Traditional "truths"

There are some truisms that are spoken without real examination and I think the very vague rules against bribery of children are right up top there. . . . . I don't think giving a child something you have in exchange for him doing something he doesn't owe you to be bribery.

More of that: SandraDodd.com/bribery
photo by Jihong Tang

Very random

Try to embrace "very random" so unschooling will work optimally! 🙂

Even for kids who are in school, the more parents talk and joke and wonder with them, the more learning will happen, and the better relationships will be.

Webs, nets, connections
photo by Cátia Maciel

Naturally clearer thinking

I (Sandra) wrote:

Try not to go against nature, when you're aiming to "be natural."

[Later in that same discussion] Sandra responding to "I try to model healthy eating."

Healthy eating for an adult woman isn't the same as for a teenaged boy or an eight year old girl or a two year old or an infant.

SandraDodd.com/eating/sugar
photo by Cátia Maciel, in Morocco
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All fun and games

An angsty mom wrote:

I know in the nitty gritty of my heart, I'm not okay with a life philosophy that centers on "if it's fun I'm here, and if it's not, I'm gone."

Joyce Fetteroll responded:

Don't think of what we're talking about as fun, then. Think of it as joy. Or fulfilling. Or satisfying.

Even the most joyful life isn't all peaches and cream. Sometimes it rains when we wanted it sunny. Sometimes a friend cancels when we wanted to do something together. Sometimes accomplishing something means working through a period of frustration.

Life will naturally throw lemons at us fairly regularly. But what we don't need is to squirt life with artificial lemon juice to prepare us.

—Joyce Fetteroll

There's more: Life can't be all fun and games
photo by Karen James

As kids deschool...

Kids who haven't been to school are different, but here is
Joyce Fetteroll's advice for helping kids deschool when needed:

The best thing you can do while they're deschooling is let them play. And help them play. Make play dates. Make sure they have things they enjoy playing with. *Be* with them. Find out why they enjoy something so much. When they feel free—rule of thumb is one month for each year they've been in school, starting from the time when you last pressured them to learn something—be more active about running things through their lives: movies, TV shows, books, places to go: ethnic restaurants, museums, monster truck pulls, walks in the woods, funky stores ....

Look for the delight in life and it will infect your kids. 😊 As long as it's *honest* interest and delight! If it's fake interest to get them to pay attention to something you think would be good for them, they're going to notice and avoid it. It's the tactic they've been awash in since kindergarten: "Learning is Fun!"

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/deschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel

Fitting dinner into the day

It's not uncommon (historically) for children to eat first, and separately, and food kids like, and then for the adults and teens and guests to eat a little later, at leisure, and not have to worry about whether their food is something the kids would like.

I have more energy in the morning but I don't always want to use it thinking about dinner. When I do, I do better. 🙂 If I start bread and put something out to thaw, or better yet mix up a casserole or put something in the crock pot—at least a sauce or something easy like ground beef or chicken in barbecue sauce—then dinner is easy and if plans change, the thing that was started earlier can go in the fridge. . . . .
We've never made our kids wait for dinner. If they're hungry, they can snack.

—Sandra, when kids were still home

SandraDodd.com/eating/dinner
photo by Sandra Dodd

Another casual part of life

To call some food "junk" is an artificial division. When food is given the status of a religion (the place where sacrifices are made to ensure a positive outcome and long/eternal life), then there IS the necessity of a devil/Satan/"the dark side."

When food is just another casual part of life, kids will choose melons over biscuits/cookies and chocolate eggs sometimes.

When a child is loudly, ceremoniously and with a big happy-face NOT ALLOWED to be in the presence of the devil/sweets, then if and when he is lured by that satanic force, he will either resist out of fright instilled by his loving mother, or he will succumb, indulge, and be one giant step away from his mother—morally, emotionally and dietarily.

SandraDodd.com/eating/junk
photo by Tammy
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Comfortable new ideas

Lea Goin wrote:

I just realized my children turn down sweets all the time!

I've tried to maintain a candy bowl in hands reach for years. They stopped emptying it pretty much right away. Got comfortable with the idea that candy is always available if they want some.

And this past Halloween two of mine chose to skip trick or treating in favor of other activities. And one gave me back a pretty full bag to put in the family candy bowl.

—Lea Goin

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Rachel Kay

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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Be there; have time; avoid stress

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

I make lots of food. I like cooking. I like baking. And Simon and Linnaea mostly prefer my food to store food. But, for a long time, Simon preferred store bought bread to home made. Linnaea has never liked home made macaroni and cheese. And, honestly, my baking was always a time commitment. I have much more time now that they are 15 and 12 than I had when they were little.

When they were little, getting food in easy forms that they enjoyed that were quick for when David wasn't around to tag me, that was important. That was more important than any fear I may have had about what they were eating. Being there for them. Having the time for them.

Meredith wrote, and I want to underscore:

"Don't make it stressful - because what we know about nutrition has changed and changed and will change again, but stress is bad. We know that. Don't make life one bit more stressful."

—Schuyler Waynforth
quoting Meredith Novak

What problems can come?
(a long, rough, wonderful discussion from 2013)
photo by Sandra Dodd, embellished by Holly Dodd

Natural feelings

Unschoolers have sometimes found that their children know whether they're hungry, and what they're hungry for, in the absence of scheduled, pre-prepared meals that they're pressed to eat. Unschoolers have discovered that in the absence of an enforced bedtime, kids can feel when they're tired, and will lie down.

