Happiness is better

"Being happy has never diminished my partnership, and being miserable has never enhanced it."

—Beth Fuller

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Be more, do more

Pam Sorooshian wrote: I'm not saying to prepare a lesson on cactus or coconuts or pineapples. I'm saying that if you're not already an interesting person with interesting information to share with your children, then you'll have to make an effort to be more interesting. The way to do that is to develop your own sense of curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm.

It might have to seem a little artificial, for a while, if it isn't natural to a parent to just "be" this way.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Cathy Koetsier

One easy step

Thinking of "better choices" instead of "RIGHT choices" is an easy step to a world of other easy steps.


Make the Better Choice
photo by Jen Keefe

Plain everyday exotica

Where you live is different. It might not seem different to you, but it's not like all the rest of the world.

Manhole covers are different in different places. The default surfaces of streets, and the way they are repaired and refinished vary. Whether the pedestrian part of the road (if there is one) is called "sidewalk" or "pavement" or something else... I grew up where there were few surfaced walkways. We had "side of the road."

Try to look through the eyes of young children, or of foreign visitors.

Wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Quizzes can fizzle

This story has just been added to my site. It was told in 2003, when Marty was fourteen and Holly was twelve or so.

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My husband's oldest brother came to visit and [Holly] and Marty discussed how to deal with his quizzy questions, usually math. She told me a story from when she was littler, maybe eight. Uncle Gerry had been here, and Holly was brushing her teeth. He stood watching her, and started in about how important it is to brush teeth and floss, because (as Holly reported, he said in a teacherly voice) "Do you know how many sets of teeth you have in this lifetime?"

Holly said, "Two?" (in a kind of "is this a trick question" tone) and she said he was already holding up his index finger as the "one" of the coming "right answer," and he added another finger and sheepishly said, "That's right. Two."

So Holly won a big point and never even told us about it at the time. Cool story. I don't think he quizzed them this time.

Better Answers
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Joy and flow

"Where joy is, you will find learning. Where joy is, you will find flow."

—Clare Kirkpatrick

Parent paragraph of that above—all Clare's words:

"I see lots of reasons for NOT limiting my kids' time on the computer or game playing or watching tv or knitting or reading or playing with barbies or playdough or baking or anything. Those reasons are that where joy is, you will find learning. Where joy is, you will find flow. These are all things we want to *help* our children do *if* that is what they want because we want them to learn. I could, if I wanted to, name many, many things that my children would *not* be doing if I had limited their time doing the things they love, including being on the computer and gaming."

—Clare Kirkpatrick
(original)

Generate Joy
photo by Kinsey Norris
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Closer to peace

We can't live in "how will I survive this?" time nor can we live well by pining for that past we've already lived through. The best way to get through must be to do a better thing. If a conscious thought about time passage comes, think of what will be an improvement, and make that choice, however tiny, however slight.

Avoiding regret, contributing joy...
time will flow as it will,
but we can move closer to peace.

original writing, a bit longer, at Time is Inconsistent, June 2017
photo by Cass Kotrba

What is needed?

There is personal growth in quietly providing what is needed. The world is made better by those who notice and attend to needs.

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Gail Higgins

Sharing time and space

Connections are the best part of learning, in unschooling, in life, for fun. But if it’s too noisy too often, a quiet moonrise over a lake will get all sound-polluted. And one person’s thoughts of beauty might be overrun by someone else’s free associations.

Gaze without speaking / Explore Connections
photo by Janine Davies

Something else

About "un," the term came out in the season of 7-Up, the Uncola. Commercials, billboards, cute campaign, not a big deal. So as 7-Up wasn't a cola, unschooling was something other than schooling.


from a 2003 discussion, lately discovered
photo by Elizabeth Anne
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Know what you're asking

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It's said Alexander the Great founded at least 20 cities named Alexandria. So 2300 years ago if you were to ask someone for directions to Alexandria, you needed to know which you meant before following their directions!

Same with unschooling. To find ideas that will work for you, keep reassessing where you want to go, what you want for your family, what person you want to be rather than heading for "unschooling".

Ask yourself, "Will that idea move toward or away from helping my child explore his interests?" "Will that idea move me toward or away from being a kinder person?"

—Joyce Fetteroll

That is the middle of some longer writing, from a discussion here:
philosophical question on equality of ideas and learning
photo by Brie Jontry

Willing to learn

One of the best things about radical unschooling is how much parents can learn, if they are willing.

Sometimes, a little examination
photo by Joyce Fetteroll

The world came to life

"I was amazed at how much of the world came to life when they were free, and encouraged, to immerse themselves in their deep, passionate interests."

—Pam Laricchia

SandraDodd.com/focus.html
photo by Janine Davies

History is Here

History is here—in the appliances and furniture we have in our homes, the medications and bandages and toothpastes we use, popular music and movies, and the available bicycles, skis, computers and candy.


If that seems wrong, look at photos from 1919, or read accounts of what they had, for those things listed above. What were the soles of their shoes made of? What games did they play? How many presidents or kings or prime ministers had there been then? (Depending where you're from, adjust the question—your country might not even have existed in 1919).

SandraDodd.com/Trivial History
photo by Holly Dodd, of two trucks and a jeep, a mailbox
and a tumbleweed, at a farm where she works sometimes
(The truck on the right is hers, but belonged to her grandfather before.)
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Meditation for moms

When a question about meditation came up, years back, Caren Knox shared:

I've done it different ways, at different times of my life. Mostly, as described - sitting, focusing on the breath, noticing thoughts, not getting carried away by them. And if I get carried away, when I "return", calmly return my focus to the breath, without letting thoughts of "Oh, no! I got carried away!" carry me away again. ...

When the boys were younger, I'd sit when I could, but I noticed that thoughts of "needing" to meditate were pulling me away from the moment *with them*. So I'd get centered in that moment, breathing (three deep breaths is magical), noticing sounds, smells, where my body was. Momentary, but being able to be in the moment changed & flavored the next moment, and shifted it toward peace.

—Caren Knox

SandraDodd.com/breathing or SandraDodd.com/meditation
photo by Ester Siroky
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Investing in foundations

"More and more I'm discovering it's not so much about giving, as it is about building, and, as Sandra has said, investing. You are setting the foundation for your daughter's future interactions with the people she will come to hold dear (yourself included)." —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/barbiekaren
photo by Cátia Maciel

Seasonal doings

There is a "when" and a "where" to activities. Soon, at my house, we'll be inside trying to stay cool, but a different latitude or hemisphere could change that. Are plants coming or going? Or maybe you live where the plants last all year, every year; maybe you live where plants are mostly indoor houseplants. Share these ideas with your children, if they're interested. I remember that a year seemed forever, when I was six years old. At sixty, time was very different.

SandraDodd.com/time
photo (a link) by Janine Davies

This is better.

"This is better. It’s just better." —Jen Keefe

To read about what Jen found that was better, her writing is queued up here:
Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Heather Booth
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Stay here

Some people seem to think unschooling takes them through a portal to some alternate universe.

Stay in the real world! Both feet, directly, right in your house, in your town, in your country, in this moment on this day.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolworld

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Janine
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False doom

If a child doing something harmless and happy is thwarted by a parent spouting false doom, the parent is the problem.

The game isn't the problem, the parent is the problem.

The child isn't the problem, the parent is the problem.



SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd