Patient and kind

Being patient and kind makes you a person who is patient and kind.

The quote's not from here, but this might help: Parental Authority
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a picture in a charity shop in Surrey

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Found the quote in 2025 on Always Learning

Twinkling Choices

There are all kinds of descriptors each of us could use for our kids. Choose the good ones, the ones that make them twinkle in our eyes.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Sandra Dodd

Organic learning

Learning happens all on its own when the parents stop looking at life in a schoolish way, and can appreciate and encourage that sort of organic, constant addition to a personal body of knowledge.

SandraDodd.com/substance
photo by Sandra Dodd

Heat and light

If I have a big woodpile, I don't have a fire. Even if I have a fireplace and matches and bellows and kindling and firestarters and a fire extinguisher and the chimney was just cleaned and inspected and I have a paper saying "good to go," I don't have a fire. Would wrought-iron fire tools on a cool rack help? What about a stained-glass fireplace screen, so no sparks can get out on the floor? I could subscribe to magazines for fireplace owners. I could join a yahoo group and a facebook page to talk about fires. I could be receiving catalogs with all kinds of fancy flameproof rugs and indoor wood racks and really cool slings for carrying wood in, and Ooh! What about a beautiful mantle?

Still no fire.

Meanwhile, the neighbors might have built a real, operating fire, in a little hole they dug and lined with scrap bricks or rocks, with wood they found in a vacant lot, and kindled it with old receipts and fast-food wrappers they found blown into the alley. Their fire has heat, their fire has light, if they're sitting around it talking and laughing, they have the benefit of the fire.

Some people want to look like they're interested and that they intend to hone their skills, but they don't actually want to do it, if it's going to involve any real combustion or change in them.


A Story of NOT Changing
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a fire in our own back yard,
not in a hole, but quite make-shift, 2012

Focus on others

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wanting your family to be happy, joyful and learning seems a perfectly fine goal! But you won't get there by focusing on what you want. You'll get there by focusing on what they want.

What are your kids interested in? What do they want? How can you support that?

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/deschooling has a bit more of that, near the bottom
photo by Sandra Dodd

What if....

What if.... you dig a hole in your back yard? What if you leave laundry in the washing machine? What if you think dangerous thoughts?

What if you keep your child home from school for one year?
What if you keep him home longer?

What if you create such a rich life that not only is your child learning, but so are the parents? So are visitors to your house?

What if you click the link below, and read more about all of that?

SandraDodd.com/whatif
photo by Karen James

A little trust, one step

Someone had written, of unschooling:

It sounds like it takes an enormous amount of trust in everything to allow this process to happen.

I responded:

It takes a little trust, and desire, and willingness, to take one step. It gets easier as you go. No one can take all of the steps at once.

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No one can, or should, have trust in everything. Try things out. Think carefully, and observe directly. Practice!

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.
photo by Sarah Dickinson

On a busy day

How might a parent act on a really busy day?

If the mom learns and then demonstrates that giving can make a person feel happy, *then* she might have children who are also generous and kind. If the mom acts pouty and whiney and martyrly, she will have children who are confused and needy and resentful.

Being a Happy Mom
photo by Sandra Dodd

Decisions

Think about what you think you "have to" do.

Choose to do something good, for sensible reasons.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sandra Dodd

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I'm glad that truck was left there to rust. They could have "sensibly" taken it to a dump or a scrapyard, but it's not hurting anything, sitting out in West Texas for people to admire.

Together, happily

Amy Kidwell wrote:

I had always wanted to learn to live in the moment, but it seemed a great mystery. Having my daughter and becoming an unschooler, I finally get it! Most days, anyway... I'm not worried about the future, or fussing over the past. We are living together, happily, every day. What a nice way to be."

—Amy Kidwell

SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo by Sandra Dodd

Hold on

Kelli Traaseth wrote:

Hold onto each day, know how quickly they pass. Kiss those tiny heads of toddlers and babies; smell their heads, as my friend Sandra says. Before you know it, they'll be playing a game together and you won't even need to explain the rules to them. In fact you'll have a hard time comprehending the game.

