252: From ‘Be the Best’ Anxiety to Trusting Your Child’s Natural Learning

I grew up in a family where the motto was be the best. And of course, I couldn't be the best at everything, academics, sports, music, art. So from a very early age, being the best was paired with you're not good enough in my brain and my body, and because of that, I experienced high levels of anxiety, you know, from not age nine or 10, and it only got worse as I got older, and I knew I didn't want this for Som. So my husband and I were fully aligned on following Som and his interests.

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Hello and welcome to The Your Parenting Mojo podcast. What would it look like if instead of trying to get our kids to be the best at everything, we actually let them be our teacher? Today, I'm talking with Sara. Sara grew up in a family where the motto was to be the best at everything. And that motto existed because Sara's parents wanted the best for her. And in some ways, it was quite successful, because now she's an accomplished architect. But in a lot of other ways, she struggles, and over the last year, she's realized that her four and a half year old son Som is showing her a different path, based on Dr. Alison Gopnik work, Sara calls it Som’s lantern consciousness, the way he has of taking everything in at a slow pace and making connections between ideas that she never would have thought a kid this young could make. And instead of trying to rush him or push him to perform, she's actually started seeing him as her mentor, and that has changed how she moves through the world as well. Now, I know that might sound a little bit weird at first, your preschooler as your mentor, but stay with us, because what Sara has discovered about supporting Som’s learning has completely shifted how she thinks about education and development. We're going to talk about what happened when Sara stopped trying to teach Som, what she found when she started following his lead instead. And we'll hear about how this approach is actually supporting Som’s development in ways that more traditional models of teaching and learning never could. If you've ever wondered whether there's another way to think about your child's learning, one that doesn't involve so much pressure and performance. This conversation might be just what you need to hear.

Hello and welcome to The Your Parenting Mojo podcast, and today I'm here with guest Sara, who is a parent of a young child in Vancouver I believe. So Sara, would you mind telling us just a little bit about who you are and something that's important to you.

Hi, Jen, thank you so much for having me. I am a 38-year-old architect from Iran, and I live in Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam Squamish and sole tooth peoples with my husband and four-and-a-half-year-old son. And one thing that's very important for me is nature, all the non-human beings that exist in equilibrium on this planet, if we let them.

If we can figure out a way to be an actual part of that, yes, equilibrium. Cool. So we have been working together for a little bit on supporting Som’s learning, and so I wanted to talk with you a little bit today about how you've kind of been on this journey over the last year or so, and how that's kind of unfolded for you, and where you are with it right now. So I guess I'm curious about what initially drew you to the idea of interest led learning with Som?

I grew up in a family where the motto was be the best. And of course, I couldn't be the best at everything, academics, sports, music, art, so from a very early age, being the best was paired with you're not good enough in my brain and my body. And because of that, I experienced high levels of anxiety, you know, from not age nine or 10, and it only got worse as I got older, and I knew I didn't want this for Som. So my husband and I were fully aligned on following Som and his interests, and I was very deep into research about this before I was born, my introduction to the idea of following the child was as I was researching the Montessori method as I was pregnant and it resonated a lot. So from day one, the ideas of freedom of movement, having a yes space and interest led explorations, were non negotiables for us, but there's this a big but we both work full time, and inevitably, we sent Som off to preschool. And one year into preschool, on top of his separation anxiety, which was pretty heart wrenching, he started to ask permission for things that he would never have asked permission for before, and that was heartbreaking for me. So in my panic, I started to look into unschooling and supporting his learning at home, but when I realized that unschooling is not something that we can manage short term because of my full-time job. I knew I needed more tools to make up for what he's being exposed to at preschool and later on in school. So that's when I discovered your Learning Membership, and the rest is kind of history.

And so I guess I'm curious, what kind of things was he asking permission to do that he wouldn't have asked for before, and why was that hard?

So he would feel like doing art, but he would come and ask me, oh, can I grab the markers? And that was very alarming to me, because we have, he has his yes space, his shelf with all of his supplies. And before preschool, he would just go grab whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. So I was like, Oh, of course you can. And in my mind, I was trying to imagine what his day looks like at preschool, and like the routine and all the control. And I was like, oh, he's bringing that from that environment that he has to check whatever he wants to do with an adult first. I never wanted to have that kind of relationship with him. No, the answer no for us in our home is saved for situations that are unsafe for him and everything else is supposed to be yes. So this was like a direct clash with our values.

