Rating: 
Summary: An inspiring read!
Review: As an unschooling parent of two, this book was inspiring and reaffirming. Reading about how Valerie raised her daughter, Laurie, in complete freedom and with total respect showed me again that this is what I want my children to have. Valerie wasn't afraid to write about mistakes she had made or to proudly describe Laurie's accomplishments. Valerie writes about a number of subjects, from respect and trust to curfews and sex. It's so refreshing to hear from a parent who has embraced parenting and enjoyed being with her child! Even if you aren't unschooling or homeschooling, any person who is a parent, plans to become one, works with children or just wants to read a perspective other than society's norm, please read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Every parent should read this book!
Review: Finally a book about peaceful, gentle, respectful parenting! Valerie Fitzenreiter shares experiences from her unschooled daughter Laurie's childhood, and insights into a radical way of parenting. Valerie and Laurie's story will inspire any parents who strive for a closer, more fulfilling relationship with their child/ren. If you are interested in unschooling, want to raise a child in freedom, or simply want to improve your relationship with your child/ren, buy this book!
Rating: 
Summary: This is NOT an unschooling book.
Review: I have read about half of this book and am not sure if I will even finish it. It was not what I expected at all - not much at all about "unschooling" - what they did, how or what the girl learned. It is really about the author's beliefs on child rearing. Some of it I agree with as I am a VERY AP/unschooling parent. I believe in and practice extended and unrestricted breastfeeding, the family bed, babywearing, etc as well as respecting your child's feelings. However, this woman seems to take it to the extreme of practically worshipping the child. It seems she believes parents should sacrifice their own happiness and comfort and NEVER make the child do anything. I just think that is wrong and will result in a very selfish person. She believes that it's wrong for parents to ask children to stop doing all of their "important" things to help clean "their" (the parents') house. Excuse me but my children live here, too, it's their house as much as it is mine so I feel it is their responsibility to help clean it and not just their rooms. They eat here, they generate dirty laundry and other messes - they should help in those areas as well. Also, while I feel that my children's time is valuable so is mine and my husband's so why should I always interrupt what I'm doing to clean or wait hand and foot on my children? If they're really engrossed in something I will often wait for them to do their "job" or even do it for them but I feel that children owe their parents the same respect that we owe them. The author also made a big to do about a friend of her daughter's who had five siblings and lived on a farm and the poor kids had to work all the time. She said that the parents CHOSE to have "all those kids" and live "that lifestyle" and the poor kid (her dd's friend) shouldn't have to suffer because of it. As a parent of six beautiful blessings I was very offended by that remark. Yes I "chose" to have all of these kids as well as any future ones I may have and I also "chose" to have two horses. My children all help out a LOT, more than most kids their age. Do you think any of them would give up any of their siblings or their horses for an "easier" life? Not a chance! While there may be grumblings from time to time about chores and sibling squabbles they all love each other dearly and they are responsible, caring, empathetic, generous, joyful young people BECAUSE of their family size and the way they've been raised (chores and all), not in spite of it. They all love each other dearly and are very close. Everyone I know compliments me on how wonderful they all are. The younger three (6, 3 & 3 months) adore the older three (17, 14 & 10) and vice versa. When my teens have been out and come home the little ones run to greet them and the teens can't wait to hug them, ask them what they've been doing, etc. My 10 year old son adores "his" baby brother (As do all of the other kids - they fight over the baby - over who GETS to take care of him, not who HAS to!) and comes every morning to get him out of my bed to play with him. How many 10 year old boys do you know who beg to bathe, dress, and change the diapers of their infant brother as well as read stories to and play with him? None of these things are "CHORES" I make him do but things he wants to do. He'll also volunteer to help our neighbor unload groceries or entertain a housefull of 2-5 year olds at a party as well as setup and cleanup afterwards. My MIL was very impressed on her recent visit when he made her a complete breakfast of bacon, eggs, and biscuits one morning while I was still in bed! My older girls are very sought after babysitters because they are so helpful and responsible. Even the three year old loves to help out around the house - she knows she's a valuable member of the family. Chores help children learn responsibility and generosity and self-sacrifice - valuable attributes in this me-me world. The author thinks parents who choose large families are selfish - maybe I think parents who choose small famulies are selfish for denying their children all the wonderful, dynamic relationships and experiences you can only GET in a large family. Also, my parents divorced when I was young and my sister and brother and I did ALL of the housework so that my mom could work fulltime and we could still have a nice home. We worked hard and may have grumbled a bit then but I wouldn't change it ONE BIT because it taught us responsibility and to put the good of our whole family above our own individual (selfish) needs. (And yes, I do know when and how to say "No" and how to make sure my own needs are met when appropriate!) If you want a book on how to be a slave to your child and how to raise a selfish pig this is it. If you want a great book of an inspiring unschooling experience - cools things they did or read or learned, etc, it definitely is NOT. There are so many wonderful unschooling books out there: "The Joyful Homeschooler", "Christian Unschooling", John Holts books, etc. I'm reading "Homeschooling Our Children, Unschooling Ourselves" and I can hardly put that one down. Yes, children should be given freedom to decide what and how they learn but they still need to be taught responsibility and how to respect others. You do not have to be a martyr to be an unschooling parent!