Time... must you keep marching on? by Kelli Traaseth
photo by Sandra Dodd

The Past, the Future and Now

If you're living in the past, that's a problem for now.

If you're living in the future too much—
       in the future that you're imagining,
       in the future that you're predicting,
       in the future that you would like to imagine you can control,
       in the future that you'd like to imagine you can even imagine,
              that's a problem.

So it's good to aim for living in the moment in a whole way—your whole self, not separated from your past or your future, but also not really over-focussed on it.

If you bank on the future, literally, that's a good idea. Savings is a good idea. I'm not saying not to have life insurance or things like that—that's great. But banking on it figuratively can be a big problem.

SandraDodd.com/listen/london2011
(at 10:15 in the sound file)
photo by Sandra Dodd of layers of ice that formed in buckets of collected rainwater in which hulls of bird seed had fallen, pulled out of the buckets, for fun

Teaching is a problem.

"Teaching" is a problem, in an unschooling light. Learning is the goal, and teaching gets in the way.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Leon McNeill, of Holly Dodd looking at the original Bayeux Tapestry,
in France in 2005

Healing and replenishing

Shan Burton wrote:

Food you want, served to you by someone who loves you and brings it to you with a smile and a hug, has magical powers to heal and replenish the soul as well as the body.

—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Robyn Coburn

Quiet enough to hear

Sarah Thompson wrote:

They don't need my direction much of the time, but they need me to pay attention to what is happening *in case* I'm needed. I need to be quiet so I'm not filling up their world with my noise, and so that *I* can hear as well.

—Sarah Thompson

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Susan Gaissert

Angels and chickens

Knowing I wanted to use this photo of Lydia Koltai's daughter and a favorite chicken, I pulled up my site search and put in "angel" and "chicken," partly as a joke—thinking I might get a quote with one of them.

Up came the page on cakes. Well, then! I invite you to go there and read the brief story of how my young boys, during a viewing of Spartacus in 1994, helped me discover one of the coolest things of my whole life—that the candles on birthday cakes, and the cakes themselves, are sacrificial offerings. Also they're sweet, and fun. There's light. There are wishes. There is celebration.

Cherish those things.

SandraDodd.com/cake
photo by Lydia Koltai

Direction

Be glad to find things in life that can help you choose a good direction.

SandraDodd.com/direction
Photo by Charles Lagacé, in Nunavut.
Marie-France Talbot, the mom, wrote:
"Snow inuksuk (inuktitut for person subtitute) made by my husband and sons. They are usually made of rocks and they indicate direction."

Unusual but doable!

If a family is looking for rules and passivity, they can create a lifetime of it. If a family wants joy and learning, the creation is a bit more difficult and unusual but doable!

SandraDodd.com/zombies
photo by Amber Ivey

Valuing Scooby-Doo

Colleen Prieto was talking to her son Robbie, who was nine, about "Frankenstorm." Below is Colleen's account:

He thought for no more than a second, and then very excitedly told me:

"Mom, Frankenstein is not evil. People just think he's evil but he's not - he's just trying to be good even though he's failing. Even though I haven't read the book or saw the movie if they made one, I know that pretty much from Scooby Doo. So we have nothing to worry about with the hurricane if now it's Frankenstorm because Frankenstein is good. If we were supposed to be scared, then they should have picked a better name!"

Many, many times in my daily life with my son, I am reminded that there is value in so very many things—be those things Scooby Doo or Pokemon or Star Wars or Harry Potter or 1,000 other "easy to criticize" forms of media or entertainment. Life is so much more fun when you look to the happy parts, look for the good, and keep an open mind.

Scooby-Doo, Frankenstein, and a Big Storm
photo by Sandra Dodd

Helping one another grow

Of her birth family, Rippy wrote:

My family used to regularly travel to India to a Sikh ashram where we were encouraged to examine our thoughts and words. The philosophy there was that helping one another grow into more loving, mindful people is one of the greatest acts of service one can do.

—Rippy Dusseldorp Saran

Kinder and More Compassionate