs during the stone age
That actually makes sense, and explains why like kindergarten and to some extent first grade has a lot of these “unschooling” experiential elements thrown in. I remember having a lot more play time, recess, interactive activities, etc at school around that age, and it was way more memorable than doing worksheets at a desk lol. I do feel like older kids could still benefit from more integrated experiential learning but it does need to be balanced more with making sure the necessary material is covered, especially as kids get to high school math and science.
Unschooling/homeschooling people with kids who can't read yet (when their peers of similar abilities can) is really sad. It's such limiting thing and there is a key window for developing it as a skill. Setting their kids up for failure from the first day
Sooo my cousins did something like this for a few years. BUT the momma is actually a teacher, and they connected with other "worldschooling" families so their kids could interact with other kids regularly. My cousins also aren't influencers making money off their kids and sponsorships on social media. The kids are all really bright, intelligent, and friendly, so something was done right. They're back in their suburban life now. I don't know if this Van Life schooling is good long-term, but I think it's possible to do it well short-term. These momfluencer van life unschoolers are not examples of the right way.
It's kind of insane how some people dont understand how much stability means. From the parents mental health to the child's and the place they call home. All of those aspects need to be stable for the development of the child.
I’ve moved 15x across country. My family finally broke up in CA and I’ve been stable in one place the last 7yrs the longest ever, the chaos of always being on the move is not missed at all lol
All these parents are ruining their relationships with their children before either understand it’s happening. A lot of these Van-Life kids are gonna get to 18 and feel so isolated. They either become adult children incapable of holding down a job, or become successful and resentful of the parents who left them on their own and didn’t set their kid up for success.
I went to traditional school for most of my life and in my teens, I started traveling with my father for work and did online schooling. It was also my choice to go, my siblings were adults at the time so I could have stuck to traditional education by staying with one of them, so it wasn't as if I was forced to do so. There was a lot I did like about traveling and not sticking to traditional school, I was able to learn more about myself and what I like and dislike without feeling pressured into following what everyone else was into. I was able to take more time for hobbies. When doing school work my teachers wanted us to use the internet to our advantage and try to look at history from different perspectives rather than just what the textbooks told us. Those things were all nice. But on the other hand, I was lonely. I didn't have other kids my age to talk to. Traveling all the time didn't give me any chance to make any meaningful connections and it really made it hard for me to catch onto normal social cues and to communicate with people well because I was so nervous whenever I was in a setting where I was around anyone I wasn't already familiar with. My parents tried to help me be social, it wasn't from a lack of trying on their part, but constantly being the "new kid" isn't fun. People already had other friends with deeper connections and I was never in one place long enough to be able to create a deep friendship. I cannot imagine having to do that my whole life. The intense anxiety I had just from dealing with this for a few years still follows me today, these children are going to have such a hard time navigating the world when they get older, and I have no doubt most of them are going to grow up miserable with having no privacy and no one to talk to besides their family or the adults their family surrounds themselves with.
and what I was doing wasn't even unschooling and it still fucked me up. people really don't understand (or maybe they just don't care) that they're doing a huge disservice to their children by not giving them a proper education. there are plenty of things to be upset about with how schools teach children, but it's still better than them not being taught at all. children need to know these things, and it's up to the adults in their lives to encourage them and help them when needed.
I remember watching an episode of Wife Swap (early 2000s reality show) that featured a family that unschooled their kids. Their pre-teen daughter didn't know what an octopus was.
The last lady was saying her kids are in Special Ed because she unschooled them. IEP is Individualized Education plan for special ed kids. I assume they have “specific learning disability” as their exceptionality category, it’s usually what kids raised in poverty who can’t read end up being given special education services for.
I think she was saying that her children had learning disabilities, but she didn’t realize it. If the children had been in school, the disabilities would have been caught much earlier, and now the opportunity for early intervention has been lost.
My parents organised mail and paper home schooling while bouncing across Europe when I was a kid. I’m old lol. People with devices and internet have it so much better and unschooling is what happened?
I hated school, from start to finish, and my senior year of high school I was looking forward to the 12-year torture of finally ending. But I know that a big part of what made it horrible was, ironically, my lack of knowledge to deal with certain situations. The education system has many shortcomings, but it is still one of the best ways to gain knowledge, and knowledge is our best tool to grow as people in every way. In order to replace everything a school offers you would have to work twice as hard as a parent.
I know a family like this. Seven kids. They live in a house in the mountains. Mom keeps them home more than sends them to school. (Private so she gets away with it.) To be fair, they all read and reason well above grade level. They are also insanely creative, like most homeschoolers. But, since they aren't forced to consistently interact with outsiders, they act like straight up zoo animals. It finally strained my friendship with mom to the breaking point.
I went to school, but my mom did these things with me on weekends and over the summer. How do these parents not understand that they can still do their things with their kids with a regular school schedule?
It really feels like a lot of these kinds of parents are treating their kids like an accessory for their van life. Like they weren’t ready to settle down and do right by the kids but know that kids make good content so had them anyways.
My mother has a bipolar disorder, we moved 5 times before I was 7. Because of divorced parents and my father insisting on us staying in the same school, we didn't move too far... but also, half of the year my mom would take me and my sister in the car, road for 2 days and go to our grandma's place near the sea. When I say half the year I mean all holidays but ALSO, because my father was in hospital for 5 months, my mom decided we didn't need to go to school and we went living in the south for that time. As much as I loved those long road trips towards the sun, life wasn't all fun and games with a lot of other family issues and I began to develop a huge fear of instability and change. Then when I was 11 my mom went to hospital for 3 years and we stayed with our dad only. He insisted that we stayed in the same home for our whole scolarity, and didn't even wanted to live with our stepmom. I am really thankful to finally have had that stability, to be able to grow, meet friends and develop my hobbies. But my fear of change is still here - I know I have to move to my own appartment, I want it and dream of living in another city but the idea of leaving my home gives me so much anxiety. This video actually made my realize that no stability in early years can be long term damaging, no matter how fun a trip can be... Thank you for that.
I’m a kindergarten teacher and waiting your turn to speak is very important. It teaches respect for others, patience and how to slow down and listen to others. And then they get given that respect in return.
While social media can popularize dangerous trends and lifestyles, it also brings to light and gives a inside look about things I would only hear in passing once in a while, and not think its that bad based off the summary. I would have no idea how terrible it really was without people self-reporting themself and posting it online.
As a son of a Military family I can account moving every 3 years was a mess mentally. But what these kids go through should count as child neglect. Those kids are gonna be messed up mentally & academically bc if I got messed up moving mid semester 3-5 times what these kids are getting is just sad.
Lived in a house bus in NZ as a kid and was mostly home schooled. Was a great childhood and I learnt a lot that has helped me in life. Gone on to be a marine technician with the navy, have my own business with 13 employees and have a family of my own. So much of what I have achieved has its roots in my upbringing. If done right this lifestyle is very rewarding, but it takes work and must not be treated as a big holiday.
I can't even begin to imagine how confused those kids are, living with both their biological dad, and what would be their step-dad. Like, they seem pretty young. Also, poor kids don't even have friends. All they have is literally each other. I can just hope her ex-husband and boyfriend aren't the 'jealous' types. That'd be even worse for the kids, if they were constantly arguing.
I have recently read a long article written by a woman who was on a boat for a decade with her brother and their parents as a child and how horrible it was from her perspective despite everyone thinking they were privileged. How she just wanted a dog, a home, friends and a stable education instead of spending her childhood in a small enclosed space with her parents and having to help out with a ton of daily chores. She has never forgiven her parents.
I read that too. She didn't come into contact with anyone else while at sea only while in ports. She couldn't storm off somewhere when in a bad mood or for privacy. Plus she missed out on friends.
6:50 before I watch further, I’m assuming they’re taking Montessori’s without the structure that’s actually needed to make a week rounded child? This is coming from someone who works with children. Lead them to their interest, but every video I’ve seen it’s just parents giving them one option and never showing them other options (ideas) that the kids could just turn down and maybe come back to later.
I had a normal school, but we changed the place three times, so I had to change my school three times. And even that minor change in stability left emotional damage on me. Kids need stability, clear rules in community and rich social life.
My ex wife pulled our kids out of school for unschooling about a year before we separated. I was against it completely because I knew there was no way they would keep up with others their age doing that. This was about a decade ago and both kids now resent their mother for doing this to them. Once they went back to school it had set them back a few years and so it took them longer to graduate and continue with their adult lives.
Hey with the amount of teachers saying parents are responsible for their child's learning and also saying a huge chunk of children are magically making it to 7th grade but can barely read or write....sounds like kids are being let down everywhere
These people are parents that refuse to sacrifice, they want to have their cake and eat it too, they want to live a childfree lifestyle and also have 6 kids.
I see a lot of parents who send their children to normal schools bit still want their child free life not just on Friday or Saturday nights but all the time. So they drag their children around to where they want to go not where their children need or want to go or take it in turns. I see stay at home working class mothers in pubs with pre school children in term time and school age children as well in the school holidays. Then the whole family in the pub after school, and at weekends. The middle class stay at home mothers are in the coffee shops. It breaks my heart as the children look so bored as they would rather be at home when the weather is bad or out in the fresh air when the weather is goof..
