The First Iteration

Tamara and I sat down on a recent afternoon to hash out the first iteration of the schedule, a term that encompasses time and chores, and implicitly describes that tactics of our parenting approach. The good news: it didn’t completely devolve into an argument the way that many of our parenting discussions have in the past. The not so good news: It made me realize that we have a lot of work to do to get to some sort of stable situation.

Funny coronavirus side note: As far as I can remember, it’s the first time that I’ve sent Tamara a meeting request via Gmail for what amounts to a personal discussion about family matters, but now that we’re all working at home, it felt correct. I liked how it gave us both time to mentally prepare for a conversation that we both knew would involve tension and negotiation.

As for the meeting, early on I made a point of explaining how I see this whole Tenzin (un)schooling situation as a complex problem versus simply a complicated one. Technically, that means that there is no single correct solution, nor will any solution that we come up with be guaranteed to hold up over time. There are simply too many variables that are always changing. The best we can do is to iteratively craft a system that responds to those changing variables over time in a way that properly meets everyone’s needs. She agreed.

It was important to make sure we were on the same page about the complexity of the undertaking. We’ve a history of getting into fights when treating complex problems as something that we simply need to think long and hard about in order to come with a solution. One of my emotional buttons is being treated unfairly, and it’s not unusual to be accused of not caring enough about a solution, when what is actually happening is that I’m in the process of learning more about the problem.

My work as an engineer often involves complex problems, so I know from experience that they call for experimental approaches and continuous iteration. I have an idea of what to do in those circumstances, so I expressed some optimism about treating the unschooling initiative the same way.

I don’t want to bury the lede any further, and also I don’t want to forget what Tamara and I decided, so here we go.