Why? Why the Yes? Why the automatic Yes? What does that mean to you? Why is that important to you?

I would say I think the yes is tied to his innate drive and sense of autonomy, because I recognize him as a full human being with an independent drive and separate interest from mine. I can never know what exactly he's thinking or what goal he has so I am not qualified as a person outside of him to give him permission for what he's innately driven to do. That's why we wanted to both my husband and I were aligned on this. We wanted to minimize when we say no and have a really good reason for why we do that, so everything else would be a yes.

Wow. Okay, so I'm thinking about this in the context of your experience, right? One of the first things you said about yourself is you're from Iran, right? You're now in Canada, and I know your kind of experience as an immigrant is really important to you, and obviously your parents wanted the best for you, being the best is because they wanted the best for you. And in a Montessori school, right? I'm sure they want the best for your child. They are recognizing that a child who asks permission before using something is going to do well in school later in life, right? They're going to have a good relationship with the teacher. And so I guess I'm curious about your experience as an immigrant, and how that kind of informs the ways that you interact with Som and the ways that you think about someone's learning.

I thought that I was very clear on my values, aside from knowing that I don't want him to be the best at anything and put that pressure on him. I knew that I wanted to have a simple routine with lots of free time and interest led activities until his cohort turned four, and all of a sudden, all the kids were enrolled in multiple activities, swim lessons, soccer, ice skating, even musical theater. And I found myself questioning my approach, mostly because of the kind of insecurity that I was feeling as an immigrant. And I would ask myself, like, what if these extracurricular activities are essential for his success in this society? And like, what if we don't sign him up, and he's going to be at a disadvantage, and it'll be all my fault? So that was that was a big challenge, and I considering myself as an outsider to the dominant culture in Canada, was kind of pulling me into the spiral of, like, just constantly questioning myself and like losing sight of what's important. The membership actually kind of saved me from that. So I brought it up during a coaching call, and you told me something that has become sort of a compass for me and in situations like this, because they keep coming up. You asked, who is the child in front of you? And I've been asking myself that every time that I find myself questioning my values. You also said, what are your core values? So like always coming back to that, to the core values. And this freed me from all the judgment that I had about myself as an immigrant, and those ideas of being an outsider and not understanding what Som needs to thrive independently in this society, and I expect this to come up. You told me too that you know, everyone has these challenges, regardless of being an immigrant or not, but now I feel equipped that, you know, I have this compass I can I know what I have to come back to.

And who is the child in front of you mean to you? Why did that resonate so much?

It brings me to that idea of Som as a complete person that's outside of me so and because I had such a deep understanding of that from the time that I was pregnant with him, and like, the time that he was born, I can fall back on that because I know that as a truth, that he's an independent and separate person.

Yeah, yeah, it's been core to your values for so long. And ultimately, I think all of us, what we want is to be seen and known and understood and loved for who we really are, right? And that was something your parents had a hard time with, because they wanted you to be the best so that you could succeed in life, and that meant not accepting you for who you are inherently, because you want to be a better person, version of yourself, and you're really seeing Som and who he is as a person, it seems to me. So I know that one of the things that we have talked about is how the idea of being the best has led to a degree of perfectionism in you. And I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about how that has shown up in yourself and also in your relationship with Som as well.

I was convinced that setting impossible expectations and standard for myself was what got me to where I am now. It had actually worked pretty well for me.

You're pretty accomplished.

Yeah, but I suffer from the impact it has on my well-being, and I acknowledge that, and I feel it in my body. So I knew that I don't want to pass on my perfectionism down to Som, and I would consciously never correct any imperfections in his work. You know, a crooked sticker really bothers me, but I try to hide it as best as I can, because I see that he couldn't care less. I didn't realize what a strong grip perfectionism has on me until during one of the coaching calls for the Learning Membership, I was telling you about how our learning explorations with Som are not very creative, they're not good enough, they're not thorough enough, or how I'm not taking advantage of all the learning opportunities that present themselves. And you identified this as you identify this judgment that I have about our learning with Som as a manifestation of my perfectionism, and I had never thought about it that way, so that resonated so much. And it kind of alleviated all the anxiety and guilt that I was feeling and supporting Som ’s learning, because it's such a big part of my personality at this point, after all those years of like building up on it, I obviously like struggle with it, but I'm aware of it, and something that's helped me a lot through the Learning Membership is understanding how everything that Som does based on his own interest, he's learning a lot through it, regardless of how I kind of guide the explorations around it. So every time I hear that perfectionist in my brain, I'm like, breathe, that's your perfectionism talking.

