Not Schooling – What Then?

The Unlabeled Journey of Learning and Living

I spoke with a friend today about labels. How they can be so utterly useful, and yet, in this world obsessed with neatly fitting everything into a box, how profoundly damaging they can become. For so long, I've resisted the urge to box ourselves in with diagnoses or rigid philosophies. Yet, paradoxically, I find labels can illuminate the world around me, helping me understand my children (and others) – their needs, their reactions, their very essence – and navigate their inner worlds while guiding them through the world outside.

But then, the question whispers: What label could ever truly fit our way of living, my way of being?

For a long time, the concept of unschooling drew me in. It offered so much insight and inspiration. I followed various "Unschooling Mom2Mom" communities, yet I never quite resonated, never fully belonged. There was always a piece that didn't quite fit, a note that was slightly off-key - often something provoking a feeling of not being “the right” one in that particular way. In casual conversation, I'd often declare us homeschoolers. But are we, truly? We were "homeschoolers" for only a brief period at the very beginning, when we first pulled our children from traditional school. Now, we don't really have a "home" in the conventional sense, nor do we have a "school." We don't adhere to a singular philosophy of education. We don’t follow a certain curriculum, we don’t do tasks, books, sheets in standardized ways, we don’t have a teacher or divide our learning into subjects.

What we do have is life. We've always had life, and we still do.

Back when we were rooted in one house, in one place we called home in Denmark, we had ordinary rhythms, activities, conversations. My own insecurities, my lack of trust in myself (and sometimes in humanity, including my own children), often held me back, preventing me from fully embracing the freedom to simply be, and to learn from that space. Back there we also had supervision and the feeling of being “watched” and “judged” from someone “in the system”. It was a icki and unpleasant feeling (to say it mildly) so I really felt the need to do more and show more to the world in the language understood by “the system” and people who didn’t know other ways of learning than those normalized by the school system.

But with time, with more trust – earned through the gifts life brought us – I grew safer, more secure in who I am, and in who my children are. I'm no longer afraid of the world, even when it doesn't quite fit us or understand us. I rely completely on this understanding: learning always happens. We are programmed as humans to learn throughout our lives. There's no magic button that switches on when a child enters the school system, and no button that switches off (but the motivation and joy for learning can be switched by years and years of schooling and practices not being tailored to the individual needs). There's inner motivation, and external factors influence us, but in reality, we are all determined to succeed, to learn, to expand, to grow into our fullest selves.

The Fluidity of Our Days: Unlabeled, Unscripted, Utterly Real

In this world where we are constantly in motion, where we travel without a fixed place to call home, where our way of living is anything but permanent – we change, and our way of being changes with us. What we've always had, and what we still hold onto, is time together. The connections, the laughter, the tears, and everything in between. We have deep conversations and profound life experiences.

There's no single right or wrong way to parent, to teach, to learn, to love. There's only the way I try, believing I do my best, and striving to be better with each passing day. I admit my mistakes, and I try to learn from them, though I don't always succeed. Often, I fail, and that's okay (that is one of the profound modeling so that our children also can accept their own imperfections and mistakes they will inevitably make). With time, I've become better at apologizing and acknowledging my own missteps (that was a real pickle for me for most of my life).

The inner work that has come alongside this life of learning has been tremendous, immense. It has given me insight in countless ways.

I don't have all the answers. Not for how we should eat, or dress ourselves, or how much time we should spend on screens, social media, or the internet. I find it incredibly hard to navigate these waters ourselves. I try to have honest conversations with my children about sugar and sweets, or about our diet choices, without being preachy or reactive. I aim to give them real-life experiences – tangible feelings in their bodies they will remember forever – rather than lecturing them or suppressing their needs and desires.

It's hard to navigate what they should be exposed to, and for how many hours each day we should "do" something. I find it hard when I see things limiting their creativity. And I find it easy when a certain flow arises and washes over our lives for hours, days, weeks. I try to be honest, to say, "Hey, I haven't figured this out. How about trying something else?" I ask more and more questions: "What are you willing to do? What do you feel? What does your body sense from within?" I ask my kids to close their eyes, to breathe deeply, and to notice what is alive in their hearts, minds, and bodies. Sometimes they don't need to move; they need rest. How do they feel after bags of candy, or too much food? How do they feel when the emptiness of hours spent on video games or YouTube replaces hours of play and creativity? Sometimes they offer answers and solutions; sometimes they are silent, their words unclear.

None of us truly knows who we are until we learn it through doing – through making mistakes and choosing right, falling and hitting ourselves, feeling emptiness, loneliness, pain, but also joy, celebrating success, and finding peace in our hearts for what feels true and aligned.

Our days in this life are so completely and utterly simple, and yet so completely and utterly different from each other. We do very ordinary things: eating, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, walking, taking care of each other, talking. We have time on our own, and time together – a lot of time, of all different kinds – and we truly enjoy that ordinary rhythm. My heart sings with joy when my kids join me for a very ordinary grocery shopping trip, when they offer to help me cook dinner, or clean up after themselves.

In our family, everyone has the right to say "no" and express what they want and don't want. Yet, we still collectively lift each other up when needed. We don't force anyone to share anything if they're not willing – not time, food, or anything else. We all have a right to say "no" and "yes" whenever it feels alive within ourselves.

We don’t apologize to each other on the command and never force our kids to do so if they truly don’t feel in their heart but we do help them navigate through uncomfortable feelings and guide them how to come to an apology when they feel ready.

We don't preach, we don't punish, and we usually don't reward either. (If you haven't, I strongly advise listening to or reading Alfie Kohn's beautiful book, Punished by Rewards – at least some part of it!)

We truly try to support our children in who they are – in their high sensitivity, their introversion or extroversion, their different social needs, and the time they need to spend with each other or on their own. We try to navigate their different wishes and needs when it comes to traveling. Some want to move faster, others want to stay put. Some of us love different sensations – loud music, crowds – and some of us don't thrive with any of that.

Nothing is wrong or right. Nothing is less or more. It simply is. And as it is, it is our life. No labels at all, or as many as we need them to support each other and navigate properly. We need it, and we don't know better.