This week on the podcast, we’re revisiting a conversation I had with Teresa Graham Brett back in 2016. Teresa is currently the associate dean of diversity and inclusion at the University of Arizona’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She’s an unschooling mom of two and author of the book Parenting for Social Change.

Teresa’s background as a social justice educator gives her a unique perspective on parenting and unschooling. We talked about adultism, the conventional controlling parenting paradigm, screen time, and ways to move towards a more respectful, supportive parent/child relationship. Teresa shared so many stories from her unschooling journey and many profound realizations and a-ha moments. Her focus on creating social change is inspiring and just as timely and valuable today as it was when we recorded this interview. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Ten Questions for Teresa

1. Can you share with us a bit about your family, and how you came to unschooling?
2. I’d love to hear more about your unschooling kids. What are they interested in right now? How are they pursuing it? How did that interest come about?
3. You have written on your blog about the concept of adultism. Can you explain how you define it and give us a couple of examples?
4. One of the consequences of adultism and looking at life through an adult-centric filter is that we often see children as “adults-in-training.” You have a great section about that in your book. Can you share what you see as the implications of that perspective? And how can we move away from it?
5. In the book, you also make a great distinction between power and control. And you emphasize that, “letting go of control doesn’t mean we abdicate our responsibility to care for the children in our lives.” How do those ideas all weave together?
6. As people come to unschooling, they usually have a lot of questions surrounding “screen time,” or, I like your phrase, media access. I think that’s because the dominant cultural story is all about how dangerous it is: addictive, violent, mind-numbing, creativity-sucking. Can you share your story?
7. You identify a number of tools that parents can use as they shift from controlling parenting to supportive parenting. There are three I’d love if you could touch on for us: accepting our feelings; mindfulness; and awareness. Can you describe what they are and how they can help us shift away from the impulse to control?
8. You book is titled, Parenting for Social Change. Here’s a short quote I love from the book: “By the simple, but often challenging, act of redefining our relationships with children, we can begin the process of creating profound social change.” Can you talk about the social change aspect?
9. What has been one of the more challenging aspects for you on your unschooling journey so far?
10. Looking back now, what, for you, has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?

Links to things mentioned in the show

Teresa’s website: Parenting for Social Change

and Facebook page: Parenting for Social Change

Teresa on Facebook: Teresa Graham Brett

Transcript

Read the transcript

Have a question about unschooling?

Submit your question here for an upcoming Q&A episode!

The Living Joyfully Network community

The Network is a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Our shared goals are to embrace lifelong learning, develop strong and connected relationships with our children, and cultivate a thriving unschooling lifestyle in our families.

This month, our theme is Navigating Conflict and we’re looking through the lenses of curiosity and connection. If you’re curious to learn more, click here!

Consider becoming a podcast patron

I deeply appreciate all my patrons. Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Connect with Pam

Website

Instagram

Facebook