Your own certain knowledge

Vague interest can turn to trust in others' accounts of learning and of parenting successes. Trust in those stories can give us courage to experiment, and from that we can discover our own proofs and truths to share with newer unschoolers, who might find courage from that to try these things themselves. Faith in others can only take us a little way, though, and then our own children's learning will carry us onward.

Some ideas become theories. A few theories might turn to convictions. Some early thoughts will be abandoned; others will gain substance. After much thought and use, what is left will be what you believe because you have lived it.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Cátia Maciel

Peaceful, interesting and happy

If they're happy then they are!. . . .
If this moment is good, it's easier for the next moment to be good. If you have three or four really good moments in a day, people can go to bed happier, sleep better, and wake up happy. In as many small ways as you can, create a peaceful and interesting nest for your children and they'll leave it as happy, interesting people someday.

Socialization (archived)
photo by Sandra Dodd,
of reflections and shadows in a simple moment

Simply safer

Sometimes I would say "Hold on to something! I'm going to hold on to Marty!" so that it wasn't just a thing 'kids had to do,' but was a safety condition of crowdedness.

Now that I'm older, I still sometimes want to hold on to one of my kids when we're out, but now it's because I'm safer if they help me. Holly has held my hand crossing streets just this year, and she's 21. Marty and Kirby have helped me down stairs and off of steep curbs.

It's not just for children.

---

Update:
Holly is in her 30s, and still helpful to me and her dad. She, or I, or Keith will hold the hand of a grandchild, pretty often (Holly's nieces).

SandraDodd.com/safe
or
Being a safe place
photo by Holly Dodd

Focus on the relationship

Create a situation where the children are calm and at peace and glad to be there.

More "calm and at peace" posts

The quote above is from the end of Learn Nothing Day - A Conversation with Sandra Dodd, from July 2024. The title words were spoken by Cathy Koetsier, my interviewer in the podcast linked here.
photo by Cátia Maciel

Hearing, seeing, thinking more clearly

It helps to hear what you say (read what you write) as clearly as you can. And then to hear what you think, about your children and your life, as clearly as you can.

SandraDodd.com/moderation
photo by Eileen Mahowald, of a dog

Feel it; believe it

When you say something to your child, remember to feel it and believe it, or you'll be sending mixed messages, and the tone might be louder than the words. And with babies and toddlers, the tone might be the entirety of the communication.

The quote is from page 208 (or 241) of The Big Book of Unschooling
SandraDodd.com/tone
photo by Sarah S.

Tiny improvements build up

Although ["make the better choice"] is useful in the moment, its best use is for incremental change. If my best choice used to be to yell or hit, and I yelled, then the next time I thought about it, hitting wasn't even going to begin to be one of my choices. Would I yell or wait? Or yell or speak quietly? Yell or leave the room? Maybe leave out the yelling, and choose between "speak quietly" or "breathe before speaking."

SandraDodd.com/makethebetterchoice
photo by Sandra Dodd

What's important

Calm yourself with the awareness of what's important.

---

I wrote that, but had not shared it in this blog. I found the quote last night at Being and knowing and passing it on, which I wrote in 2009.

Page 205 of The Big Book of Unschooling that Holly was reading that day.
It's page 238 in the 2019 edition.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Go with funny

Given a choice between something funny and something somber, go with funny if your goal is peace and learning. Very few things need to be still and serious.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 128 (or 140)
photo by Cátia Maciel

Busy lives

Although the ideal is to focus on one thing at a time, moms with kids (dads too, sometimes) can become expert at two things at once, and it can be fun. Think of times you've tasted two tastes together, or heard two things at once. Sometimes they blend; sometimes they are jarring.

It's easy to see two things at once, or to notice a combination or juxtaposition you would not have expected.

Thinking many thoughts, and deciding which to keep and which to set aside is the basis of choices, and of wise decision making!

Whirl and twirl
photo by Jihong Tang

Be positively Positive!

Negativity is contagious and cancels out joy and hope. Some people are just casually negative without realizing it. Their first response to anything is likely to be derisive. It's like a disease, and they infect their friends and relatives. Eye rolling, tongue-clucking, dramatic sighs... It's emotional littering. Save them for emergencies.

Seeing and Avoiding Negativity
photo by Shonna Morgan

Be that kind of person

Be the kind of person you want your child to be.

Nurture your own curiosity and joy.

Find gratitude and abundance.

Explore. Make connections, on your own.

Sandra Dodd, on Unschooling, for the Do Life Right Teleconference 2012
photo by Holly Dodd

Wishes

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

I wish things for our family had been different earlier than later, but it is what it is. Unschooling really helped make us better people. I can't even imagine, or rather I can, how different things would be with our relationships with our kids if they'd been in school all these years. Kids absorb the good and the bad. Unschooling really focuses on the good, and that's, well, GOOD! —Jenny Cyphers

"If Only I'd Started Sooner..."
photo by Sandra Dodd

Minor Magic

I don't believe in magic, but I find joy in wonderful coincidences and confluences. I like looking at a digital clock right at 11:11, for its pattern and symmetry. When planets line up I'm happy, even though I believe it to have no effect whatsoever on humans on earth outside the happiness they might have if they know about it.



The first paragraph is a quote from SandraDodd.com/magicwindow.
photo by Holly Dodd
__

Collecting

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 Holly Dodd

Empowering Others

Helping people learn to find their own answers is vastly superior to distributing answers on demand. . . .
Empowerment is a principle, not a rule. Learning to examine one's own life and needs and beliefs is necessary for unschooling to work.

These quotes were about unschoolers helping other unschoolers, but the ideas work with parents and children, too.
SandraDodd.com/rulebound

Younger Keith Dodd and his baby Kirby
photo by Sandra Dodd