| When you choose, clean, cut and set food down, be there. Sometimes, consider the texture, color and shapes. A few minutes spent seeing more clearly, and moving more purposefully, might make memories for those who see your momentary artistry, and will give you a moment of presence and success. |  |
 | Think of something that could make a child's life better. Act on that thought. |
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Sometimes I'm a stagehand. Sometimes I'm the soloist. Sometimes my child is the soloist. What happens with partners is that when one is the soloist, the others still sing backup, or sit in the audience supportively, and meet them at the stage door, figuratively or literally. |
 | The cool thing about partners is, if they win you win. |
 | The sun I see today will be the same sun you all see. In Maharashtra, in East Sussex, in New Mexico, the horizon is different but the sun is the same. |
| The way to be an unschooler is to change the way you see and think, so that you can change the way you act and react. |  |
Caren Knox wrote:
In addition to this time being short, and precious, you are building the foundation of natural learning in your home. Learning flows when needs are met, connections are strong, and kids can absolutely trust their parents, and know their parents are there for them. Some of the core values of natural learning are trust, support, joy, and freedom. You are putting up scaffolding for years and years of learning by the choices you make now.
 | Give your kids so much love and self-confidence that peer pressure will mean nothing to them. They will be pressure-proof. |
 | Peace and calm help learning. Stress and pressure never help learning. If you set your priority on learning and peace, it makes other questions easier. |
| I don't care if people disagree with me. I wouldn't want anyone to agree with me blindly, nor disagree blindly. Nothing personal to me—I just want to present information for people to consider. |  |
 | If you think of knitting as “good for learning math” it isn’t good for knitting. 🙂 EVERYthing is good for learning everything. |
| When trying to decide whether unschooling is working, remember to compare it to what would be going on if your kids went to school. They’d be doing six different things (homework) not of your choosing or theirs. And you would be expected to oversee/help. They would have been taught by school NOT to fraternize with others; they would be less likely to play together. So don’t compare it to your imagined ideal. Compare it to other real options, and then appreciate what you have. |  |
| What makes unschooling work is that children learn by playing. Older kids too. Adults, too. People learn by playing. People can learn without “work” and “study.” They can learn by trying, discussing, exploring. |  |
 | Sometimes I’ve said that conversations, friendships, relationships, are like a chess game. You don’t get to plan out all the moves in advance and decide the end. You get to make ONE move. Then you wait. |
We are going into our third year of "homeschooling." Our first year consisted of complete deschooling. The next year I fell victim to mother panic modeIf I said "I went through a year of demagnetization, and the next year all kinds of metal stuck to me," you might think I hadn't really demagnetized!
| How often do you make a choice? How often do you think "I have no choice"? How do decisions happen? |
Considering Decisions
photo by Sandra Dodd
 | Sometimes you need to sleep it off. Being tired can be a sign that there was a whole lot of fun, activity, work, or learning. |
