photo by Roya Dedeaux
Showing posts with label siblings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label siblings. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Ultimately...
photo by Roya Dedeaux
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Respected and supported
When kids know their parents are on their sides, when parents help them find safe ways to do what they want to do, then kids do listen when we help them be safe.
When kids feel respected, when they've experienced a lifetime of their desires being respected and supported to find safe, respectful, doable ways to get what they want, kids won't push the envelope into craziness. That behavior just doesn't make sense to them.
—Joyce Fetteroll
photo by Roya Dedeaux
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Stir up some peace
Sandra Dodd (in 2017—general discussion, not unschooling):
There is a natural need in people to know the "us" and the "them." Those who want an inclusive, multicultural, liberal, accepting life will still have a "them." It's easy to revile "the enemy." It might be impossible NOT to have the idea of "other." But creating a "culture" or nation that is created of a combination of others won't save any individual from their own instincts.
Deb Lewis wrote (in the midst of other things):
You can't clean up a pile of shit by shitting on it.
Sandra Dodd, to that:
The people who are cleaning up can feel hatred for those who keep shitting on it (whatever the "it" is they're cleaning up).. . . . Hating those other people makes you hateful.
There isn't a final solution, but there are things to make it (the big pile of shit) worse, and ways to make our own moment in time better. Enough good moments might make a good day. Don't collect shit unless you want a shitty day.
Back to nowadays...
I know it's not the most uplifting quote, but a reminder that negativity is negative might help parents of children who are still at home to be positively sweet and present. Stir up some peace.
photo by Holly Dodd
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Find the joy in it!
There are many benefits to letting them choose their own input, and a world of disadvantages to controlling it. Find the joy in it!
Here are some ideas that might be helpful:
SandraDodd.com/control
SandraDodd.com/t/economics
SandraDodd.com/being/
SandraDodd.com/videogames/
photo by Janine Davies
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
The whole set of everything

We didn't have problems with our unlimited turns, but it's because nobody ever played longer than he really wanted to just to keep another kid from getting on. Not even nearly. If Kirby knew he wanted to play for a really long time, he would offer Marty a turn, knowing Marty couldn't last so long. Sometimes I would appeal to one of them to trade out, but it was for real reasons every single time. "Kirby has to go to karate, so can he go now and you can play all the time he's gone?" or "Holly's pretty sleepy anyway, and wanted to play Zoombinis. Can she have her turn soon?"
As with so many other things (every other thing, maybe) in our lives, though, it wasn't that single slice that "worked," it was the whole set of everything. They trusted me because I had spent years being trustworthy. They knew there was no secret agenda, and that I really did want them to all have fun things to do, and that they WOULD get to be on the computer uninterrupted, soon.
That was in the dial-up days. The world is better now, with more computers in homes, with wifi, with tablets. At the link below you can also read how Pam Sorooshian handled sharing a different way, when she had three children at home.
Helping Children Share
photo by Sandra Dodd
(re-used, because it's from the days of the writing)
___
Saturday, April 19, 2025
Extraordinary doings
It helped me think more clearly about unschooling when I realized unschooling isn’t something kids do. Unschooling is something parents do. Unschooling is *parents* creating a learning environment for kids to explore their interests in.
Unschooled kids aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary. They’re merely doing what comes naturally. They’re doing what all animals with lengthy childhoods do. They learn by doing what interests them in an environment that gives them opportunities to explore.
Unschooling is parents doing something extraordinary. It’s deliberately creating an environment where kids are supported in pursuing their interests.
—Joyce Fetteroll
photo by Rosie Moon
Friday, April 11, 2025
How unschooling works
Schooling works by pouring expertly selected bits of the world into a child. (Or trying to, anyway!)
Unschooling works by the child pulling in what he wants and needs. It works best by noticing what the child is asking for and helping him get it. It works best by running the world through their lives so they know what it's possible to be interested in.
—Joyce Fetteroll
photo by Roya Dedeaux
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Unschooling and other marvels
- You can do it at home!
- Your kids are there!
- It makes all of life a peaceful learning lab.
Unschooling is a subset of homeschooling. Unschooling is the radical, philosophical end of homeschooling. Unschooling is living a rich life and letting learning drop into your lap and into your ears and mind while you laugh and listen to music and play games. Unschooling is seeing the magic in every day, and the joy in yourself and the people around you. If your children don't go to school, why should you bring school home? Be free! There is nothing in school that isn't also in the real world. (And if there IS, why would you be needing to know it if it doesn't exist outside?) Use primary sources, not textbooks. Look at real nature, not photos of nature in a book.
"Unschooling and other Marvels"
photo by Laurie Wolfrum
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Look directly; just look
photo by Sarah Peshek
Friday, January 31, 2025
Generous partners
photo by Olga Degtyareva
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Kindness and a joyous attitude
Sandra:
If you could give all unschoolers something by magic to help them succeed, what would it be?
Hema:
Kindness and a joyous attitude in the face of any adversity, small or large. This is what I wish for myself too.
photo by Ravi Bharadwaj
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Support learning!
It would be very useful if parents stop using the term "screen time." It is insulting and adversarial. It completely dismisses what your child is actually doing as if it doesn't matter at all. Playing a game is the same as watching a video. Watching one video is the same as watching any other video. What the child is actually doing is all lumped together as "screen time" as if what the child is really doing doesn't matter....
Change your approach. Instead of focusing on limiting it and explaining how it is bad, see it as a jumping-off point for all kinds of experiences and conversations! Unschooling is about supporting learning, not by limiting the child's access to what he/she loves, but by expanding a child's access to the world.
—Pam Sorooshian
photo by Megan Valnes
Saturday, August 10, 2024
Hours and days of joyful time
I tend to err on the side of just spending time together.Don't think of it as erring.
And don't think of it as "just" spending time together.
SPEND freely of copious hours and days of joyful time together.
Don't just spend time together.
photo by Rosie Moon
Friday, May 3, 2024
Helping grandparents