I don't want you to sort of sense any pressure to answer this in a certain way. But I'm wondering if, if being more aware of your perfectionism in yourself, right aside from Som separating Som for a moment. If being more aware of that has supported you in any way, are you able to kind of release it a little bit now that you're more aware that it's there? Or does it not work like that at all for you?

I would say at this point it's more of a conscious effort, but it's definitely a step forward from how I used to be before. So I don't beat myself up as much. I have to consciously identify it and make an effort not to beat myself up. But to me, that's a step towards, ultimately, kind of internalizing that sense of ease and self-acceptance, and hopefully at some point getting rid of the perfectionism altogether. So yeah, big, big steps towards it. I feel hopeful.

Wow, that's not a bad spot to be feeling hopeful on a on a topic that has impacted you so much for so many years, so awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And so, yeah, so, I mean, I've really seen a shift in you over the last year or so, and it is sort of a cyclical thing, I think, isn't it? Right? Sometimes there's a you get yourself into a little bit of a hole, and then we have a conversation on a coaching call, and then you're like, okay, okay, I can, I can relax again. And then a month later, it might be a little bit of a different issue. And but overall, what I see is the holes are getting less deep, yeah. And so I am curious, I guess, from your perspective, what does it look like in terms of how your confidence has evolved over the last months? And from you know, from that journey of where you started to where you are now,

Initially, when I started the Learning Membership, I didn't know how learning happens, and I don't mean knowledge accumulation by memorization, which is mostly how I was schooled, but deep interest led place based whole bodied learning that can only happen when there is an internal drive as opposed to external pressure. But kind of diving into the Learning Membership, I felt pretty overwhelmed with the idea of learning explorations and kind of just wrapping my head around what my role is and how I can support Som’s learning.

Okay, I wonder if we can pause just there for a moment, because I think most, most parents might be like, what's a learning exploration? So from your perspective, what is a learning exploration?

From my perspective, a learning exploration is an exploration that starts with an interest or a question in my child, or from my child, and in kind of forming the learning exploration, I have a support role where I scaffold him by maybe asking some questions or throwing out some ideas without providing him with the answer if I know it and if I don't, which is even better, to kind of become a sounding board and guide him to opportunities to find answers to his questions or explore his ideas. And by that, I mean, you know, a four-and-a-half-year-old might not be aware that there's a museum where there are experts that he can ask, or there's, you know, a certain park nearby where he could observe the phenomenon that he's interested in. So my role as the adult is to kind of just make sure he's aware of the opportunities and constantly gaging his interest and exploring further, as opposed to inserting my own curiosity and interest, and by providing that opportunity, letting him explore as much and as deeply as he can. He may get to the answer, he may not. He may get to the correct answer, he may not, and that's totally okay. It's all in the process. And within the learning exploration, there's a step that's the documentation of it, and that provides him for something to go back to as he grows up, and potentially further explores that topic.

Awesome. Thank you. And okay, so, so initially, coming into the idea of relearning exploration was a little bit overwhelming. How did you…

Yes, it took me a few weeks to kind of understand what my role is. And what was super helpful was that you gave us this very simple, or seemingly simple idea of just start by not giving him the answer and the next steps will follow. But the very first step is that. So I was like, okay, I don't have to understand, like the philosophy of learning. I can just start with this. And at first, I had to make a conscious decision to say something like, hmm, I wonder why? What do you think? Or let's head to the library and see if we can find a book about this. And now, almost a year in, that's just second nature. And what's beautiful to me is that not giving him the answer doesn't just apply to questions that he asks and his curiosities, but it also applies to our problem-solving conversations. So when we have an issue, I just ideate with him, and he's the one that generates the solution sometimes. So it all ties together really nicely. And to me, it's all the same idea. So then I started to get better at observing him in his play to like be able to guide his learning explorations better noticing themes that recur in his play, and providing opportunities for him to further explore, either through books or adventures. Mostly, one example that I really love was when they had talked about space exploration at preschool at a, like, a very surface level, but I noticed that his pretend play was with astronauts for like, days and days, so I identified that as something that he's definitely curious about. So I got him a bunch of books about moon landings with photos of the astronauts and the Apollos, especially Apollo 11, Saturn 5. And I was actually kind of a space nerd when I was in high school, so this was kind of tricky for me to, like, not, like, babble on about, like, all the cool things that I know and I'm interested in, and just like, get the book and look through it together and see what he's interested in. And he was very interested in the people, so he asked about the astronauts. And I knew that my mom had memories of the moon landing, so we talked to my mom, and she told Som the names of the astronauts, and for weeks from that day, the characters in his play were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Like these three names, like he was talking about them all the time, and that was just so beautiful to me. Like, even now that I'm talking about it, I'm getting goosebumps, because it was such a deep, such a meaningful experience for us, just as a family like including my mom.

