Creating comfort

Help make your child comfortable where he is today, this hour, this moment.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Cátia Maciel

Far-reaching effects

Dede wrote:

I finally let go of my control issue around TV and video. In its place I found trust which created a deepening of love and respect in my relationship with my son and my family and everything else in my life. It is amazing how far reaching the effect was. Just wanted to share this.

—Dede

Unschooling: Getting It
SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Megan Valnes

Like Riding a Bicycle

Vickie Bergman, some of her nice analogy about unschooling being like riding bikes:

Your own bicycle is powered by your own legs, steered by your own hands. It stops when you stop, goes where you want to go. But it's not that you are always responsible for your own movement. You are not just left to figure it out for yourself. When you prefer to have some level of assistance getting where you want to go, you also have tandem bicycles and bike trailers available to you. You get to choose if you want help and what kind and how much. And your parents are ready to help whenever and however you want them to.

No matter which kind of bicycle you are on, there is no separation between you and the outside world. No window to look out. You can smell the real world, hear the real world, stop and touch the real world. You are part of the real world. There are paths to follow if you want to, but your rides are not limited to the paths.
. . . .

That is unschooling. It is not a model of education, but a way of life. It is recognizing that people learn from living, and there is no need to separate learning from living. Unschooling lets a family live together, learn together. It is built on trust among family members, and trust in human nature. Trust that children have a strong desire to learn about things, even if those things may not be on the short list of school subjects. Trust that, with your acceptance and support, your child will follow his own path, leading exactly where he wants to go.

—Vickie Bergman

More at: SandraDodd.com/bicycle
photo by Vickie Bergman

Fun (learning opportunity)

A homeschooler wrote and asked how I fit learning opportunities into our lives. At first I had that feeling that I didn't understand the question, and then I thought of it another way. Can I describe how our lives are lived so that learning happens so effortlessly? I can try, and the first answer is simple. We just have fun.

What Marty Really Needed
SandraDodd.com/martymap
photo by Cátia Maciel

Powerful trust

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

The striking difference for me, and the real beauty of unschooling compared to school at home and school is the fact that my kids trust themselves.

They trust themselves to know how and what to do. They trust themselves to do what is best for them. This is largely due to the fact that they are trusted. That trust gives them power over their own beings and the decisions they make.

—JennyCyphers

Sparkly Unschooling
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Gently and peacefully helpful

Everyone who helps others unschool or to live peacefully with their children is contributing more to the peace of the world than anyone who is sorting through fine print to try to boycott a company as a punishment for something someone did, or didn't do, years ago, while their children are saying, "Please, mom, please?"

Those who help others live more gently and peacefully help more (here and anywhere) than those who are collecting up political causes and posting about their indignation.

SandraDodd.com/politics
photo by Manisha K.

(see also: Toy Guns / SandraDodd.com/peace/guns)

Deschooling...is to sit and think

Nicole Kenyon wrote, December 25, 2020:

My husband came home the other day saying he had the perfect Christmas present for our 9 year old son - a gel blaster toy gun. He was beaming and so happy. My first thought was "oh no, not a gun!" ... [and then I've left out the angsty part, and the Swiss-army...gun story, and the mom's transformative thoughts...]

Deschooling for me is sometimes not to act straight away but to sit and think about it. Is it a pattern the media has fed you? Where is the "no way" coming from?

While I wrote this story my husband and child are down in the living room and enjoying life, making little cardboard targets, laughing and having a great time. ❤

—Nicole Kenyon

Toy Guns
SandraDodd.com/peace/guns
You can read what I left out, and if you can get to facebook you can read (linked from that page) comments at the time.
photo by Supriya and Aseem's Mom

Ultimately...

If parents want to be unschoolers, they need to figure out how to be better parents, because it's the relationship between the parents and children that ultimately makes unschooling work.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Respected and supported

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

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

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Roya Dedeaux

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.

SandraDodd.com/antagonism
photo by Holly Dodd

Find the joy in it!

In 2012, I responded to a mom's frustration about how to limit, or not, TV and computer use.

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/

Original in comments on a post called "Sharing"
photo by Janine Davies

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.

SandraDodd.com/sharing
Helping Children Share
photo by Sandra Dodd
(re-used, because it's from the days of the writing)

Extraordinary doings

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

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

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingis
photo by Rosie Moon

How unschooling works

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

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. . . . .

Real learning travels the child's path of interest, from one bit of information that interests them to the next. Real learning is self testing by how well it works in the situation the child needs it for. Real learning is about understanding enough to make something work.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/how
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Unschooling and other marvels

My Favorite things about Unschooling

• 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.

SandraDodd.com/marvel
"Unschooling and other Marvels"
photo by Laurie Wolfrum

Look directly; just look

Look directly at your child. Practice watching your child without expectations. Try to see what he is really doing, rather than seeing what he’s NOT doing. Just look.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sarah Peshek

Generous partners

When you make a deal with someone—and I don't care if it's marriage, partnership, a little business, a lemonade stand, going on a car trip where you're both going to spend half and half on gasoline and food—the problem with 50/50 is that it never, ever works. Because one of you owned the car, one of you drove more, one of you had the sleeping bag, one of you had the charge card, and it's not going to be 50/50 and there's going to be something to argue about.

SandraDodd.com/50/50
photo by Olga Degtyareva

Kindness and a joyous attitude

Hema Bharadwaj, in an interview:

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.

"India, New Jersey,and the Civil War"
photo by Ravi Bharadwaj

Support learning!

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

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

SandraDodd.com/screentime
photo by Megan Valnes

Hours and days of joyful time

Response to this:

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.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Rosie Moon