Deciding what's good

People can say "no judgment" but people cannot think without making judgments. People can't make any choices without deciding moment to moment what's good, what's better, what's a bad choice.

SandraDodd.com/judgment
photo by Colleen Prieto

Learning gently

Don't have him around others who will tease him. That's the main benefit of homeschooling, being away from bullies. Don't bully or tease him and don't let anyone else do it either.

Unschooling really depends on helping kids gently get to their own learning in their own way. Wanting them to conform uniformly and on schedule isn't the way unschooling works.

An archived discussion with a bad name, but good info
photo by Jo Isaac

Small steps

Good bits lifted from a 2015 post:

Too often “do the best you can” is used to excuse letting things slide.
Think more about the children than about how you feel about thinking about them. It will help you when they feel better.

...read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch...

Don’t think you can change all at once, but if you see how much difference small steps can make, perhaps you can focus on not making anything worse, and stepping gently but steadily toward a more confident presence.

—Sandra
(original)

Small, simple steps
photo by Janine Davies

Optimistic reality

Sometimes people say, "Anyone can unschool." And I always cringe when they do that, because the same kind of people who write or say things like that in public tend not to be the people who are going to stick around and walk people through it, and help other people do it. It just sounds good, it’s cheery, it’s inclusive, and it's wrong.

SandraDodd.com/whocanunschool
Who Can Unschool?
(short sound file, and transcript)

photo by DenaireNixon

Learning how

Sara P. wrote:

This is still an ongoing process for me. I had to re-train myself in a lot of ways. I had to learn a new language. I had to learn to SEE again. I had to learn how to communicate. I had to learn patience. I had to learn how to put others first. .....WOW! Sometimes an old thought will creep in. Sometimes I find myself answering a question in *teacher tone*...but it is so few and far between, and I am so quick to catch it that nobody ever notices except me! LOL!

—Sara P.

SandraDodd.com/change/stories
photo by Denaire Nixon

Gratitude, abundance, positivity

Many of the things we routinely recommend to help unschooling families are also helpful to anyone's mental health and wellbeing. Gratitude, recognizing and appreciating abundance, avoiding negativity…

SandraDodd.com/gratitude

SandraDodd.com/abundance

SandraDodd.com/negativity

SandraDodd.com/joy

No matter where a person is, a step up is a step up. Happier is happier.

Mental Health (Marta's Collection)
SandraDodd.com/mentalhealth2
photo by Gail Higgins

Mixtures, swirls and solutions

"Yesterday" in 2004:

I still see "subject areas" everywhere, but I haven't taught those categories and prejudices to my children. Science has much more to do with history than geology has to do with microbiology, but in school geology, biology, astronomy and physics are all "the same thing," and history is different altogether. Yet the best parts of history involve the knowledge cultures had and how they put it to use, whether in shipbuilding or iron tool use, medicine or communications.

Holly asked yesterday about when people discovered the world wasn't flat. I told her there was no one date or century because people discovered different things at different times, and some were shushed up when they said the world was round, or that the sun didn't orbit around the earth. I also told her, "Ask your dad, because he's really interested in the history of science."

I noticed when I said it that I had "named subject areas," but I didn't feel too bad. She's twelve, and reading, and after all "the history of science" was never part of my schooling. A science teacher wasn't certified to teach me history, and vice versa. Only outside of school did I figure out that scientific discoveries were history, and that music was science, and that art was history.

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Kelly Halldorson

Confident and at peace

"jbantau" wrote:

For the first time, in what seems like my entire life, I am not terrified. Up until now, I have been wielding my alarm and anxiety like a sword and shield battling against the world. I thought that's what I was supposed to do. Isn't that what a good parent does? I thought that fear was a parenting tool that told you how to keep your children safe. I felt that letting go of that fear meant that I was a bad parent. My paranoia had spilled into every part of our lives.

—jbantau

SandraDodd.com/fears
(quoted with a link to the full original there)
photo by Colleen Prieto

Do more for and with your child

Someone wrote:

"My worry is that I am needing to do something bigger/more."

I responded:

If you don’t feel like you’re doing enough, do more.
Accept the uncomfortable feeling as you would hunger or sleepiness, and act on it, a bit. See if that helps. If so, do more.

Instead of offering suggestions, do things for him, and with him. There are lots of ideas on my site (and other places you could google up) but here’s a list Deb Lewis wrote a few years ago that I really like:

Things to do in the Winter
SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist

---

Original text here (fourth comment):
"Bored" and "Lazy"—Amy Childs podcast episode from August 2014

The player isn't working at that link,
but you can listen at SandraDodd.com/boredom/

photo by Colleen Prieto

Finding contentment

When a mom is stressed and can't find the equilibrium to start in a calm place with her kids, I suggest that she not watch the local news. Breathe. Find positive things to see, listen to, think about. No one can do that and still post fright and doom. Nor even keep reading fright and doom.

It takes the mom's head and heart to dark places. It stirs the mom's emotions and can bring adrenaline in people thousands of miles from the problem. Adrenaline junkies can always find another problem to keep them on the edge, but their milk doesn't taste as good as a mom who is calm and thinking peaceful thoughts. They will use up their excitement on distant things instead of finding their child's discoveries the best thing of the day.
. . . .

The damage done by negativity is a knowable thing. If the mother can't find contentment, she has none to share with her children.

Slightly edited from SandraDodd.com/sharingnegativity
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Being available during "school hours"

Responses to concerns posted by nervous parents:

Not having a high school diploma didn't keep my always unschooled daughter out of college, AND she got her first paid job BECAUSE she was unschooled - her dance studio needed someone to cover the afternoon classes of a teacher going on maternity leave, none of the regular teachers were available for that time and the older assistants were in school. She's been employed by them ever since.