Yeah, yeah, I wonder if I can pause there and just ask how different was that from what you were doing before we started working together, you kind of talked through the idea of pausing, of not giving the answer, of seeing the child's interests and not answering all of their questions, but just providing a little bit of an extra resource and seeing where their interest goes. How does that compare to what you were doing before? How was it different?

I love that question. So before I would almost feel pressured to give him the answer on the spot, as if, like I have to know as the parent, and that feeling is completely gone, like I don't, I don't deal with that at all anymore, which is very freeing, I might add. And the next thing I know, I would do is I would grab all the books, and I would sit with him and walk through it in the right sequence. I would start with, you know, the Cold War and how, like, the space race and everything that led to the moon landing, with the dogs and the monkeys and like, you know how the Saturn 5 works and how the Apollo came back, I would 100% do that, whereas this time around, I was able to not insert any of that. I would totally have lost him had I done that. It wouldn't have nearly been as beautiful and as meaningful and as engaging for all of us.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's really important. And so for folks who are listening and who are wondering, well, how do I know which one of these right? Wait, what I'm doing right now, if you find yourself consciously teaching your child, and it's such a temptation when you know about the topic, which is why we advise when you're getting started with this, to choose something for your first learning exploration that you know nothing about, because then that temptation is gone. If you find yourself teaching, and if you see your kids’ eyes glazing over, maybe they walk away. They turn away, right? They're completely disengaging, then it's become your project, right? It's become your thing to teach them, and when you see them continually, oh, tell me more about this. Tell me more about that. What do you think about that? What do you remember about that? That's how you know they're engaged, right? And what I'm hearing there from Som is this really deep relationship, building, connecting experience that really kind of doesn't rely on a whole history of space. But the thing that he's interested in is the astronauts themselves, right? You can hone right in on the piece that he's interested in, and he may come back around and be like, hey, I wonder what did lead to you know, how did those people get there? Why those people? What kind of training did they have? Right? And the questions may follow from there or not. I know he's also really interested in construction vehicles. That might be the topic of the next exploration. So, and I think all of that being okay, and you said something I think is really important a little while ago, right? He might get to the answer, he might not. Why is not getting to the answer? Okay, in your world of you've got to be the best, right? Or reacting to you've got to be the best. How can you be okay with he comes to the wrong answer? To tell me more about that,

I would say that is also something that I learned from the membership. I would definitely have been nervous about giving him the wrong answer or him not knowing the answer before I, for me, it's all in in the process. So through the membership, we learn about how learning happens and how a child observes patterns, theorizes and extrapolates based on those patterns, and kind of applies what he's observed before to new things that he sees out in the world. It's such an iterative process for them that it inherently corrects itself because of their innate drive to learn about how the world works, like that's just kind of built into humans, in our DNA, to be able to survive and evolve. So really believing in that has helped me to set aside my perfectionism in the way Som is learning about the world. It has also made me hyper aware to this iterative process that he does so every time that he observes something new, and I see that he's kind of applying what he already knows to this new thing, like an example, to clarify, this is the other day. We were biking, and we heard seagulls, and they sounded very distressed to me. And I'm really interested in birds, so whenever I observe something about birds, I let them know. So I was like, hmm, this seagull seems sounds really distressed, I wonder what's going on with him. So we looked up and there was a drone, and two seagulls were, like, really bothered by it. And I pointed the drone out to him, because I knew he hadn't seen one before. I was like, oh, there's a drone, and they're bothered by that. And Som asked, what's a drone? This was a situation where I knew that if I don't tell him what a drone is, he's going to get frustrated and confused, so really understanding, like, when is the time that I give him, like a bit of a pointer, or like a little bit of knowledge so he can build on that. So I was like, yeah, a drone is, you know, such and such, and you, you fly it with, like someone controls it remotely. And it was like, oh, just like my control helicopter. I know how they fly it. They would put it on level ground, they would step back, they would grab the controller, and by using the buttons on the controller, they would fly it, and whenever they want, they would bring it back down. So he was, like, talking about that for 15 minutes, and like, imagining how a drone functions. And I'm like, this is exactly it. Like he has a control helicopter. He knows how he can apply what he already knows to something new. So it's like, I'm constantly validated and like the approach and the Learning Membership is continually verified through our lived experience, where I know that my, like, my role keeps, like, fading the background, because the wheels in his brain are turning independently.

