Acceptance

Unschooling and relationships work better when one partner accepts the other's interests, hobbies and ways of being.

SandraDodd.com/acceptance
photo by Karen James
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Happy, happy, happy.

Deb Lewis's words:

You don't get another chance to be the mom to these kids right now, today. When they are grown and gone from you, you can have the cleanest house in the neighborhood. But what is the most important thing today? What will you be happier remembering in your old age; that your house always looked nice or that your kids were happy? What will your children be happy to remember about their time with you? Dirty houses always wait for you to get around to them. Children don't, and shouldn't have to.

Happy, happy, happy.

—Deb Lewis

Modelling Joy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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More and less

The more they get, the less they need.

"Detox" chat transcript
Similar: Schuyler, on being proactive
photo by Marty Dodd

Connections and cross-connections

If one thing makes you think of another thing, you form a connection between them in your mind. The more connections you have, the better access you have to cross-connections. The more things something can remind you of, the more you know about it, or are learning about it.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd

Connections and Adventures

"That's part of the magic of unschooling—information swirls around, connects and reconnects until you're not really sure where learning begins and ends and where any particular adventure will lead you." —Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd

Rearrangement as a constant

If something comes up in a conversation and then it doesn't come up again later, that's fine. The tide comes in, leaves some stuff on the sand, and goes out; some things stay, some go back out. All of it still exists—the sand, the shells, the water—they're all still there, just rearranging a bit.

On "Always Learning," in response to someone considering
writing down every question her kids asked to look things up later.
photo by Sandra Dodd

"Collect the whole set!"

Some people collect things. Even those who don't gather and store physical objects might like hearing all of one artist's music, or seeing all the movies by a single director. I used to want to go into every public building or business in my home town. I never succeeded, but I saw each building as "yes, have been inside," or "not yet."

It might not make sense to a parent that a child wants to save feathers or rocks or movie ticket stubs. That's okay. What's important is that the unschooling parent accept that there is thought involved that might not need to make sense to anyone else. If possible, the child's whims and wishes about such things should be accepted and supported.


SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Basketful of ideas

Used Easter baskets will be on sale everywhere in the Spring for nearly nothing. We have used ours for birdfeeders, storing doll clothes, storing kindling (eventually just burn the basket), rinsing toy dishes outside (water runs out), for hanging plants, or storing socks, caps or hair scrunchies on tops of dressers. While you have those baskets, see if you can look at where they're from, how they're made, and of what material. When weaving pictures or examples of basketry come by, point that out to your children (or just appreciate them yourself).

SandraDodd.com/supplies
Photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
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My Little Pony

Someone had written that she had the urge to tell her daughters to do something more productive than playing My Little Ponies. Others reminded her of the importance of play, and of bonding.

I wrote:

"Production" is for factories. Your children are learning and growing. There is nothing they need to "produce."

I sent her the link on "Focus," but this one is better:
SandraDodd.com/mylittlepony
photo by Holly Dodd
(who also styled the pony's mane)
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What helps when

What happens when you see other people differently is that you cannot help but see yourself differently. When you choose to find opportunities to give other people choices, you yourself have begun to make more choices.

from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 192 (or 222, depending)
which links to Thoughts on Changing
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the Siroky family's kitchen lamp

Learning in quirky ways

I'm completely sure of unschooling because I believe in people's desire and ability to learn wonderful things in quirky ways if they're given the opportunity.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Finding abundance

Neediness expresses itself differently with different kids. Abundance expresses itself similarly in all.

A family can learn to find abundance rather than lack, even if they're not wealthy.

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Foundations of unschooling

Because my children learned to read without having been taught, they have no doubt whatsoever that they could learn anything else. Few things are as important or as complex as reading, yet they figured it out and enjoyed doing it. If I thought I had taught them, they too would think I taught them, and they would be waiting for me to teach them something else.

SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Holly Dodd
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The openers of doors

"The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers. Unschoolers are making the huge and wonderful choice to renounce our legal entitlements to be the authoritarian controllers of our children's lives, and instead choose to be their partners." —Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/choice
photo by Edith Chabot

Thinking and acting

If you don't think before you act, if you don't consider two options, then you haven't made a choice. If you don't think before you act, you have acted thoughtlessly.

SandraDodd.com/listen/london2011
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a woodpile at Fort l'Écluse

Easy learning

The books that have helped us with unschooling have been things that amused or intrigued or provided answers to questions. How-to and trivia books have been popular here. Real-life combined with humor makes for easy learning.

SandraDodd.com/triviality
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Choose

Choose to make choices.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd

Barbie World

These Barbies belong to a girl named Ericka, who generously let me use her bedroom recently. I bring them to join my collection.

Some of Jayn's (from a few years back) and of Holly's (similarly historical now).

SandraDodd.com/barbie
photo by Sandra Dodd

The awful control beam

If the "control force" is great with you, maybe use it to control your own clutter or organize your papers or rearrange your books or clothing. File your photos and negatives. Scan some stuff. Don't turn that awful control beam on people you love.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Minor little stories

My granny had a button box, in a fruit-cake tin. The kind with Texas pictures on it—a star, a cowboy, the Alamo.


I still see those tins sometimes. Even when I was older and went to her house I would ask to play with those. Partly she didn't have much to do. Partly it was fun to see which ones I remembered, and to look at them with more experience. At first, when I was little, I could only tell the big ones from the little ones, and sort by color or number of holes. And there used to be the BIG coat buttons from the 1930s and 40's.

As I got older, they got older and more "antique." And as I got older I could tell that some of those buttons were older than my grandmother. Nothing special in there, just the collection of her life, and she hardly ever sewed anything but quilts, and she crocheted. Most of the dresses and aprons she made just tied.

I wish I had thought to put them out and talk about them, in those days, but they were private with me, and she would have told me to get them off the table, probably, anyway.

They talked over quilting, she and the older female relatives. My papaw didn't have a truck. But the men talked walking slowly down to fish, and while fishing, and while walking slowly back.

Doing Two Things at Once
Similar tin to the one I remember, image lifted gratefully from an eBay listing.
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