The goal, for me...

The goal, for me, is that they will be thoughtful, compassionate, curious, kind and joyful.

That's all. Just that.
photo by Sandra Dodd

Logic trumps reaction

Reactionary isn't always bad, unless someone moves in and lives there. Do things that make sense.

Chat on Help has the first quote
and SandraDodd.com/readalittle is close to the second one.
photo by Gina Trujilla

Calm

In a chat once I was asked what I meant by "calm."


Calm is calm. Not frantic, not excited, not frightened or frightening. Calm, like water that is neither frozen nor choppy.

Calm is possessing the ability to think, to consider a situation without panic.

Calm is not perpetually on the edge of flipping out.

Who can Unschool? (chat transcript with links)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Here and now

People can't actually leave the planet and can't actually go back in time. The only place we can live is the here and now.

SandraDodd.com/reality
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Find delight

Find delight in small, everyday things.

SandraDodd.com/joy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Charlie eats an apple

Sarah Dickinson wrote:

I was looking at the photos on my phone tonight and found this (Jack must have taken it, hence the angle). It is Charlie (3) eating an apple in front of the telly right beside of a full pot of sweets. I thought it was a rather lovely illustration of the choices kids make when they have them, and I thought of you because they never would have had that choice without all your writing.

—Sarah Dickinson

SandraDodd.com/eating/apple.html
photo by Jack Dickinson

Another planet

For some people, it scares them so much that it feels almost like they're moving to another planet and can never come back.

It's not like moving to another planet. You'll still have the same house, same car, same phone number, you'll still be sitting in the same chair. It will just be different. And everytime I've ever said that to anyone, they seemed somewhere between totally relieved and shocked. . . . .

They were flipping out. They were really spinning out, off the planet. Like, "Where will we be? What will happen? How will we ever get back?"

Back to where? You're in your own house.

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The quote is about people when they first ask about homeschooling.
It's from a podcast, and this page might help in similar ways: Help
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Clarity in motion

Flow is learning to go fast in a calm way. Flow is clarity while in motion. The opposite of flow might be "stuckness"—being immobilized while thoughts and fears swoop and swirl inside you.

Flow is a state of being that unschoolers can reach, in which they are no longer laboring to make conscious decisions about how to encourage learning and to maintain peace and joy. It might only last a few moments at a time, but it will be enough.

page 206 (or 239) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Emulation

Children WANT to act in adult ways, so it's important for unschooling parents to be the sort of adults children want to emulate, right then. Not when they grow up, but now.



From a facebook discussion about helpful unschooled kids.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bafflement and befuddlement

Wonder is great—that kind of respectful awe. But if you were in a state of wonder all the time, that would be bafflement.

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The note above was written on a piece of paper I was carrying around with me. Probably I was working on a presentation on wonder. I like the word "bafflement" and I liked "befuddled," but try not to stay in those states long, because your kids need for you to be clear and sharp.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Slowly amazing

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

It is amazing that the epiphanies seem to come so frequently in this life. The other day I was baking a cake and David got back from the grocery store and had to deal with the leaking coolant on the car and needed help putting the groceries away. I was up to my elbows in batter and asked Simon and Linnaea if they could help.

They both came in and put all the groceries away and went back to what they were doing. It was so sweet, so not coercive, so not eye-rolling. Just this generous gift of service. It came with an epiphany, an underscoring of these unschooling side effects that I see and read about from other people.

As you say, the proof is in the living! The rightness, the evidence, the closeness, the joy, those are all found in this life. You can read about them, but to experience them you have to get down on your hands and knees and play and hang out and tell stories and cuddle and talk and share and be willing to listen and to apologize and to work to make it better. And if you can do that without any other intention than enjoying being with them, without any ulterior motives, it plays out in ways that nothing else that I've ever seen does.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sandra Dodd
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