Yeah, and just to be clear, right? We're not talking about, well, I'm never going to answer my kids question again. What you what you did here was, you recognize that this was going to be an incident where he didn't have a lot of relevant knowledge, right? He'd never seen a drone before. A drone is one of those things it's kind of hard to conceive of if you don't have the knowledge. And I'm wondering if you forgot about his helicopter or the thing that he has, and so you didn't make, necessarily, make that, yeah, and so potentially, right? If you remember, you could say something like, hey, have you? Have you ever seen anything that flies like that before? Right? And then maybe he would make the connection himself. But there are plenty of plenty of times when the most appropriate thing to do is to provide that next step right, just that small next step, and then to see where that goes. And yeah, the connections that he immediately drew. I mean, would I know how to fly a drone first time I saw it? Probably not. And yeah, so much comes from seeing what knowledge does my child already have, and how can I provide just the next step so that he's not feeling frustrated by a piece of missing information, and that he does he have that sort of framework, that scaffolding to hang a new piece of knowledge on. If he doesn't, I'm going to give him a little more of that, right? I'll tell him a bit more of the answer if he does, and I remember, I'm going to back off a little bit and say, what do we already know about things that you can fly and control, right? Because that doesn't look like a, you know, a naturally occurring thing up there in the sky. So that's so awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And I guess I'm wondering, are there other sort of things that maybe didn't seem like learning explorations at the time, or, you know, memorable explorations that you've done that you that you would like to share?

There's one that happened recently that I really love, mostly because of the overall context. This example involves a package of sliced cheese. We were driving home from grocery shopping after a long day for me and for Som he was exhausted and irritable from a full day at preschool, and he was snacking on the sliced cheese that we had just bought from the store, right out of the package. I asked him not to tear the resealable cover off so the cheese doesn't go dry. So I gave him the reason for why I'm asking him this. But when we got home, I noticed that he had torn off the resealable cover. And I understand, like it's annoying, like it keeps flapping over, so it's hard to grab the cheese when the cover is there, so I get why he did it, but I had specifically asked him not to. And, you know, I was tired, I got pretty annoyed, and I launched into expressing my frustration, but instantly realized that this is a great problem-solving opportunity. So I changed my tone kind of a halfway I started by “Sommy, I told you not to tear it off, but you did.” Then pause for a millisecond, and I went, “what can we do so the cheese doesn't go dry?” And Som he had, like fully sensed the frustration of the half in the first half of my sentence. He said, “I don't know.” So I persisted gently, and I said, “hmm, I wonder what we could do so the cheese won't go dry.” And he instantly said, “we could put it in a Ziploc bag.” You know, that turned what could be a very unpleasant situation for both of us into more of a brain building exercise. So I think all of that is because of the skills that I've learned in this past year about identifying opportunities for more learning based on just and it just happened over time, like so organically and naturally. Like I just without trying too hard, I can identify opportunities for learning, and even if I'm now, even if I'm frustrated or, like, a little bit overwhelmed, I can still kind of focus enough to, like, turn it around. And that was that was very meaningful to me.

Thank you for sharing that. And I guess I'm also wondering, are there areas where Som’s thinking has surprised you? It seems as though that whole interaction was surprising to you. Are there areas where the idea or the direction that Som takes in exploration has been really surprising to you?

Oh, that never ceases to amaze me. With almost everything that we do, because he has equal space to express his ideas, there's always something that I hadn't noticed or hadn't thought about, and really knowing to knowing how to hear that and build on that, as opposed to build on what I know myself, provides even more opportunity for him to kind of theorize and notice and that just like, kind of, it just scales up every time, like there's it just seems to be like there's infinite room for his thought processes and ideas to grow and that is definitely something that I experience in like every question that he asks, just on a daily basis.

