This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a new episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series!

We use the word “rules,” in quotes, to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning something new, but we want to offer you space to look within, to find what makes sense to you and what makes sense to the individual members of your family. There are no unschooling police. Nobody is going to drop by your house and give you a failing grade—or an A+. Our goal with this series is to explore these apparent “rules” and cultivate an environment for self-discovery, for inquiry, for agency, and for growth.

In this episode, we’re diving into the “rule” that unschoolers don’t have bedtimes. And although it’s true that most unschoolers move away from arbitrary bedtimes set by the clock, we still all sleep! And because people are so different, what a family’s bedtime routine looks like can be unique—for different families and also in different seasons of life. We talk about some of the worries and fears that come up when thinking about sleep, as well as what sleep has looked for us over the years.

We had a lot of fun diving into this topic and we hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

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We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Our theme this month is A Typical Unschooling Day, and we’re exploring it through the lenses of perspective and engagement.

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. Listen to The Living Joyfully Podcast here, or find it in your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Welcome! I’m Pam Laricchia from LivingJoyfully.ca and today I’m here with Anna Brown and Erika Ellis. Hello!

ERIKA AND ANNA: Hi.

PAM: So, before we get started, we want to remind everyone that with this Unschooling “Rules” series, we use the word rules in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing. It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning something new, but we want to offer you space to look within to find what makes sense to you and what makes sense to the individual members of your family. There are no unschooling police. Nobody is going to drop by your house and give you a failing grade or even an A+. Our goal with the series is to explore these apparent rules and cultivate an environment for self-discovery, inquiry, agency, and growth.

So, with that, in this episode, we’re diving into the rule that unschoolers have no bedtimes. That can seem a little out there when you’re newer to unschooling and first come across it, but I will say, it’s a pretty distinguishing feature for many unschooling families. And that said, it doesn’t really mean what it sounds like at first.

Through the lens of conventional parenting, it sounds like chaos and tossing bedtimes out the window in a family used to relying on rules and needing the kids to be up early for school would most likely end up that way, absolutely. Yet, through the lens of unschooling, most unschooling families truly don’t have fixed bedtimes, yet their lives aren’t forever sleep-deprived and chaotic. So, what gives?

Well, it’s about the lifestyle the parents choose to embrace with their children. It’s less about control, about adult power over children, and more about connection, living and working together as a team. As we gain experience with unschooling, we come to question hard and fast rules like bedtimes dictated by the clock. We tend to prefer to consider the context of the moment, like, is there an activity we want to do tomorrow that necessitates getting up early? And the needs of the person, are they actually tired right now?

Yet not having a rule to pull out doesn’t mean we’re all of a sudden not involved in helping our children navigate the situation. We don’t leave them to run wild until they drop. Instead, there’s a helpful perspective shift that we can make from rules to routines. So, what does that look like with bedtimes? Well, people do get tired. What if you thought of bedtime as more of a routine to help your child get to sleep when they’re tired rather than a fixed rule based on the time on the clock? Does it seem reasonable to help them listen to their bodies and follow their cues rather than try to control their bodies based on outside factors? There is so much rich learning in there and a deeper sense of self-awareness.

Another helpful aspect of thinking in terms of routines rather than rules is that, for many kids and adults, there’s comfort in routines, in knowing what to expect. And routines help with transitions. A relaxing routine to get ready to go to bed when they’re tired or a routine to get out the door so things aren’t forgotten and people aren’t rushed and miserable. Having a rule like a bedtime actually encourages us to not learn the nuances of the people we love. We just pull out the rule and insist they follow it no matter how they’re feeling or what’s going on in their lives. There’s no critical thinking, just obedience.

Not having a specific bedtime rule is about getting to know and understand our children and ourselves. When do we feel tired? How do we like to ease into sleep? We can figure that out alongside our children, which we talked about in the last episode, as well. We don’t have to know the answers. We can figure this out. We’re finally getting the chance to question these things. We probably grew up with a bedtime. We’ve certainly heard the messages that “children need bedtimes” that surround us. So, it’s really fascinating to just take a rule like bedtimes and then just start questioning it. Like, what if we didn’t have it? It could be just something fun you play with in your mind at first when you think, what the heck? That seems a little unnerving to me. What are your thoughts, Erika?

