Just because

If someone gives you a blanket when you need a blanket, just because they know you need one and think you might like to have one, it's better than a hand-quilted show-piece given to someone who had blankets.

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Janine Davies

Pleasantly surprised

I was asked:

Did your kids have rules like bedtimes, no candy before dinner ... that sort of thing?

I wrote:

We didn't have those rules, but our kids went to bed every night and didn't eat candy before dinner. It seems crazy to people who believe that the only options are rules or chaos, but our children slept when they were sleepy, and ate when they were hungry (or when something smelled really good, or others were eating), and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they were able to know what their bodies needed. I grew up by the clock, up at 6:30, eat quickly, bus stop, school, wait until lunch, eat, wait until dinner, go to bed. I had no idea that sleep and food could be separated from a schedule like that, but they can be.

SandraDodd.com/crazy
photo by Sandra Dodd

Round, coming around

Lisa Jonick took this photo in a park in Albuquerque where I have been many times. The shadow is round, but flatter than the tree is. Still, the big round sun and a round tree caused that effect.

The dome in the distance there is Explora, the permament home of a children's museum that used to move from storefront to strip mall to basement of a downtown building, while they raised enough money for a home of their own. Some of the displays are things we saw in other locations, as my children were growing up.

Things tend to come around again, in different forms, perhaps, and with different details. Small effects can build up to large ones. A snapshot moment connects space to earth, season to viewer, structures to history, memories to the future.

Find a comfortable way to relax into the flow of life, as often as you can, appreciating the sweet surprises along the way.

The writing above is new, but a good link is SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Lisa Jonick

One peaceful choice

Lisa J Haugen wrote:

I make one peaceful choice, one bonding, relationship-building choice. Just one little choice. Then it's easier to make the next one, and the next one, and sometimes there's wobble, but rebuilding peace and self esteem one choice, one moment at a time, is doable! When you do that you can get to really sweet, joyful, soul-warming places.

—Lisa J Haugen

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sometimes, a little examination

This was about unschoolers helping other unschoolers, but some of it applies generally.

Helping people learn to find their own answers is vastly superior to distributing answers on demand. And those who volunteer their time and experience are not willing to hold other's hands for years or months. They want to empower others. Empowerment is a principle, not a rule. Learning to examine one's own life and needs and beliefs is necessary for unschooling to work.

SandraDodd.com/rulebound
photo by Leon McNeill, Omaha Beach, when Holly was there with them

Webs, nets, connections

The terms "web" and "net" have both been commandeered by the internet. The idea of a grid or web or matrix to represent the connections involved in learning and memory is a good one, though—of many "dots" connected in all directions.

The photo here is of the two-dimensional web—very flat—of a garden spider, outside my house this week. Black widow spiders make a web that's three-dimensional, but has no pattern. We have those in our yard, too.

The webs on which our own mental models of the universe are based are more complex—with past and future, emotion and theory, alternative stories and secondary theories. We have sounds and songs, scents and tastes to remember, and can sort things by temperature or texture, in our minds and imaginations.

Rejoice in the random!

SandraDodd.com/random
and on the upper right side of Just Add Light and Stir is a random post link now!
photo by Sandra Dodd

Give generously

If you want to measure, measure generously. If you want to give, give generously. If you want to unschool, or be a mindful parent, give, give, give. You'll find after a few years that you still have everything you thought you had given away, and more.

SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely
photo by Sandra Dodd

Relax into wonder

If you can allow yourself to relax into wonder, your children will have a wonderful mom.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd
The quote was from something passing, on Facebook.
Other wonderful Just Add Light moments:
What Makes thing Wonderful
Wonderful
Wonder and Flow
A Wonder Post

What is this for?

Years before we had children, I was telling my young husband-to-be that in school the only math I liked were the "word problems." He said those are the only real math problems in text books. That was the real math. The numbers sitting already in equations and formations were the solutions to unstated problems, with only the arithmetical calculations left to be done.

I remember that moment vividly. I was in my late 20's and hearing for the first time what "mathematics" meant. I had asked my teachers all through school "What is this for?" and "How is this used?" and they rarely had an answer beyond "Just do it," or "It will be on the test."

SandraDodd.com/math/unerzogen
photo by Sandra Dodd

Choose to see abundance

"In order for kids to feel and see abundance, they first must have parents who feel and see it too, even if there is no money. Go to parks, pick up sticks, ride bikes to new places, swing on the swing differently, make bubbles and blow them in front of a fan. Look at stars at night and try to find constellations, light things on fire with magnifying glass, roast hot dogs for dinner (it's cheap), the possibilities are limitless, but only if you choose to see them. THAT is what will help your kids learn how to be creative thinkers—seeing and doing creative things."

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/abundance.html
photo by Kristi Beguin

Riches

Joyce Fetteroll, in response to someone wondering whether boredom or deprivation would increase curiosity:

If all a kid has is rocks and sticks, they'll turn those rocks and sticks into a wide variety of things. If a kid has a Pokemon, it's usually going to be a Pokemon. To see the rich story telling the child doing, it takes more attention and more understanding of what the child is interested in.

Einstein and Ferrari and e.e. cummings and Steve Jobs didn't build from sticks and stones. They built off of what others had created before. Kids shouldn't have to be made to reinvent story telling because their parents aren't engaged enough to understand what's happening with the Barbies and the Pokemon.

photo by Sandra Dodd
of toys bought at a carboot sale

What proof do you have?

A response to this question:
What proof do you have that it is working? How would you suggest parents reassure themselves that this path is providing everything their children need?

Well starting at the end, there is no path that will provide everything for a child. There are some [paths] that don't even begin to intend to provide everything their children need. Maybe first parents should consider what it is they think their children really need.

As to proof of whether unschooling is working, if the question is whether kids are learning, parents can tell when they're learning because they're there with them. How did you know when your child could ride a bike? You were able to let go, quit running, and watch him ride away. You know they can tell time when they tell you what time it is. You know they're learning to read when you spell something out to your husband and the kid speaks the secret word right in front of the younger siblings. In real-life practical ways children begin to use what they're learning, and as they're not off at school, the parents see the evidence of their learning constantly.

SandraDodd.com/interview a
photo of a kaleidoscope (and Holly) by Holly

Holly was six when the response above was written,
and nineteen years old when she took the photo.