My neighbour and her husband have a 2 room apartment, works from home. She recently adopted a school-aged kid and it took her a week to realize their apartment is too small to accommodate everyone despite renovating it last year and she's now looking to move. That's a normal sized apartment mind you... I cannot imagine living in a van with MULTIPLE children...
I'm a high school teacher. The USA has its issues, but our education system is NOT one of them. The European and Asian models can literally ruin a person's life if you have one bad testing day. Here, graduate high school and you've got a clean slate to do whatever you're capable of. Will you go into debt for college? Yes. Is it worth it? Also yes. I'm 31 and still paying back student loans, but budgeting is something I learned in math class at my private school -- not in a van.
Unschooling is insane to me, denying your child an education and a chance to choose how they would like pursue their life…is so disgusting to me. I hold eduction in such a high regard, because of my own family. My nana never finished school because she had to work and then she became a wife and mother. I still think of how she would try to help me with my maths homework, and it was all new to her, she was learning along side me. I will never forget how her dream was to go to school it’s all she wanted.
I understand the point the van life mom makes about the bullying issue in schools. I was one of the favourite victims of bullies during my years in middle school, and it got to the point that I literally avoided going to school, almost becoming an hikikomori. I remember that almost every morning I felt physically sick a the thought of going to school, not having a circle of friends to talk with and being mocked by other classmates. I lost many friends in those years, due to my phone addiction and unrestricted access to internet. But I think that this experience, even if deeply hurtful, shaped me. The world is made of assholes that will do everything to hurt you, and school makes you learn it (in a cruel way sometimes), sometimes you will get help, other times you won't get it. For me, salvation was high school because I changed city and I got to study things that I loved (and it's a really big privilege! Not anyone can study what they like) An important thing that school does is teaaching you basic subjects that give you skills for a basic start in life, that are tied to extracurricular activities. Some subjects can become an interest or passion and with the instruments school gives, you can choose your own path and leaarn things on your own when the formative school years are over. School should be accessible to everyone, but even now it's a privilege for a lot of people. My parents come from a family of farmers and value a lot school, always telling me how important is having the privilege to learn and be able to make a good future for yourself. This trend is one of the most dangerous for kids in the long run (you can't give them a tablet to learn things on UA-cam and leave them alone to make yourself a margarita, Susan. Send the gremlins to school)
Right and the solution to this isn't: remove your audhd child from school so they don't get bullied. It's advocate for trade schools so the nasty stupid bullies stop taking space up in schools
No, children should not experience what you have experienced. I don't know about you, but chronic stress and trauma will affect one's brain and give them longterm problems. You could have been shapen with kind attitude and peace to learn well enough.
School is terrible for those without friends there. That's why so many make friends with just about anyone who would have them rather than people they actually like. So you then have to adapt to what they like doing. I had religious friends and hedonistic friends who were going to pop concerts and drinking alcohol there from the age of 13 and I felt I had little in common with them. I still wanted to go roller skating and on country walks.
As a German this is so crazy since home schooling is not allowed. Taking your kids out of school without permission of the school can lead to high financial penalties for the parents (if they get caught).
I'm a teacher (high school level). I could home school kids in kindergarten and primary school (first language, maths, history, geography, sciences - I know enough to teach all of this on "kid level") but I'd never dare to try to homeschool a kid past primary school (english is not my first language, so, to be right and clear: kids who are more than 12yo) -- because I could only teach my field. Having graduated the other fields only means I know the basic stuff. I could help my kid with the homeworks (because it's just re-explaining what the teacher already wrote on the course notes), but that's it.
A lot of these parents forget most people still take their school going kids to zoos, museums and teach them home skills and take them into nature. They just do it at the evenings and weekends
Obviously kids in actual school are just too busy to do that /s
No they are too busy studying and doing homework to ever look at animals for 3 hrs on a Saturday 😂
@@JubbysDragons The things they mentioned are things people usually do in elementary school. I’ve never met anyone who had 3 hours of weekend homework in elementary school.
@@Personwtcats what?? I never said anything about weekend homework of course no one has that what.. I'm talking about going to the zoo like the comment said. These parents act like normal school kids can't go to the zoo too. When they do just on weekends or holiday.
This. My kid is in public school and we still go on hikes, go to the zoo, go to cultural festivals, do DIY science projects, and look up info about bugs on Wikipedia. He's also taught himself how to code, because he wanted to learn it and took the initiative to do so. I'm watching these videos, like, most of us also do a lot of this stuff with our kids too? (If we physically can and are able, of course)
ESPECIALLY when you see the low bar some of them set for what constitutes an educational activity... I saw one video where they took their kid to the grocery store to do the weekly shopping and called it "unschooling". Bestie, that's just parenting 🥲
Spending 24/7 with your family does not sound like fun at all in a small van
Just get a big van smh
Can confirm. Spending 24/7 with your family is fucking awful. During the summer everyone moves into my parent's room as it's the only one with AC (Not my mum's fault she's great my dad is just a huge cheapskate and refuses to let anyone else except the room he is in has AC) Most days it's alright but whenever i'm upset or feel down I usually hide behind my desk and just stop talking for a while and it feels like shit. because I can't just run off to another room without the threat of literally roasting alive so I sort of just sit and stew while I ignore everyone else and it's hard to actually calm down because you don't get any proper alone time to just have a good cry without everyone else knowing so usually you'll feel like shit and constantly hide it because you're worried they'll just say something rude to you for "crying over nothing" until you sleep and the magical wake up effect makes you think "wow i was upset over nothing". In the moment you really are upset over nothing usually. But telling someone makes them feel like even worse then they are already feeling it doesnt make them feel better.
(for more context we are a 5 person family aka me my mum/dad and my one older and younger siblings)
Feels torturous. People do need their recharge time. Even those who share rooms will often escape with books or headphones… imagine doing that but still, your WHOLE FAMILY is there and there’s not even one corner to retreat to.
@@RayLikeSunshine dont get me wrong i love my family but i need time to myself + i feel if your on the road a lot you cant really make a lot of friends or get a job
would feel like an autistic nightmare for me. eugh..
I was “unschooled” until age 11, and it severely messed me up. I feel like I missed a crucial experience, I felt isolated with my peers, and I still struggle with academics years after. it’s child neglect, entirely.
I do online school these days, and will be going to an actual high school next year, but that doesn’t negate the effects “unschooling” had on me. At the very least, I could read and write
I unschooled my whole childhood. and I relate to this, everyday I feel like I am missing a crucial part of my childhood. I didn't have a friend until I was 18, there only reason I know what I do now, is because there was some eduaction books laying around the house and I felt like I was missing something when the cartoon characters talkde about going to school.
❤ you
If it makes you feel any better I went to public school and I was isolated from my peers and struggled academically 😅 I feel like I may have benefited from going to a Steiner school. Which is probably what most of these parents should have looked into instead. A Steiner or Waldorf school 🤷🏻♀️
I am so sorry you went through that. That sounds miserable. @@hurpdurp123
Fun Fact: Jean Jacques Rousseau is the first known person to suggest the idea of unschooling. He also abandoned all 5 of his children at a hospital and told no one about it.
Who needs 5 when you can make one anytime?
@@ThatC1official "Another One." - DJ Khaled
Actually the term "unschooling" was coined by New York State Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto
Except that’s not true. Compulsory schooling is a very modern concept thats only been practiced for tiny fraction of human history. So the idea of unschooling actually predates schooling.
@@Clownbabyworldtour Compulsory (for poor people) - yes. But for the elites - no. The elites of society in the past were educated/schooled, just like today.. for a reason. Average people didnt need to know anything else outside the work they parents did and that the kids needed to continue to do.
This unschooling is just being a parent. Going to the zoo, grocery shopping, park etc and teaching your children about life, numbers, and colours? Congratulations you are just a parent. I'm doing the same with my son and he still has to go to school.
False. Unschooling is supporting your kids interests and letting them dive into that vs memorizing arbitrary facts.
@kristijones3307 that may be helpful for older kids, but young children need to learn things outside of their interests. they need to know the basics in order to survive, and by not teaching them those things if they aren't interested, you're setting them up for failure
@@kristijones3307You described basic parenting. That is necessary. Children should go to school to learn “arbitrary facts” that are actually incredibly important facts for their development like history, math, science, reading, writing and hopefully other forms of enrichment and development through arts and sports.
@@kristijones3307 The "arbitrary facts" are literally what our society is made of. Like it or not, but it's undeniable that until end of middle school you learn stuff useful for the day to day life. And in High School, it's more HOW you learn stuff than WHAT stuff you learn.
Plus, school is a micro-society where you learn how people works and where you stand in the society. It's critical.
So yeah, maybe school system sucks. But being a good parent and acting to improve the system is way better and realistic than sheltering your kids and expecting them to know how to live in a society they never interact with before.
@@kristijones3307Learning how to read, write, do math, and other basic skills is not arbitrary. "Unschooling" should be illegal. Kids need to actually learn things. They aren't learning by you taking them outside and pointing at some birds.
The fact that it's illegal in many countries speaks volumes on it. There's a family in Europe that openly admits that they are breaking that law, and it's why they don't do van life in their home country
I’m italian and here school is mandatory until you are 16. I just don’t understand how in the us is normal to be homeschooled or how parents can just decide to not educate their kids. It’s absurd
@f3nrir94 it is not Normal. I've met like 1 home schooled kid in my 25 yrs of life. It is more normalizes though mainly due to how underfunded schools are
@@joeycohen7533many kids in the US are homeschooled, it is quite common. Just bc you don’t know any homeschoolers doesn’t mean it’s uncommon.
