Emulation

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 Sandra Dodd
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Bafflement and befuddlement

Wonder is great—that kind of respectful awe. But if you were in a state of wonder all the time, that would be bafflement.

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The note above was written on a piece of paper I was carrying around with me. Probably I was working on a presentation on wonder. I like the word "bafflement" and I liked "befuddled," but try not to stay in those states long, because your kids need for you to be clear and sharp.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Slowly amazing

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

It is amazing that the epiphanies seem to come so frequently in this life. The other day I was baking a cake and David got back from the grocery store and had to deal with the leaking coolant on the car and needed help putting the groceries away. I was up to my elbows in batter and asked Simon and Linnaea if they could help.

They both came in and put all the groceries away and went back to what they were doing. It was so sweet, so not coercive, so not eye-rolling. Just this generous gift of service. It came with an epiphany, an underscoring of these unschooling side effects that I see and read about from other people.

As you say, the proof is in the living! The rightness, the evidence, the closeness, the joy, those are all found in this life. You can read about them, but to experience them you have to get down on your hands and knees and play and hang out and tell stories and cuddle and talk and share and be willing to listen and to apologize and to work to make it better. And if you can do that without any other intention than enjoying being with them, without any ulterior motives, it plays out in ways that nothing else that I've ever seen does.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Create calm

Demonizing food creates a demon. Being calm creates more calm.

SandraDodd.com/foodproblems
photo by Sandra Dodd

Change the World

"When I stopped seeing my daughter as adversarial it changed the world for us."

—Joanna Murphy

SandraDodd.com/change.html
photo by Marty Dodd
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Plain and good

Plain milk tastes WAY better if it's your choice than it does when it's plain because someone else wouldn't let you put chocolate in it. Without free choice, how can a person choose what is plain and good?

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
(I painted the stripey glaze;
Holly did the spots in the same colors,
when she was four or five.)

Science here, there and everywhere

In school, science is
"a subject."

In the real world, science is a way of seeing, and thinking. Curiosity, observation, speculation, examination, comparisions, openness to surprises, and practice with rational thinking help one learn about things seen and unseen, small and large, from a smoking volcano to a shell on a beach to an icicle in the sunshine.
SandraDodd.com/science
photo by Dylan Lewis, in Stromboli