Just as I was falling asleep last night…after being up and down a dozen times with PanKwake who was on a kick of playing iPad apps that she had not tried in a while. I hear this loud…Whoop! Followed by her happy song. Something along the lines of…
I did it!
I DID IT!!!
Savour the moment!
You see she had finally after about two years of trying on and off managed to conquer the final level of Octodad: Deadliest Catch.
And that is NOT easy!!! You have to get him up the down the escalator.
I know how hard it is because I have HAD to try it more than once. Back in the day, PanKwake would get so upset…even meltdown…if she could not do it. So I would try and try and try…until she rage quit and went on to another game.
Now you have to understand…I am NOT a gamer girl. I sucked at Pac-Man and Centipede…when they first came out. I gave up and never played games again. In fact, I failed my driver’s license test even though I got all 50 questions correct…because I could not play the video game portion of it.
But being a good Radical Unschooling parent I have tried more than one of her games…I even am sort of OK on the pocket edition of Minecraft. But this one…this one is almost impossible.
So hear Cookie Monster and I lay in bed listening to her sing. And I can only think…
Yeah, that’s my PanKwake! She may struggle to go up the down escalator of life…but she has fun doing it…and in the end…she does make it.
Not just with video games either…I remember when she was about three or so. We had gone to the movies…a kiddie one for her sake. But she did not have the attention span to manage anything more than the ten minutes of a Peppa Pig back then. So we ended up leaving my older daughter and younger son in there to watch the movie…while we went exploring. The thing that PanKwake loved most was just that…
Trying to go up the down escalator.
In parks, she always wants to climb up the slide rather than take the stairs like you are supposed to.
That is the thing about Radical Unschooling…it gives us the freedom to do whatever it takes to hep her learn. When I took that course on helping those with reading difficulties, I learned a new term…Cognitive Death. It means that they have stopped wanting to learn. I know that if PanKwake were in school…in a place where she HAD to do things because the teacher said so…that is what would have happened to her.
So yeah it may be a bit disruptive to have her yelling out and singing at two o’clock in the morning. But Cookie and I just laughed, hugged each other tighter, and took joy in the fact that she had stuck to it. She had done the impossible…and trust me that level is. She had beaten Octodad.
It was one of those moments when I know that everything will be all right with her in the end. She will find her place in this world…and it might be as RADICAL as her unschooling has been. But it will be PanKwake’s choice.
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 