What’s Happening Wed: Wildlife crime

The World Wildlife Fund has a new program called Stop Wildlife Crime. I haven’t seen it yet, but it looks like something I would really enjoy. Let me know what you think of it.

Here are five reasons why toddlers don’t follow our orders. I think they’re the same reasons I don’t like to follow orders, either!

Have you read about this? A couple wanted another child—not for themselves but for their son, they say—but after fertility treatments, they are expecting twins and quite unhappy about it. I have mixed feelings about the situation myself but my heart goes out to them and wish them the best of luck. I do think the blogosphere really needs to treat this family with more kindness, too; anytime a parent expresses an emotion other than sheer joy, meanies come out of the woodwork to vilify them. Honest conversation is an important part of recognizing the difficulties of parenting—and becoming better parents in the process.

As unschoolers, we are raising our kids against the Cult of Unhappy. I think this post is such an important read because it addresses changes we need to make as an entire culture.

The future of education eliminates the classroom, says this piece from Futurist Forum, because the world is your classroom. The only thing is, that’s not the future of education; that’s the past. We lived this way up until the past 150 years or so. Why does everyone keep forgetting that? And it’s the current form of education for lots of families, like ours. And here’s another article about home education that was in the media recently; apparently homeschooling is growing in Wales as well. Re-growing, that is…

And here’s a quote on spanking for today:

“As long as we’re using special terms to avoid the term ‘hitting', and that’s what it basically is, it’s a continuation of of the cultural legitimizing of bringing children up violently.”
— Murray Straus, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology and Co-Director
of the Family Research Laboratory
University of New Hampshire

Photo courtesy of Sara S.