My daughter was 11 the year we went to our first unschooling conference. It was a big one. There were 300 or so people in attendance. We knew exactly none of them.

We’d been unschooling in our fashion for a couple of years, making the segue from an eclectic, workbook-based homeschool approach to something less schooly and more fun. In our homeschool co-op we’d become the fringe family, the ones who didn’t “do school at all.” (We also didn’t do religion, which pretty much put us into the Satan’s Spawn category, but that’s a subject for another day.)

We loved our unschooling life.

Though the longer we did it, the more isolated we felt. My daughter needed friends, not children who felt duty bound to save her heathen soul, and I needed to find some like-minded parents. Plus I wanted to see this unschooling thing in action. I’d read everything I could get my hands on, all the books, all the websites, all the online forum discussions, including archives. I got that it was something more than a way of educating, that it was a way of life.

But reading can only take you so far. There comes a time when it helps to be in the actual, physical presence of more skilled practitioners, adult and children alike. So off we went to the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the Live & Learn Unschooler Conference, in the summer of 2007.

That conference changed our lives.

I could tell you about the passionate presentations and round-table discussions, the inspired funshops and the wacky talent show, all of which made for an unforgettable experience. But what lingers in my mind most vividly is what I observed all around, in between, during, before and after those activities: the interactions between adults and kids, between kids and kids, between older kids and younger ones, and especially among the teens.

The teens captured my heart.

I had no experience with teens like this. People, I owned a coffeehouse for three years when my daughter was younger. It was a popular local hangout for the teens in our community. I had teenage people in my life every day.

But these teens… They were different.

They seemed so… happy.

And relaxed. And comfortable with their parents and other adults. And with themselves. And not cynical. And so very alive.

I remember thinking at the time, if having a happy, relaxed, not-cynical teen who is comfortable with her parents and with herself was the only gift unschooling gave us, it would be enough. It would be hugely enough. Because I’ve seen too many of the other kinds of teens. The sad ones, the angry ones, the lonely ones, the disaffected, disengaged, distant ones, the damaged ones, the lost ones.

Here was evidence that another way was possible.

Going to that first unschooler conference and observing all that in-between stuff rearranged my brain. It changed the way I think about parenting, which changed the way I act as a parent, which changed the way my daughter and I interact. Going to that first conference realigned everything, in part because I was willing to be realigned, and in part because that is the magic of an unschooling conference.

It’s four years and many gatherings later, and I now have one of those happy teens in my life. In my house. And it rocks. It truly does.

I know, I know. Everything in our culture tells us teens are some kind of Other. That they’re supposed to be sullen and disagreeable. That they’re supposed to feel awful about themselves and act hateful toward their parents.

I’m here to tell you, it ain’t necessarily so.

Maybe you’ve got a young person in your house, and you’re wondering how you’re going to handle those teen years. Maybe you’re a teen person yourself, wondering how you’re going to get through it.  Here’s a suggestion: find an unschooling conference or a gathering and go. Life is Good is going on this coming week in Vancouver, Washington.  The Northeast Unschooler Conference happens in August.  Good Vibrations is coming up in San Diego in September.  Let your world be rocked.