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Every Parent
Review: I have read and reread this book. I loan it to friends and give it as gifts. This book describes how parenting should be. How we should live with our children, not waiting for what they might become. Enjoying every moment in life. This is a great example of peaceful parenting, respecting children for the individuals they are. With the goal to support that individual watching their life unfold in front of your eyes. Every child should be treated with the same respect, trust and dignity as Valerie's child. What a wonderful testament to the parent child bond. What that bond should be. What unschooling is truly about. What a wonderful book. I can't recommend it enough.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Every Parent
Review: I have read and reread this book. I loan it to friends and give it as gifts. This book describes how parenting should be. How we should live with our children, not waiting for what they might become. Enjoying every moment in life. This is a great example of peaceful parenting, respecting children for the individuals they are. With the goal to support that individual watching their life unfold in front of your eyes. Every child should be treated with the same respect, trust and dignity as Valerie's child. What a wonderful testament to the parent child bond. What that bond should be. What unschooling is truly about. What a wonderful book. I can't recommend it enough.
Rating:
Summary: Cover to cover, it is the best.
Review: I personally have not read the book, but living with Valerie and Laurie for about 6 years has shown me so much. From the way Laurie is raised, to the bond she has with her mother. I'm sure the book will be one of my best reads. At least until Laurie writes one or I finish writing mine. So grab a copy and start learning.
(John Machulski - Cover Designer)
Rating: 
Summary: Smug parenting
Review: I read this book expecting to love it -- I am beginning to unschool my daughter, and I'm eager to hear about other people's experiences. I also agree with most of the author's parenting philosophy, and believe that her daughter turned out to be a wonderful, happy person. Yet the tone of this book is annoyingly self-righteous and strangely narrow-minded. There is no room in the author's view for the validity of other parents' choices for their children; in her opinion, if they persue more traditional paths of raising kids, they are just plain wrong. I was disappointed. The book is also unfortunately poorly edited, with many basic grammatical errors. I am still all for the philosophy behind Ms. Fitzenreiter's book, but I wish it had been written with a more open-minded spirit and more skillfully.
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Summary: Definitely IS an Unschooling Book
Review: I wish the recent disappointed reviewer would read to the end of this book, and perhaps look into some of the rigorous Unschooling discussions that are currently online, instead of making offensive personal judgments like "selfish pig" about a young person she has never met. They could change her thinking and show her that Valerie's family is not unique in their journey. There are hundreds of families engaging in the kind of parenting that Valerie Fitzenreiter so clearly illustrates, that repeatedly demonstrate results that are the exact opposite of what that reader fears: children who joyfully engage in a variety of academic or professional pursuits as they age, happily help out without being asked and actually do more than if they had assigned chores, and consistently become responsible, unselfish and socially conscious people. I loved this book when I read it because the niche that it fills is that it is a personal story with the always-unschooled child having become an adult, rather than being written by someone whose children are still young ("school age") - although of course these are also valuable contributions to the broader picture of unschooling. It is certainly true that this book is not a basic primer on how to approach the educational component of unschooling; those useful books also exist. This is Advanced "whole life" Unschooling. It doesn't end with not tutoring math or history. It also means abandoning the idea that children "still need to be taught responsibility and how to respect others" in favor of treating them with deep and genuine respect, modeling responsible behavior, and trusting that they will mirror how they are treated. Many Unschoolers have expanded their thinking past the merely educational, and are also beyond a lot of modern parenting and its discourses. This book is about changing your parenting on a deep thought level. Valerie shows us how she accomplished that, and the fantastic results. In the wider parenting world the word "limits", or more usually "setting limits", is a buzz word phrase - jargon of supposedly aware parenting, which unfortunately can often be translated into "controlling the children's behavior". "Limits" can mean "what parents tolerate in their comfort zone". Similarly, the term "consequences" is often a euphemistic way of saying "punishments" - even though time outs or grounding or extra chores are orders of magnitude better than old fashioned strategies like screamed insults, shame and guilt, spanking, being sent to bed with or without supper, or being sent off to military school or ensconced in a nunnery. Another modern