Child Led - Conquering Fear

A kept muttering "I must face my fear, I must face my fear...." as he made his way across the hanging bridge.

No one coerced him into it. He just decided to get up there and conquer his fear one step at a time.

He proudly proclaimed "I was scared but I faced my fear!!" the moment he was on solid ground.

KH on the other hand was not ready to take the challenge of crossing the bridge and when he was forced by a grownup, he clung on to her shirt with his eyes tightly shut and had a harrowing time up there.

"Forcing a child to do something that he is not capable of doing - or should not be doing - at his present developmental age will always backfire. Expecting one's child to fit into a certain situation because other children appear to fit in is unrealistic. Each child develops at his own rate, and each child has his own best style of learning" ..An excerpt from a homeschooling site

To love a child means to treat him or her with respect, patience, gentleness and compassion, and in a way that is consistent with the Golden Rule. Tough love is tough, all right, but it has nothing to do with love....The Natural Child Project

I think children learn better when they learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it, and how they want to learn it, learning for their own curiosity and not at somebody else's order. ....An excerpt from John Holt's book The Underachieving School