@@joeycohen75331 in every 17 kids is homeschooled. Maybe you didn’t see them because you were at school most of your life
@@joeycohen7533 Yeah, I get that maybe not everyone is homeschooled, but only the fact that you can decide to do that, to me doesn’t make any sense
These kind of people are setting their kids up for failure in academics, social interaction as well as stability. Its insane how far these parents will go to stand out and I hope these kids will grow beyond their (weird) upbringing.
the first woman is german so not only everything you said but also here in Germany you can do NOTHING without a degree! Wait, maybe if you have exceptionally good social skills you could try to... oh wait...
I hope so too.
@@MaryGershwin.... If she is doing this in Germany, it's illegal. Germany has a mandatory school attendance for children, mostly to protect them from parents and provide them with a social life, education and adults to ask for help if needed.
@@strawberryfox8819most 1st world countries have mandatory school. It's considered neglect or outright abuse to not put your kid in school.
Some of they say “they dont like math, they will not work with that”
I also hated math but i choose to work in a field that have math and I would have such a easier time if i had learned this in school
If you don't want to send your kids to school and you don't want to homeschool, don't have kids ✨
Simple ✨
How do we get cheap labour to feed us in retirement though?
Agreed!! So selfish
Kids are a consequence too. Feel like most people who say this "just don't have kids." Simply "don't get laid" lol
@@ChadOfAllChadsyes, but unironically, living a life of extreme independance comes with sacrifices and so does settling down and having a family you gotta choose what you want but understand you gotta sacrifice something else to get what you want trying to have both just makes it worse for both scenarios
One of my friends teaches at an art museum summer camp and she said all the teachers dread getting any students who are unschooled. They plan their lessons based on the skills kids should have by certain ages but these kids lack so many of them that it becomes impossible. Last summer she had a kid who was 12 years old and didn't know how to use scissors. Like even the other kids were flabbergasted at this poor girl's inability to do and understand the most basic things. And no, her unschooling didn't give her some incredible insight into art making. Girl couldn't even grasp the idea of primary colors and color mixing, a concept that I teach to literal preschoolers. Unschooling is just laziness on the parents' part and they're setting their kids up for failure.
That’s full on neglect. Just providing a pair of scissors and being around my child so she can watch me use scissors was enough for my 4 year old to learn how to use them. That to me is a sign that the parents did not engage with their child or provide them with supplies to learn.
not even knowing how to use SCISSORS at 12 is insane. i hope shes been put into school by now or she's been put into a better situation
It's so cruel, because these kids who have been kept safe from "having to compare themselves to their peers" are now absolutely comparing themselves to things other kids can do and are confronted with the fact only kid in a class of 15-30 who can't do something everyone else is confident in, whether it's reading, writing, using scissors or recognising common or standard explanations of things like the concept of "primary colours". That's one reason why classrooms often work; because for a lot of easy basic skills, seeing your friends be able to do something makes you aware that you can do. With the right support, that comparison drives us to learn new things.
Yet there are safe scissors for children to use that have blades with rounded tips.
I'm lazy af, too. That's why my children go to school. To don't suffer from my lazyness. Oh, and my all-time-in-school son has amazing drawing skills. He is even allowed to draw when he's done with his schoolwork at school.
As another child of an immigrant, it's wild to me how some parents treat school and education. My parents weren't even that strict about grades or class rank. They just wanted me to take school seriously and always try my best. I feel like that should be the bare minimum.
its kinda ironic because if you take the opposite ideal of 'unschooling' and go extremely strict on school it honestly has the same problem. my dad had this dream of me getting into harvard and bought me a SAT prep book in 7th grade (sat test is generally taken in 11th or 12 grade) and honestly sometimes i feel like one of these kids in the unschooling videos because my "schooling" and stress mental muscles have been pushed so far to the extreme that they have kinda burnt out and now i'm in college struggling to be on my own or deal with normal adult levels of stress due to being absolutely burnt out from literally years of that academic pressure
There is a reason the majority of these people are entitled white people from higher class levels.
They take for granted the structures that got their family to that place in society, and think they did it all themselves.
Its the same idea with antivaxxers- they think they are invincible because their paretns and grandparents did the right thing and worked hard to get them where they are at.
My mom is an immigrant too, I die every time I hear a kid at my school skips class. 😭
I don’t like the idea of “we teach them to cook, travel, camp, etc.! They don’t learn that in school!!” Bc it’s like… yeah.. that’s the parent’s job???
In my country, depending on what elective classes and extra curricular activities that students pick, they can learn about cooking, camping, traveling, etc. Although there's been significant changes in our education system, some aspects like camping still remains the same. I've seen some countries like Indonesia do these things too, never thought it was that different in Western countries.
@@nurnadhirahsaing6169i can only speak for my province in Canada, but school is seen as a place that is only academic. Arts and music are part of the curriculum, but barely. There used to be home economics classes, and reforms removed that before I started school. Why should the school teach kids/teens how to cook? That's a skill that's learned at home! (Because we all know every child has a perfect family that will lovingly teach those skills at home, of course 🤦♀️) anyway. There are schools that have "funky" classes, but it's really not the norm over here. You'll see a lot of sports-focused schools though, so there's that
@@nurnadhirahsaing6169 Just because you can learn tehse things at school, doesn't mean you're suppose to do that. There are things, that parents are supposed to teach their children. Of course school can teach your children to not bite other children, potty train them, and ensure they eat with cutlery, but it isn't the school's job. [all these examples are real, because I had a classmate in elementary school who did all that cause is parents are "free-range-he's-fine-he'll-get-it-by-himself" type of parents]
I mean… the child’s education is the parents job too. Even if they go to school, it’s up to parents to ensure they’re getting the education they need there, and voting for how schools should be, and stepping in when they need to. Just because we’re used to passing off the responsibility of education and even raising kids to other people or iPads now doesn’t mean it isn’t actually the parents job still. Just means they’re neglecting it.
When I was in school (I'm born 1988) in sweden we have a class named "home knowledge " we're we learn how to cook, home economics, cleaning and so on, and some years we went camping, canoeing and stuff like that.. when I was in high-school we even had stuff like riding a horse once a week outside the regular physical education class... it was a communal school, nothing fancy....
As a vanlife punk I have to agree, raising your kids this way is child abuse. I have a kitty cat and that's about all the responsibility I need😂
Say hello to your cat for me
That's really responsible of you. Give your little meow meow a hug for me. ❤❤❤
Your profile name checks out lol. Boop your kitty for me.
Can you pet your cat for me?
aww say hi to your cat for me !!!
I don't care how much fun you're having being a Bohemian Nomad. As soon as the pregnancy test pops positive and you've Chosen to continue the pregnancy, it's time to grow up, drop the dead weight in your life, pick a place to park, and put down roots. Children are more important than your Van Life. Settle into one place with access to proper education, sanitation, and healthcare and save the Road Tripping for the Summer! If your lifestyle has CPS constantly on your ass like white on rice, the. it's not the right lifestyle to live. Kids need to learn how to function in society and most of all, they need to learn how to think critically. Unschooling doesn't do that. If your Van Life asthetic and Clout are more important than your kids, then don't have them in the first place or give full custody to a relative/trusted friend that has sense so they'll be safe while you live out your Dream Life. And you better send any Cash for Clout you've made directly to them after covering your living expenses. Period.
👍💯
You Do it BEFORE.
Pregnancies don't magically pop up.
Couples choose to stop the Contraceptives.
It's to late to get your 💩 together when she is already pregnant. 40 weeks aren't much time for a big change
THIS
You think kids learn critical thinking at school? 🤣
@@stepfaniehawkins205 At least more than only gettting told one/ their parents side. Even if the school in your country only teaches one opinion, you still get a multitude of opinions, perspectives etc by the dozens of other students you interact with.
Years ago I saw a video of homeschooled kids. The mom was so proud because the kids played at a creek and a saw frogs. She said something like "they never would learn stuff like this in school." (There was way more talking. Its sounded like she thought her 5 year old was more knowledgeable then every scientist).
Lady, your daughter didn't discover the existence of frogs. We already know about frogs.
plus, they WOULDVE learned this in school. kids have field trips to go be in nature and go head on into what theyre learning about; parents like this just wanna shelter their children.
Unschooled, not the same as homeschooled which is actually a legal and good thing
I always wonder if they think kids in regular school never go to the park, like when they're not at school.
Right? Like my school (and like every other school I've heard of) had science camp. Yk, where we stayed in cabins in the mountains/ wilderness, went on hikes, saw wildlife and shit. Like, even outside of normal parents taking their kids out on the weekends, we definitely saw stuff at school. My elementary school even had a reptile show/ petting zoo come through every year or 2 so kids to get to learn about and touch animals.
I had a friend who volunteered with Teach for America and he taught for a year in a New Orleans public Jr high school.
He told me horror stories of how ignorant and neglected many of the kids were. For example he had carrots in his lunch and some of his students asked him what he was eating. When he answered “carrots”, those students asked him what “carrots” were.
