Being inside

If you can't go outside, look at the beauty inside. There are things you might have missed, if you didn't have time to sit and see.

Creating history
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Finding a social spot

Humans are social animals, and learn in mixed-age groups, when they learn naturally. A family can create that natural learning environment, or can fail to create it. :-/ Being around other people, though, IF AND WHEN a child wants to learn and is encouraged by parents to learn how to be considerate and sociable, can be a good place to learn "manners"—ways to behave politely.

In school, children are still social animals with the need to identify who might help them, and what their role is within the social structure. The social structure being unnaturally 20+ kids the same age, they figure out who are the leaders and the "young" and they act in accordance with their instincts in an unnatural setting. More adults to—teens, and young adults, and middle-aged, and elderly, behaving in natural real-world ways. TV is better for that than school is. Ideally, a rich unschooled life *IN* the real world is better than either.



photo by Julie D

I can't find where I wrote that, up there, but three people shared it in 2012,
and I still think it's true. —Sandra

Be curious about life

Get interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"

Let your child know that all the questions haven't been answered yet and it's not her job to just keep absorbing answers until she's got them all.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran

Nearly natural limits

Kelly Lovejoy wrote:

The world is FULL of natural limits. Our lives are FULL of natural limits. It's the way we deal with those limits that matters. Finding solutions and dealing with obstacles and knowing what limits are real. —Kelly Lovejoy

From a discussion of Boundaries, at Unschooling Basics
photo by Ester Siroky

A little peace

It doesn't take much to create a little peace, and then some more.

SandraDodd.com/peace/
photo by Ester Siroky

Priceless and profound

One of the greatest benefits of unschooling is the relationship with the child, and the changing attitudes of those in the family toward learning and being. Being a parent one is proud to be is priceless and profound. The healing of one's own childhood wounds and the recovery from school are like little bonus miracles.

How Robbie saw unschooling in swans
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Laughter helps

Deb Lewis wrote:



Unschoolers sometimes talk about having tools in their toolbox. No, unschoolers are not all plumbers. They're referring to a store of good ideas to shop around in to help in this business of living. I have one tool I use more than any other. A pipe wrench! No, it's humor.. . . .Laughter has helped my own family through hard times. Sure we would have come through the hard times anyway, but we came through them with less stress, fewer lasting scars, and lots of great one-liners.

—Deb Lewis

Unschooler's Pipe Wrench, by Deb Lewis
photo by Jo Isaac