(They should’ve also interviewed that NYT blogger mom about her idea to cancel parent involvement unless there’s enough for the whole class . . .)
But on a happier and unschooly note — most parents didn’t hear this in the middle of a weekday, with their wonderful children as close by yet completely into their own pursuits, as mine were. What a luxury — and one less thing to worry about! 
Do Your Kids Need More of You, or Less?
Talk of the Nation, One common worry for parents is whether they are paying too much, or too little, attention to their children. “Ask Amy” columnist Amy Dickinson gives advice on how parents can create the right balance in the relationship between parent and child.
Amy Dickinson, syndicated “Ask Amy” columnist for the Chicago Tribune
Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at Temple University and author of the book The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting
Related NPR Stories
See RedMolly’s power of story here.
I heard that story and I felt vaguely guilty and wasn’t sure why, since I don’t consider myself a helicopter parent. But I wanted to call up and ask the columnist, are homeschooling parents by default considered helicopter parents? Because some of the most independent kids I know are homeschoolers. I think the security of having parents about when very young gives kids confidence as they grow.
Me too, Kim.
The new Steven Pinker book is all about this, how words reflect the difference in how I see the same event that someone else will see and describe differently. Neither of us is “wrong” if we’re being intellectually honest with ourselves and others (not just spinning or obfuscating on purpose, I mean.) Yet we may not only differ but contradict each other with our thoughts, words and deeds, because our human perceptions of “what’s going on and what it means” are so different.
Examples include the $3.5 billion word difference over 9/11 — we all saw it happen, but was it a single event or two separate events? Or more? The towers’ insurance saw it as a single event, to pay off singly; the owner of course saw it as two, calling for two pay-outs. And for most of us the meanings of 9/11 had nothing to do with the insurance. It wasn’t about money — and if we weren’t there and no one we love was there, does it still have meaning for us at all? Same reality, different perceptions and descriptions. He also writes about ” liberation and peacekeeping” versus ” invasion and occupation” and of course the whole abortion thing, when does life begin and what IS life? Etc.
In homeschooling “independence”, I notice some of us unschoolers mean independence of mind for the kids, freedom even from our own dictates much less from schools, censors or the Church. Others mean only independence from public-legal influence of their own parenting, yet still make their kids very dependent, on parents and their elders, perhaps on some community or church hierarchy, often on some formal, schoolish set of standardized rules and academic requirements. I don’t think academic independence has anything to do with money! — and so I get quite impatient with homeschooling words defining us that way, in our own circles and to the public. I think it’s limiting and insulting to the REAL meaning of our independent learning.
p.s. And seems to me even more than independence from the public, hsers want most passionately to be free of each OTHER! I don’t need or want anyone setting themselves up as an authority, to define whether my children are independent, what my state’s laws mean, what my rights and responsibilities are, what my own words will mean to my own kids or my own legislators, much less to the future of all we hold dear! etc — and if I allowed it, even in the name of homeschooling, wouldn’t that be abdicating my true independence??
Re: homeschooling seen as helicoptering (apron strings!) from Daryl’s and how we might be able to use different words to create a different understanding, at least with the media: