Learning, input—living there

a mom wrote:
Having the television on all day is not something I want and I live here too.

Sandra Dodd's response:

We don't have the television on all day.

You live there too, but if your priority is your children's learning, then limiting input is going to make that more difficult.

Other unschoolers responded, too, in that discussion:
SandraDodd.com/bookworship
photo by Jen

Choose to have choices

A person can choose to have choices. A person can choose not to choose; still a choice, but they think of it as "no choice" or "have to."

Make the better choice
photo by Sandra Dodd

Avoiding problems

What else can be a problem with unschooling?
Trying to save time and money; skimping on attention.

I've done this, "Not now," or "please not today." But what do you tell yourself about that? If it's "Good, no problem," that's bad, and a problem.

Generosity begets generosity
photo by Roya Dedeaux

How much does unschooling cost?

Unschooling is priceless. It cannot be bought. And "cost" is a difficult concept, so if you have an easy answer floating to mind, try to scatter it and look from many different angles.

If a child is in a private school, unschooling won't "cost that much," meaning no one will send you a tuition bill and a steady stream of fundraising requests and tell you what clothes and shoes you have to buy.

If both parents are working and decide one should quit work and stay at home with the children, will it "cost" a full-time income? In one way of looking at it, perhaps. But counting potential is a trap.

If a family values love and relationships, unschooling can pay off in a jackpot of closeness and joy that could hardly be possible with school in the equation, and could never be bought back with a thousand hours of expensive therapy down the road. (Maybe factor in the time savings of not spending a thousand hours sitting and talking about what you could've done differently, in addition to the cost of it.)

There's more: SandraDodd.com/unschoolingcost
photo by Sandra Dodd

What about "Educational" Materials?

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Resistance to things that look schooly or educational makes sense—we're promoting letting all those things go completely, especially at the beginning stages of unschooling, and we talk about how beneficial that can be for helping people to help them understand that learning happens all the time, that much of what is "taught" in school is learned naturally by unschoolers in the course of living their complete schoolishness-free lives.

I don't think it makes sense to criticize unschoolers for being anti-schoolishness. That goes with the territory.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/stages/materials
image by WordCloud, of words by Sandra Dodd

In 2013, someone said my facebook posts were negative. In those days, WordCloud could generate artsy data from a facebook URL (or any URL or document). The posts were candid (they were already there). The size is based on the number of times words were repeated, in that sample of 293 posts—a year's worth. Looked pretty positive!

Along the way

Karen James wrote:

I've climbed big hills (physically and metaphorically) like this for a couple of decades now. I don't look up and think "That's going to be exhausting." I look up to get a sense of where I want to go. Then I start walking. As I walk, I listen to my breathing. I watch my progress. I notice the beautiful details along the way. I look up every once in a while to celebrate how far I've come. I haven't made it to the top of every hill I've wanted to climb, but I don't let that negatively influence my next attempt.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Online real-life safety

Deborah Cunefare wrote:

My kids know that if they meet someone online and decide they'd like to get together in real life, I'll do my very best to help make it happen. We've driven across states to meet up with families in their homes who we only know from online until we get there.

A predator would have a really really REALLY hard time getting my kid into a situation they could be taken advantage of. A kid who isn't supposed to talk to anyone they don't know has much incentive to agree to sneak out to meet that person - the parent isn't going to agree because the kid was breaking the rules. They're easy prey. My kids, on the other hand, know that they can ask and I'll drive them to a safe meeting. If the "friend" said "Oh no, don't tell your mom" that's a huge red flag for them.

—Deborah Cunefare

SandraDodd.com/onlinesafety
photo by Julie Daniel

Coda: I thought the photo was mine, at first, because I was there. Someone from England drove me and Joyce Fetteroll (who are ordinarily in New Mexico and Massachusetts, respectively) to visit a family in Scotland. Without online discussions using real names, we would not have known one another, and I would not have seen that wonderful old wall, patched more than once over a couple or three centuries, and that shelf, and...

We KNOW fear and negativity to be dangers. We know joy and newness can add to peace and learning.