Showing posts with label siblings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label siblings. Show all posts

Monday, March 4, 2024

Helping them share


The problem I see with measured turns is that the quality of game play is compromised. If someone sees the clock and that's when they have to stop, they won't play as thoughtfully. They're less likely to look around at the art or appreciate the music. If they're starting to read, they're less likely to take a moment to look at the text and see if they can tell what it says.

The benefits of game play will not come to full fruition if kids' time is measured that way, and they're not learning to share.

If they only have an hour, they will take ALL of that hour, just as kids whose TV time is limited will.

It they can play as long as they want to, they might play for five or ten minutes and be done.

SandraDodd.com/sharing
photo by Sarah S.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The world opens up


Joanna Murphy wrote:

With trust, the world opens up, horizons expand and life can seem exciting and limitless. Without trust, the world shuts down, gets narrow and petty.

I want more expansiveness in my life, not less.

The expansive quality of trust grows out from the center to touch every part of our lives. Trust that we ARE capable and that we will, through our honest endeavor, figure out a way. Trust that our children will find, ask or be provided with what they need, trust that they are in connection with us by their own choosing and free will—not through "enforcing." And trust that they will grow up loving and caring and interesting people without being "taught."
—Joanna Murphy

Very slightly edited from SandraDodd.com/trust
photo by Cátia Maciel

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Growing and learning


"Things change. Our kids get older. They outgrow stages we think they never will. They learn all they need to know, in their own time."
—Heather Booth

SandraDodd.com/anxiety
photo by Cátia Maciel

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Abundance abounds!

I'm sharing this photo and note from Megan Valnes, with her permission:
Hello Sandra!

I thought of you today while observing my three youngest children having fun together and bonding while playing with the iPad. 🙂 Had I not opened our lives to the principles of Radical Unschooling, there is a high probability that this moment would never have happened. I remain grateful everyday for the wisdom I have acquired through you, your participants, and the daily practice of unschooling principles. Thank you. Abundance abounds!
—Megan Valnes
(e-mail, December 2023)

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Megan Valnes

Thursday, October 5, 2023

More and better

What SHOULD I be doing as an unschooling parent?
  • More.
  • Better than school
  • Making memories

Unschooling Very Well
SandraDodd.com/hsc/unschoolingwell

photo by Rosie Moon

Saturday, September 16, 2023

"Playing computer"


When someone wrote "I do worry about my boys playing computer all day," I responded:

I have three kids who have played hundreds of games among and between them—Holly learned two new card games just this month that nobody else in the family knows, even her dad who has been a big games guy all his life. There is no game called "computer." I think you mean playing ON the computer. HUGE difference.

We have dozens of nice board games here, and table games (games involving cards or other pieces, to be laid out on a table as play proceeds), but those aren't referred to as kids playing board, or kids playing table. The computer is not itself the game. There are games on the computer. There is information on the computer. It's not really a net. It's not really a web. It's millions of ideas, words, jokes, pictures, games, a ton of music and videos and.... But you know that, right?

Clarity can begin with being careful with the words you use. Thinking about what you write will help you think about what you think!!

Sandra

(halfway down this brief page)

Thanks to Marcia Simonds for sharing that quote years back.
photo by Sandra Dodd, of my kids
playing Zoombinis in 1999

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Accepting support

Paula wrote:

I WANTED to be a thoughtful, respectful parent.
....
I wanted to say yes as much as possible, and respect and enjoy my children for who they are, not who I thought they should be.
—Paula F.


There is more of how Paula got to that resolution, at "Support" can be a problem.

SandraDodd.com/support/thoughts
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Healing for parents

Providing a rich life for one's child is a healing opportunity for the parent.

SandraDodd.com/healing
photo by Rosie Moon
__

Monday, July 24, 2023

Acts of caring

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

There are times in life that you won't feel like you can take care of others around you as well as you'd like. You need nurturing yourself and other people's neediness starts to be draining on you.

I've felt that, too.

But I've also found that if I focus more on "seeing" my kids with loving-eyes focus, consciously choose to pay attention to what I love about them, then I actually begin to feel more nourished and strengthened by them, and by the very acts of caring for them.
—Pam Sorooshian
(original)

Beauty
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Sunday, July 2, 2023

Kids Helping Voluntarily

Deborah D. shared a laundry story:

My 10 year old daughter was frustrated yesterday because I hadn't done her laundry yet. When I offered to show her how to do it (I offered it as a possible solution, not as a punitive "do it yourself" thing), she was very excited. She delightfully did several loads of laundry yesterday and today and told me how much fun it is to do.

Today my 8 year old saw what was happening and has done two loads. I happen to like doing laundry so I'm sure that helped—there's been none of the martyr energy I have around other household work.
—Deborah D.


