From a facebook discussion about helpful unschooled kids.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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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.
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.
Demonizing food creates a demon. Being calm creates more calm. | ![]() |
"When I stopped seeing my daughter as adversarial it changed the world for us." —Joanna Murphy |
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? | ![]() |
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Be soft and sweet, or else your children won't have a soft and sweet mother. Keep your house happy and calm, or else your children won't have a happy and calm environment. | ![]() |
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Wed, Jul 28, 1993
The first thing [Marty] said after “good morning” was “Mom, if you count to infinity, is it illegal?”
I explained to him about infinity, with a million plus one and a “gadillion” plus one. He was fine with the explanation, and I said, “Who told you you can’t count to infinity?” He said I did, so I explained the difference in things that are impossible and things that are illegal (have consequences)
Nothing can guarantee that a child will "have no gaps" in his education, and no one knows today what a young adult will need to know fifteen years from now. | ![]() |
![]() | Without "judgment," how on earth can someone "use good judgment"? |
![]() | Logical-mathematical intelligence applies not just to straight-out numbers, but to seeing and thinking in patterns, and of being scientific and analytical. Clarity of thought is logical/mathematical as surely as being a numerical whiz is. |
"I will always remember something Richard Prystowsky said about being a
peaceful parent...something about the way to become a peaceful parent was to be
peaceful. There was no path, you just had to BE peaceful. "It's really that simple. Slow down and make room for peace amongst all the mess and fun and tasks and STUFF. All of that daily stuff is your practice, so make it peaceful and happy and there ya go!" —Ren Allen | ![]() |
Without choices, they can't make choices. Without choices they can't make good choices OR bad choices. In too many people's minds, "good" is eating what parents say when parents say (where and how and why parents say). That doesn't promote thought, self awareness, good judgment or any other good thing.
Food is for health and sustenance. Eating with other people can be a social situation, ranging (on the good end) from ceremonial to obligatory to courtesy. There's no sense making it hostile or punitive.
"Even though my mind believes in my childrens' abilities, my heart sometimes need some validation. And every time one of my children does something for the first time, completely of their own volition, my heart leaps and then pumps joy to every cell in my body. Each time this happens the truth: that children will learn all they need to, in their own time—becomes etched a little deeper in my bones. And this is where the magic lies—not so much in the "firstness" of each new skill or idea, but in the fact that they completely own these moments." —Susan May | ![]() |
Live like you're their last hope.
The separation of learning and fun is the only thing that keeps learning from BEING fun. | ![]() |
![]() | I learned early on to say, "This is what we're doing for now," or "It's working now. If it stops working, we'll do something else." |
One of my intentions from way back, before unschooling came around in our lives, was to keep the tone of the house light and happy. | ![]() |
If you're living in the future too much—
in the future that you're imagining,
in the future that you're predicting,
in the future that you would like to imagine you can control,
in the future that you'd like to imagine you can even imagine,
that's a problem.
So it's good to aim for living in the moment in a while way—your whole self, not separated from your past or your future, but also not really over-focussed on it.
If you bank on the future, literally, that's a good idea. Savings is a good idea. I'm not saying not to have life insurance or things like that—that's great. But banking on it figuratively can be a big problem.