Moment of sweetness

"Everything you do now, when your kids are young, matters. All the little kindnesses matter, every little moment of sweetness between you, every time you choose to be thoughtful of the smallest things."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Another planet?

This is about the fears some people have, when they first ask about homeschooling:

For some people, it scares them so much that it feels almost like they're moving to another planet and can never come back.

It's not like moving to another planet. You'll still have the same house, same car, same phone number, you'll still be sitting in the same chair. It will just be different. And everytime I've ever said that to anyone, they seemed somewhere between totally relieved and shocked. . . . .

They were flipping out. They were really spinning out, off the planet. Like, "Where will we be? What will happen? How will we ever get back?"

Back to where? You're in your own house.

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It's from a 2013 interview. This page might help in similar ways: Help
photo by Sandra Dodd

So logically...

Deb Lewis wrote:

Does TV create violence, really? Maybe guns create violence. Knives. Baseball bats. Hammers. Axes, shovels, saws? Rope? Dynamite? Sharp sticks, rocks? Maybe it's language causes violence because most killers spoke. Maybe it's books. Clothing? Day time night time wind rain snow trees birds frogs.



For lots of kids, even the bad guys on TV are nicer than the real life crazy people they live and go to school with.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/t/violence
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
The page also has this quote:

"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"

—Dick Cavett

Rebuilding yourself

"The other day Linnaea commented that she thought she and Simon would have struggled at school. I replied that I thought everyone struggled a bit with school, but they would have figured out their way in time. What I didn't say was how I don't know if I would have grown into the parent I am today, the generous and joyful parent that I am, if I hadn't chosen unschooling. I think it is possible to be a generous and joyful parent with schooled children, but it is harder to rebuild yourself in the ways that I feel I have done, slowly, incrementally, with unschooling."

—Schuyler Waynforth
in a passing discussion

SandraDodd.com/schuylerwaynforth
photo by Sandra Dodd
of old stairs in France,
on a day I was with Schuyler

Change in ourselves

"Unschooling is *much* harder than school at home because it takes a great deal of self examination and change in ourselves to help our kids and not get in their way!"

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Megan Valnes
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Let life change you, in a good way

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Both my husband and I have, through unschooling, gotten into the wonderful habit of immersing ourselves right alongside our son, in his interests, for as long as he's interested. And we've learned and grown and enjoyed ourselves quite thoroughly in the process.

It is definitely funny, in a good way, how life changes you if you let it.

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/change.html
quote and photo both by Colleen Prieto
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What (a good) life is all about

Living mindfully and making conscious choices for clear reasons is what a solid, thoughtful life is all about.

SandraDodd.com/mindfulparenting
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Little actions

"Show him by your little actions throughout the day that you love him."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Sarah Dickinson

How and why

People can only learn what connects to what they already know. The more one knows, the more one can learn. And THAT is how, and why, strewing works.



SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Julie D
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Peaceful choices

Schuyler Waynforth wrote some years ago:

It was hard not to turn to the quick solution that never solved anything and left everyone upset, me included, me, maybe the most. But it was amazing to have to expand into the vacuum left by not having that blunt tool in my toolbox. Both Simon and Linnaea grew to trust me. It took less time than I expected.
. . . .My raging, my approach to problems didn't help anything.

I can remember talking about it, thinking about it, it was like a switch I could feel turning. I went from calm and in control to *switch* furious in no time at all. And I couldn't figure out how to not turn the switch on, to make the switch a thoughtful process. When it flipped the other day I felt it go and I stepped away and I turned it off. Most days I stop long before the switch goes. The thoughtful process was recognizing the grumpiness earlier in the day. Feeling a shortness that isn't normally there and doing things to respond to that like going for a quick breath outside or having a chocolate milk or a chai latte or something else that just ups my energy budget a bit. Taking five minutes to close my eyes and be still helps, too. Whatever works for you to buffer yourself is good. Come up with lots of little things.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Time and attention

Schuyler Waynforth said, in a presentation in Australia:

When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold.. . . The more I read and the more I experienced and the more I tried, the more that I could see a framework. It was my engagement that made a difference. It was my time and my attention and my focus that kept things moving better and more smoothly than it could ever have done without me.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/nest
art and photo by Holly Blossom

A better nature

Glenda Sikes wrote:

I vividly remember there being a point several years into unschooling when I realized that so many of the things that had taken conscious effort in the beginning, had become second nature for me at some point along the way.

Be conscious of what you're saying and doing. Be more aware of your thoughts. If you act or react in a knee-jerk way that doesn't help relationships with your family, apologize to them and make a different, better choice in that moment.

—Glenda Sikes

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Health and happiness

"Happiness is good for health! If something that makes a kid happy is deemed unhealthy by a parent, it will create stress and division. That kind of stress is NOT healthy. That kind of division works against the kind of relationship between parent and child that makes unschooling awesome!"

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sylvia Woodman
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Softening

Some people can't leave school because they're carrying it around like a snail and his shell. They live there, still. School became an ingrown, hard part of them. They still define themselves by their school failures and successes.

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Sandra Dodd

Limits are limiting!

I have heard of, read about and communicated with people who referred to themselves as part-time unschoolers, relaxed homeschoolers, eclectic homeschoolers, academic unschoolers and other terms.. . . .
Limited kinds of unschooling will have limited benefits.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 41 (or try 45)
which leads in to SandraDodd.com/unschool/vsRelaxedHomeschooling
and SandraDodd.com/unschool/marginal
photo by Sandra Dodd

Creation (by accident)

You can create more resentment by trying to prevent all resentment.

SandraDodd.com/resentment
photo by Sandra Dodd

Choose more

Part of Pam Sorooshians's response to the idea that unschoolers are lazy:

Ask yourself really honestly, is there something more I could be doing for my child that would enhance my child's life? If the answer is yes, then make the choice to do it. Then ask this question of yourself again and again and, each time, make the life-enriching choice. Apply this to small things and to big momentous decisions. Small things—could I make something for dinner that would be special and interesting? Did I see a cool rock on the ground outside—could I bring it in and wash it and set it on the table for others to notice. Big things—would my child enjoy traveling? Can we take a family vacation that involves exploring things my child would find interesting?

In unschooling, 'lazy' means not thinking about enriching and enhancing your child's life. You change this by doing it—one choice at a time."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lazy/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Bigger and better

A mom who's going to help a child learn from the whole wide world should herself become ever increasingly comfortable with what all is IN the whole wide world, and how she can help bring her child to the world and the world to her child.

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, the mom should do more to make life sparkly.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Kirby Dodd

Find ideas you like

Find ideas you like, but remember that all parenting happens at your house, not online, not in groups, but within the parent. Your relationship with your child doesn't need to be approved by strangers. It needs to be the best you can do with your child, yourself, at your house. If you need ideas, the world is overflowing with good ones, and bad ones.


SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Getting it

When people say "I read [whichever] webpage last year, but..." and I say "Read it again," I think they might think I'm accusing them of not having read it, but it's that after using the ideas a while, the description makes lots more sense.


Whatever it is we're learning—crochet patterns, musical notation, using crutches, building a fire, making cookies—hearing instructions (or reading them) makes VERY little sense at first. Later it makes more sense. But after trying it and figuring out some things for ourselves, and then going back and looking at the directions, they come to life, in color, and they make 3-D sense.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit

Read a little, try a little; wait a while, watch
art and photo by Roya Dedeaux