The other day I was in a Facebook unschooling group, and a new unschooler was looking for suggestions for YouTube channels for her young daughter. Not because her daughter was explicitly looking for new channels, but because (according to the mother), she was spending too much time watching “stupid and useless” videos.

I gently suggested that a re-frame of how she was viewing her daughter’s choices might be helpful, but I was met only with anger and defensiveness. She knew her daughter, she knew what she was watching, and she knew that it was stupid and useless.

I think the biggest problem – and there are many – with this line of thinking is that it automatically shuts down the line of communication between parent and child. The child knows the parent thinks it’s stupid, and it is something they can not safely share without minimization at best, and ridicule at worst. It makes the child feel bad about their own likes, and by extension about themselves, and makes them less likely to want to share their interests with their parents in the future. And you want to know one of the hallmarks, and indeed one of the most integral parts of unschooling done well? The sharing of interests!

Disparaging someone else’s interests is just poor form. It’s unkind. We all have millions of things we like to do, watch, listen to, play, that may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s what makes the world interesting. How boring it would be if we all liked the same things! As parents, we may not be able to immediately see the inherent value in something our kids are doing, but if they’re choosing to do it, we can rest assured that it’s there. Their interests have meaning. Their interests have value. They are getting something out of that video, even if to you it looks stupid and useless.

It is hurtful to have our passions minimized. It is hurtful to be dismissed. And even if we’re watching something for pure pleasure and/or relaxation and/or escapism? Where is the harm? Where is the justification in making fun of it?

Embracing your loved one’s passions brings you closer. Disparaging them brings you further apart.

No one wants to be belittled for something they enjoy. Especially not our kids, who just want to share their worlds with us, if only we’ll let them.

Let people enjoy things.