So I can understand why some parents want to homeschool their kids.
fun fact: nadin is most likely is from germany judging by the accent and name and guess what fellas, thats right, the german government considers any form of homeschooling as child abuse and is grounds to lose your kids real quick, so what im implying is that shes on the van life so that the government doesnt know where she is to take them rightfully away
It's also insane to ban homeschooling. You can't ban everything because some people are whack.
@truthnotlies in the UK the local council can hold an enquiry to check homeschooled kids receive a suitable education. The council are able to fine/prosecute if you refuse to send your kid to a physical school if their education is deemed insufficient, seems like a good way to give parents freedom but minimise neglectful situations
School has multiple tasks:
1. Education with standards
2. Socializing kids to function in community and in a system that is adjacent to a workplace
3. Forming kids to be citizens that know their rights and duties and know about host of ideologies and religions
4. Giving guidance to children, especially for those who don't have good parents.
All of this is extremely important for a good society. I don't doubt that certain special children would profit from house tutoring, but only from people who are qualified in educating. I like the English way better, but with the history of denazification and looking at what nut jobs in Germany want to teach their kids at home I really understand why the law is how it is.
@@harri7179as someone who homeschooled my daughter in the uk due to severe bullying and was quite involved in the community (before sending my daughter back to school in AU) - the homeschool ‘checks’ in the UK are a complete joke. Many families just refuse to partake in them and even for the ones (like me) who did allow them, it’s just an officer who pops round for half an hour, has a cup of tea and a little chat then disappears for another 6 months.
When I called our officer and told her we were moving to Australia, she just updated her notes, didn’t ask for anything other than my word, and we never heard from her again.
I remember thinking it was a little scary as people who aren’t looking after their children really aren’t monitored at all once they decide to homeschool. As I said, most people refuse anyway and no one does anything about it.
What you’re describing sounds good in theory but it’s not the reality at all. We came across loads and loads of ‘unschooling’ families in the UK whose children received no education at all. I always remember one 11 who couldn’t read or write ‘yet’.
No one in the UK enforces anything.
Germany on the other hand is very strict. I knew several German homeschool families who moved to the UK or Spain as they couldn’t slip under the radar there.
while I think this woman is an idiot, I would say the government should "rightfully" take her children.
"Moving kids around a lot is bad for them"
*zones out remembering all the times I moved house as a kid because my dad was in the military and got moved around a lot*
...that explains a lot
real - i love moving again six months after moving in!!!! (/sarc)
Real. I’m a military brat too and I did a research paper on the adverse effects that moving has last year for my psych class. Safe to say, it’s not good.
Not military kid but immigrant, had to move places because better job security for parents and we were struggling hard, this and combined that I had to learn another language and that I was constantly being bullied for accents and such and I wonder how in the hell did I turn out ok in the end.
that is so not the same thing.. You cant uproot kids who have no roots.
@@Mikael-jt1hkI don’t they ever said it was the same
A family in my church does unschooling. and just as an outsider watching the kids interact with others their age, I see these unschooling kids get isolated because of their poor social skills. They're only used to talking to Mom and dad, not other kids who have zero patience for their shenanigans.
The younger the child is, the less patient and kind they will be. Kids are super rough, you need to understand social cues real fast or you will be the weird and dumb one...
I will say I know a family who did actual traditional unschooling. The children had great social skills, were involved with sports, and all 4 kids went to Ivy League colleges, 2 became doctors, and 1 went to the Olympics. This new wave of “unschooling” is just neglect
@@lou9635 yeah that's true, and a lot of kids struggle with it, especially (but ofc not exclusively) if they're neurodivergent. and as someone who was that kid and who was always left out for reasons i never understood at that age, it's just inconceivable to me why you'd want to actively force your child into the outsider role when they didn't have to be
@@cc-terfay Yeah, I knew a girl unschooled in the same sport club I was. She had still big troubles to connect with us (despite the fact I was usually the weird one in the group).
Unschooling is possible, but it's super difficult and asks constant attention on what your kid lacks.
The girl finished by entering school at 12 or 13, I don't know why since we weren't close friend but I suspect that the way she was isolated was a factor. It's hard to connect with your peers when your life is so different and you miss a lot of their experiences.
@@overgrownkudzu I am neurodivergent and as a kid I was always the weird one. I had a couple of friends if I was lucky. But kids unschooled or from very religious families were even more isolated than me. Which isn't a good sign when the kid loving to talk to trees and obsessing on a 19th century character has better social life than your kid.
I find this attitude to be insulting to actual homeschooling. Like it's a full-time job that a lot of parents take on when their kids are having academic and/or behavioral issues in a traditional setting.
@angelbabies7 you kid is a perfect angel who deserves help and understanding, but the other CHILDREN are "violent punks"?
@@angelbabies7 you have no idea how schools work if you think that they're meant to be profitable. It's also interesting that you have so much more patience for your own kid and that you assume the other children have the same privileges as your child
@@msjkrameywellll most if not all the foundations of schools are meant to increase profits. Modern schools yeah they’re not but they’re still operating on those same foundations
@@msjkrameywhere I’m at we have charter schools that are for-profit. There are even a few technically “non-profit” charter schools where 1/3 their annual budget goes to the CEO salary. (That was the one I worked at. Spent a lot on the CEO/founder salary and the marketing, very little got spent on the kids and teachers were expected to buy almost all the supplies)
@@TheVeggiekat charter schools are often corrupt. The goal of a school should always be to educate the child
It wouldn't make you genius in "cave man days."
Paleolithic humans made glue from tree sap and amber, intricate and specialized tools, and used fire to harden different materials.
They were innovative scientists.
Those kids would get devoured by a giant sloth while mom takes a selfie.
A friend of mine decided that her son would never have to hear the word ‘no’. He quickly became a narcissistic nightmare. He expressed complete contempt for his parents and by 15 had no friends at all…
what does this have to do with unschooling. a person's personal boundaries are important. at school, children learn that they are not allowed to say no to adults in many situations.
7:26 "Grooming them to accept stress?" Yes, I do agree that school can be entirely too stressful on kids.
HOWEVER. Kids need to learn HOW to manage that stress. You can't just let them not be stressed for 18 years and then. Expect them to know how to manage that stress by the time they hit 18.
Also. As someone who is older than 18 and still lives with her parents. You don't have to kick them out at 18. There's no rule saying you HAVE to do that.
Exactly, I agree how school can become too stressful but avoiding it completely is only going to make things harder for them when they inevitably have to face that stress in the future. It’s a terrible foundation to give your kids in our current society, its cruel.
That's the concept of anti-fragility, and it's basically this idea that some level of sporadic stress is healthy for children to develop normally.
There's studies that are starting to show that protecting your children from any and all stresses is making them too fragile, which in turn contribute to anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. Children need to learn how to deal with stress, with conflict, with difficult social interactions, with physical and mental exertion (within safety guidelines of course) so they are prepared to be adults. Real life is not going to protect you all the time, to assume otherwise is setting them up for failure.
absolutely agree! my degree is in education and one thing i remember studying is the optimal level of stress. too much stress is obviously detrimental, but too little stress is also damaging to a child’s development. life is not stress-free, as unfortunate as it is. and kids need to learn how to manage stress. i agree that school, especially high school, can be very stressful for a child, but sheltering your child from stress will turn them into nervous wrecks who crack whenever pressure hits
@@Luumus and every kid is going to get stressed. Their stress might be small compared to the stuff a grownup stresses about but that the biggest stress of their lives! Even just, you can get the blue candy or the green candy and they’re sitting there on edge cause they want both but can only have one and it’s stressful for a little kid
Kids shouldn’t have too much stress, but they should have some stress on them.
Family of nomads are one of the worst I’ve seen. I felt so bad for their eldest who was hospitalized for an eating disorder. Like how the hell did you not notice until she needed to be hospitalized? On top of that when she was in the hospital did they take a break from traveling to stay near their daughter? Of course fucking not they literally abandoned her and left the damn state. I’m a grown ass adult I asked my mom if I was hospitalized in a different state. She told me she wouldn’t stop at anything to make sure I wasn’t by myself.
That's pure evil! How did CPS not take custody her after the primary caregivers literally abandoned the child?
@@renbou2577 I have no fucking idea. She was in mental crisis. So it’s possible they barred her from having visitors. But even then I wouldn’t even want to go off on an another damned vacation while my hypothetical kid was in the hospital.
Not only that, they disclosed her diagnoses and struggles to the entire world online, where it is out there permanently. Everyone, including future employers, can know about it. They made a decision to use their child's illnesses for clickbait and content in a way that could impact her for life and define her future ... which could also worsen the illness and make her more vulnerable for being in the spotlight. All without her consent.
You can tell a lot about a parent by the way they treat a child during a physical/mental illness.
Woww. When my daughter was hospitalized and I wasn’t allowed to stay with her I rented a house to be close to her. I slept in my car when I couldn’t afford the house anymore. I truly cannot fathom leaving my child alone in a cold sterile hospital while in a crisis, to go on vacation out of state?!? Not a chance in hell.
At least now they have spilt up and the mom got a house and the kids are in normal school. Now the mom just uses their diagnosis for content 🙃
I agree that some of the things students learn are completely useless (especially in high school) but even if it was all useless, learning how to focus on work, learning how to work with strangers is extremely important, especially for the future
also imo the useless stuff absolutely doesnt outweigh the useful things.
