Mix life up

Can you get out of the house more? Go do different grocery stores? I've suggested this ten times over the years and some people perk up and get it immediately, and some think I'm a small-minded dope. People learn from stimulation. Seeing things they haven't seen before that are not entirely unlike what they have seen will help them build brain trails and patterns. If you go to the same grocery store and walk the aisles in the same order every time, the kids won't learn anything but that pattern. They won't learn the range of what stores have, how differently it can be arranged, and how to shop by looking at labels and looking at what's stored near that product, instead of just heading straight to where you KNOW the soup you always use is. How will they ever see exotic new soup? How will they ever see bulk pasta if you always get the same bag of noodles of the lowest shelf near the same old same old same old stuff?

That can go for going to the post office, to the movies, to buy shoes, all KINDS of things. Mix life up. Take a new trail.

That's from a 25-year-old discussion:
Conversations With Sandra Dodd: Welcome!
photo by Sandra Dodd

Things started happening...

"Intellectually, I got unschooling all the way from the very beginning. The part that took more time was relationships and wholeness. When I got THAT, that is when things started happening in the direction that made unschooling work great!"

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Cally Brown

Open gates to peaceful places

Once when a mom wished her child didn't love "Barney," I said I didn't love "Rugrats," but I went on to write:

Any program can be the springboard for sincere and helpful exchanges between parents and children **unless** the mom condemns and rejects a program in such harsh terms that the children aren't even able to discuss it with her for fear of criticism or rejection. Then the mom has cut off her kids. And "I hate X" is not an open gate.

"Hate" is a set of biochemicals that will not let love and open acceptance in until hate settles down, so moms hoping to build a peaceful learning nest for children should be using the best materials they have, physical or emotional or otherwise. Hate, jealousy, resentment and those sharp and separating emotions are not nesting materials.

---

I'll leave links to the original writing, to a newer page on positivity, and on "Building an Unschooling Nest."

"I hate to play!"

SandraDodd.com/positivity

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Many small adjustments

Renee Cabatic wrote, years ago:

I place toothpaste on Xander's toothbrush at night. One night he said it was too much toothpaste so the next night I put much less on. He then told me it was too little toothpaste.

Exasperated, I said, "I can't win for losing."

He said, "You can win. With many small adjustments!"

Do not be overwhelmed.

YOU can unschool with many small adjustments!

—Renee Cabatic

---

Xander is grown now. Because of him and his mom, MANY people learned to consider making small adjustments toward more peaceful living and learning.

Clarity, by Renee Cabatic
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Examine ideas yourself

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

If a parent has found something that works for their family without understanding why it worked and how much personality played in it, then for others it's little better than rolling dice and picking some technique at random.

On the other hand, those who are living examined lives. thinking about and discussing why something works in the context of growing relationships, that's way better than dice! And no one should swallow what's said uncritically. They should take it in, turn it over, ask questions and examine it for themselves.

Critical examination is better for reaching clear goals than pretty sentiments of "following the heart" and "mom knows best."

—Joyce Fetteroll, 2008

SandraDodd.com/joyce/followyourheart
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Moment, hour, day, lifetime

How you live in the moment affects how you live in the hour, and the day, and the lifetime.

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Holly Dodd

Shuffle it up

What unschoolers do to help other unschoolers is to share how they came to unschooling, and the effect it has had on their children and their home lives.

It helps for new unschoolers to read some, then try some, maybe meet some people if they can, read more, try more, maybe listen to something or watch something, try more, and shuffle it up that way. . . . .
Those new to unschooling need most or all of the same things others needed when they were new: local information, access to laws and policies, reassurance, suggestions for deschooling, answers to questions (although the answers are ever more easily available as people collect up the best answers of the past). They need inspiration and ideas.

If you're new: read, change a little; read more, change more; repeat.


From page 19 or 20 of The Big Book of Unschooling, which links to the help page: SandraDodd.com/help

photo by Dan Vilter

On changing

A mom named Sara P. wrote:

This is still an ongoing process for me. I had to re-train myself in a lot of ways. I had to learn a new language. I had to learn to SEE again. I had to learn how to communicate. I had to learn patience. I had to learn how to put others first. .....WOW! Sometimes an old thought will creep in. Sometimes I find myself answering a question in *teacher tone*...but it is so few and far between, and I am so quick to catch it that nobody ever notices except me!

—Sara P

SandraDodd.com/change/stories
photo by Marin Holmes

One special place

Near you there are many many plain and simple things that you might overlook for being commonplace, everyday, throwaway background sights, sounds, smells, tastes or textures.

What are walls and fences made of where you are? Some other places, it is very different. How does the air feel and smell when it's cold? What's the first plant that might volunteer to grow in a bare spot? What little animals might you see, and what birds do you hear? What do people throw away that a tourist might pick up and keep? What food is readily available, that everyone knows how to make, and has the ingredients for on hand nearly always?

When you look as far to the east as you can see, what is the view? Turn around and look the other way, too.

