A world that is kinder

"As I've gotten older, I focus more and more on kindness. I want to be kind, I want my children to be kind and I want them to be in a world that is kinder." —Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/virtue
photo by Sarah Elizabeth Douglas

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I wrote this when I was frustrated, so it's not as poetic as some:

Kids have their whole childhoods to learn to tie shoes, wipe ass, make a sandwich. Parents do NOT have that whole childhood to slowly mosey over toward being a little closer to unschooling. If you don't do it soon and well, it will be too late to do it at all.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Ester Siroky

Flowing thoughts

What you know can be added to, or amended, but rarely deleted. Some things are best not learned, which is why it's so important to be careful what you say and how you say it (and to drive carefully, and all that). Some people do try to encapsulate ideas or experiences and forget them. Sometimes other memories are shut off along with that. That’s a good reason for analyzing traumatic events and sorting through instead of trying to encase them. Too many "do not enter areas" in your mind will slow down connections, and also will inhibit the biochemicals that help make learning fun and easy.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Ester Siroky

Still

Still: quiet, calm; without motion, at rest, not moving from a place, not disturbed; moving little or gently; silent; not loud; secret; unchanging, undisturbed, stable, fixed; not vehement, gentle
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"Still" has meant those things for a thousand years. Longer. Still.

Be with your child, still.

Wiktionary is where I got the Old English definition
photo by Gail Higgins

This is better.

"This is better. It’s just better." —Jen Keefe

To read about what Jen found that was better, her writing is queued up here:
Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Heather Booth
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More and more connections

Each idea, object, concept, person, song, motion—anything you can think of—has personal associations for you. You have an incalculable mass of connections formed in your brain and will make more today, tomorrow, on the way home, and in your sleep.
SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Ester Siroky

One interaction at a time

One interaction at a time. Just make the next interaction a relationship-building one. Don't worry about the one AFTER that, until IT becomes "the next one."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Meryl Rosenfeld Ranzer

Happy and healthy appreciation

If people live wanting what they think they "deserve," they will not be as happy or healthy as if they could live appreciating what they have.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Kelly Halldorson
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Note to parents:

Contented parents are more useful to children and their learning and living than are unhappy parents reciting slogans or rhetoric.

SandraDodd.com/peace

SandraDodd.com/politics
photo by Cass Kotrba

Soft and gentle

Be soft and gentle

Helping a child learn to hold a kitten or a puppy isn't always easy, but modeling how to do it gently and softly helps. Parents can remember those factors when touching babies and children, too. Is he comfortable? Is he safe?

Someone who can gently handle a puppy, and a baby, might remember those things when dealing with another adult.


SandraDodd.com/better partner
photo by Rose Sorooshian
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Car keys and money

"Look for ways to be a helpful partner to your kids—you've got the car keys and the money, you can facilitate their exploration of the world."

—Deb Rossing

SandraDodd.com/attentiveparenting
photo by Ester Siroky, from inside their RV
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Defuse frustration

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Life *is* frustrating. Being mindful won't prevent kids from getting frustrated but it will be a huge step in the right direction. Seeing the world from kids' point of view will help you understand why they are reacting to the world as they are. Treat your kids as though they're doing the best they can with the knowledge and skills and understanding of the world they have. And often when they're at their worst, what works best is a hug. —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/mindfulparenting
photo by Joshua Harkness

Gently sweet, please

Don't anyone be mean to your kids today, please. There will be enough hurt without us adding to it.


SandraDodd.com/TinyMonsterscomment
photo by Sandra Dodd of younger Holly, in Driffield, East Yorkshire
A sweet repeat from April 2011.
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Learning not to teach

For years I have recommended that new unschoolers stop using the word "teach" and replace all statements and thoughts with phrases using the word "learn" instead. I've gotten much flak back from people saying it doesn't matter, or that's "just semantics." What started as a theory with me became belief and then conviction. Unschoolers who cling to the idea of teaching will handicap their own understanding of how learning works.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Annie Regan

Euphoria and elation

The reason there was a hippie slogan in the late 1960's "If it feels good, do it" was that they grew up with parents and grandparents who had been told life wasn't about fun; comfort had to be earned; if it was easy, it was a sin; if it didn't taste bad, it wasn't good for you.

Those things are said to justify hardship, control, and deprivation. They're said to glorify sacrifice, discomfort, yucky medicine and bitter vegetables (which kids probably will like and choose when they're older if they're not forced to eat them as kids).

If something causes biochemical euphoria or elation, and if the goal is learning, and peace, seek that out. Pay extra for that. Clear your calendar to help your child obtain that.

SandraDodd.com/gettingwarm
photo by Amanda Gattis
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A long, quiet time

If your purpose is just to be with your child, and relaxed, and have a chance to talk, go with something that's non-verbal and takes a long, quiet time.

SandraDodd.com/truckcomments
photo by Holly Dodd

Shapes and angles

The same image, or toy, or building can be seen in many different ways. For a toddler, this could be a triangle, with a circle, and a rectangle. It might remind an older child of stories of magic houses, or of mysteries and adventures. Young adults' thoughts could be all about traditional construction, history, or "Is this for rent?" Angles are more than just mathematical or visual things.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Ester Siroky

Find abundance

Neediness expresses itself differently with different kids. Abundance expresses itself similarly in all.

A family can learn to find abundance rather than lack, even if they're not wealthy.

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Free to behave nicely

My children are about as free as they're going to get, honestly. Always have been. Yet there are all these real-life limitations and considerations. They're free to ignore them. And the state of New Mexico (county of Bernalillo and City of Albuquerque) are not only free, but OBLIGATED, to protect other residents from any over-reaching acts of wild "freedom."

SandraDodd.com/freedom/
photo by Sandra Dodd, but in Maine, not New Mexico
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Gentle, thoughtful touch

Touch someone, or something, in a gentle, thoughtful way. Feel with your fingers, or cheek, or hand the warmth or smoothness or softness of something or someone you love.

SandraDodd.com/babies/infants
Keith, Kirby, Marty and baby Holly Dodd
November 1991
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Bring on the Joy

"Focus on Joy. Really. That's all I need to do right now. It's vacation time in my home...bring on the Joy."

—Angela (NYCitymomx3)

Fron a longer list at Advice to Remember
photo by Jo Isaac
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Stay here

Some people seem to think unschooling takes them through a portal to some alternate universe.

Stay in the real world! Both feet, directly, right in your house, in your town, in your country, in this moment on this day.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolworld

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Janine
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Helping

Joyce Fetteroll, small part of larger writing:

We can view children's needs as inconvenient for us or we can view them as people who need our help doing what they want to do.
. . . . We can be our kids partner in helping them get what they want in life or we can be the barrier that opens or closes according to our whim.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/yes
photo by Eva Witsel
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Surprise!

Life is richer when you are open to appreciating surprises.


Surprises and discoveries
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tales of "Oops"

Advising about an easily frustrated child, Brie Jontry wrote:

Talking about your own frustrations and talking through your own "mistakes," etc, in a light way—not *to* him, but around him, where he can hear you—might be helpful.

I did a lot of: "Ooops! I meant to cut the carrots length-wise instead of into circles. No big deal..." or "Hmmmm, I think next time, I'll do X first instead of Y" or whatever—talk to yourself, to your friends, to your partner about how you learn by doing. Short, light observations. No long drawn out monologues.

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Light and shadow

Shadows can be fun to play with, and to notice. I've always liked it if a bird or an airplane made a shadow on me. Be a light, when you can be. Practice thinking about what you might be overshadowing. If you're in the desert, remember that it can be courteous to stand where you will shade someone who's tired or overheated, or is trying to read something. Be a courteous light.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Sandra Dodd

Continue to play

Play can be serious business. Playing is certainly the main way that very young children learn, until they go to school.

What if they don't go to school? What if the ages of five and six don't mark a life change, and the playing progresses along naturally?
Many people would have no idea how to answer that question. The idea that toddlers' play would naturally progress to other levels without interruption, without separation from families, and without professionals telling children when, where and how to play is foreign to most in our culture.

In one small corner, though, it's common knowledge. There are unschoolers whose children have not been to school and who have continued to play.

That writing continues here: SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Janine

More

Alex Polikowsky wrote: Unschooling takes more, more presence, more guidance, more attention, more mindfulness, more connection, more thinking and questioning, more choices and better choices. —Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/misconceptions
photo by Sandra Dodd

False doom

If a child doing something harmless and happy is thwarted by a parent spouting false doom, the parent is the problem.

The game isn't the problem, the parent is the problem.

The child isn't the problem, the parent is the problem.



SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd

And behind that...

Think of something. What's on the other side of that? Remember something. What came before that? Imagine something. What could follow? See something. Remember there is more than you can see.

The words are new, but this is a cousin:
Perspective: Looking back, looking around

photo by Caren Knox, who described it as
"La bella luna, flirting from behind our tree"
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