It's an interesting twist. 🙂

Deborah in Illinois

---

Marty has worked "during school hours" since he turned fifteen, and was offered a fulltime job just before turning 17. None of this keeps him from learning, from doing lots of things with other people, nor will it keep him from the option of college. He's working 6:30a.m. to 3:00 M-F. Kinda like school hours, for the first time in his life. 🙂

Sandra in New Mexico

Both those former teens are grown now. Marty's oldest child turns seven today.

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Sandra Dodd

Building an unschooling nest

"Building an unschooling nest" is a phrase that has come to mean maintaining a safe, rich, happy environment in which learning cannot help but happen.

What will help to create an environment in which unschooling can flourish? For children to learn from the world around them, the world around them should be merrily available, musically and colorfully accessible, it should feel good and taste good. They should have safety and choices and smiles and laughter.

There is some physicality to the "nest," but much of it is constructed and held together by love, attitudes and relationships. Shared memories and plans, family jokes, songs and stories shared and discussed, all those strengthen the nest.

Quote from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 125 (or 137)
photo by Sandra Dodd, out the front window, last year this time
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Know what you mean

Favorite response to “What about socialization?”

I say "What do you mean?"

Usually the question is asked by rote, the same way adults ask stranger-children "Where do you go to school?" Most people just blink and stammer, because they don't even know what they meant when they asked it.

—Sandra Dodd

From a questionnaire, bottom of some questions
(with links to other sets of questions and answers)
photo by Colleen Prieto

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There was an error in the e-mail version, which went to this related page Those pages are better linked back and forth now, too.

Native thoughtfulness and competence

If we've been conditioned to believe that children are unworthy and inferior but we consciously step away from that place and see the wholeness in our children, then one of the easiest things to see is the lack of wholeness in ourselves. It can be frightening.

When we see the level of thoughtfulness and competence a small child can have when he hasn’t been belittled or discouraged or shushed, we can start to think that if we undo the discouraging, belittling and shushing voices inside of us, we might regenerate our own native thoughtfulness and competence.

Mindful Parenting / SandraDodd.com/rentalk
photo by Jo Isaac (a wedge-tailed eagle)
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"Knowing nothing" is impossible

Q: What if your child (like mine) has an interest in one area (Civil War), yet hardly reads about it and never shows an interest in other historical periods (mine does, luckily)?

A: Videos. Novels. Ignore the periods he doesn't care about. He'll care later, or he won't, and the world will still turn, and he can learn what he wants WHEN he wants. History is NEVER all learned. It's all relative. "Knowing nothing" is impossible in this culture.

---

I answered that question when the internet was new. Now, period photos, recordings of music, maps, and videos of battleground tours are available without leaving home. Web searches will bring explanations of gatling guns and cannons, medical advancements (nursing, sanitation), pensions for veterans and other innovations of those days.

SandraDodd.com/reassurance
photo by Holly Dodd

Another space

Brie wrote, when a mom felt inadequate for not having her kids outside more:

I suggest making "outside" simply another space in a rich and engaging life. "Outside" is a part of the world we live in. "Outside" can be many places - parks, your backyard, a forest, the beach, a concert lawn, a hot air balloon fiesta, a carnival, a party with pleasant spaces set up outdoors ..... there's no one way to have meaningful time outdoors. Thinking about "outside" as some kind of monolith, like some people think about "screens," isn't useful.

—Brie Jontry
(ideas and cautions followed)

SandraDodd.com/briejontry
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Dinosaurs, tortillas, The Tick

Deb Lewis wrote:

We played at the river yesterday. We threw rocks at floating ice chunks until we couldn't feel our fingers anymore. We had a snowball fight. We went sledding. We watched "Attack of the Crab Monsters" and read about dinosaurs. We played Master Labyrinth and chess. We stood on our heads. We made peanut butter and bird seed surprise for the flickers.

Today we're going to Grandma's house. She's making fresh tortillas and we'll visit with Dylan's uncle because he's flying back to Anchorage on Monday. We'll probably watch a movie there, too. I'll make a pan of fudge to take along.

My real and happy kid says a lot more about unschooling than I could ever convey by analyzing human nature. If I'm afraid to talk about my real unschooling life, how will I single-handedly change the world for the better? I've printed out my super hero license and I've sewn my Tick suit. Now, Evildoers, Eat My Justice!

—Deb Lewis

and there was more: SandraDodd.com/day/debl
photo by Rosie Moon

That bird is not a flicker in Montana; it's a robin in Yorkshire. There's some brown, some red, some snow; slightly close.

Generous, selfless decisions

Live your life in such a way that other people will trust you. When you make decisions, make generous, selfless decisions so that others benefit. When you say something, do your best to say what is fair and right and true. When you write, write things you don't mind people taking out and sharing.

SandraDodd.com/integrity
photo by Colleen Prieto

Generosity and appreciation

Holly drove me to a neighborhood near her house where she has seen peacocks, roaming. We spotted four, but this one was up high in the sunshine.

Schuyler Waynforth once drove me where she was pretty sure we would see kangaroos. There were many; I was in awe.

I have driven visitors to see prairie dogs, and to find tumbleweeds.

What is commonplace for one person might be a memorable moment of beauty for others.

SandraDodd.com/happiness
photo by Sandra Dodd

Freeing and joyful

When people come here and their messages are like parroted little recordings of things their teachers said, that their grandparents and in-laws say, that they read in an anti-TV book, it seems they need to peel off all the layers of recitation and people-pleasing and try to feel what they feel and decide what's freeing and joyful instead of what will shush their internal voices.

That's not easy.

SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Denaire Nixon