Monster Trucks

Last Sunday we went to a monster truck rally. That's within the realm of things I never considered part of my future. Tommy has always been interested in monster trucks and I've either tried to ignore it or passively try to talk him out of reading more monster truck books, with the thoughts 1) You've already read every book about monster trucks, can you finally pick something else to be fixated upon!? 2) There's nothing educationally valuable about monster trucks. They are just grown-up toys. 

But since I've been reading more about unschooling, I discovered the concept of feeding kids' passions. Not discouraging their passions because they aren't 'good' or 'educational enough'. I've been doing a lot of discouraging passions. I never say, "That's dumb, don't be interested in that", but I will just ignore it as much as I can, hoping it goes away. Lately I've been trying to be a lot better about being respectful of the boys' interests. So when Tommy asked to read more about monster trucks, because he'd already read all the books our library owned, we tracked down every book on the topic in the entire library district (thanks to inter-library loan). He looked up YouTube videos about monster trucks. He read articles about them on the internet. 

When I took a step back and looked at who my child is, I realized that Tommy has been interested in monster trucks ever since he was a baby. He's always gotten monster truck books from the library, even before he could read them. I've just dismissed it as "one of those boy things" that kids eventually grow out of. I never took it very seriously. But lately I've been trying to take their interests more seriously. I've been talking to them about the things they love and why they love them. I've been joining them in learning more about their passions. They love it when I take an interest in the things they love. :)

And so I had the idea to take Tommy to a monster truck show. Originally it was to be for his birthday, but there were only two shows happening, one in a few weeks (from when I started looking into it) and the next one wasn't until January 2015. We opted for the show in just a few weeks. 

Fast forward to the day of the show: Tommy was absolutely over-the-moon excited. He practically trembled with excitement and happiness at seeing the monster trucks drive around, do jumps, crash cars, and smash into things. I almost cried to see him so happy, his eyes alive at watching everything going on. 

I've truly learned that the things my kids are interested doesn't have to make sense to me. It doesn't have to be something I'm interested in. But it is worth it respect them as individuals and to join in with their interests and learn together. It is so worth it!

And then, the topic of educational value... Just in the past few days he learned about marketing, economics, math, advertising, geography, business ethics, not to mention suspension systems, aerodynamics, geometry, physics (force, mass, acceleration). I couldn't possibly have come up with a unit study of all these things if I tried. Tommy has learned so much just through his interest in monster trucks. 

Since the show, Tommy has watched more YouTube videos about monster trucks. We've learned about how the whole Monster Jam franchise works. He built a mini monster truck arena out of dirt for one of toy monster trucks. He decided he wants to buy himself a RC monster truck, so he's been doing chores around the house to earn money towards it. 

So much for monster trucks not being of any educational value.