logo
logo
Sign in

Technology and Unschooling

avatar
Harold Chaffin
Technology and Unschooling

The holidays are over. Time to get back in the swing of things!

Our holiday season was a busy one but spending time with family was a blessing.

I’m just starting to feel like things are settling down again.

There’s still tons of snow on the ground and temperatures are struggling to get above freezing.

I feel a bit cooped up, as if we stay in the house for days on end. More time indoors tends to equal more time spent with technology. This made me realize that I haven’t talked about how technology works in our house and how it influences our unschooling journey.

Like many kids these days, my kids love technology/devices/screens. We all use tv, video games, movies, house plant identifier, YouTube, iPad/iPhone apps, etc. to further our unschooling on a daily basis.

Now, I know there are many opinions and all sorts of hullabaloo about technology use with kids. I’m not here to tell you what to do with your family, I’m here to share what we do and how that has shaped our unschooling path.

First of all, I don’t use the phrase “screen time”. I know it’s a catch phrase in the parenting articles, but we don’t differentiate “screen time” from say “paper time” (reading books, articles, magazines) or any other time. I also don’t categorize what’s on the screen as “educational” or “non-educational”. A Disney movie has as much value as a science documentary. A My Little Pony app has as much value as a “learn to read” app. Etc. etc.

If a principle of unschooling is that learning happens all the time, in any setting, from any medium, then there’s no need to categorize certain activities or value one over the other.

All of that to say, I don’t limit technology use with my children. At all. They are free to choose to use the tv, computer, video games, iPad, iPhone, or any other form of technology at any time, day or night for any length of time.

collect
0
avatar
Harold Chaffin
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more