Tho I really wish theyd teach us how to do taxes, how to read contracts, etc where Im from. Imo school needs to focus a bit more on life skills.
oh also the way school tends to teach critical reading sucks ass. The good old "the curtains cant just be blue for no reason" thing. I remember being so fatigued by having to forcefully read meaning into every little detail that I refused to look past the surface level of a lot of stories for a while after that. It's absolutely important to teach that things mean things and that stuff can have hidden agendas etc, but then there really should be more political texts and not just random stories.
@@frankie9373 FACTS.
@@frankie9373 I think it really depends on where you go and what school you go to. I went to a crappy public school in a fairly low income area but I always felt like I could get access to that information if we needed to. I was in a program required projects like essays on top of classes that required you to do research and create a project based on your interests. I think that was helpful in building up research skills and stuff.
I think the majority of things you listed about not being taught could be researched the same way and wouldn't really require a full class. I've done research here and there for tax deductions based on education, business, expenses etc.
To be fair, you can choose your classes in high school. Some schools have some pretty interesting electives
not to forget learning how to overcome frustration with tasks you really don't want to do but which just have to be done. That's basically being an adult is all about.
One of the things that bothers me sm about this is the fact that you can do both! Your kids can get a formal education AND you can take them new places, go to museums, and give them hands on learning experiences. Kids need structure and to learn things that they dont want to learn not just walk around barefoot eating bugs and crap like these parents think is education.
Yep
There’s NOTHING more selfish than denying your children an education because YOU don’t want to be bothered or bored.
If he is not a junkie you found on the streets of portugal I dont want him😔
I can fix him (my therapist can fix me after)
Both of these comments are gold 😂
I randomly stumbled across one of their videos a while ago and I was so confused why so many comments were talking about cucking, now I know the lore 😅
I like em junkie 💅💅💅 (and also with my kids)
This is coming from a teenager who hates everything, even tho school sucks its helpful you learn skills from school. like the ability to attain new information and social skills. You're not protecting your kids from the world, the kids need to experience new things to grow as a human!
This! So well said!! I feel like being around so many people and situations that I had no control over helped a lot with learning how to regulate my emotions and response to things, as well as how to cooperate and communicate more effectively, in a setting where the stakes were fairly low.
I'd hate to have to learn those skills now at my job, as a full grown adult 😬
I'm glad you at least recognise that school is helpful. I don't think I've met a single person who actually found highschool enjoyable, but they are grateful for having an education. I can't imagine how shitty these kids are going to feel once they grow up and realise they've missed out on a ton of life experiences.
school's still useless
-you learn basic math from home, i dont know how much you need to learn but honestly multiplication and division should be more than enough
-you do have a point with social interaction, but right now our current kids are ipad/screen dependant and pretty horrible, so school teaches you social interaction but doesnt actually make you do it due to how school works, so try harder next time you zealotist school defender
yeah this is true. there's a lot wrong with the public school system but the answer isn't to simply not do school.
you put an "unschooled" adult in a middle school classroom and the fella will r0pemaxx instantly. those kids are vile
I'm suddenly now so grateful for living in a room shared with my sister, yeah its annoying but its better than living on a damn shelf.😭
"shelf"
😭
@@moustik31 Frr tho 😭
I saw a docu in German tv on this topic. It made me concerned for the children. One 11 year old girl wanted to be a biologist in the future. Knowing the parents did wild schooling, she has very low chances to become that. They robbed her of a future other than van life!
I think the unschooling and anti-vax movements may share a lot. People who take the advantages of modern life for granted to such an extent that they assume their kids will be fine, better even, without those advantages.
HUGE overlap between the communities
It also overlaps with those families who won't have a television in the house yet you can have a television and restrict watching to only so many hours a day or to a certain time of day. When I was a child there was nothing much on TV anyway as there were only three channels and very little day time television. It went off air at midnight or before.
Then these families say their children get influenced by other children at school who are influenced by television programmes so they then pull them out of school.
Great, I didn't click on this video to be lectured by some smug, arrogant, holier than thou vaxxer ☹
@@lemsip207 Nope! We had no television for a very long time. And we are extremely strict when it comes to mobile devices for our children, yet I'm the biggest advocate for public schools (in Germany) and vaccines.
In Germany, usually the people with higher education have no TV.
And it is easier to raise your children without TV.
You're never beguilled to use the TV as babysitter if you have none.
So you need much less self-discipline.
heavy overlap, my mom is very anti vax and won't allow me to do schooling.
This should be a crime.. these kids are practically victims of being deprived of a normal childhood.... They wont be exposed to anything and wont even be aware of what things can be for them. What kind of dreams will they have and what will they even put on their resume even if they pursue them? my mom occasionally took me to the zoo?!
This is actually illegal in Germany and I think quite a few countries.
According to google: All countries except Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, United States and Vatican City have some kind of compulsory education laws (meaning you have to put your child in school at some age for some time or provide home school education by the country standards) so it is illegal in 99% of the world bc it's considered ch1ld negl3ct 🤷
And thank God it is considered neglect. How can a parent do something like this in good faith? @@kenjako
@@kenjako In the US it's very much up to the individual states. Like I live in Pennsylvania and kids don't have to start school until age 8. And even then the state is pretty loose with allowing homeschooling.
@@kenjako For as far as I know: in the majority of the countries which accept homeschooling, the child is not left alone with their parents. There is a social worker checking regurlaly the progress which had been made, if everything is normal and if the curriculum is followed. The kid will pass diploma examens like everyone in a school providing them. So no van life and no random "school" work.
"Today on VanLife, we're going to utilise our children to get clicks, likes and sponsorship dollars. Namaste!"
Unschooling could make sense with older kids, adapting their curriculum to what they are more interested in and may want to pursue later in life. But preschoolers and younger kids most definitely need to learn those hardskills, otherwise they will never be able to access the later.
Agreed. Maybe for kids that are in the highschool range of age, this lifestyle could work (although the lack of privacy problem is still kind of concerning).
One of my other hobbies is watching cult documentaries and a trend I have noticed is that almost all people born into a cult who survive can't do math or science and can't even really start with programming. There is a fairly solid cutoff in childhood where if you didn't learn something, you can't learn it later. We only roughly understand it for language but I've noticed a trend where math, science, and computer skills are also affected. I wouldn't be surprised if things like art are as well.
Unschooling is just plain idiotic.
I was removed from elementary school at Grade 6 due to absolutely awful migraines that I only got in school, and then after a few years I went to highschool and I was fine. Homeschooling rocked for me.
I think people underestimate how strange elementare school is. Maybe thats where Im from but jeah I learned Multiplikation which isn important but I also learned like what eaxh oart of a medivial castle was called. And i didnt care about that, walking around a forest and learning the signs of spring would have been genuiely more educational. Some of these things are very Individual which is what the school system doesnt allow for. Of course I dont trust parents who drive around their kids and dont realize The value in Stability while vlogging everything. But the signs of spring or lever thing where genuiely good examples of moments where kids will proably learn better because they are doing something active based on what they already like doing.
I learned Multiplikations while jumping on a Trampoline. My mum said it was cause movement helps you study, I say I was fucking bored. I guess my point is like Hey from jsut those clips we dont know how much the kids are lesrning and they are showing some good examples of what part of education as a kid can look like. But I agree and hope that that isnt all, but again I think that actual good schooling takes a lot more efofrt than i trust those parents are putting in while traveling
I am a teacher with a cluster of 5 kids who were unschooled or were in vans. One problem I feel like it’s not talked enough about with kids who grew up in educational environments like this is that they cannot tell the difference between good people and bad people. These kids are so easily manipulated into doing terrible things and bullying others because of it.
True
Ooh this is interesting
Maybe it's because they didn't learn history in the van. History is full with bad and good people.
Man I love my folks but even as a public school kid I desperately wanted to go to sleep away camp or boarding school to get away from them sometimes. Can’t imagine being stuck with them ALL DAY EVERY DAY. IN A VAN.
Also, not allowing children to form bonds with other adults outside the home (teachers, class aids, other friend’s parents, ect) is dangerous. Its kind of a catch 22 thing. If the parent is abusive, the child needs other adults they trust to tell about the abuse, but the abusive parent wont let the kid form those bonds.
Children having bonds with out-of-the-house adults protects them from the in-the-house adults.
(To a point. Of course there are the bad bonds that can lead to abuse, but allowing the child to form good bonds and trust with others overall protects them from abuse because they have a safety net that isnt the parents that are potentially abusing them.
The public school system has a fairly high rate of abuse, I don't think I can necessarily agree with what you said.
@@NotYomama13 oh, yah, the world sucks and theres abuse everwhere. Every time you interact with another human being, theres a chance for abuse.
I just think that having the opportunity to have the ability to contact someone, having more resources, is a better idea then having no one to go to if the singular person(s) (the homeschooling parents) are the abusers.
Like, no one should be under the watching eye of one singular controlling entity 24/7 because that one singular entity might be the thing hurting you and if you have parts of the day where you can break free of that control, moving location without that person present, might give you the chance of bring up that abuse with someone.
(But yah, public school is a hell, not gonna argue there. Totally agree. But being trapped, with no contact with others, under total control of a single person, is also hell)
My best friend was raped as an elementary schooler. It stopped when she had sex ed and learned, that am girl can become pregnant through the stuff the boyfriend of her mother did to her. She shared her fears to become pregnant with her best friend, the friend went to the teacher and the guy finally was removed from my friend's life.