Where you are is exotic to most of the rest of the world. Most other people will never see it. Knowing that your plainness is someone else's curiosity can make your life richer.

Sometimes, when you look, listen, taste, feel, smell, close your eyes and rest, remember that you are in one special place.

Creating Abundance, by Deb Lewis

or Your House as a Museum

photo by Oshan in Sri Lanka
(click for a slightly wider view)

Light shows

Sometimes light does fancy tricks, outside, or inside, with refractions, reflections, shadows and shimmery sunbeams.

There are other lights that can catch your eye, though. Candles, lamps and lanterns, maybe. Your home might have electric fixtures you especially like.

Sometimes we think of the light in someone's eyes, or their lightness of being. Some people live lightly, with springy steps and easy smiles.

When you have light inside you, others can see it.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Being present with kids

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

They won't be three forever! Their understanding and needs will grow and change as they get older.

Conventional parenting is not about being present with kids. It's about giving kids rules as a replacement for being there. Same can go for information. Information shouldn't be a substitute for being there and being aware. We should let kids know that cars can hurt them, which is why we steer them clear of the street. But we shouldn't then depend on kids understanding. We need to be there. We need to be aware of our child's tendencies to run to the street when in that type of situation. We need to avoid as much as we can places where they can run into the street until they can understand.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Mindful Parenting and unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

Goop, fire, snowballs

When one person says "I like science" and another says "I don't like science," I remember school science textbooks that had geology, astronomy, chemistry, botany, biology, agriculture and physics all in one book. . . . . There are many fun things to do and explore that could be called "science," but why not just call them skate boards or miniature golf or basketball or piano or water play or rescuing wounded birds or making goop or collecting rocks or swimming or drawing pictures of clouds or taking photos in different kinds of light or growing corn or training a dog or looking through binoculars or waiting for a chrysalis to open or making a sundial or making a web page or flying a kite or chasing fireflies or building a campfire or finding out which planet that is by the moon on the horizon, or wondering why snowballs take so much snow to make, or how a 4-wheel-drive truck works.

Science and the larger idea of Changing Facts
photo by Sandra Dodd

Love; generosity; a haven

Wash dishes because you want to. What would make you want to? Love. Generosity. A desire to have an available kitchen, a clean slate, a fresh canvas. The wish to do something simple and kind for yourself and others. The wish to keep peace in your house. The preference of singing and feeling warm soapy water over accusations and threats and tears. The intention to build loving relationships rather than antagonism. The hope to make a haven of your home, rather than a dangerous trap everyone would love to escape.

from page 201 of The Big Book of Unschooling (page 177 of the older edition)
related ideas online: Serving Others as a Gift
photo by Colleen Paeff

Safety and welcome

This gate was made for an open-air museum in The Netherlands, in a style that's called "wattle," in England. I like it.

I love gates, especially when you can see through them, but they keep children, animals and gardens safe. Though they might keep strangers out, they can welcome friends in!

I hope you have a gate or two you use, or see, or like, in your life.

Other gates
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Layers and depth

A mom once wrote:

Sometimes I think I've started to understand something but instead it's like an onion and there's another layer I didn't know I needed to understand.

I responded:

That's how everything good is. Every hobby, skill, pastime, has a surface and has a depth. Some things can be just surface, but parenting and unschooling last for years. And if a family can't resolve to be and do and provide better for the child than school would, then school is better.

If a family resolves to provide a better life experience then school did, then their decisions and actions should be based on that.

Make the Better Choice
Getting It
photo by Ester Siroky

Antiquery

Some antiques are never in a store or a museum. What others show you as old and valuable might be wonderful, but be on the lookout for other elderly objects, minding their own business without being fancy.

History lives in all of that.

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click for another angle, with mountains but no trough)

Wide view and close-up

A closer photo of this gate might look more limiting than this distant view. There's no fence attached, past the low places on each side of the road. It will keep vehicles out, but not animals.

If you're feeling limited by something that doesn't really have a fence, it might be illuminating to look more closely at some of the construction, at the details. Things are different different places, and interesting.

To young children, things can be new even if they're the same old hardware, or view, or tree, or sky, to the adults. If you can see through a child's eyes, things might seem new again.

Seeing as a visitor or a tourist, in your imagination, will reveal another layer to your same-old, too. Even when you don't have visitors, you can think of what might be interesting to someone from another side of the world.


Your House as a Museum
photos by Sandra Dodd, visiting Queensland in 2014
__

Let it be

Let it be what it is.



photo by Janine Davies

Gates

Sometimes a gate is calling me to walk through it. Sometimes a gate hasn't been opened for years, but it's a pretty part of the fence.

I like the phrase "six of one; half a dozen of the other." It can mean "I don't care," or "it makes no difference to me," but in its most peaceful, positive light it might mean "I will be happy whether I go through that gate, or whether I never do."

Overcoming Fear
photo by Belinda Dutch

Live well

Don't "model" and "teach." Live. You will be a giant step nearer to radical unschooling if you can see that difference.

SandraDodd.com/being/
photo by Samuel Siroky