A thousand interesting things

You can't see beauty without wanting to see some. Once you're looking through curiosity-tinted glasses, you will see a thousand interesting things.


(a little longer, on facebook)
or
Positivity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Surprising waiters

We have surprised waiters in many restaurants by turning to our children questioningly when the waiter asks the adults "Would you like to see the dessert menu?" They're even more surprised when the kids say, "No thanks," or "I'm full," while making friendly eye contact with the waiter.

SandraDodd.com/freedom/limits
photo by Sandra Dodd
(couldn't find one of my kids, young, in a restaurant)

Your own clear understanding

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking. I don't think it works as well when people just look at those with young adult kids who are happy and successful and try to copy them without doing the hard thinking and building their own clear understanding of unschooling. When they try to emulate, they are still following rules - unschooling rules. Unschoolers always say yes to everything. Unschoolers never make their kids do anything. Kids always decide everything for themselves. And so on. But those "rules" are not unschooling. Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Belinda Dutch

Reading and watermelons

When learning to read happens naturally, it doesn't look like school's reading lessons. It doesn't take years. It might take only days, but the tricky part is when those days will come. If you plant watermelons, picking at the leaves and threatening the vine will not get you a watermelon before one was going to naturally grow and mature. It's the same with children.

The quote is from page 86 (page 95, in 2019 edition)
of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Amber Stippy

Harvest

Fewer folks farm than used to. It's understandable.

Even without a farm, though, what's planted might grow. What is tended thrives.

Not everything can be controlled, but many things can be accepted and appreciated. Mentally gather up the positive results in your life and be grateful for your harvest.


SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Lydia Koltai

Thoughtful and compassionate

Be careful what you write about your child, and your beliefs, in public. Be careful about what you believe and then act on.

Learning. If learning is more important to you than control, unschooling has a chance of working.

Be clear, thoughtful, compassionate, and live lightly with your children as much as you can!

SandraDodd.com/ifilet
photo by Kirby Dodd

Magic (it isn't)

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Unschooling cannot be learned by reading or writing.

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SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sandra Dodd