Their own new eyes

Let your children make discoveries with their own new eyes. Don't show-and-tell them into a helpless stupor. Be with them, pay attention to what they're seeing for the first time and be poised to explain if they ask, or point out something interesting if they miss it, but try to learn to be patient and open to their first observations and thoughts. Like bubbles, or dandelion puffs, they are beautiful and fragile and if you even blow on it too hard, it will never be there again.

Practice being. Practice waiting. Practice watching.

Let them experience the world with you nearby keeping them safe and supported.

---

from page 124 (or 136), "Experiences," in The Big Book of Unschooling
which leads to SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Chrissy Florence
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All seasons

Time out.

It's December, and I live at a high elevation at 35 degrees latitude. It's freezing.

I like this butterfly photo from Chrissy, though. And it's good to remember that Just Add Light and Stir has readers near the equator, in India and Hawaii; in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa; in Alaska, Canada, Scotland. Maybe it's winter, maybe it's summer, maybe the days are long, or short.

We can all share this butterfly and blue sky today.

SandraDodd.com/geography
photo by Chrissy Florence
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What big eyes you have!

Since I was little, I have loved the line, "Grandma, what big eyes you have," from Red Riding Hood. It's a good line.

What can you see if you look far away or close up, or with your eyes closed, "with your mind's eye"?

The New Mexico State Museum of Natural History has microscopes. I took a bug there. If you click that, I think you can get an image you can zoom in on to see his eyes, his toes, his wings. How can you see that? Other people helped you see.

SandraDodd.com/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sky

"Be thankful. Notice little things throughout the day that are simply good. The health of your children. The pattern on the soap bubbles in your kitchen sink. How perfect a favourite mug feels in your hand or looks on a shelf. A laugh. An easy moment. The breeze. The sunshine. A connection with a loved one. A touch in passing. A deep breath. A full moon. A cat purr. A hole-free sock. 😉 "

—Karen James

Deschooling (by Karen James)
photo by Gail Higgins
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High horse on holy ground

Carol/sognokids wrote:

One day Colton and Bud returned from the library, thrilled with what they had found. A video copy of "Godzilla!" I snorted derisively and suggested that our time would be better spent with a book. I was ignored. They made some popcorn and started the movie. I sat with them on the couch, or to be more accurate, on my moral high horse....

A voice whispered in my ear: Look at them, Carol. Just LOOK at them! .... They were totally connected to each other through their movie experience, and it was a joy to watch. I knew that they were making a memory together....

We have laughed and cried together as we have watched, and we have wondered and marveled.... And when I watch my husband and son stomping around the house like Godzilla as they destroy Tokyo, I know that I am standing on holy ground.

—Carol/sognokids

The rest is worth reading, and there's a story by Deb Lewis, too:
SandraDodd.com/t/godzilla
photo borrowed from 60 Years of Godzilla

Quite small

Appreciate small moments, small gestures, small ideas. Small things make up a rich life.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Colleen Prieto

Bigger, better life

We make choices ALL the time. Learning to make better ones in small little ways, immediate ways, makes life bigger and better. Choosing to be gentle with a child, and patient with ourselves, and generous in ways we think might not even show makes our children more gentle, patient and generous.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
Chrissy Florence
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Slight, subtle change

Slow, careful little changes make eventual big differences. Learn to see in different ways.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingpeace
photo by Colleen Prieto, who wrote
"Fantastic little snake—he was watching us watching him.
Newburyport, Massachusetts"
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Distance and perspective

If people learn to use "learn" instead of "teach," it helps them move to another angle, to see things through a different lens.

Some people see experienced unschoolers ("experienced" meaning in this context people who have done it well and effortlessly for years, who aren't afraid anymore, who have seen inspiring results) mention classes, and they think "Ah, well if the experienced unschoolers' kids take classes, then classes are good/necessary/no problem."

But if beginners don't go through a phase in which they REALLY focus on seeing learning outside of academic formalities, they will not be able to see around academics. If you turn away from the academics and truly, really, calmly and fully believe that there is a world that doesn't revolve around or even require or even benefit from academic traditions, *then* after a while you can see academics (research into education, or classes, or college) from another perspective.

SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Heather Booth
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Personal connections

Each idea, object, concept, person, song, motion—anything you can think of—has personal associations for you. You have an incalculable mass of connections formed in your brain and will make more today, tomorrow, on the way home, and in your sleep.


SandraDodd.com/connections/
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Be glad

Live in the moment as well as you can and be glad of happy surprises.

Surprises
Living in moments
photo by Andrea Taylor

Blossoming

From 2011, in a discussion of "special needs":

I have a son who would certainly be labeled with disabilities if he were in school. I am familiar with the early intervention path, and how it can make every suggestion seem mandatory.

One of the reasons I quit the path of cookie-cutter help was because I got to watch my (unschooler) friend's son, a boy much like my own, blossom in her care.With every difficulty or difference he presented, whether it was speech differences, sensory difficulties, or behavior issues, she arranged life to fit his needs. She also approached all this with a solid faith in him that he was the way he was supposed to be, and that he was on his own schedule. She sought appropriate help when needed, but it was out of a "what are his true needs" space.

I have since approached my son's needs in a similar manner, and he is blossoming.

—akgreely

SandraDodd.com/special/
photo by Lisa Jonick

Lighten up

A butterfly in the yard is more wonderful than a dusty butterfly pinned in a box, but you can control the one in the box better, as long as you don't want it to fly. At least it will be there when you want to look at it. The one in the yard is on his own schedule.

SandraDodd.com/puddle
photo by Gail Higgins
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Here and now

Don't have so much of past and future in your head that you can't live now.

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Sandra Dodd

Open, windows; open, doors

Be open to seeing what you see, out the window. Be open to finding what you find, out the door.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Perpetual learning

Learning can be easy and fun and perpetual.

https://unschoolingsupport.com/the-word-unschooling/
photo by Chrissy Florence

Trivia is knowledge

Trivia is knowledge that connects things to other things, and ideas to images, and sounds to places.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Janine

Frolic! Delve.

Frolic! Delve.
Catch it in your peripheral vision.



SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Bruno Machado

No other way

Read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch. There is no other way to learn this than gradually. There is no other way to learn to see clearly how it works than by trying it a bit at a time and seeing how putting learning first changes other things—how putting peace ahead of schedules changes things.

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Contrast

Sometimes it's the contrast that shows us clearly where we are now.

Reflections, Projections and Shadows
photo by Sandra Dodd