parenting idea is "Give your children choices". How could this be problematic for Unschoolers? Well, I recall an episode of a TV talk show, where a very nice modern mother was enthusing about the various strategies she uses for ease of parenting and family life - her big tool was "giving kids choices" that included which color of jacket to put on. For anyone who has been around unschooling for even a little while, it just looks like manipulation. The choices aren't real, they are "practice choices" in situations that are resoundingly trivial, because the idea is to fool the kid into behaving a certain way, and any alternative outside of the two or three parent sanctioned ideas is not "given". Again, a huge improvement over no choices at all and fear-based obedience, but not as enlightened or contented as Unschooling can be. Unschoolers are usually on a path towards real choices that their children "make" rather than being "given" or "permitted". It becomes about "creating" an environment and lifestyle where the children, and indeed the adults in the family, have the opportunity to make real choices, or dither about making them. A principles-based lifestyle, instead of a hierarchy. This is what Valerie is demonstrating. It becomes about letting go of the need to ensure that they are "learning from their mistakes" and not have every bad result elucidated for them, as if they were too stupid to notice that they felt cold when they didn't choose any jacket. When consequences are seamlessly obvious, they need not be mentioned. This way of living lets the thought processes behind choices stay unsullied by the suspicion that the parents are trying to manage and control. It becomes about a parent not being emotionally attached to the free advice they are able to give, when asked. Children actually trust their parents to express only truthful and plausible misgivings, and help brainstorm around those problems. It means that the parents get to own and express their own varying comfort levels, without the rigid concept of "setting limits". It means that the children don't have to constantly look for the delineation of those limits and test their validity. Laurie (Valerie's daughter) has discovered that her joy lies in pursuing a life (at the moment) of academic and intellectual achievement. The irony of her becoming so evidently successful by all the usual measures (ie her grade point average), is that some people are apparently irritated by Valerie's immense pride in her daughter, and the enriched life they have made. Would they feel this way about a parent having pride in their regularly parented and schooled child who became valedictorian? What they may be failing to realize is that the pride stems from Laurie having the vision and courage to pursue her individual calling - not what that particular calling has turned out to be. Other people's success will look different. Many families are engaged in the freedom based life of advanced Unschooling. What they have in common is a greater measure of joy.
Rating:
Summary: If I could go back and choose how things might be...
Review: Society's Child
childhood aches and childhood pain
Bullies all around my tears cried in vain
World full of reminders that I just ain't good enough
Parents and teachers add to it, and making me tough
If I could go back and choose how things might be
I'd choose to be a child who's loved and cherished and free This was my first reaction after reading this book. Far to many children have been deprived of a childhood before they have grown. Most of us have had to heal from our childhoods before we could start living. In today's society children who are made to run around and play are chained to a desk. As adults we get to come home from work and do what we choose, as children when we come home from school we still have chores and then homework. When do they really have time to just be. Reading this book gives me hope for future generations... People often say that babies should come with a manual and this fits the bill. It's about time someone taught us what it means to be a loving parent. I beleive that very few of us have the guts and stability it takes to raise a child right, myself included. Although my son was 16 when I read this book using it's phylosophies gave me more patience and improved my relationship with him. This book also made me a better person and helped me heal from many of my childhood aches and pains. I not only wished it was available when my son was a baby but I wish it was available to my parents as well. Changes occur slowly in our world but hopefully someday every child will know what it's like to be raised loved and cherished and free. Thank you Valerie for sharing your story , you are one of those rare people who did something positive to change the world by challenging the norm.
Rating:
Summary: Aggravating, not inspiring.
Review: Spare yourself the tedium of this clumsy book and stick to more acclaimed unschooling literature. Fitzenreiter is sound in her philosophy, but her self-righteous tone and narrow perspective promptly devalues the knowledge that she has to share.
The book is poorly written and its narrative too small to be of any relevance or inspiration. It is little more than a smug mother bragging about her perfect child, the result of her superior parenting skills. Annoying, and very obviously self published.
Not at all recommended.
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