Light and shadows

"Light" can refer to levity, in English, and also to illumination. So it can be sweetness, humor, and clarity all. One of the best places to live lightly is in the kitchen, with and around food.

Avoid shading or shadowing what works best when bathed in light and lightness.

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Stillness comes and goes

Sometimes I get still. That's good, because sometimes I don't, and can't. If I were that zippy all the time, my body, mind and soul would probably wear out.

. . . .
When I was younger and I would change, I thought something was wrong with me. I was under the mistaken impression that personality and mood should be constants. Life is better when I think of those fluctuations as tides, or as the weather of the soul.

Cocooning and other stillness
photo by Teresa Phillips

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P.S. "The Missing Link" from yesterday's Wild Math is repaired.

Wild math

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wild math looks different than domesticated math. It looks more like conversations, using numbers to figure out something the child wants to know, video games, allowance, weighing things in the grocery store, finding the best deal among several choices—that is not as a lesson but what you would normally do—board games, figuring out "how long until?" when she asks, budgets, doing a rough estimation of the items in the grocery cart to see if you have enough money, baseball statistics, crafts, origami, wrapping presents ...

There's a list at "A Few Words About Math"

Look at the things on there that naturally come up in your life. Don't look at the ones that don't! It isn't a checklist to see how many you can complete! It's meant to show you that there's more math in life than school math lets you see.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/math/
photo by Christine Milne

Smiles and kindness

Cynicism is poison. It erodes relationships. It saps one's spirit and dissolves faith and hope. I will choose cheeriness over pissiness anytime I can manage to do it, and I hope most of those reading here are able to make that choice too, for the sake of themselves and their families. For their neighbors, for their dogs. For safety while operating motor vehicles and other machinery. For success at work, and joy while grocery shopping.

Negativity sucks. It sucks the possibility of a joyful life directly out of a person, and if it's not stopped, it will spread to others.

Smiles can spread, too, though. Kindness can be contagious. You choose a hundred times a day to smile or to frown, to breathe in joy or to suck in resentment.

Live responsibly, especially while you have children in your home.

Smiling, kindness and peace
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Yet another shift

Jen Keefe wrote:

Sydney (7) wanted to make sure she was spelling "Girl Scout Cookies For Sale" correctly for her sign, so she asked Siri how to spell it.

I went over to offer my help to make sure it was giving the correct results for her (thinking any number of results could have come up in the search). "No mom" she said "I just look at what I said. Siri types it out every time."

Yet another shift in how I see things and I found myself shaking my head in amazement.

I thought you might appreciate that story 🙂

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/digital
photo by Jen Keefe

Service as magic

By e-mail from a mom I didn't know, one day:

I just got your Big Book of Unschooling and I came to the service page. I did the exercise you proposed about pausing, breathing and feeling what that word/concept made me feel. And I felt immense joy and positiveness. I continued reading and I was surprised to read that for some people it might have a negative connotation. And then I thought about what made me feel the way I feel.

My husband and I are Colombian but lived in India for seven years, in an ashram where my children were born (they are six and three now). In India, and specially in an ashram, people do work as an offering to a Divine source, without any expectations. As you serve others, you receive a tremendous amount of joy and your heart is at the same time filled with gratitude, because that Divine source, or life itself (the name does not matter) has given you that opportunity. It is a matter of choice. You choose to serve others, to see it as a divine gift and to be filled with joy, awe and magic.

You could also see it as a simple unpaid chore and feel miserable and make everyone miserable. The act is the same; the attitude is different and so the atmosphere you create is different. Only with an attitude change.

I choose to be positive and to take every opportunity as a gift. So serving others (and many other things) becomes a great spiritual endeavor.

—Manuela (2014)

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Sandra Dodd
(Bangalore, library)

Thinking about that

A formal question came:

I would appreciate any insight that you could give in how to communicate more amicably with family and friends who are not necessarily “believers” about the choice to unschool and/or homeschool.

Sandra:

Some good and useful answers are “We’re going to try this for a while,” and “If this stops working, there’s a school right down the road.” If relatives or friends warn you or remind you of things they’re worried about, it would be courteous and sensible to say “Thanks, I’ll think about that,” and smile.

If someone asks a question about socialization, you could ask “What do you mean?” They probably don’t know what they mean, and trying to articulate their real question will probably bring them to see that they were following a script, and to consider (probably for the very first time) what “socialization” in school really is.

If someone asks about algebra, you might ask how they use algebra in their everyday life. Nod and listen. Maybe say “I'll think about that,” if they have thought of an example of everyday use.

When the question is “what about writing?” you could say “Do you mean penmanship or composition? Storytelling?” If they say “book report,” you could say “Like reviews on Amazon or GoodReads?”

SandraDodd.com/school/say
photo by Ida Marie Stenild Coltau

Creating comfort

Help make your child comfortable where he is today, this hour, this moment.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Cátia Maciel

Real-world math

Marti Kennedy wrote:

My son once pointed out that he finds math in the "real world" less stressful because you don't always have to get it right the first time; if you find you've made a mistake, you can go back and refigure. On assignments and tests, when it's wrong, it's wrong.

—Marti Kennedy

Quote saved by Joyce Fetteroll,
at "Unschooling Math"
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Exciting and alluring? Good!

Once a mom was afraid, and wrote:

My kids are almost 7 and 4.5 and they received an iPad. Now all day long they want to use it. I freak out. I am so afraid that they will not play anymore or go out or do anything apart from that. Would you regulate screen time?

There were good responses; part of mine was:

They ARE playing.. . . .

If kids are "almost 7 and 4.5" (meaning they are four and six years old—padding doesn't change anything except to indicate, maybe, that the mom has higher expectations of them)... if they are getting along well, sharing an iPad, that's sweet and good. If they're taking turns well, also good.

If that iPad is so exciting and alluring that it's disturbing the peace, consider getting another one. They will NOT live there forever, but they might be so excited about them at first that it seems to the parent they will never look away from it.

I have two very profound pages for parents to read who are having similar fears. One is by Pam Sorooshian, about principles of economics. The other is a collection of nonsensical statements made by real parents in public. Science and the exposure of non-scientific thought. 🙂

Economics of Restricting TV Watching of Children
Pam Sorooshian

"If I let him, he would..."

SandraDodd.com/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd

The Discovery Moment

Carol Brown (Cally) once wrote:

We have been homeschooling for almost 18 years, and one of my favourite memories is of a day shortly after I removed my 5yo from school, where he had spent a very long seven weeks. We were going home from a friend's, accompanied by her daughter, also five, who was going to stay the night. We passed a school, where arborists were trimming some very large trees, hanging from ropes and chainsawing branches. We stopped and watched for about 3/4 hour.

This was when I truly started to realise what homeschooling was all about.

It was about learning all the time; it wasn't about learning being restricted to certain hours (all the school kids had missed out as they were long gone!)

It was about living with my kids and enabling them to learn - by stopping and watching, rather than going home to get dinner which was already going to be late.

It wasn't about curriculum or age-appropriate learning objectives, it was about observing and living life.

I was interested, they were interested, and when we went home, and had our very late dinner, it was wonderful to hear them excitedly telling dh all about it.

It's about living and learning joyfully.

—Cally

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Cally Brown
(different trees)

Neither wild nor crazy

Kelly Lovejoy wrote:

I think that, although *I* love the "radical" unschooler label, it can turn folks off just because of the word. It conjures up a wildness and craziness, but that's not what it IS. To me, it means deep, to the core.

Sandra Dodd:

Right.
Not the kind of "I was unschooled one summer" or "We unschool science and history, but not math or reading" kind of so-called unschooling.

REAL, deep, committed, clear, purposeful, focussed, heartfelt whole unschooling.

If it moves from the realm of rules to principles, then how could one really compromise without also compromising integrity?

That's where I am with it, and have been for many, many years. I can't NOT unschool because it has become the way we live and think and treat one another.

SandraDodd.com/radicalunschooling
photo by Holly Dodd

Lucky Kirby!

Kirby, my oldest, was born in 1986. I went to La Leche League (LLL). There I learned a crucial concept: my child and I were partners, not adversaries. What was good for him was good for me. At that time I had been going to Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings for a little over a year, and there I learned that we need to avoid repeating our parents' parenting mistakes, and that by raising our own children gently and respectfully, that we would heal our own hurts.

Lucky Kirby!

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingworks, 2002
photo by Ester Siroky

A good, solid start

Emily Strength wrote:

I've been feeling extra grateful for unschooling lately. So many issues parents are having with their kids, that I just don't have. And I try to offer advice, but I can't help them back up 5 or 10 years to get a good relationship with their kids from the start. It makes me really glad I got that start with my kids.

—Emily Strength

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Brie Jontry

Ancient, recent and future history

Sorting out news from "current events" from history isn't as easy as it once was, with the internet and with so many sources and resources. Some history isn't very old at all, while other history is archeology and paleontology.

If you think of it all as stories, people, places, things, trivia and connections, it won't matter what label school might have put on it. Have fun with history!

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd

Treasure-ish

One country's trash is another country's mysterious antique treasure.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

Doing things with teens

When someone asked about strewing for teens:

Your family needs to be interested and interesting. Go places. Bring things and people in. Visit friends of yours who have cool stuff or do interesting things. Ask him to go with you if you take the dog to the vet. Drive home different ways and take your time. Putz around. Go to the mall some morning when it's not at all full of teens, and windowshop.

If you can afford it, find something in another town like a play, concert, museum, event and take him there. Stay overnight.

Go touristing somewhere not too far from you. Like if you had out-of-town guests, but just go with your son.

Watch films together.

Is there something you do that he might want to learn? Is there something you could learn together? Maybe the two of you could take a class or join a group that does... photography, hiking, quilting, scrapbooking, pottery, woodworking...

There are many more ideas at
SandraDodd.com/strew/teens
photo by Lydia Koltai

Spooky for fun

Interesting mysteries are like amusement-park rides for our brains. Once in a while, think spooky thoughts, and come back happy.

SandraDodd.com/t/monstermania
or
SandraDodd.com/mystery/
photo by Karen James

A problem with chess...

Some people play chess well,
     but it's not for everyone.

In 2006, a mom wrote:

I still can't play chess or behave well.

My response:

Hey!
I don't like chess because there's no storyline, no characters. 🙂 And when in the ancient days I was in school, my worst grades were always in conduct. I failed to make the Honor Society in high school not for grade average, but for... conduct. 🙂

I wouldn't have changed it. They rewarded dullness and conformity. They honored meekness.

— Sandra

SandraDodd.com/lists/excision
scanned image by Sandra Dodd
Scanner Art

Trust and faith

A mom trying to persuade another mom to let kids have choices wrote:

But children don't die from eating too many Oreos or spending a whole day watching Kipper videos. They might get sick, or feel headachy, or be grumpy, but it's not life-threatening.

I responded:

They're entirely UNlikely to be sick, headachy or grumpy from those things. They are very likely to feel smaller, and worse, from parental restrictions and from hearing "no," though. And if the mom's dire warnings of doom turn out not to have been true, then trust and faith fall and are hard to restore.

Trust and faith are the most powerful tools parents of teens have. Too many parents squander those trying to control toddlers and young children.

SandraDodd.com/choice
photo by Sandra Dodd

The life-enriching choice

Pam Sorooshian, the end of something great, linked below:

My suggestion is that you ask yourself really honestly, is there something more I could be doing for my child that would enhance my child’s life? If the answer is yes, then make the choice to do it. Then ask this question of yourself again and again and, each time, make the life-enriching choice. Apply this to small things and to big momentous decisions. Small things – could I make something for dinner that would be special and interesting? Did I see a cool rock on the ground outside – could I bring it in and wash it and set it on the table for others to notice. Big things – would my child enjoy traveling – can we take a family vacation that involves exploring things my child would find interesting?

In unschooling, “lazy” means not thinking about enriching and enhancing your child’s life. You change this by doing it – one choice at a time.

—Pam Sorooshian
Unschoolers are Lazy?

See also: Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Robert and Robbie Prieto

Your absolute knowledge

From a message board, in 2001:

does it get easier with time?

Yes!

Do you get more confident as time goes by?

Yes.

or do you just care less what others think?

As your confidence grows, it will dwarf what others think. The truth of your absolute knowledge will weed out the small, vague, unfounded doubts of others around you after a few years.

That's my experience and that of many other families with whom I've kept in contact over years.

Sandra

Unschooling Mindset
photo by Cally Brown

Part of being human

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Unschooling is at its core an understanding that learning is a part of being human. It is a recognition that school undermines that by saying that learning needs to be organised, structured and handed down. School argues that certain things are so hard to learn that they must be taught. If you unschool partway you are mixing up your messages. If you unschool math and science and reading but structure nutrition and media studies you are arguing that while a rich and engaging life may make the three "r"s obvious they won't help you to deal with the difficult studies of food and televisions and video games and computers.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/unschool/marginal
photo by Sarah S.

Facets and aspects

One morning I was playing Dixit with people I hadn't played with before. So different! The odd pictures can be many different things, and the clues given were unexpected and interesting.


This photo, by Shonna Morgan, looks like light. A harp. A sail. A bridge. Well, it IS a bridge.

A bridge can be figurative or literal, but it's a connection, and a short cut. A "real bridge" might be a log, or a traditional rope or plank bridge, or it might be an engineering marvel that brings people and places together.

See the same thing in different ways, as often as you conveniently can.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Shonna Morgan,
through rain and windshield,
and it's small but wonderful

Generous generosity

I think the ideas in The 5 Love Languages are powerful to consider when figuring out what generosity might mean.
5lovelanguages.com

And just as with "learning styles," it doesn't mean you should figure out that a child is kinesthetic and so never, ever provide or share anything that isn't exclusively kinesthetic. It doesn't mean that if my primary love language is not receiving gifts that I never want to receive another gift as long as I live!

SandraDodd.com/50/50
photo by Janine Davies

More or less

I often think back to the things I learned in La Leche League, from readings and other moms. If you nurse a child a long time does it make him dependent on the mom? Seems to be the opposite. If you hug a child every time he wants a hug, does it make him want a hug-a-day for life? You WISH!

The more they get, the less they need.

Quote from a very-early online chat for homeschoolers,
late 1995 or early 1996, SandraDodd.com/detox.
Photo of Kate Koetsier and her 10th Birthday cake
by her mom, Cathy, years ago.

Falling asleep peacefully

If a child falls asleep in front of the TV, he is really listening to his body about sleep.

If a mom thinks that's not listening to his body, I think what she wants him to listen to is the voices of her mother and grandmother saying "Why isn't he in bed?" to her. Luckily, my children can't hear the voices in my head.

There's probably some TV prejudice at work too. If a child fell asleep reading a book, I think parents would be charmed instead of critical.

SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild

Hidden secret rooms and magic doors

When I move thru your site, I feel like a child in a candy store, or like I'm in a fantastic meandering castle with hidden secret rooms and magic doors to new realities.

I didn't keep the name of the person who wrote that, but I love the images.
SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Julie D

Really being a partner

Someone made a side comment earlier: "I hadn't thought about the difference between 'treating someone as a partner' and really being their partner from one's core. Acting one way from a set of rules vs. working on oneself to be a better parent/partner/supporter."

That's what I meant. I'm sure I would feel nervous if someone I thought of as a friend said she was treating me as a friend. 🙂

But I do know that some people don't love words as much as I do, and aren't as analytical about words. I can watch athletes and think very little about the subtleties of what they're doing. Music, not so much. That I perceive in more detail.

SandraDodd.com/partners/examined
photo by Cecilie Conrad

Defending cartoons

I know my opinions won't match other peoples and that's fine. What I can defend isn't what other people can defend.

When there's someone who can defend NOTHING, though, who is so cynical or shut down that all movies seem lame and all cartoons seem mindless and all music is boring and all museums are irritating, I think there's a problem with that person's attitude and perceptions, rather than their stated opinion being damning evidence against movies, cartoons, music and museums.

SandraDodd.com/t/cartoons
In Defense of Cartoons
Image from a Warner Brothers Cartoon (click here)
Both characters voiced by Mel Blanc—singing and all.

There is no trick

Renee Cabatic, July 2010:

We were at a bar-b-q party and a 5-yr-old friend dug into the cooler, pulled out a Coca-cola and asked his Ma could he have it.

She said, "Heavens no, especially with that chocolate cake on your plate."

She then looked at me, asking, "How do you do it?"