ERIKA: Oh my gosh. This rule is a really fun one to dig into, I think, because it is one that seems just so wild at first. It’s one of those that’s like, well, I would never do that. But then now, the idea of enforcing a certain time for sleep just seems so strange to me.

And I remember having a really hard time falling asleep as a child myself, and I do think I could have benefited from this kind of approach of learning some of the calming tools that we talk about now, having some sort of a relaxation routine to help me and learning how to listen to my body instead of just looking at the clock.

So, I found that the transition from when my kids were babies to now has been this gradual process of learning and growing. I observed them, saw what they needed, saw when they were tired, and how they like to fall asleep, and so on, and just used their cues as the guide. And over the years, the timing of their sleep, the location of their sleep, what helps them fall asleep, all of that has changed and fluctuated.

So, what I find so valuable about this approach and looking at sleep as this physical need rather than a prescribed schedule, is that we all learn so much more about our bodies. We get to really feel how our bodies tell us what we need. We talk about what makes sleep feel easier or harder, which is actually different for different people.

And I’ll give you a couple of examples just to think about. So, some people actually have a really hard time sleeping when it’s pitch black, while other people want to have complete darkness. I have friends who feel the safest and most comfortable falling asleep in the daytime when the sun is coming through the window. So, light is one aspect that can be different for different people.

And then there’s sound, some people fall asleep best in silence, but for many, having a sound machine or a fan going can help us fall asleep more easily. I love to have a heavy blanket over me, because it makes me feel safe and cozy, and it’s not even cold where I live, so my husband gets so hot that a heavy blanket is a terrible idea for him. So, I have my little blanket zone that’s just for me. And there are more aspects like what activities you do before you sleep or what you eat or you drink before bed, how many hours of sleep feels really good for your body, and so on.

And I just wanted to share some of these differences just to emphasize that, like with everything else we ever talk about, there is no one right way to sleep. And by opening up the possibilities and getting creative, we really can figure out what works well for us as individuals and also as a family. And so, I think that in some unschooling families, it will look from the outside like they’re enforcing a bedtime, because everyone’s falling asleep at the same time each night. But it’s just because that’s what’s working well for them at the moment.

And so, to me it’s not a matter of just like, who cares? Stay up to whatever time you want. I’m not going to help you get any sleep. It’s about thinking about the context, like what you were saying about what do we have to do in the morning, what do we need to do with our time? What do we want to do with our time? Noticing how we like to sleep and what makes us feel good. And then my role is trying to support my kids and my whole family to meet all of our different needs. And when we aren’t meeting all of the needs, then we can have conversations and try to problem-solve together. Just try something different and play with it. So, it’s always a work in progress and it’s constantly shifting as the kids are growing and as our needs change. Anna?

ANNA: Oh my gosh. Yes. And I love the reminder about how we’re all so different, you know? Because as you were going through the differences, I was thinking about my own preferences. I prefer pitch black. I also have a sound machine. I like a blanket, but I have this thing called Bed Jet that cools our heats depending on the time of the year. So, I’m a little bit of a princess. But I’ve seen these people that can just sleep anywhere. Right? But that is not me and it wasn’t my kids either.

When I think about it, part of my journey as an adult was learning to listen to and love my body, because I feel like I had a lot of messages when I was younger that really dissociated me from those cues. And I knew that I wanted my children to not lose touch with the wisdom of their bodies. In babies, we see this clear communication of being hungry or tired, and yet somewhere along the way, conventional wisdom tells us that we need to apply this strict, somewhat arbitrary schedule really, to these growing humans. So, I guess in fairness, some people do that with babies, but developmental psychologists and medical professionals agree it is really important to listen to a baby’s cues. And if you’ve been around a baby, you see they know how to communicate those cues.

