'My kids set the curriculum': Mum proudly 'freeschools' her kids

"We don't teach our children anything. They learn in response to their interests or questions."

"We don't teach our children anything," spiritual guru and mum Mami Onami shares in a video on TikTok. 

"Anything that they learn is in response to either their interest or their questions."

The mum of two children, ages three and six, continues, "There is no curriculum or school hours."

Then she flips open a page of her six-year-old son Rainer's workbook, where he has scribbled huge words such as "egg," "lamp," and "lion" across the A4 pages. Some letters are upside-down, while others are back to front.

"This is him doing it by himself," she says proudly before explaining that he naturally gravitated to wanting to learn to write.

Rainer also has taken an interest in maths and often asks his mum things like, "Mum, what's seven plus five?"

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Image: Instagram

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"They will learn everything they need to learn"

"If you do not like this idea of sending your kids away for 40 hours a week, if you are not into your kids conforming, trust that you can follow their interests and they will learn everything they need to learn, not what other people need them to learn," she says. 

She added in the caption: "The best part is that my son LOVES learning, LOVES beginning something new, and is experienced with practising things until he improves. They do this school because they want to, and when you want to know something, your retention is 100%."

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"This is concerning"

The clip has now racked up over 4313 comments, most of which are skeptical of the mum's approach.

"You’re crippling your children," one person claimed. "It’s fine if you want to keep them ignorant forever… I personally want better for my kids," another sarcastic comment read.

Others called her "lazy" and "neglectful" and accused her of trying to dodge the responsibility of educating her kids.

Even homeschooling parents had concerns.

"Homeschooling mum here: this is concerning," she said.

Another said, "This is quite behind for a six-year-old."

And someone who was raised similarly to this mum's kids added: "My parents ruined my life doing this. RUINED it. I have never been able to catch up. I will never be able to live the life I wanted to."

However, not everyone was so vitriolic.

"16-year unschooler here! One of the best decisions ever. I have four responsible, brilliant, creative, successful kids—two adults and two teens. It works!" wrote one mum.

And someone else replied: "I do this too! Unschooling is what I call it. My son is so smart."

Then a third added: "I agree with this, but I also think later it’s important to sprinkle in a little bit of tax knowledge and business knowledge."

Mami Onami replied, "Oh girl, for sure. My goal is to have my kids have their own businesses by age 13."

"I won't listen to comments about how to raise my kids"

Speaking to Rolling Stone about the backlash on her video, the mum, who has a third child on the way, said: "To have a bunch of people on the internet say that my son is stupid, that I’m a negligent parent — that really hurt my feelings at first.

"[But] I’m not going to listen to a comments section about how to raise my kids. That would be like trusting the comments section on where to invest your money. You would really only have yourself to blame if it didn’t work."

Originally published as 'My kids set the curriculum': Mum proudly 'freeschools' her kids