
Maybe
photo by Theresa Larson
Sometimes I think I've started to understand something but instead it's like an onion and there's another layer I didn't know I needed to understand.I responded:
That's how everything good is. Every hobby, skill, pastime, has a surface and has a depth. Some things can be just surface, but parenting and unschooling last for years. And if a family can't resolve to be and do and provide better for the child than school would, then school is better.
If a family resolves to provide a better life experience then school did, then their decisions and actions should be based on that.
Be ready to discover temporary fragile beauty. | ![]() |
Learn to guess. Learn to provide in advance. Food is good to practice with. Soft, clean cleared-off beds are good to practice with. Clearing off space for video gaming is nice. Soon you start to think about heat, softness, clean clothes, toothpaste before it runs out, favorite foods when you shop. And then people feel heard and comforted and entertained and loved. |
Live the way you want your children to be. Be curious. Be thoughtful. Be patient. Be generous. |
Which is better—a bridge, or
a photo of a bridge? |
"Live lightly, when possible. Bring cheer, when you can. Remember, this, too, will pass." —Karen James (here) |
I've seen a difference in motivation in teens who have been nurtured and whose parents were not adversarial with them. If money means love, a needy person will want more money. If money is a tool like a hammer, or a substance like bread or toilet paper—necessary for comfort, and it's good to have extra—then it would make no more sense for them to spend all their money than it would make to throw a hammer away because they had already put the nail in the wall, or to unroll all the toilet paper just because it was there. If the parents have been generous, many other problems are averted. |
When Kirby was offered a job in another state, including an allowance for his moving expenses, I wanted to be encouraging without seeming to push him out and shut the door. So we promised to leave his room available for
I felt better knowing he was only tentatively gone. It might have helped him to know that it wasn't "do or die" there, in Austin. He was able to decide whether he liked it enough to stay there, knowing he did have the option to return to his own room at home. A choice is always better than "no choice." We were able to cushion his leaving with a real fallback plan. |
I was interested in teaching and people and writing my whole life, and the intensive experience of learning so much about unschooling and parenting, and learning to use new resources to help other people have opportunities to learn wasn’t "on the schedule." It evolved hour by hour over the years and has brought us all many great friends and memories. |
"Always" and "never" are rules meant to stop thinking. Support your child in becoming a thoughtful decision-maker, not a thoughtless rule-follower. —Joyce Fetteroll
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I had been unschooling for years before a few people suggested on a message board that requiring kids to do chores could be as bad as making them do schoolwork. I perked up immediately, and everything they said has proven true at our house. The first principle was "If a mess is bothering you, YOU clean it up." Another one was "Do things for your family because you *want* to!" It was new to me to consider housework a fun thing to be done with a happy attitude,
In the same way that food controls can create food issues, forcing housework on children can cause resentments and avoidances which neither get houses clean nor improve the relationships between children and parents. Also, studies of separated identical twins have shown that the desire and ability to clean and organize has more to do with genetics than "training." |
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