166: Learning to trust your child – and yourself

<span style="font-weight: 400">Claire had used respectful parenting methods since her children were babies, so child-led learning seemed like a natural fit for her.  She protected her toddler’s free play time and involved her in household chores and nature walks.</span> &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: 400">Claire attended school as a child (just like I did!); she even enjoyed elementary school. By high school she didn’t see the relevance between what she was being taught and the things she was interested in - by that time her biggest lessons came from extracurricular art classes with mostly retired classmates at an art school, and from a theater production which she and other students put on entirely by themselves - getting advice from teachers, but messing up and fixing their mistakes by themselves.</span> &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: 400">It was the art classes and theater experiences that shaped the kind of learning that Claire wanted for her child, so she got herself pretty worked up over the idea of her oldest daughter attending public school.  It was actually joining my Learning Membership that helped her see that if she did need to put her daughter in school someday, they would still be able to find ways to support her at home.  Whichever way that turned out, she and her daughter would be OK.</span> &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: 400">And in the meantime, her daughter had transitioned from the simpler questions of two to the more complex, involved questions of three.  Her new sibling was born, and her writing explorations proceeded in parallel with figuring out her place in the newly expanded family: suddenly she’s highly motivated to write a sign saying:</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> </span><span style="font-weight: 400"> </span><span style="font-weight: 400">NO BABIES ALLOWED.</span> &nbsp; <span style="font-weight: 400">Not only has Claire seen her child’s learning develop, but she’s also seeing her own growth as a person and as a parent.  Having arrived at the d