Would never have stopped if she was homeschooled.
@@diemhummel9420lol, do you think they’re locked in cupboards with no interaction with other people 🤣
So closed minded 🙄🤣
Yeah, many unschoolers come from a place of privilege and don't see how important schooling is. My mum grew up poor (like, her parents would skip supper to make sure her and her brother ate, and my grandpa would get her winter boots from the garbage dump poor), and she was only able to escape that by focusing on studying and getting scholarships for university (first person in her family to even finish high school!). And my dad was the first person in his family to go to uni too, although his father was considered wealthy for the time since you could get good jobs with only a high school education back then, but when you compare my dad's life who did go to uni, vs my uncle who dropped out to become a DJ in a small town, let's just say one is doing better than the other financially...
It's fine to not go to university or even college, but it should be the kid's choice, not the parents', so to make that choice for your kid, especially when they're so young and don't know shit yet, is really vile to me.
isnt school useless though?
@@azurevlogslegit no??? I would be at mcdonalds rn if I didnt have my trades degree
@@darreideamos2309 sounds like a lie, put in your soul next time
@@darreideamos2309 also working at mcdonalds wouldnt be so bad i think, but i definitely know about rude customers existing especially in america
@@azurevlogslegitDo you genuinely think learning how to read, write, and do math is useless???
I cant stop thinking of the "you are my sunshine" meme anytime I watch your videos 😢
real
HELP THIS IS SO REAL
😂❤️☀️
My dad was in the military when I was a kid so we moved around every 2-3 years (not nearly as bad as these kids) and I still was deeply effected by not having a permanent home. I never felt like I could make friends. These parents are just cruel to their children!
I was looking for this exact comment I feel you homie 😂. Not having roots to come back to besides a couple holdouts every now and then state to state then moving right when you get comfortable.
(Don’t even get me started on moving in the middle of the year or entering late at the start of the year or moving to a school with a different curriculum like Washington State vs Tennessee.)
but I can’t even understand how parents can put their kids through this though.
@@ideaalted1554 honestly! I moved from a bad Texas school to a good Colorado one mid year in elementary school and felt so behind!
Same here. Went through years of therapy so as to be able to trust in stable relationships as a result…
I used to be one of these kids. My parents, my siblings, and I traveled across the country in an rv. I had to ask my parents to buy me school books and I would teach myself things because I wanted to learn and do school. My parents also thought we were learning along the way. Sure, we were but it was mostly random history facts. No where close to a rounded education. It was wild.
So weird. I love going on trips and learning the random history facts now but to imagine that was my entire education growing up? Like you would have no context for any of the historical facts without having taken a regular social studies course lol 😂
Yes, you had your inner motivation. The perfect unschooler ;) Lots of kids in public schools need to be forced and after forget everything.
I've been unschooled/home-schooled for the last few years and have moved a lot, it sucks. You suffer academically because no one person can teach a child everything, even if like my mom you're a former teacher. I also have like no social skills, I don't know how to talk to people or keep friendships, this along with just not having the opportunity to make friends has led me to staying in dangerous relationships because I didn't want to be alone. Unless you have a very specific reason, home-schooling in general is not good for kids. I'm going into actual school for the first time in years soon and am terrified but excited. The school system isn't great, I've had my fair share of bad experiences but home-schooling will fuck kids up in new and special ways
I don’t know how it works in where you live but in my country you're mostly taught the basics by the same teacher for the first few years of school, but at some point when you start getting deeper into the subjects, they all have their own teacher. One teacher can’t teach every subject at a middle school level.
Homeschooling and un-schooling are completely different. Bad homeschool experiences are normally due to bad parents, not homeschooling itself. That's why following the criteria your government has laid out for you is important when homeschooling your kids.
Homeschooling is not the same as Unschooling. You just had a bad experience. But in GENERAL, homeschooling is MORE beneficial than Public schooling
Agree with you entirely, but you are clearly bright enough to gallop forward once you are given a chance. Remember all the other kids are feeling just as insecure socially, tho' in different ways. You will be interesting to them and therefore have an opening. Remembering my primary schooling as a crucial formative, I am totally against unnecessary home-schooling.
@@Moonbovine Lol, can you provide anything but anecdotes to proof this laughably stupid claim?
A lot of these van life parents act like taking their kids on hikes and teaching them basic skills is something that caretakers aren't already supposed to be doing outside of school… I feel so bad for the kids, they're given such a bad foundation and its going to be hard work UNLEARNING this unschooled lifestyle :(
Children who attend normal schools can take part in extra curricular activities or join the Scouts and do these things.
to be fair, a lot of parents are not teaching their children basic skills and neither is the public school system, so I do think this is something that everyone needs to put more focus on.
The ones who claim that children in normal schools don't do these things aren't doing them with their own children either because they like to project themselves onto parents who send their children to school. They not only lose out on school trips but all trips out. You only see the homeschooling parents who take their children to classes, swimming pools, museums, etc. You don't see the ones who isolate their children as they are under the radar until the children manage to escape the home.
Homeschooled children aren't playing outside with other children as much as children who attend school do. When Ruby Franke pulled her children out of school neighbours reported that they didn't see her children out on errands or taking the dog for a walk like they used to when they went to school.
10:55 It's funny to me that, instead of having peer interactions/learning how to take turns/learning how to share, etc, parents are sitting their kids in front of computers and claiming that's somehow better?
right like technology is great but that shouldn't be the onyl tjing ppl use, especially for education 😭 theres a reason schools r in person
and the funny thing is that a lot of these parents stress the importance of "being natural" while using an app for teaching is about as unnatural as it can get
I was "unschooled" my entire life, I've just turned 18 and I am entirely physically and emotionally dependent on my mother, I am years behind my peers academically, my social development has been so severely impacted that I was misdiagnosed with ASD, and have spent the last five years constantly in and out of hospitals and ICU's with severe Anorexia. I'd like to think I could have been somewhat functional as an adult if I had gone to school.
The problem with things like unschooling is, it doesn't work in the modern US. If they lived somewhere, where they're basically inheriting their parents jobs, they would definitely benefit from being included in their lifes like that, because it'd basically be job training. But if the parents job isn't what they're showing them and instead for example social media or remote work it doesn't really prepare them for their future job.
This is so frustrating as someone who was homeschooled growing up. People confuse this with actual homeschooling, and it gives it a bad name.
Growing up, I had an actual curriculum. I also went to a homeschool group at least once a week.
My mom also used these "teaching moments," but she combined them with a real education. She let us study our interests, along with all the necessary information we needed.
Homeschooling isn’t for everyone, and that's okay. But parents like this make all homeschool parents seem neglectful and lazy.
I was homeschooled too! I definitely agree! I had a very complicated curriculum too. I had to apply everything I learned practically. The studying I did was kind of harsh actually 😂 so I was definitely pissed seeing this lady give us a bad rep
Nope. We can see the difference. I am pro homeschooling! Not unschooling. There should be some type of curriculum and structure to schooling. It may not look the same as traditional schooling necessarily. However for students to be successful that's what they need.
@@amberblosser814 Both deserves to be banned.
that's exactly the problem. They don't trust the school system, but they're not able or willing to do it themselves, either. In this case, I would say, they should try to fork some money over for a private school.
@@NotYomama13 Private schools aren’t always great either. At the one I was enrolled in [before my mom started homeschooling me] I was bullied badly and those kids got off the hook because their parents worked there and just didn’t fill out the paperwork
It'd be one thing if the parents were both extremely educated and disciplined instructors who made their children's education a priority, but the _vast_ majority of "unschooling" bohemians are not even close to approaching that level.
Reminds of some stories and movies where they'll depict a family (usually of three people) living in remote areas like the Amazon rainforest because one or both parent(s) work as professor(s)/researcher(s). I think there's one that is a real life story though where a girl survived in Amazon rainforest for like 10 days (?) after a plane crashed. Her parents teaches her a lot about survival skills and some other stuffs which really helped.
@@nurnadhirahsaing6169Yeah that was Juliane Koepcke
being a child of divorce where I couldn't settle down because me and my sibling were forced to switch houses/parents we stayed with every other week messed me up so bad. feeling like there is no place for me in this world and never feeling comfortable making a space for myself because "what if I have to pack and live from bags again?". I can't imagine how much worse living on the road is. sure, maybe they don't have to pack their things every other week because they live in the van, but they need to do it with connections and places they could have gotten attached to. To me, it's quite obvious that instead of never being comfortable being unpacked and having a space they most likely are never comfortable forming attachments because "what if I'm ripped away from this again?"
Imagine being stuck in a tiny ass box with your obnoxious parents with no friends
Correction...your obnoxious parents, and mom's creepy Ex
Even worse would be to attend a boarding school. You are stuck sharing a dormitory with children you didn't know before you started at that school. You become estranged from parents, siblings and the friends you had back home. There are school holidays but a few months is a long time in a child's life so their parents don't recognise them after one term. There is very little adult supervision in the evenings and at weekends during the term time. House masters would have up to 50 children to look after.
Ex boarders say that the friends they made weren't real friends but ones that became a substitute for family amd that had common enemies. They were friends made in adversity. They could not confide much with their school friends.