One interesting side benefit of unschooling can be that the parents can begin, themselves, to feel those natural feelings. It can help if they are biological parents and experienced the change that can naturally happen when seeing (touching, smelling, hearing) one's own newborn. Not every parent changes, but most do. Some adoptive parents can get a wave of instinct (whatever that biochemically-triggered parenting effect is) that can change them, too.

SandraDodd.com/instinct
photo by Kinsey Norris

Making children smile

Joyce, in response to someone who wrote "I want to scream":

If you could choose between making your children smile and making them cry or be angry with you, which would you choose?

If you could choose to do something for someone who made you angry and cry or someone who thought you were the bee's knees who would you help?

—Joyce Fetteroll

She wrote more, of course... SandraDodd.com/chores/scream
photo by Jo Isaac

A Feast!

Dominique Trussler wrote, years ago:

This morning I brought my 8-year-old son a snack as he was busy playing on the computer, and he said "Wow! A feast! One, because it is big. And two because it has yummy things on it." And he carried on playing. And now I am smiling. 😊


Here is picture of the feast. (He is very tidy with his food, in case you are thinking wow hummus near a laptop!)

—Dominique Trussler

Something Surprising
photo by Dominique Trussler

Gentle and sweet

Be as gentle and sweet as you can be. Practice breathing and making the better choice, so you will be confident that you are being thoughtful.

Those small tools can build strong relationships.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully

Quote is from an interview in 2023
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Negotiations, commerce (not bribery)

I think we were discussing offering an older child money to read to a younger child, or to play with them at their level; kind of an occasional in-house mother's helper situation. Someone asked about bribery; my response follows. —Sandra

How do you go about it without it feeling like/being bribery? I'm guessing it is in attitude and wording, but I can't imagine a way to word it that it doesn't sound like bribery to me...? Thanks for the idea!

How do places of business get people to go to work without "bribery"?
How do you get an auto dealer to give you a car without bribery?

If someone's supposed to do something anyway and holds out on you until you pay them or give them something, that's a bribe. If something is not someone's job or someone's property and they negotiate for an exchange, that's commerce, not bribery.

There are some truisms that are spoken without real examination and I think the very vague rules against bribery of children are right up top there.

SandraDodd.com/bribery
photo by Cátia Maciel

Choices and learning

Each child is an individual. If you let them choose from many foods, they won't eat things that make them sick, or make them feel bad.

If you tell them in advance what "will" make them feel better and what "will" make them feel bad, #1 you could be very wrong, and #2 they are NOT learning on their own about food. They're learning how to appease mom.

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Kirby Dodd

Quote is from an online text chat on food and eating.

Talking, laughing, doing, watching...

Sylvia Woodman wrote:

One of the most frequent questions I hear is, "What does a typical day look like in your house?" It's hard to know how to answer since what we are doing is what we have always done. We live our life, have fun, try new things, talk about them. Mostly, the learning happens almost "under the radar"—people talking, laughing, doing stuff, watching things, tasting things, and making connections that make sense to them.

—Sylvia Woodman, 2014

SandraDodd.com/sylviawoodman/learning
photo by Sylvia Woodman

Kindness and lightness and joy

It's very easy to control food when you have a home of young children. Most young children aren't going to question the choices you make regarding food, they will eat what they like of what you've offered. The really big challenge is when kids start asking for other things and how you choose to respond to those things.

This is a biggie and it applies to EVERYthing, not just food. Are you going to be a mom that reacts big and opinionated to these questions and inquiries and curiosities? Or are you going to be a mom who helps her kids explore their questions and inquiries and curiosities? This is the very basis on which parents build the foundation of unschooling, if that is indeed the goal.

In each moment of questioning, or inquiry, or curiosity, you get to choose how you respond. You can respond in such a way that a child's question, their learning, is honored, with kindness and lightness and joy, or you can shut that down with your own opinions and ideas. The more a parent can honor a child's curiosity, the more that child will genuinely listen to their parent's ideas about the world. It's the only way that I've seen that kids really truly are influenced by their parents. All other attempts are seen and felt as control, manipulation, coercion, unless of course you have a child that is VERY easy going. But trust me, there will come a time when even that child will challenge you, and the more easy going you've been about their ideas from the beginning, the more influence you will have when that time comes. . . . . Emotional health and emotional well-being are as important, if not more so, as physical health (from food, etc.).

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/eating/control
photo by Sarah S.

Calmly and peacefully

What I...do, is to help people live calmly and peacefully. It always interests me when people want me to stop doing that, to take it back, to say that indignation and fear are as good as joy and a feeling of abundance.

And it's not just my opinion, that anger and stress are unhealthy for people biologically, and socially. And it's not escapism or irresponsibility for me to say that when people feel grateful for things in their lives (food, running water, safety, roofs that don't leak) that they will have a happier moment, hour, day, sleep. I didn't make that up. It's self-evident AND backed up by even the slightest knowledge of biology and psychology.

SandraDodd.com/news
photo by Cátia Maciel

Deeper layers of understanding

Lissa wrote, in response to Jenny C... (link below to more):

I know exactly what you mean. There's getting (intellectual understanding) and GETTING (putting ideas into practice). Sandra, your onion metaphor is apt. I am getting to deeper layers of understanding all the time. It's a very sweet and savory onion and it makes life taste delicious.

— Lissa in San Diego, mom of 5

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd