Subscriptions, and gratitude

Dear subscribers:

Thank you for your patience while Vlad is building a mailing program around us. The new format is beautiful and full of links to good things. I'm very grateful to Mr. Gurdiga for his clever and very generous help.

Some days, some of us got doubles, or posts repeated. I'm sorry for the confusion, but glad for the abundance!

I had wanted to quote part of something I wrote about abundance, but found that
1) the whole thing was required for it to make sense,
2) I had posted it before, in 2013, and
3) the original post had comments and links to two things new that day, about abundance and gratitude.

Please enjoy: Gratitude and Abundance

photo by Sandra Dodd

Lights!

There is something special about light, when it's dark. Small illumination is a great dark space can be beautiful. A camp fire, or a candle flame. A torch or flashlight. Neon, or the lit-up name of a store. A traffic light in a rural place. The familiar porch light of a favorite house. Fireworks.

Appreciate casual light shows. Maybe create a bit of light, for its special beauty.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Amy Milstein

Generosity pays

I have known children with nearly nothing who suffer preventive deprivation by parents who don't want to spoil them, who are bullies away from home and always clamor to have their way, to be first, to have more. I have known children who are given their way, an opportunity to be first, and more than they ask for, and they are fine with going second, with sharing, or with giving up the best seat to someone who just really wants it.

There is no magical prevention for bad attitude, but if parents are modeling a bad attitude with their own unreasonable selfishness or arbitrary system of denying children, they should expect their children to show arbitrary selfishness to others.

SandraDodd.com/spoiled
photo by Sandra Dodd
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the best Now

Colleen Prieto wrote:

"I know that no matter how wonderful a childhood he has—no matter how accepted, nurtured, loved, and cared for he is—I can’t control his Future. His Someday is his—and he will run up against a whole world that is full of potentially confusing and potentially damaging things and people. We give him the best Now we can, in hopes that’ll carry him through his Someday as well as it can."

—Colleen Prieto

That's an almost-direct quote. There's a "but..." coming in the original,
but you might not need it today.
SandraDodd.com/addiction
photo by Sandra Dodd

Ongoing and fluid

When life is whole, and not divided into school grades, then reflection, assimilation and connection are ongoing and fluid. In the absence of reporting periods, there's no need to evaluate periodically. Gain trust in learning, and then focus on providing a rich, peaceful environment. Become an unschooling parent.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Softer and Safer

The Parenting Peacefully page has something at the bottom about making better choices. This can move you from wherever you are to wherever you want to be. It will take dozens or thousands of choices, and sometimes you'll be hungry or angry or tired and might speak or act in a way you didn't choose—that just popped out—but if you see it as a single moment, a single incident, and put THAT in with the bad examples, you can be a softer, safer element in your child's life and in your own.


SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bigger, wiser, more whole

Giving children choices helps create a partnership, it helps them learn, it makes them bigger, wiser, more whole.

Pulling them out or pushing them into things keeps them smaller and more powerless.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd

Think (think)

"Thoughts and opinions that don't match reality should be rethought."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/tvchoice
photo by Sandra Dodd

See it more and more

See learning as your priority, and you will begin to see it more and more.

SandraDodd.com/cairns
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Still candy left

Since my kids were little they could have all the Halloween candy they wanted, and since they were little that has been no problem at all, because by the time they gave away what they didn't like and traded for favorites, and saved it and shared it with kids who came over for the next few weeks, there was still candy left.
. . . .
We were confident that it was control, not access, that made kids eat, do and want "too much" before we ever considered unschooling. Others come to the idea the other way around—unschooling first and releasing other control-urges later.


SandraDodd.com/eating/halloween
photo by Pam Sorooshian
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Look

Turn and softly look at your child to see what is fresh and new. Look at your child with awe. See your child with curiosity. Admire your child. You will be amazed.

Turn and softly look
photo by Joyce Fetteroll

Good things swirl

Debbie Regan wrote:

Children prosper when parents are able to provide enough sense of safety, calmness and support, that feelings of peace and joy are close at hand. From there the business of childhood—exploring and learning about the world can progress unimpeded by stress. Stress is a distraction from the natural flow of curiosity, focus, joy, excitement, engagement, creativity, emotional awareness, learning...

The more peace and mindfulness I bring in my home, the more all those good things swirl around.

—Debbie Regan

The quote was in a passing discussion, but you might like this: SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Julie D
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Skills and talents

Knowing what's good about other people doesn't need to diminish your own self confidence. It will increase it, I think, to realize that you are surrounded by others who have skills and talents you might have need of.

SandraDodd.com/humility
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Dad and daughter

Bob Collier wrote, of playing with his daughter:

"So there I am, a six foot guy with a beard lying on the floor with a little girl playing Polly Pockets, smiling and laughing and making silly stuff up as I go along. My daughter's happy. She can see that I love what she loves because it's written all over my face. And I really do. Who knew Polly Pockets could be so much fun? The Polly Pockets though are just the excuse. Not the cause."

SandraDodd.com/dads
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Your child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Mind You Hold Tight

One of the greatest gifts you might give your child, your family and yourself is to learn to set an example of how to deal with surprise wounds and doubts, and to coach your children through their encounters with fear and disappointment with calming touch, cleansing breath, and shared hope.
SandraDodd.com/TinyMonsters
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Dealing with steam

"What you want isn't a way to let off steam that's constantly building up but a way to not build up steam."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joycefetteroll
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Positive fun

Joyce Fetterol wrote:

One of the factors that drew me to homeschooling rather than public schooling was that I thought learning should be fun. But only the unschoolers were focusing on fun and having positive relationships with their kids.

Much of the other forums were devoted to how to make kids do their work, what products were best, what to do with younger kids while older ones did their work.

Pam Sorooshian responded:

This got me thinking, Joyce. Because I found unschooling the same way, just looking for homeschooling information and discovered that the message boards where the unschoolers were talking were the ones that got my heart racing because they were so alive and sparkly with ideas and energy and fun and love of their children.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly
photo by Sandra Dodd

Epiphanies

Ah-HA!

I recently saw how far I've come.

I knew that. Now I *know* that.

I am pretty sure I understand now!

Those quotes are from a collection of just a few of the unschooling epiphanies reported over the years. Not one of them is anything akin to "Yeah, I read that, but..." They're not about reading at all. They're about seeing, about realizing, about having acted in a new way after months or years of the percolation of ideas through a mind and heart open to learning.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd
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