Reading will happen.

Reading will happen, and if it takes longer for your child than you think it will, keep them happy and distracted in the meantime. As their experience and vocabulary grow, their reading will be that much more effortless the day they're fully equipped to understand the written word.

Three Readers
photo by Quita Gray

Doing this deeply

Unschooling is not as easy as some people think it is. It can be fun, and simple, and life changing, if it is done deeply and thoroughly.

SandraDodd.com/video/doright
Thanks, Marta Pires, for saving that quote.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Peace on earth

In a longer discussion, Joyce Fetteroll wrote that people should be focused on helping a child "peacefully co-exist with the rest of the planet."

Meredith Novak added:

I think this is really key. If you're focused on who's "right" or which "side" to take, that's going to narrow down both your perception of the situation and the options you can envision.

Helping maintain peace within families is a direct contribution to peace on earth.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

More patience

I didn’t expect unschooling to make things so sweet between me and Keith.
Partly Keith's just a nice guy, but principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

The more I got to know Marty, the more ways I saw him like Keith, and because I was sympathetic to those traits in Marty which had bothered me in Keith, I became more sympathetic to and understanding of Keith.

SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo at Marty's wedding
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Happiness

Unschooled kids should learn what they want to learn, and have fun doing it. If happiness isn’t even a goal, life is of little value.

SandraDodd.com/happy
auto-bot photo of the Dusseldorp family

Sparklers at midnight

Ren wrote:

When my children ask me to light sparklers up at midnight, my auto-pilot mode says "That's not something we do this late at night!" but that lovely little "why not" goes gently swirling through my mind, growing louder as I pause. Why not indeed?

—Ren Allen

SandraDodd.com/rentalk
photo by Andrea Quenneville
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Full and open

Help a child be full of the world—full, and open, with experiences and connections flowing in and through him. At peace, curious, joyful.

If an unschooling family honors a child's interests, answers his questions, supports his curiosity, provides for him a place to sleep, and a variety of food and opportunities, it shouldn't matter what those interests and questions are — he will be learning and growing.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Colleen Prieto
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