32. Unschooling Liberates Parents Too with Iris Chen

Parenting Decolonized

Let’s talk about unschooling and how it liberates both parents and children.
Here is some truth to chew on...conventional schooling is a trap with capitalist undertones. I’m not sure if you know this but conventional schooling was reserved for the elite before child labor laws were enacted in the early 1900’s. After children were prohibited from working in factories, it was the industrialists that standardized schools as we know it. The antithesis of conventional school is unschooling. Unschooling is a consent-based education system that empowers children to advocate for themselves and see everyday life as their learning experience. It’s an opportunity to liberate our children from the trap of aligning their value with their self-worth or only seeing education as part of the path to the “American dream”.
Unschooling is a powerful empowerment and liberation tool. It is a lifestyle which elevates the learning experience beyond the four walls of a classroom. It’s about consent, about finding your passion, about learning how a child naturally learns. So even if your child goes to conventional school, you can live the unschool lifestyle at home! BUT...that’s gonna require some work on your part to do some unlearning the schoolish mindset, a process affectionately known as “deschooling” in the unschooling community.
If you want to raise leaders instead of followers, teach them how to navigate hard situations, how to advocate for themselves, and how to assert their autonomy over their minds and body, and how to raise people who will resist oppression, listen to this episode with Iris Chen, Founder of “Untigering”
“We don’t want to empower our children to serve the system; we want the system to serve our children.”
Iris Chen is the founder of the Untigering movement and author of Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent. As a peaceful parenting advocate, intersectional unschooler, anti-oppression activist, and deconstructing tiger mom, her mission is to inspire generational and cultural transformation, especially among Asian communities.
In her book, “Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent,” she shares her parenting journey; she talks about her struggles transitioning from a tiger parent to a peaceful parent.
Iris spent 16 years living overseas in China but now resides in her native California with her husband and two sons.
Check out Iris on social media and read more about her adventures in parenting and unschooling:
http://untigering.com/
https://www.facebook.com/untigering
https://www.instagram.com/untigering
https://www.amazon.com/Untigering-Peaceful-Parenting-Deconstructing-Parent