SandraDodd.com/chores/tales
photo by Chelsea Thurman, of kids who could be waiting for laundry...

Thursday, June 22, 2023

We have fun.


Gwen (willow_selene) wrote:

When Megan was between two and three she would pick an avocado at the beginning of most shopping trips. Then she'd hold onto it while she rode in the cart. She called it "her baby" and she would talk to it while we shopped. She didn't eat avocados then (still doesn't). We'd buy it at the end of the trip and DH would eat it later.
. . . .

At Trader Joe's they hide a stuffed monkey for the kids to find. If the kids tell the cashier they've found the monkey, the cashier will ring a bell and make an "arggh!" sound. Then the child can go pick treat out of a box. Megan always finds the monkey, but doesn't always want the treat. She just likes to find the monkey.

If a display is disordered or packages that are supposed to be hanging aren't, both Megan and Zoe will stop and straighten it up.

I love shopping with my kids. We have fun.
—Gwen


More by Gwen, and others' stories: Stories of Stores
photo by Gwen (willow_selene)

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Like a zombie?

Me, in response to a(nother) question, once, about kids who become so involved in something that they are like zombies, don't hear people, don't stop to eat...
If something is REALLY fascinating, extremely engaging, those things might happen. A brand-new video game at an exciting point. A book as good as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, first time through. A news item on the death of a favorite person.

Those things can happen to me, still, as an adult—that I am mesmerized, engaged, involved in something, and it can be a program (I've been watching some great Korean dramas lately), or a book, or an interesting or difficult bit of sewing. It can take me a few seconds to come to myself and respond to another person.

. . . .

It would be unfortunate if someone's unschooled child loved a game or story so much that he seemed to be a zombie, and the parents started to limit his life because of it. It would be an unfortunate lack of appreciation and relationship and awareness on the part of the parents.

SandraDodd.com/zombies
photo by Destiny Dodd

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Making Peace with Food

When Shan Burton was growing up, the relationships among her, food, and her parents was a frightening swirl. Without better ideas, she began to pass some of those problems on to her children. Then she discovered unchooling.

Below are an image from that report, her conclusion, and a link to the story of the changes that came from the changes she made.
Shan wrote:
Food can be an experiment, a social activity, and even art!

What it never is, anymore, is a battlefield.

May all your meals be joyous ones!
—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/eating/childhood
photo by Shan Burton

Friday, May 12, 2023

Peace and sharing

Peace and joy make all the other things easier. Children who don't feel crowded or frustrated will find it easier to share.

When things are, sometimes crowded and frustrating, remember not to yell "I told you to share!" (That last part is a joke, but it might help to imagine a smiley-face safety cone near what could be a danger.)

SandraDodd.com/sharing
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Children see it

A mom named Nancy, in western Canada, wrote:

Again and again my kids can catch me when I am falling, and help me see the wonder of the small things.I feel so blessed to have this time with them.
—Nancy in BC

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Nicole Ní Néill.

Sunday, April 9, 2023

Half-sacred

When a mom comes along all indignant about what she "has to do" for her kids and what she is "NOT going to do" for her kids, I take half-perverse, half-sacred pleasure in asking her, once she winds down, what if she had a child who was unable to walk, or get out of bed, or put on his own socks, ever.

Quote is from a text-chat on
Chores, Serving others as a gift, tales of kids helping out voluntarily

Another good place to read would be "have to" (about choices)
photo by Rosie Moon

Thursday, April 6, 2023

The way to be

Children WANT to act in adult ways, so it's important for unschooling parents to be the sort of adults children want to emulate, right then. Not when they grow up, but now.
From a facebook discussion about helpful unschooled kids.
photo by Sarah S.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Choosing to

I think the elimination of "have to" is the first step toward peace.

Thinking you "have to" do the dishes feels oppressive and entrapping.

Realizing you don't "have to" is freeing.

Only then can you choose to do your dishes.

The best way to make it easier is to see it as a gift given in joy, rather than "a chore" done in resentment.

It's a huge investment in the future, to be generous today.


Chores, and serving others as a gift
(a chat transcript)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Learning informally and naturally

the backs of two children in an English forest, with walking sticks
If budding unschoolers will look at how they learned things outside the classroom, and use that as a model and a goal, that helps. They don't really have to hunt down other unschooling families, although it doesn't hurt. A family isolated from other unschoolers might do well to brainstorm examples of things they've learned informally and naturally, and to look around for other people learning things in the same manner.

An Interview with Sandra Dodd by Emily Subler, 1998
photo by Rosie Moon

Monday, December 12, 2022

Wonderful warm feelings

Brie Jontry wrote:

When we stretch beyond seeing more than only one or two possibilities, our children's worlds become exponentially larger, with more potential for laughter and learning and wonderful warm feelings of connection.
—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Cátia Maciel