Sun, or moon, or fire

Sometimes light is from an Aha!! lightbulb moment.
Sometimes light is more information, or seeing from a new angle, "in a new light."
Sometimes light is from the sun, or the moon, or a fire.
Sometimes light comes from just lightening up. (Not "lightning up," or "lighting up," so spelling will make a big difference, in those lights.)

Live lightly.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Parents exploring (deschooling)

Deschooling is not just the child recovering from school damage. It's also the parents exploring their own school and childhood damage and proactively changing their thinking until the paradigm shift happens.

—Robyn Coburn

How Unschooling Works
photo by Irene Adams

An Atmosphere of Learning

I'm an unschooler. Lessons are never over. On the other hand, lessons never really begin. Children's questions are answered and an atmosphere of learning is created so that questions are constant and answers are never far away.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/allkinds
photo by Sandra Dodd

Time, attention, focus

Schuyler Waynforth said in March 2014:

When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold. I read and I tried things and I moved further away from the childhood I had known to the parenthood I wanted to know.

And the more I read and the more I experienced and the more I tried, the more that I could see a framework. It was my engagement that made a difference. It was my time and my attention and my focus that kept things moving better and more smoothly than it could ever have done without me.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/nest
Younger Schuyler and younger kids,
photo probably by David W.

Play with your food

jencookies43 wrote:

We have an annual get together with friends. It's called "Play with Your Food Day". Every family brings a variety of foods (fruit, candies, veggies) and a box of toothpicks. The kids take the food and build whatever with it using the toothpicks to hold it all together. Super fun munching and building.

—jencookies43

original
photo by Karen James

Wholeness and health

Someone asked:

Why does it have to be so hard to let go and just let our kids make their own decisions and be who and how they want to be!!

I responded:

It doesn't have to be hard.
SandraDodd.com/haveto

If your priority is to keep the peace with friends or relatives who are harsh with and about kids, then it will be difficult.

If your priority becomes the relationship with your child, it will become easier to choose toward the wholeness and health of your child.

Sandra Dodd, 2012

original, on Always Learning
photo by Christine Milne

Spooky surprises

One spooky... morning, ten years ago, I cut a tomato and this stared back. Untouched, eyes and all, just like this:

Let the world surprise you!

SandraDodd.com/surprise
photo by Sandra Dodd

Simply beautiful moments

Karen James, on Always Learning, March 2018, about attaching her attention to things that have the potential to bring her joy:

When things were a bit more difficult (we had moved, my dad died, Doug's new job wasn't going well, my mom's health was deteriorating, I was having some minor health issues myself) I would make sure to notice the moments in each day that were easier and simply beautiful even if there were only a few. In those easier moments I would say "thank you," sometimes aloud. In the simply beautiful moments I would say something to acknowledge the beauty. "This feels so good," was something I said (still say) a lot, again, sometimes aloud as both Doug and Ethan would confirm. 😉

For example, if I was driving to the grocery store and I happened to notice how beautiful the clouds looked, I'd linger a moment longer to notice the relief I felt from simply observing that beautiful sky, and the feeling of joy that I could draw from that humble observation. It sounds kinda corny as I type this, but it was/is a really powerful tool for me. Noticing ease, noticing beauty and spending a moment to reflect on how good that can feel when I acknowledge it was/is a bit like remembering to breathe.

—Karen James
and there's more!

SandraDodd.com/happiness
photo by Theresa Larson

Mysterious everything

If you don't know what something is, another person probably does know.

If your child knows something you don't know, be glad of that!

When you know something your child doesn't know, it might not be something he wants or needs to know.

Calmly accept the mysteries of life.

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Sandra Dodd

A thousand interesting things

You can't see beauty without wanting to see some. Once you're looking through curiosity-tinted glasses, you will see a thousand interesting things.


(a little longer, on facebook)
or
Positivity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Surprising waiters

We have surprised waiters in many restaurants by turning to our children questioningly when the waiter asks the adults "Would you like to see the dessert menu?" They're even more surprised when the kids say, "No thanks," or "I'm full," while making friendly eye contact with the waiter.