I told her, "I don't restrict what my kids eat," and pointed to their plates. ]XuMei had watermelon, strawberries, green beans and chocolate cake on her plate. Xander had chosen salmon, corn on the cob, watermelon, strawberries and a root beer to drink.

Later I was telling Chris (my spouse) the story and Xander, who I thought was asleep in the back of the van, perked up and said, "The trick is, there is no trick."

—Renee Cabatic

SandraDodd.com/eating/candid
photo by Christine Milne

Don't be arbitrary

Someone wrote that the best thing she had learned from me in unschooling discussions was "Don't be arbitrary."

The writing below came in my response to that.

---

Consistency isn't magic. If a parent isn't using judgment in individual instances, but is just going by rules, it's not better than being arbitrary.

There SHOULD be times when kids can be louder and wilder, and times when parents are especially generous, and times when everyone should chill, and it's not a good time to spend money.

"It depends" is a good answer. Decision making based on the reality of the moment is more valuable than "consistency" or arbitrary decisions.

SandraDodd.com/depends
photo by Nina Haley

Sitting and being with

Let us assume (with my house as an example, at least) that hyperactivity runs in families and that like attracts like. With extra energy, people can do two things at once. If one of those things is pattern-building and physical, that whole verbal part of the brain is still available. Working on patterns in silence allows one’s mind to whirl and twirl.

Doing something non-verbal while talking has a special advantage: Silence is not awkward. Changing the subject temporarily to talk about the blocks or paints or puzzle is not really changing the subject. Fear and foreboding won’t cause people to leave the conversation or cry. It’s possible to pause, think, breathe, stall, collect oneself and come back to the topic in a minute.

I have a near-teen here who sometimes needs to be with me a while before he gets to what he needs to say. That puzzle didn’t really need to be worked, but perhaps that child needed to sit with that parent.

From "Leaning on a Truck," 1999
SandraDodd.com/truck
(with bonus paragraph breaks)
photo by Christine Milne

New answers to old questions

PamG wrote:

We went out to eat at Olive Garden last night and the boys got this activity sheet/menu to do while we waited. It had a crossword puzzle on it and we were doing it. I was reading the questions and the boys were answering. Questions like "Spaghetti is a _________." Well, the last question was "Clean your __________." My boys had no idea what that could be that would deal with food.

I gave them the answer, then looked at Jackson. We were both brought up hearing that phrase every day. I am so glad my boys have never heard it.

—Pam G.
(Posted on the
unschooling discussion list,
June 19, 2003)

---

Sandra Dodd later:

Holly Dodd asked me to read this page to her one night, and she said she would have guessed "Clean your hands" would be good advice about eating, and restaurants.

—Sandra

For those born in the 21st or late 20th century, the "right" answers were probably "pasta" and "[clean your] plate."

SandraDodd.com/eating/humor
photo by Sandra Dodd

"Tires me just watching"

All those "he'll play all the time and not get any exercise" doomsayers need to see DS play - it's an aerobic workout that tires me just watching! He rarely sits and usually spends half his time jumping. Yes, we have plans to pick up some wireless controllers to facilitate movement without getting tangled up (the dogs will like that!).

—Deb Rossing
aka Bugsmom

SandraDodd.com/game/nintendogoldcomments
photo by Crystal

One tiny step

Until you drop the idea of teaching, you won't see the learning all around you.

One tiny step opens up a new world of learning.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Eva Witsel
(Okay, maybe it's not a tiny step, but even if it's a series of awkward steps, get over there!)

Children are people already

Question:
How do you plan to prepare her for a future career?

Sandra:
Too much of school and of traditional parenting pretends (and fails) to be preparing children for future careers. Too little of school and of traditional parenting is even attempting to acknowledge that children are people already. They have been whole, thinking, seeing beings since the day they were born. Assisting them to learn and to find their strengths and to explore the world and its possibilities is preparing them for their unseen futures.

from "...Questions on Learning without School and Living Joyfully"
part of an interview by Rashmie, of Mommy Labs
photo by a waiter at Garduño's,
years ago

Be brave; have fun

Be curious. Be open-minded! Beyond this, or behind that, are other things. Peek. A joyful attitude is your best tool.

SandraDodd.com/attitude
photo by Catia Maciel