Showing posts with label clouds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clouds. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Being all the good ways


"Being there for and with the family" seems so simple and yet many parents miss out on it without even leaving the house. Maybe it's because of English. Maybe we think we're "being there with our family" just because we can hear them in the other room. There is a special kind of "being" and a thoughtful kind of "with" that are necessary for unschooling and mindful parenting to work.

Being an unschooling parent

Being flexible and creative and patient

Being a mindful parent

Being supportive

Being at peace

Being with...

Being aware

Being fun

Being as

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Sandra Dodd

Friday, July 12, 2024

Approach "better."

Incremental improvement
Approaching perfection, no. Perfection is subjective.
Approach "better."
. . . .

The tool to use to move toward "better" is an awareness of choice.
And practice making choices.
Learning to make choices.
Choices

"Happiness Inside and Out"
photo by Brie Jontry

Friday, June 2, 2023

It's not about power

Once upon a time, a newer but enthusiastic unschooler came to a discussion explaining the "we" (all of us) should agree that unschooling was about power—power over oneself, and the power to decide what to learn and when (and more dramatic power-based rhetoric).

Some of my response is below, and near the photo credit is a link to the full post.
We don't talk about power here much, but we have given our children a life of choices. It's not "power," it's rational thinking, considering all sorts of factors and preferences. They don't need power over themselves. They need to BE themselves.
SandraDodd.com/being

"The power to decide what to learn" makes a pretzel of the straight line between experience and knowing.

My children don't "decide what to learn, how to learn, and when to learn it." They learn all the time. They learn from dreams, from eating, from walking, from singing, from conversations, from watching plants grow and storms roll. They learn from movies, books, websites, and asking questions.

Power over oneself, unschooling and "politics"
photo by Amy Milstein

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Better and happier days

Caren Knox wrote:

The bulk of what was challenging for me was changing internally, not just in parenting beliefs and thoughts about learning, but acknowledging & feeling the very deep connection my sons and I share.

. . . . I found the more I trusted and allowed my heart to open to my sons, the better and happier our days were.
Do it Well
photo by Dan Vilter

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Rearview Mirrors

We have been somewhere, even as we're moving forward.

It's not good to always look back, but there is safety and comfort in reviewing what's already been seen and done. Very often, connections among the past, present and future create and enrich moments, special days, laughter and learning.

Rearview Mirror Views
photo by Renee Biggerstaff

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Clouds and water

small clouds reflected in a lake
Clouds and water are two forms of the same material. Water can reflect clouds, too. Clouds can cast shadow on water.

There won't be a test, but sometimes consider how other things can be "the same," yet very different. Our perceptions depend on light, angles, our own knowledge and history. What you see isn't everything. What you know is smaller than the whole.

Be open to beauty and joy.

A Different Angle
photo by Jen Keefe
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Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Thoughts can lift you up.


I can breathe and be still and not be knocked down by thoughts. Thoughts can lift me up. I can turn down the volume. I can switch channels.

Too much noise
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Monday, August 27, 2018

Gradually building

In our home, everything we do is an opportunity to learn something new or to make a new connection to something familiar, allowing each of us to gradually build on our unique understanding of the world."
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/unseenfuture
photo by Jo Isaac

Friday, November 17, 2017

Real learning is intangible


Karen James wrote:"Real learning is subtle...like a breath. Ethan said something kind of funny to my husband recently. He exclaimed "Now you are breathing consciously!" We all became aware of our breathing in that moment. Learning can become as effortless as unconscious breathing when we it happens without prejudice or too much attention to its presence. It's so big it permeates through everything we do, yet so intangible at times we can only guess at its influence and significance."
Becoming an Unschooler
photo by Heather Booth
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Sunday, October 2, 2016

Bright clouds

Mix it up, with words and ideas. Be happily surprised.



SandraDodd.com/surprise/
photo by Robert Gottlieb
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Monday, July 4, 2016

Choosing not to whine

Sometimes I want to whine. Sometimes I do.

It never helps.
When making a conscious decision about how to respond or how to react, it will be rare that whining will be the best choice.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Saturday, March 12, 2016

Help on the journey


Shared from e-mail, with the author's permission:

"I just started to think and learn about unschooling late last year, and when I first signed up for Just Add Light and Stir I couldn't imagine how the kinds of things you post would help me understand unschooling. But as time goes by I feel like these posts are almost what has helped me more than anything! I find that I really look forward to reading them every day, and they accompany me on my journey into this new territory."
—Susan Walker


SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

If you've wound them up...

With anything, if a family moves from rules (about food, freedoms, clocks, what to wear) to something new, there's going to be the backlash, and thinking of catapults (or trebuchets, more technically, or of a rubber band airplane, or other crank-it-up projectile vs ...) the more pressure that's built up, the further that kid is going to launch if you let it go all at once.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
photo by Ruqayya
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Monday, October 12, 2015

Is this the way?

If you're going the wrong direction, don't keep going.
Check your direction
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, June 4, 2015

Completing circuits

church tower and bunker/cellar, near small river in steep Alpine valley
School served to prevent connections for me, but I overcame that, with difficulty. It is a problem my children never had. If Animaniacs completed a circuit for them between Magellan and WWII, well it's a circuit school would never have completed for me under any circumstances. If learning for fun creates more connections than "serious learning" did, I can no longer look at "serious learning" seriously.

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Beauty in the moment


Parvine Shahid wrote:

Eyo and I were looking through photos and we came across a couple he had taken during our last flight from London.

I was reminded of that moment we were sitting on the plane, looking out of the window. He decided to take some pictures and said, "We are out of Earth—it looks like we could walk on the clouds!"

The world can look very different in each moment and that reminded me of the importance of slowing down to be able to see the beauty in each one.
—Parvine Shahid

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Eyo Shahid (click it, to enlarge)

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Generate joy

When you learn to give, it starts to flow, and the others around you are soft and giving and a family can generate a lot of joy!

sky and clouds reflected on a car

Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions, transcript of a chat
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the same clouds reflected twice
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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Like the air

Given a rich environment, learning becomes like the air—it's in and around us.



Photo by Sandra Dodd
The quote is the last line of this interview: SandraDodd.com/interview

Monday, May 14, 2012

Clarity magnified


Online discussions of natural learning and parenting give people a serious opportunity to practice communicating clearly and carefully. For some people, an unschooling discussion will be their first "real writing"—the first time they've written real things for real people, rather than practice things for teachers. Those who stick with it or who have a native talent for it will find themselves getting direct and immediate feedback from other parents who have taken the ideas or examples or stories and used them to change their own real children's lives, and that is bigtime.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 235
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, March 26, 2012

Sometimes more is better

Leah Rose wrote:

I've been thinking about that saying "All things in moderation." Next time someone says it to me, I think I might just ask them: "Do you mean we should have joy in moderation? Should we have peace in moderation? Kindness in moderation? Patience in moderation? Forgiveness? Compassion? Humility?"

Honestly, I used to think it sounded like a very wise and balanced philosophy. Now, the more I think about it the less sense it makes.
—Leah Rose



SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Sandra Dodd