Can you give us an example?

So he is very interested in construction vehicles. There's lots of construction going on around where we live, so he's noticed different ways in which different construction vehicles and equipment function. So he's seen a tracked excavator and how it has to be transported on a huge flatbed truck just to the site. They won't just roll on asphalt, but he's also seen dump trucks that roll on tires and they go on roads. He's also seen loaders. So there was this one time that we saw a bunch of dump trucks lining up kind of further away from a construction site, waiting for their turn to, like, get to the site and get filled. And there was a track digger or a tract excavator working on the site. So he saw the excavator first, and then he saw the lineup of the dump trucks, like further out. And at first, he was like, oh, these are waiting to get filled by the excavator. And all I did was like, oh yeah, I see them too, that's interesting. And then he said, I guess the excavator would have to grab the dirt and roll down to them to fill them up. I was like, oh, I wonder if that's going to be how it works. And then he remembered that he had seen how tracked excavators don't roll on roads. And he said, oh, but truck excavators are so slow and they leave marks on the asphalt, and they make a really screechy sound. I guess a backhoe loader that rolls on wheels would have to fill these up, and right around then the lineup of the dump truck starts to move. So we didn't kind of establish that, oh, these guys are going to roll down to the site. They're just waiting here. But it doesn't matter, like the next time he sees this, he's going to make the connection. And that's totally fine,

Yeah. And what a lot of observation is happening there, and connections with things he's previously observed, right? And we know we think that young kids, oh, they're just playing, right? Oh, they're, you know, they're, they're not really doing anything super deep as they are going through their lives. And what you're starting to notice is, yeah, these are connections that are coming across multiple conversations, that we've had, multiple observations that we've had of construction sites, and he's putting it all together into this idea of how it works. And you made a hypothesis, essentially, and you didn't get a chance to test the hypothesis that particular time. But next time you see a construction site, you're going to be able to. To see if his theory is correct, and I mean scientific method anyone right, that's essentially what we're doing. So thank you. Thanks. Thanks for those examples, because I think it so illustrates the capabilities that our kids have if we can learn to see them right, and if we can learn to be that person who provides just a little bit of support, and you know, what do you have expertise in dump tracks? I know you're an architect, so you have some tangential expertise, but do you have any specific knowledge of how this stuff works?

No, and that's totally fine.

Yeah, and you didn't need any, because all you were doing is basically, you know, providing a little prod, right? Oh, I wonder if that is how that works, right? And that's that is such a powerful thing to say to a young child. It conveys that you're interested, that you're right there with them in that engagement, that you're ready to support them, and the ball is in their court. And so, I wonder if there are places you've talked a lot about things that have gone really well. I'm wondering are there still places that feel uneasy, stuck, more difficult, that you would like to sort of share and share some thoughts on?

I would say documentation is still a challenge. It's been a challenge throughout this past year, and it remains a challenge mostly because most of our learning explorations were on the go or in the car or out in nature, and the things that I want to capture on paper so that it's accessible to him. I don't seem to find a system to consistently do that, so I have yet to figure that out. The community is always very helpful with these kinds of issues. All the members, everyone has somewhat of a different process. So I think for me, it's just a matter of running some ideas by the community and see what they have done that has worked for them. The other kind of struggle is the idea around school. So Som is starting school in about a year, and I'm very nervous about that. It's been a pretty emotional struggle, but my plan so right now is to just try and build on my own skills for supporting his learning at home while we are still thinking that he will just go to school during the day, and our role kind of unfolds in the afternoon, evening and the weekends. And, you know, that's okay. That's what we have to work with. And there's quite a bit that we can do. But, yeah, that's these are kind of the two remaining sticky points for me.

Yeah, yeah. Documentation, I think, is, is always sort of an ongoing challenge for me. As a long time I would, oh yes, absolutely, for a long time, I would leave the learning journal open on the table, and then that worked really well when Carys would sit at the end of the table, and we said we would kind of sit in a triangle, and the whole other half of the table was kind of open, and she decided she want to sit next to me. And so now the two of us are on one side, and there's not enough space. So that has, you know, gone by the wayside a little bit. And I guess what, what I usually end up doing is, whenever we go for some sort of car ride where I'm not driving, then I will bring the last completed page of the learning journal so I remember what I wrote about, and a couple of blank pages and something hard to rest on. And of course, my handwriting is atrocious, but, you know, it gets it out and then I, when my husband prints the photographs from whatever we're doing, I'll add some notes on those pages as well. So, yeah, so it's very much in flux, and based on, you know, what's, what's happening in life at the moment for me too. So I hope that gives you some sort of sense of it'll be okay.