SandraDodd.com/freedom/limits
photo by Sandra Dodd
(couldn't find one of my kids, young, in a restaurant)

Your own clear understanding

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking. I don't think it works as well when people just look at those with young adult kids who are happy and successful and try to copy them without doing the hard thinking and building their own clear understanding of unschooling. When they try to emulate, they are still following rules - unschooling rules. Unschoolers always say yes to everything. Unschoolers never make their kids do anything. Kids always decide everything for themselves. And so on. But those "rules" are not unschooling. Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Belinda Dutch

Reading and watermelons

When learning to read happens naturally, it doesn't look like school's reading lessons. It doesn't take years. It might take only days, but the tricky part is when those days will come. If you plant watermelons, picking at the leaves and threatening the vine will not get you a watermelon before one was going to naturally grow and mature. It's the same with children.

The quote is from page 86 (page 95, in 2019 edition)
of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Amber Stippy

Harvest

Fewer folks farm than used to. It's understandable.

Even without a farm, though, what's planted might grow. What is tended thrives.

Not everything can be controlled, but many things can be accepted and appreciated. Mentally gather up the positive results in your life and be grateful for your harvest.


SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Lydia Koltai

Thoughtful and compassionate

Be careful what you write about your child, and your beliefs, in public. Be careful about what you believe and then act on.

Learning. If learning is more important to you than control, unschooling has a chance of working.

Be clear, thoughtful, compassionate, and live lightly with your children as much as you can!

SandraDodd.com/ifilet
photo by Kirby Dodd

Magic (it isn't)

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Unschooling cannot be learned by reading or writing.

---

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sandra Dodd

And then what?

A dad new to a discussion wrote:
Kids who spend more time watching TV (both with and without parent and siblings present) spend less time interacting with family members.

Joyce Fetteroll responded:

In unschooling families?

And what criteria did the use to define "interacting" for the study?

My daughter and I have done a great deal of interacting as a direct result of TV. It's tied into her other interests in story telling. Without TV she wouldn't have the huge collection of comics she's written. Without TV we wouldn't have discovered manga. Without TV we wouldn't being going to Anime conventions together (I even dress up).

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/logic
image and card by Joyce Fetteroll

A kind of P.S.—what Joyce wrote in May 2015, when she shared the image of a card she wrote for unschoolers, on top of a scene from "Healer":

We're off to Chicago to see Kat. 🙂

One of the most connecting valuable things I did was get involved in Kat's interests. Manga, anime, drawing, writing, music. We still talk about writing and music especially. Carl connected through running, football and other sports. Of course we'll be seeing the Cubs and he and Kat will be going to the White Sox and then the hockey game so they're still connecting. 🙂

Learning by leaps and bounds

From a learning standpoint, when babies are carried they see more, they hear and smell more. If they are given things to touch and taste besides just a few baby toys left in the corner of a crib or playpen, they will learn by leaps and bounds. They will spend less time crying and more time being in the real world.

The parents will know the child better, and the child will know the parents better. They will be building a partnership based on trust.

SandraDodd.com/attachment
photo by Sandra Dodd, at a fabric store

Owning one's own self

Roya Sorooshian (not-yet Dedeaux) wrote:

When I was ten, my mother told me that she was going to take me out of school. At the time, I was apalled. Now, I credit that moment as the biggest turning point of my life. Not because of what we did instead of going to school, but because of the power my mother gave to me when she showed me that she did not have to abide by anyone's standards - not when she knew she could do better. She gave me to myself, forever.

—Roya Sorooshian
(Roya Dedeaux)

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Comfortable, interesting and thoughtful

Karen James wrote:

I was a little nervous about what to expect when Ethan entered the teen years. My own teen years were kind of difficult. I have just loved being a part of Ethan's life at every stage of development, and this one is no exception. As we walked side by side at the art gallery the other day (him noticeably taller than me now!), I felt more than ever like I was with a good friend. Our interactions were comfortable and the conversation was interesting and thoughtful. I hope he felt that way too. I'm feeling more confident. It's like when he took his first steps. I knew that meant things were going to change, but I was excited to see where his next steps would lead.

—Karen James, 2016

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Doug James, the dad, I'm guessing