Jian’s Doing Kumon Again!

You may remember the story I shared during our Thriving in the Truth: Turning Triggers into Clarity and Growth workshop, about my core belief of “not being smart enough” and how that core belief ultimately had me sabotaging my relationship with Jian. 

To recap: growing up, this belief created so much suffering in different areas of my life.  

It held me back from learning technology. It paralyzed me when it came to reading. It hindered my ability to write.

Early on in my life, my ego learned to overcompensate in areas to help me cover up where I felt inadequate or stupid.

As far back as I can remember, structure and organization came easily to me. It’s how my ego learned to protect me. Being organized covered up where I felt I “should” have been smarter.

I remember others deeming my structural and organizational skills valuable, which made me feel more validated, resulting in achieving even higher levels of both.

This was the case throughout high school, into college, and even when I began my event design business. It followed me into marriage. After giving birth to Jian, I became obsessive.

I had calendar reminders set up so that by the time Jian was three, I had signed him up for Kumon to ensure he became smart; as if he wasn’t already!

I would sit down with him to do his Kumon lessons, and no matter what I tried, he didn’t want to engage. I tried creating structure through fun lesson plans and organized his routine to ensure he was fully fed and rested before we started. No matter what I did, within the first ten minutes we were both in the midst of full-on explosions—him screaming on the floor and me walking away fuming with anger.

It came to a point where the triggers were everywhere. I realized that not only was I sabotaging my relationship with Jian, but I was also suppressing his natural self-expression and curiosity.

Don’t get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being structured or organized. It’s served me well, and it’s perfectly healthy to have this need – because let’s face it, don’t we feel light and free when we have structure to fall back on?

But the problem, you see, was that overcompensating was creating reactions and suffering between me and Jian. I was out of balance, in a way. I was too attached to the idea that organization and structure was more important than everything else, including what was blatantly obvious in the tantrums it was creating. That’s when I had to get clear on the message underneath the tantrums. 

The problem was that I was misguidedly using my son to avoid my vulnerability of feeling stupid. If he did well at school, it would have continued to prove my worth; to show that I was indeed smart.

I’ve since done the work to face my vulnerabilities. I’ve deconstructed this core inner belief, made sense of my original trauma wound, and healed and released the trigger from my body. In doing so, I’ve disrupted the pattern and relieved both myself and Jian of carrying on my dysfunctional belief.

This has allowed me to enter into a natural learning process with him. I’ve stepped outside of the cultural conditioning around how we “should” learn, or the expectation that we all learn at the same pace or in the same way.  

If you find this conversation intriguing, and are wondering how to determine whether or not you are inside culture’s conditioning around learning, then simply ask yourself this question:

Do I ever feel triggered (or have an expectation) that my son/daughter “should” learn something?  

If the answer to that is ‘yes’, then it’s likely, like me, that you’ve entered the matrix of cultural conditioning.

In our home, we’ve since redefined what a natural learning process looks like. We’ve started – and are still working on – creating an environment that supports Jian’s natural ability to learn.  This looks like creating opportunities for him:

•       to explore his own curiosity.
•       to remember the natural urge to learn that is within him.
•       to remember to be open to different perspectives.
•       to enjoy his freedom.
•       to explore his intellect regardless of what he’s engaging in.

In the context of traditional “schooling”, this meant that we disenroll him from Kumon and any other educational activities (which was a Montessori program at the time) that didn’t align with honoring his freedom to learn.

He was 5 and a half when we officially started this practice. He’s 8 now.

This week, that environment led him back to Kumon.

As some of you know, Jian is unschooled. This means that learning happens in the context of life.  According to the unschooling laws of Florida, we need to obtain a health form, which requires that we do some blood work. Keeping in mind that we empower his curiosity and freedom to choose what he engages in, he chose not to do the blood work. But in choosing that, he was also responsible for showing Jigar and I how his decision made sense. In other words, he needed to do the work himself to find out if the state would exempt him from it.  

With Jigar’s help, he called the Florida Department of Education to find out, but due to COVID, many attorneys are now working virtually and therefore prefer to be contacted via email. Without having any idea of where this conversation would take us, we got the email, and I sat with him to help him draft it.

I logged in and showed him how to draft an email. He then copied the email address from the paper I had written it on.  

Jian: Okay, done. What shall I write now?

Me: Well, what’s your question?

Jian: I want to ask them: if I am doing schooling from home, why do I need to do the health exam?

Me: Then that’s what you write.

Jian: Okay, what should the subject be, state of florida?

Me: Sure.

As he began to write the email, he realized he didn’t know how to spell that. I was interested to see what would unfold.  

Jian: This is hard.

5-Year-Old-Niece (who does practice spelling): Jian, don’t worry! I’ll help you.

Jian: Okay, how do you spell ‘state’?

5-Year-Old Niece: s-t-a-t

Jian: Thanks… Mom, what’s the red line under the word?

Me: It means that word isn’t spelled correctly.

Jian: Yeah. That sounds like ‘stat’, Nia.

5-Year-Old-Niece: Jian, add a magic “e”.

Jian: Mom, is that right?

Me: Yes, it is.

After trying different combinations of different words, 15 minutes later…

Jian: I know! I’ll just ask Siri! Siri – write State of Florida.

Jian: Yay! This works (as he copies the words from his phone).

Me: Cool! You solved your own problem.

Jian: Yeah, but Siri doesn’t know how to spell my question. Maybe because the question is long?  I see red lines.

Me: Yeah. Would you like to learn how to spell?

Jian: Yes.

Me: Okay, shall we get your Kumon books out?

Jian: Yes. How long will it take me to learn how to spell?

Me: Not sure. Shall we see?  Let’s try it for a week. If you agree to doing 8 pages per day, every day this week, I’ll reschedule your bloodwork and we can re-discuss it on Sunday.

Jian: What happens if I don’t learn by next Sunday?

Me: You’re practicing spelling to write this email, so that we can all get the answer we need. As long as you show me that you’ll try every day, I’ll keep extending the appointment. Does that work?

Jan: Okay, that works.

With no reminders of needing to practice, we’ve reached day three! I have no idea how the rest of the week will go.

The one thing that I find very interesting, is his ability to solve his own problems in a way that is not emotionally drawing for him.  

During his lesson this morning, he was stuck on spelling the word “spoil”. I heard him say to himself, “I remember seeing this word on another page” as he turned the pages of the book.

The old me would have said “no, you can’t copy. You won’t learn otherwise.” The transformed me thought, “Awesome. That’s a great way to solve your own problem”. 

I’ll share an update next week.

I’m curious; as you were reading this, what thoughts came up for you?

Are there ways in which you hold your children accountable to their own learning and growth?