You know. I had learning a learning disability (ADHD) and my parents sat me down after 5th grade and told me… “Great job! You graduated! Now we are pulling you out of public school and putting you in homeschool with your sister who is a year behind you. Oh, yeah! We can’t pay for 2 years of curriculum so you will have to repeat the 5th grade with your sister!” I ended up readying “curriculum” from a binder, doing the lessons with no oversight and crammed 4 years into 3 going year round. No wonder high school was so hard! I didn’t learn anything in middle school!
I absolutely loved the raising your hand to speak system. I'm autistic and struggled a lot understanding social rules, one of the hardest things for me was knowing when it was appropriate to ask questions and that you shouldn't talk over someone else. As such, I started raising my hand when I had something I wanted to say even outside of school. My family would know I had something to say and let me know when was good to speak. After doing that for a while, I understood when it was appropriate to speak and when it wasn't so I didn't need to raise my hand anymore.
Throughout my childhood, if I was ever confused or unsure, I would raise my hand again. It gave me security and comfort knowing that if I ever had any trouble socially, I just had to raise my hand and my family would be there to help me understand.
Thank you for making this video funny. As someone who studies educational technology and pedagogy, without any humour in it I would've had a panic attack and went into depressive episode. Unschooling is cool if you can provide your kids in high-class education and ensure their growth on all levels. Letting your child learn only the things they're interested in is extremely harmful, seeing these babies in clips that were shown made me cry. If they're happy now, it doesn't mean it's good for them.
it’s so frustrating to me as someone who is the first generation college student/grad student. my mom was literally addicted to drugs and my entire family has been in deep poverty. education is the only way i was able to escape that cycle. these people are screwing over their kids for no reason. education isn’t just good for intelligence but also for all the social experiences that come from being in some sort of educational pathway (a ton of people do homeschooling and have homeschool groups that seem to do wonders!). i feel so sorry for these kids
"random junkie in portugal" feels like a predictionk of how those children are going to end up as adults
As an education major, a lot of the things that these people talk about goes against everything I’ve learned so far. It is incredibly difficult to provide a fully comprehensive education without formal training and access to a lot of resources. Children can learn independently, but that will never be on the same level as what they are capable of when provided with an appropriate learning environment + instruction.
The lack of care of these parents show for their children is extremely concerning and saddening. The kids deserve better 😢
(This is not to say that all teachers are great, either! I’ve had my fair share of horrible teachers over the years, and I know that some make learning difficult, if not impossible. Unfortunately, this movement is not a solution. It would be great if it was.)
If she's in Portugal by law, if the children are over 6 they must be enrolled in school ;)
The parents are German (at least she is) they used to travel around as a couple with their infant kids. Homeschooling in Germany is also forbidden by law but there are very few exceptions with tight restrictions (e.g. when a kid is a professional athlete and has to travel a lot). In these cases there are highly specialized schools/teachers who do online classes. Apart from that the parents also have to provide the mandatory school books etc. So what the parents in the first video are doing is actually illegal.
Don't get me wrong, It's getting better, but the Portuguese state really does not have it's shit together right now.
If the family is not registered as residents there is no way the goverment knows those children don´t go to school. It seems that they move around a lot, and probably the kids don´t even have an ID
So damn glad that school attendance is compulsory in Germany 💀 That shit would not slide here (thankfully)
The first woman is from Germany. At least that is what everyone says
@@andromedamessier3176 But there is a difference between whether she is from germany or also living in Germany. For example, homeschooling is outlawed entirely here.
Being thankful to N@zis for their policies? Wild.
@@Ayisakithat's insane that you think the government can tell you what to do with YOUR KIDS. It's not the governments property to literally punish you if your don't obey the state's idea of education.
@@DoubleDwarf I think it's more 'insane' that you think It's negative for a government to have laws *ENSURING* *proper* *education* and stating that everyone has a right to be educated. The legal framework around truancy in Germany emphasizes compulsory education because it's one of the best methods (not saying it's not flawed, but it makes sure that there is a proper routine and curriculum in the children's lifes and social lifes), and the consequences are generally focused on ensuring school attendance, which includes fines where the amount varies in each state, rather than imposing severe punitive measures like jail time (or, one example; unless there are multiple cases of truancy for a child under 14, which counts as child neglect.)
Yeah, really insane.
Oh gosh I can't imagine the TORTURE! as I kid all I wanted was to see my friends and hang out with them. Being with my parents 24/7 in a cubicle on wheels? No thanksss
Samee
Playing is learning for children AND the parent should observe their play and extend the concepts by adding books/guided activities and having discussions based on their interests. Play based learning is intrinsically motivated and requires a lot of attention from the adult. It's a way to keep learning interesting and within a natural concept. Their interests can be used as a stepping stone for any subject.
One person who understands the concept of unschooling.
This unschooling sounds very helpful for learning until they are like 7. Children at that time are trying to understand the world and going into the forest, the zoo etc helps a lot. But honestly after that, the child will loose a lot of potential. Children don't become doctors or engineers by living in nature. Or else we would have had these jobs during the stone age
That actually makes sense, and explains why like kindergarten and to some extent first grade has a lot of these “unschooling” experiential elements thrown in. I remember having a lot more play time, recess, interactive activities, etc at school around that age, and it was way more memorable than doing worksheets at a desk lol. I do feel like older kids could still benefit from more integrated experiential learning but it does need to be balanced more with making sure the necessary material is covered, especially as kids get to high school math and science.
This
Unschooling/homeschooling people with kids who can't read yet (when their peers of similar abilities can) is really sad. It's such limiting thing and there is a key window for developing it as a skill. Setting their kids up for failure from the first day
Reading? Even adults can learn how to read.
Sooo my cousins did something like this for a few years. BUT the momma is actually a teacher, and they connected with other "worldschooling" families so their kids could interact with other kids regularly. My cousins also aren't influencers making money off their kids and sponsorships on social media. The kids are all really bright, intelligent, and friendly, so something was done right. They're back in their suburban life now. I don't know if this Van Life schooling is good long-term, but I think it's possible to do it well short-term. These momfluencer van life unschoolers are not examples of the right way.
This "mother" haphazardly outsources her child's education to an app? And their entire "education" comes from a mobile device?
It's kind of insane how some people dont understand how much stability means. From the parents mental health to the child's and the place they call home. All of those aspects need to be stable for the development of the child.
I’ve moved 15x across country. My family finally broke up in CA and I’ve been stable in one place the last 7yrs the longest ever, the chaos of always being on the move is not missed at all lol
All these parents are ruining their relationships with their children before either understand it’s happening. A lot of these Van-Life kids are gonna get to 18 and feel so isolated. They either become adult children incapable of holding down a job, or become successful and resentful of the parents who left them on their own and didn’t set their kid up for success.
I went to traditional school for most of my life and in my teens, I started traveling with my father for work and did online schooling. It was also my choice to go, my siblings were adults at the time so I could have stuck to traditional education by staying with one of them, so it wasn't as if I was forced to do so.
There was a lot I did like about traveling and not sticking to traditional school, I was able to learn more about myself and what I like and dislike without feeling pressured into following what everyone else was into. I was able to take more time for hobbies. When doing school work my teachers wanted us to use the internet to our advantage and try to look at history from different perspectives rather than just what the textbooks told us.
Those things were all nice.
But on the other hand, I was lonely. I didn't have other kids my age to talk to. Traveling all the time didn't give me any chance to make any meaningful connections and it really made it hard for me to catch onto normal social cues and to communicate with people well because I was so nervous whenever I was in a setting where I was around anyone I wasn't already familiar with.
My parents tried to help me be social, it wasn't from a lack of trying on their part, but constantly being the "new kid" isn't fun. People already had other friends with deeper connections and I was never in one place long enough to be able to create a deep friendship.
I cannot imagine having to do that my whole life. The intense anxiety I had just from dealing with this for a few years still follows me today, these children are going to have such a hard time navigating the world when they get older, and I have no doubt most of them are going to grow up miserable with having no privacy and no one to talk to besides their family or the adults their family surrounds themselves with.
and what I was doing wasn't even unschooling and it still fucked me up. people really don't understand (or maybe they just don't care) that they're doing a huge disservice to their children by not giving them a proper education. there are plenty of things to be upset about with how schools teach children, but it's still better than them not being taught at all. children need to know these things, and it's up to the adults in their lives to encourage them and help them when needed.
Omg I misread the thumbnail as "Unschooling this man"...💀
I remember watching an episode of Wife Swap (early 2000s reality show) that featured a family that unschooled their kids. Their pre-teen daughter didn't know what an octopus was.
The last lady was saying her kids are in Special Ed because she unschooled them. IEP is Individualized Education plan for special ed kids. I assume they have “specific learning disability” as their exceptionality category, it’s usually what kids raised in poverty who can’t read end up being given special education services for.
I think she was saying that her children had learning disabilities, but she didn’t realize it. If the children had been in school, the disabilities would have been caught much earlier, and now the opportunity for early intervention has been lost.
My parents organised mail and paper home schooling while bouncing across Europe when I was a kid. I’m old lol. People with devices and internet have it so much better and unschooling is what happened?
Unschooling happens on devices. People just don't understand the concept.
I hated school, from start to finish, and my senior year of high school I was looking forward to the 12-year torture of finally ending. But I know that a big part of what made it horrible was, ironically, my lack of knowledge to deal with certain situations. The education system has many shortcomings, but it is still one of the best ways to gain knowledge, and knowledge is our best tool to grow as people in every way. In order to replace everything a school offers you would have to work twice as hard as a parent.