And so, what it looked like for us was, we were eating when we were hungry, we were sleeping when we were tired. And as you’ve both touched on, though, that was in the context of our family of four, what made sense for the life that we were creating together.

And in the early years, David was working outside the home and needed to get up early. So, that was always a part of the consideration. Noise levels, energy, time of the night. We had this gigantic, huge, family bed, and thankfully he was a deep sleeper, but we still needed to find ways to be creative to meet the needs of everyone involved. And we did often like to go to bed together. I just have really fond memories of that time in the dark, thinking about our day, sharing the ups and downs, reading a book. That was just really precious time that I think about often, but it also meant that I wasn’t getting alone time in the evening. So, as an introvert, that was a little tricky for me. So, I would make adjustments like getting up earlier than they did, or taking time when they were playing with David. Also, just looking for ways to fill my cup throughout the day.

It just never really felt good to me to think about sending someone off to bed who wasn’t tired, just because I needed to have some alone time. I wanted it to work for all of us, and I found that, as we worked together and really caring for and honoring each other’s needs, allowed us to be creative and come up with the solutions that felt good for us all. And, like you said, Erika, it changes. There are bumps and changes along the way. But we can just kind of keep that attitude of, we’re going to figure this out.

And just kind of an aside about this, because it always comes up in these kinds of discussions, is the idea if they don’t have a strict bedtime that and get up in the morning, they won’t be able to have a job. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that from people and it does always make me chuckle, but it comes up. I get it. We have these cultural messages. My girls, and really, all four of us back in the day, tended to be night owls. So, if something was coming up that required an early start, we would talk through what we wanted that to look like. And I found over and over, they were able to show up for the things that were important to them. Sometimes it was going to bed earlier the night before. Really more often it was leaving extra room on the back end to maybe go to sleep early that night or sleep in the next day.

And my youngest, she’s 23 now, and she has worked at a lot of different jobs over the years, some that go very late into the night. Currently, she has one that has her starting at 6:00 AM most mornings, and she has no trouble adjusting. And says she has actually been enjoying the early shifts because it frees up her afternoon and evening to be with friends.

And so, I guess my point is when we listen to our bodies and learn about the nuances of how we handle things, we make adjustments that we need to do the things that we want to do. So, I think walking through any fears anyone has about that can help you pinpoint the underlying issues. Is it fear of the future? Is it not getting a alone time, not getting couple time? Whatever it is, walking through that will give you more information. And then once you’ve identified that root issue, you can find creative solutions that feel good to everyone as opposed to just, we’re going to put down this arbitrary bedtime instead of digging deeper to what’s really going on here. So, I think that kind of introspection can be really helpful.

PAM: Yeah, I just want to go back to that question of, how will they be able to get up for a job? Because you don’t have to train for years to be able to wake up. And that’s the other piece, too. They’re choosing this job or whatever the reason is to get up by a particular time, whatever it is, it’s something they’re choosing. So, it really is, I guess, surprising when you first introduce the idea, but not at all surprising soon after. They’ll figure it out.

ANNA: Right. Once you start thinking about it. And then I think the other thing I want to throw in is they’re young, so Raelin will work these really late nights and then have an early shift the next day, and I’m just thinking, I would die. She’s totally fine. So, when they’re doing things they want to do and they’re young and not our age, they have this ability to adjust and move through things when they’re tired and those pieces, but they’re learning so much about what works.

And she would say sometimes when she was younger, sleepovers, she knew they weren’t going to get sleep at the sleepover and so she didn’t want to plan anything for two days afterwards because she wanted to rest. But I love that she had that insight. She still wanted to do the sleepover, because it was fun being with her friends, but she was learning things all the time, versus if I was imposing something, she’s not learning anything except what bedtime I think is a good idea.

