—Deb Lewis
Encouragement to think, detox, recover: Deschooling (newly improved page)
photo by Lydia Koltai
When you find ways to offer your partner space and time to be alone, it will eventually benefit the whole family. |
Think of growing—of food, of knowledge, of trees, of children. Life is ever-changing. Provide water and support if you can. Share your shade and a resting place. |
When people speak without thinking, they're speaking thoughtlessly.
Very literally so.
When people write without thinking, they're writing thoughtlessly. No sense arguing about that. It's just better to work on being thoughtful. |
Watch your thoughts, because without doing that you can't really learn to choose better reactions.
"Be who you believe it's best to be. Act according to your own values. Create an atmosphere where making a kind choice is easier than making a hurtful choice. Create an atmosphere where everyone feels safe." —Joyce Fetteroll |
Find things that make your children's lives better and that make you and your family feel more calmly alive in the world. |
"When things are handled matter-of-factly and the kids KNOW the parents love them and will be there for them, a lot of the air of danger and urgency just dissipate."
It's way too late, but I wish I had written "can dissipate." For one thing, there's no guarantee. Also, if it happens, it's not casual magic. If trust and love do bring feelings of safety and calm choices into a teen's life, that's solid, and good, and should not be dismissed with "just." photo by Shan Burton |
Learning to be kind and gentle to a child will make you a kinder and gentler person. Learning to make choices that make you kinder and gentler to a child—more generous, softer, more patient—will help you be a better partner, adult child, neighbor, customer at the grocery store. |
Deschooling, when done thoroughly, leads us through all the stages of our own lives, gradually, as our children get older. As each of my children reached the ages in my life that I had stress as a kid, I had emotions arise, again, but with the third it was milder than with the first. It's healing, to treat our children in ways we wish we had been treated. |
About writing, like dancing, there's technically proficient and then there's inspired and inspiring, and they're not always both in the same place in the same time. |
If you start living with your child at his or her pace, it will be easier to be patient. |
![]() |
Merry thoughts, fantasies, whimsies and dreams to all.
Learn Nothing Day is in three weeks. |
Part of deschooling is reviewing how we learned what we know, and how legitimate that knowledge is. |
Kindness lights up the world.