One on one individual learning is even better way to gain knowledge if you are privileged enough.
When bae uses cute nicknames like 'junkie i found on the streets of portugal" ❤
I know a family like this. Seven kids. They live in a house in the mountains. Mom keeps them home more than sends them to school. (Private so she gets away with it.)
To be fair, they all read and reason well above grade level. They are also insanely creative, like most homeschoolers. But, since they aren't forced to consistently interact with outsiders, they act like straight up zoo animals. It finally strained my friendship with mom to the breaking point.
I went to school, but my mom did these things with me on weekends and over the summer. How do these parents not understand that they can still do their things with their kids with a regular school schedule?
Magic School Bus reference + that realistic passenger bumpy road acting? 10/10 intro skit
IM SO HAPPY ITS A LATE START AT MY SCHOOL. Because I get to watch your videos at 7:30 AM
It really feels like a lot of these kinds of parents are treating their kids like an accessory for their van life. Like they weren’t ready to settle down and do right by the kids but know that kids make good content so had them anyways.
My mother has a bipolar disorder, we moved 5 times before I was 7. Because of divorced parents and my father insisting on us staying in the same school, we didn't move too far... but also, half of the year my mom would take me and my sister in the car, road for 2 days and go to our grandma's place near the sea. When I say half the year I mean all holidays but ALSO, because my father was in hospital for 5 months, my mom decided we didn't need to go to school and we went living in the south for that time. As much as I loved those long road trips towards the sun, life wasn't all fun and games with a lot of other family issues and I began to develop a huge fear of instability and change. Then when I was 11 my mom went to hospital for 3 years and we stayed with our dad only. He insisted that we stayed in the same home for our whole scolarity, and didn't even wanted to live with our stepmom. I am really thankful to finally have had that stability, to be able to grow, meet friends and develop my hobbies. But my fear of change is still here - I know I have to move to my own appartment, I want it and dream of living in another city but the idea of leaving my home gives me so much anxiety. This video actually made my realize that no stability in early years can be long term damaging, no matter how fun a trip can be... Thank you for that.
I’m a kindergarten teacher and waiting your turn to speak is very important. It teaches respect for others, patience and how to slow down and listen to others. And then they get given that respect in return.
While social media can popularize dangerous trends and lifestyles, it also brings to light and gives a inside look about things I would only hear in passing once in a while, and not think its that bad based off the summary. I would have no idea how terrible it really was without people self-reporting themself and posting it online.
It makes me wonder how their parents earn a living while on the road in a van? Are they digital nomads?
driving around wasting gas for no reason failing to prepare their kids for adulthood
As a son of a Military family I can account moving every 3 years was a mess mentally. But what these kids go through should count as child neglect. Those kids are gonna be messed up mentally & academically bc if I got messed up moving mid semester 3-5 times what these kids are getting is just sad.
Lived in a house bus in NZ as a kid and was mostly home schooled. Was a great childhood and I learnt a lot that has helped me in life. Gone on to be a marine technician with the navy, have my own business with 13 employees and have a family of my own. So much of what I have achieved has its roots in my upbringing. If done right this lifestyle is very rewarding, but it takes work and must not be treated as a big holiday.
As a child i had a bad problem with talking over people.
Raising my hand and learning when to speak was a valuable skill
I can't even begin to imagine how confused those kids are, living with both their biological dad, and what would be their step-dad. Like, they seem pretty young. Also, poor kids don't even have friends. All they have is literally each other. I can just hope her ex-husband and boyfriend aren't the 'jealous' types. That'd be even worse for the kids, if they were constantly arguing.
I have recently read a long article written by a woman who was on a boat for a decade with her brother and their parents as a child and how horrible it was from her perspective despite everyone thinking they were privileged. How she just wanted a dog, a home, friends and a stable education instead of spending her childhood in a small enclosed space with her parents and having to help out with a ton of daily chores. She has never forgiven her parents.
I read that too. She didn't come into contact with anyone else while at sea only while in ports. She couldn't storm off somewhere when in a bad mood or for privacy. Plus she missed out on friends.
6:50 before I watch further, I’m assuming they’re taking Montessori’s without the structure that’s actually needed to make a week rounded child? This is coming from someone who works with children. Lead them to their interest, but every video I’ve seen it’s just parents giving them one option and never showing them other options (ideas) that the kids could just turn down and maybe come back to later.
There is actually structure and research behind the “non structure”…there is intention.
I had a normal school, but we changed the place three times, so I had to change my school three times. And even that minor change in stability left emotional damage on me. Kids need stability, clear rules in community and rich social life.
My ex wife pulled our kids out of school for unschooling about a year before we separated. I was against it completely because I knew there was no way they would keep up with others their age doing that.
This was about a decade ago and both kids now resent their mother for doing this to them. Once they went back to school it had set them back a few years and so it took them longer to graduate and continue with their adult lives.
4:53 not the Duolingo sound 😂💀
😂😂😂😂😂
Hey with the amount of teachers saying parents are responsible for their child's learning and also saying a huge chunk of children are magically making it to 7th grade but can barely read or write....sounds like kids are being let down everywhere
These people are parents that refuse to sacrifice, they want to have their cake and eat it too, they want to live a childfree lifestyle and also have 6 kids.
I see a lot of parents who send their children to normal schools bit still want their child free life not just on Friday or Saturday nights but all the time. So they drag their children around to where they want to go not where their children need or want to go or take it in turns.
I see stay at home working class mothers in pubs with pre school children in term time and school age children as well in the school holidays. Then the whole family in the pub after school, and at weekends. The middle class stay at home mothers are in the coffee shops.
It breaks my heart as the children look so bored as they would rather be at home when the weather is bad or out in the fresh air when the weather is goof..
My neighbour and her husband have a 2 room apartment, works from home. She recently adopted a school-aged kid and it took her a week to realize their apartment is too small to accommodate everyone despite renovating it last year and she's now looking to move. That's a normal sized apartment mind you... I cannot imagine living in a van with MULTIPLE children...
I'm a high school teacher. The USA has its issues, but our education system is NOT one of them. The European and Asian models can literally ruin a person's life if you have one bad testing day. Here, graduate high school and you've got a clean slate to do whatever you're capable of. Will you go into debt for college? Yes. Is it worth it? Also yes. I'm 31 and still paying back student loans, but budgeting is something I learned in math class at my private school -- not in a van.
That lady dancing with those very concerning statements on the screen was uncanny.
Unschooling is insane to me, denying your child an education and a chance to choose how they would like pursue their life…is so disgusting to me. I hold eduction in such a high regard, because of my own family. My nana never finished school because she had to work and then she became a wife and mother. I still think of how she would try to help me with my maths homework, and it was all new to her, she was learning along side me. I will never forget how her dream was to go to school it’s all she wanted.
Yeah, unschooling is absolutely disgusting to me
I understand the point the van life mom makes about the bullying issue in schools. I was one of the favourite victims of bullies during my years in middle school, and it got to the point that I literally avoided going to school, almost becoming an hikikomori. I remember that almost every morning I felt physically sick a the thought of going to school, not having a circle of friends to talk with and being mocked by other classmates. I lost many friends in those years, due to my phone addiction and unrestricted access to internet.
But I think that this experience, even if deeply hurtful, shaped me. The world is made of assholes that will do everything to hurt you, and school makes you learn it (in a cruel way sometimes), sometimes you will get help, other times you won't get it. For me, salvation was high school because I changed city and I got to study things that I loved (and it's a really big privilege! Not anyone can study what they like)
An important thing that school does is teaaching you basic subjects that give you skills for a basic start in life, that are tied to extracurricular activities. Some subjects can become an interest or passion and with the instruments school gives, you can choose your own path and leaarn things on your own when the formative school years are over.
School should be accessible to everyone, but even now it's a privilege for a lot of people. My parents come from a family of farmers and value a lot school, always telling me how important is having the privilege to learn and be able to make a good future for yourself. This trend is one of the most dangerous for kids in the long run (you can't give them a tablet to learn things on UA-cam and leave them alone to make yourself a margarita, Susan. Send the gremlins to school)
Right and the solution to this isn't: remove your audhd child from school so they don't get bullied.
It's advocate for trade schools so the nasty stupid bullies stop taking space up in schools
No, children should not experience what you have experienced. I don't know about you, but chronic stress and trauma will affect one's brain and give them longterm problems. You could have been shapen with kind attitude and peace to learn well enough.
School is terrible for those without friends there. That's why so many make friends with just about anyone who would have them rather than people they actually like. So you then have to adapt to what they like doing. I had religious friends and hedonistic friends who were going to pop concerts and drinking alcohol there from the age of 13 and I felt I had little in common with them. I still wanted to go roller skating and on country walks.
As a German this is so crazy since home schooling is not allowed. Taking your kids out of school without permission of the school can lead to high financial penalties for the parents (if they get caught).
I'm a teacher (high school level). I could home school kids in kindergarten and primary school (first language, maths, history, geography, sciences - I know enough to teach all of this on "kid level") but I'd never dare to try to homeschool a kid past primary school (english is not my first language, so, to be right and clear: kids who are more than 12yo) -- because I could only teach my field. Having graduated the other fields only means I know the basic stuff. I could help my kid with the homeworks (because it's just re-explaining what the teacher already wrote on the course notes), but that's it.