—please also read other inspirational articles by Anne Ohman and by Mary Gold. You can also read more practical, real life examples on my Spirited Child page.

A recent workshop at a homeschooling conference I attended offered traditional advice for dealing with “prickly children,” what I took to refer to the high need child, or Mary Kurcinka's more generous "highly spirited" children. Within the first five minutes, the workshop leader admitted never having read most of the books on her resource list and offered this comforting wisdom from her own experience: her "prickly" child had become a much more pleasant person since he had turned eighteen, gotten his driver’s license (he wasn't allowed to drive at sixteen) and gained his freedom.

Prior to this stage, however, she admitted to not liking him very much, and she suggested to those in the workshop that school might be a better place for children like this so the rest of the children might homeschool in peace. Huh?

Well, here's another suggestion: rather than thinking of children as "prickly," "difficult" or "contrary," rather than splintering a family over teachable and not-teachable, parents of high need children can make a crucial shift in the definition of their children and themselves and, through unschooling, find a path that enables them to nurture and enjoy all of their children every step of the way.

Perhaps as its most crucial benefit, unschooling allows a shift from labeling towards nurturing our children as whole beings and embracing all their unique gifts and challenges. Once we place a label on our children, it begins to define who they are and limits who they can become.

Yet, as parents, it's both our job and our desire to provide our children with coping skills that enable them to interact in the world and minimize the damage done by that world. For many of us, this desire is what drives us to seek help and labels like ADD, SID, OCD and ODD, acronyms that adhere to high need children like glue.

What may be more beneficial than these labels, however, is the identification of specific triggers and target traits because these will enable us to help our children without limiting and diminishing them. Unschooling parents are uniquely qualified to identify these triggers and traits because of the many hours spent living and connecting with our children without the artificial overlay of academic structure.

A high need child in school or school-at-home might find herself swiftly labeled "easily distractible" because she can't focus on the intricacies of ladybugs in an academic setting when all she really wants is to run and play outside. For an unschooled child, that label has little meaning or value. Unschooling allows her the freedom to run outside as much as she needs, likely encouraging an organic interest in ladybeetles, cicadas and any other bugs she comes across naturally in her play.

In so many ways, unschooling enables parents to identify specific issues and seek out more successful strategies, both for their children and themselves, while leaving the whole child intact. An unschooling parent can easily observe a child's comfort levels in a number of organic situations simply by including her child in his or her daily life.

For instance, trips to the grocery store, aquarium or library reading group will quickly reveal a child who becomes uncomfortable, defensive and gradually decomposes in loud or crowded rooms. Recognizing this specific trigger helps an unschooling parent avoid those situations or limit the time spent there and seek out, instead, trips to the beach, fossil hunting or other quiet activities with lots of space.

Identifying a specific trigger for a high need child, instead of relying on a generalized label, helps parents experiment with different coping strategies--like holding a special toy, sitting on a parent's lap, finding a comfortable chair--all of which might allow a child to participate in potentially stressful activities without rising discomfort.

If we were to simply label that same child shy or oversensitive or force him repeatedly to endure uncomfortable situations, we'd create a cycle of negativity and inflict unnecessary damage. That kind of approach blames the child rather than the situation, emphasizes weakness and cements the discomfort. The label, itself, turns the child into what troubles him.

Identifying the trigger, on the other hand, enables the child to work through it or around it by developing empowering strategies--a solution nurtured by the flexibility of unschooling. Such a child has the chance to grow fully into himself without pressure or negativity and enter the world armed with his own self-awareness and solid emotional core.

Parents who embrace unschooling often experience an accompanying shift from authoritarian parenting towards more non-coercive parenting, which offers a high need child the greatest possible control over his environment. A child who may be "prickly" to a parent working to enforce many rules, may be a joy to another fostering connections in place of controls.

Parents have a great deal of power over children both physically and culturally--an inequality that most children intuit. Even a small child senses his own autonomy and right to respect, and high need children feel the injustice of arbitrary parental power particularly acutely. Many high need children find injustice at every turn, and life with these children is as if every interaction, every action--desirable or undesirable--becomes a battleground.

Many of us can relate to parenting a child who seemed contrary from the moment of birth and who hit the "terrible-twos" when he was only one. We held our breath as we waited for him to grow out of it at two, three, four... Maybe we even felt like the mother above running the workshop, ashamed that we didn't even like our own child.

Rather than calling these children "prickly" and blaming them for being "contrary," however, we have both the choice and the power to defuse the battleground with our high need children before a battle begins--choice and power that our children do not have. An unschooling lifestyle offers one important key to reducing these battles, to empowering our high need children and to building a bond of joy and trust rather than anger and resentment.

As an unschooling parent of three, I work hard to build an atmosphere of acceptance, encouragement and freedom, but my youngest child, in particular, needs as much autonomy as possible due to very low frustration tolerance and high sensitivity levels.

Giving him the freedom to control his own environment and to set his own limits, while lovingly helping him adapt to the few limits we have during aggression and rage, enable us all to live in joy and understanding the majority of the time. By not pushing his limits with useless rules and boundaries, we enable him to focus his energy on learning to adapt more readily and to work through his frustration in love and support.

Increased freedom has also provided my high need guy with valuable awareness of his own needs that would otherwise be undermined. Because Sam is free to decide when he is hungry or tired, he is able to listen to the cues sent by his body instead of shutting those down, digging in his heals and resisting outside controls at high personal cost.

This freedom also enables him to choose when he's tired and what and when to eat, for instance. Even at four years old, he is able to decide that he's tired and climb in bed, which sometimes happens before 9:00, sometimes after midnight, but more often somewhere in between. If his body tells him he's not hungry enough to stop playing his computer game and come to dinner, then he is freely encouraged to make that decision.

If his father or I decided to enforce dinner time, requiring him to turn off his game and appear at the family table, we'd have a major meltdown on our hands and a very unpleasant meal while Sam screamed either at the table or in his bedroom--a lose/lose situation for all involved, likely failing to achieve even the desired goal of having our family together at the table.

Nine out of ten times, however, an invitation to dinner and an offer to keep his food warm until he's ready results in a happy child sitting down to the table five to ten minutes after everyone else and a whole family connecting over a pleasant meal. Letting go and learning to trust is a vital step towards establishing a positive relationship with our high need children, making unschooling particularly beneficial because it immerses them in an environment of free choice.

Making the shift from compulsory schooling towards unschooling nurtures joy, pride, accomplishment, well-being, independence, autonomy, but most of all . . .our child. By embracing unschooling, we embrace our children's whole selves; we foster their passions and individuality, their strengths and attributes, their essence and self, rather than sculpting them into something we wish them to become.

Since we unschool in our home, there are no battles over homework, handwriting, spelling, reading, math, waking up or going to school. There are no battles over computers or videos, rushing out of the house, staying outside or coming in, building Legos or finishing a project. Most of all, there are no labels following my child through life, only useful tools and profound acceptance of who he is.

Our unschooling lifestyle allows Sam to control a great deal of his world, enabling him to handle the demands of life in a house with four other people and a world full of other people because his resources have not been taxed and depleted by countless unnecessary power struggles. Unschooling enables us to create a home filled with interest and joy where all people are valued and respected for who they are.

Because of unschooling and conscious, gentle parenting choices, I'm thoroughly enjoying my high need child now without labels like "prickly" or waiting until he's eighteen and precious years are lost.

© Danielle Conger 2005-07