Definitely does. Yes. Thank you.

And then I guess I'm curious. We've talked about school a number of times, and I'm not sure where you are right now. Are you, are you deciding to go to like a state school at the moment? Is that the current, the current decision?

No. So after months of struggle, we decided to sign him up for a nature school. So they spend half an hour away. Yes, that one, yes. So they spent half the day and the forest and half. And we're blessed with lots of forests around the greater Vancouver area, but we are moving this summer.

Oh, you are? Okay.

Yes. And this being closer to the school is definitely one of the reasons for the move. And, yeah, we're going to start with that school and see how it goes.

Okay, wow, that is huge. So I went, when is all that happening? Are you moving before school starts? Or after what?

Okay? And I know that one of the factors involved in this decision is, right now, you're super close to your parents, right? And so how did that, that part of the decision take place?

Yeah, there will definitely be a kind of a 50-minute drive distance between us. But you know, going back to the to those values, has been the guiding posts, and what compromise is more acceptable. So I wouldn't be surprised if they moved as well to be closer, but that is for them to decide. For now, the decision that works for us, everything considered, is to move a little bit further away.

Okay, and so, I guess I'm also curious. I mean, you're talking about family relationships here, how this has affected, right? This, this approach to learning, has affected your relationship with Som if at all, right, what would you what would you observe about that?

It has affected the quality of our connection a lot, and I think it goes back to how he now knows that I really deeply respect his ideas and interests, and this brings a whole other level of trust and like in our relationship and also depth to our conversations. Because of this approach, we're both at the same level in every way when there's a question or curiosity or in any given situation. And as much as I scaffold him, sometimes I consider him as my mentor and the way that be in the world, just because of the way he's he exists, and the way with his lantern consciousness, he's like taking everything in at a slow pace. And I definitely consider him a mentor for me, in that sense, the depth of the connection that we have built through these explorations together has kind of taken our connection and attachment to a whole other level.

And so just to be crystal clear on something that is sort of we've touched on a number of times, you work.

Yes, I work full time.

Yeah, okay, and so obviously I can hear the conversation about the construction vehicles is probably happening on your way to drop off somewhere, right? So how does this fit into a working full-time schedule?

Aside from the documentation piece everything else, as soon as like, things clicked in my brain in terms of my role and the process, everything just happens so organically, like I don't have to try to accomplish anything. It's just in every little interaction, in every place that we go, be it our commute to preschool in the car or a weekend, kind of nature adventure. It's really day to day. It's very easy, very fluid, effortless.

Wow, awesome that. I think that will be helpful for folks who are thinking about how they can possibly make it work right with full time. You know two parents who are working full time, and a kid who's in a in a preschool environment too. So I guess I'm curious, as you think about the journey you've been on over the last almost year or so, and you think about how you know how you've grown as well as you've learned to support Som’s learning, and you think about the things that you were worried about a year ago. I'm wondering, is there a piece of advice, if you look back to where you were a year ago, that from, from your position today, that you would offer year ago Sara?

I would tell her that you don't know yet, what is actually most important a year ago, I thought what's most important is reading, writing and arithmetic. Now I truly believe that the most important skills that Som can learn are creative problem solving and metacognition. And this is something that I learned through the membership, and I know that I can support the development of these skills in him, just by quietly observing, giving him time and space, being respectful to him and his interests, and ultimately, scaffolding. And I know if, sorry a year ago, knew this, she would be way less nervous but hindsight.

It's a thing. It's a thing. Thank you so much for being here with us and sharing something about your learning and growth and development, and Som's learning and growth and development and the growth and the growth and development in your relationship as well. I'm so grateful to you, Sarah.

Thank you for having me.

Hi, this is Jess from rural East Panama. I'm a Your Parenting Mojo fan, and I hope you enjoy this show as much as I do. If you found this episode especially enlightening or useful, you can also donate to help Jen produce more content like this and also save us from those interminable mattress ads. Then you can do that and also subscribe in the link that Jen just mentioned, and don't forget to head to yourparentingmojo.com to record your own message for the show.