Meredith wrote something in April 2011 about what the grandparents want...
It's helpful to keep in mind that one of the big things grandparents want is a sense of connection with their grandchildren. When kids aren't in school, that can feel awkward - what the heck do you say to a child other than "what are you doing in school?" Especially if you only see him twice a year? It can leave extended family members stymied. So it helps a whoooole lot to feed them useful information and conversation starters in the form of something grandparents usually like anyway - pictures and stories of their grandkids. Keeping a blog or sending regular notes (via facebook or plain old snail mail) goes a long way in that regard. And! they get to see their beloved grandchildren happy and adventurous, which can help to reassure them on that score.
Unschooling can come across as some kind of weird cult if you try to explain it from a theoretical side first. Start with happy kids living rich, full lives and school starts to seem less of an issue.
—Meredith Novak
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Dodd kids and paternal grandmother, early 1990s
Monday, March 4, 2024
Helping them share

The problem I see with measured turns is that the quality of game play is compromised. If someone sees the clock and that's when they have to stop, they won't play as thoughtfully. They're less likely to look around at the art or appreciate the music. If they're starting to read, they're less likely to take a moment to look at the text and see if they can tell what it says.
The benefits of game play will not come to full fruition if kids' time is measured that way, and they're not learning to share.
If they only have an hour, they will take ALL of that hour, just as kids whose TV time is limited will.
It they can play as long as they want to, they might play for five or ten minutes and be done.
photo by Sarah S.
Sunday, March 3, 2024
The world opens up

Joanna Murphy wrote:
With trust, the world opens up, horizons expand and life can seem exciting and limitless. Without trust, the world shuts down, gets narrow and petty.
I want more expansiveness in my life, not less.
The expansive quality of trust grows out from the center to touch every part of our lives. Trust that we ARE capable and that we will, through our honest endeavor, figure out a way. Trust that our children will find, ask or be provided with what they need, trust that they are in connection with us by their own choosing and free will—not through "enforcing." And trust that they will grow up loving and caring and interesting people without being "taught."
—Joanna Murphy
photo by Cátia Maciel
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Growing and learning
"Things change. Our kids get older. They outgrow stages we think they never will. They learn all they need to know, in their own time."
—Heather Booth
photo by Cátia Maciel
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Abundance abounds!
I'm sharing this photo and note from Megan Valnes, with her permission:
Hello Sandra!
I thought of you today while observing my three youngest children having fun together and bonding while playing with the iPad. 🙂 Had I not opened our lives to the principles of Radical Unschooling, there is a high probability that this moment would never have happened. I remain grateful everyday for the wisdom I have acquired through you, your participants, and the daily practice of unschooling principles. Thank you. Abundance abounds!
SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Megan Valnes
I thought of you today while observing my three youngest children having fun together and bonding while playing with the iPad. 🙂 Had I not opened our lives to the principles of Radical Unschooling, there is a high probability that this moment would never have happened. I remain grateful everyday for the wisdom I have acquired through you, your participants, and the daily practice of unschooling principles. Thank you. Abundance abounds!
—Megan Valnes
(e-mail, December 2023)
(e-mail, December 2023)
photo by Megan Valnes
Thursday, October 5, 2023
More and better
- More.
- Better than school
- Making memories
SandraDodd.com/hsc/unschoolingwell
photo by Rosie Moon
Saturday, September 16, 2023
"Playing computer"

When someone wrote "I do worry about my boys playing computer all day," I responded:
I have three kids who have played hundreds of games among and between them—Holly learned two new card games just this month that nobody else in the family knows, even her dad who has been a big games guy all his life. There is no game called "computer." I think you mean playing ON the computer. HUGE difference.
We have dozens of nice board games here, and table games (games involving cards or other pieces, to be laid out on a table as play proceeds), but those aren't referred to as kids playing board, or kids playing table. The computer is not itself the game. There are games on the computer. There is information on the computer. It's not really a net. It's not really a web. It's millions of ideas, words, jokes, pictures, games, a ton of music and videos and.... But you know that, right?
Clarity can begin with being careful with the words you use. Thinking about what you write will help you think about what you think!!
Sandra
Thanks to Marcia Simonds for sharing that quote years back.
photo by Sandra Dodd, of my kids
playing Zoombinis in 1999
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