ERIKA: It’s kind of reminding me of the don’t borrow trouble idea, too, because you can really get caught in kind of a tunnel vision mode when it comes to things like this, especially if it is triggering the like, I never get to have time with my husband alone, or are they going be able to wake up for the things 20 years down the road, all those future fears or the fears of like, it’s going to be like this forever. And so, if we feel like those kind of fears are popping up, I think that’s a good time to step back and remember that there are seasons. Everything’s always changing.

Every time I felt so trapped in whatever the sleep situation was that was going on, it would change the next day. Like as soon as I voiced my concern of, it’s never going to change! it changed the next day. And so, remember that things do change and there are difficult seasons of sleep, but yeah, it’s all a process and a journey.

PAM: Yeah, I think that is a really cool piece, too, because we’re all learning. As you were saying, Anna, they learn, and again I’ve experienced with my kids as well that they learn what their body needs and what they like. I know I can have an extra late night and an early morning once, maybe twice in a row, and then I will need to accommodate at some point with an earlier night or a sleep in or something like that.

But they’re learning how their body ticks and how it works with sleep and what feels good and they’re gaining experience with how that changes over time, because I feel for myself anyway, I remember when I was younger, when you mentioned that, Erika, it would be bedtime. I’d go to bed and I would lie there looking at the clock. And I’d be just like, okay, I don’t want to look at the clock. I need to be asleep by a certain time. And then I’d look and that time had come and then I’d be like, oh my god. Oh my god, no, I’m going to have a horrible night.

We absorb that and we set ourselves up for feeling bad about it. I could have woken up in the morning. And been perfectly fine, but I was thinking I did not get much sleep last night. I’m going to be cranky all day. And I kind of set myself up for that. So, that was a long season when I remember looking for it to 10 o’clock. Oh my gosh. Or hearing my parents go to bed, because you went to your room and you just laid there till you go to sleep. Or I’d put my radio on for like the hour sleep timer and if it would go off, I’d be like, oh no! And you’re dealing with that all by yourself.

So that’s when we’re talking about supporting our kids and helping them, and maybe they do want to go lie down and they get to learn that rest is okay. You don’t literally need to be asleep all the time for recovery. Sometimes just some quiet time is reinvigorating. So, all these different pieces of learning about themselves and listening to the cues that their body is giving them and how it doesn’t mean that we need to be like perfect is the first word coming to mind. Like, oh, I’m tired, therefore I’m asleep, or anything like that. We can try all sorts of, I am tired and I really want to do this thing and I’m going to get more experience learning about, how do I deal with that?

So often, we discover when it’s something we really want to do and we’re excited about it, we do not feel tired while we’re doing the thing. We may be extra tired after we have our two days of recovery, after a super big event is over, things like that. So, it is just so fascinating.

And just in the interest of sharing, because you guys shared how you like to sleep, I do like some light on. So, I have some colored lights around the window in the bedroom here. I do like sound. I have some sleep headphones that I wear and I listen to an audio book. I like to have talking in the background.

ANNA: Interesting!

PAM: It’s just so fascinating and actually, here’s a case where it’s sometimes easier to do for us, but for kids, we need them to do it like the right way. Dark, quiet, this is the way you should sleep. I need all these extra accommodations. But no, no. We are all individual, unique, fun people and whatever helps us do the things that we’re wanting to do, like get some rest, get some sleep. Absolutely. Okay. So much fun to play around with.

ERIKA: I love that so much. And I love that the focus is so much more on what do our bodies feel like rather than, I mean, that’s exactly my experience as a kid too, Pam, of just looking at the clock and being like, I’m doing this wrong. I can’t turn off my brain or whatever. But having no tools to help me through the spinning thoughts. No thought about what would make this room more comfortable for me. None of that was a consideration. And so, just thinking of it more as what is my body feeling like? It’s just such a nice place to start.

PAM: Yeah. It’s so considerate. All right, thank you so much. I really enjoyed diving into another one of these unschooling rules with both of you. And I hope our listeners find our conversations helpful as they navigate sleep with their family. Wishing everyone a lovely day. Bye.

ERIKA: Bye.