Showing posts with label structures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label structures. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Be reliable

It will add calm, value, and solidity to your life if you're reliable, honest, and trustworthy.
SandraDodd.com/trust
(Thanks to Amber Ivey for saving a quote I could build from here.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, February 10, 2024

Better now


The second you have a positive attitude, even fleetingly, your life is better, right then.

SandraDodd.com, any page
photo by Sandra Dodd, a library in Bangalore
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Thursday, February 8, 2024

Slide bars or dimmer switches

Rather than moving from one edge of a dichotomy to the other, the goal is to move to a whole new previously unknown middle place. My model won't work in everyone's head (as we're not as plug-and-play as some would like to think), but here is one way to look at this problem: See if you have a dial in your mind that says "everything" at one extreme and "nothing" at the other. It's impossible for anyone to do everything or nothing. Maybe label it "too much" and "not enough" instead, and try for the midpoint. Replace any on/off switches in your mind with slide bars or dimmers!

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Rosie Moon

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Looking and asking and thinking

Kelly Lovejoy wrote:

No one chooses to unschool without questioning. That's the nature of the beast. Parents who aren't going to question things—every thing—are not going to unschool. It just won't happen. The radical unschoolers I know are passionate about questioning and learning more. They don't let things rest. They keep looking and asking and thinking about things. They're voracious learners themselves, so they are excellent models for their children.

Those who choose to "go with the flow" and who accept whatever they are told and who refrain from thinking too much will be modeling for their children too.
—Kelly Lovejoy


SandraDodd.com/research
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Plain, thoughtful underpinnings

Strength doesn't need to be high-tech or glitzy. Plain, thoughtful underpinnings and principles can be enough to quietly strengthen a family for many long years.
SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Dylan Lewis

Monday, November 13, 2023

It's invisible, until...

Sandra, responding to a mom who said her son only wanted to play, play, play.

You’re looking for school. Because you don’t know what unschooling looks like, you can’t see it. It’s invisible to people who haven’t deschooled.

Because you’re pressuring your son, he can’t deschool. His deschooling won’t take as long as yours will, but if you never leave him along he will never deschool.

If you don’t stop looking for school, YOU will never deschool.
The words above are from a longer post, here.

I also noted, of her nine-year old who was new to unschooling, "Play, play, play is what he should be doing. Nothing else. Only playing."

Deschooling is recovery, and is a major reset of perception and of focus. It's always awkward, and sometimes scary for parents, but it's necessary and leads to visible unschooling!

SandraDodd.com/deschooling
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Friday, August 25, 2023

The important things

Having a clean house isn't anywhere near as important as having a house that all of us enjoy living in. Having dishes done isn't more important than hanging out with Simon and Linnaea. Having a vacuumed floor isn't more important than letting Simon or Linnaea watch a television show uninterrupted. Having my to-do list cleared isn't more important than going to the game store because Simon wants to get Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow for the DS and we could fit in a 20 minute game of laser tag and check out Casltevania Portrait of Ruin from the library. Actually, I don't have a to-do list, but if I did...
— Schuyler Waynforth

If you don't make them work...
photo by Julie D

Saturday, May 13, 2023

Zoom

When you see something, or picture it in your mind, you might be examining a small detail of it, close up.

If it is shown at a distance with a big background, the details fade out. The object can be beautiful, in that context, though. A jewel.

Remember you can zoom.

Zoom out calmly. Zoom in curiously. Zoom thoughtfully.

SandraDodd.com/feedback/perspective
photo by Brie Jontry

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Look directly

Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.

Screentime
photo by Colleen Prieto

Thursday, February 16, 2023

Winter picnic idea

Deb Lewis, as part of a long list of things to do in winter:

We've gone on picnics on the coldest of cold days. There is a big shelter, open at one end with a big fire pit that was built by the snow mobile club up at a campground near us. We've gone there on cold days with thermoses full of hot soup or stir fry, built a fire, had fun.
—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Brie Jontry

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Healing and therapeutic

Becoming a calmer and better parent can help a person be a calmer, better person. Unschooling itself can be extremely healing and therapeutic at times.

SandraDodd.com/calm
photo by Laurie Wolfrum

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Patient and loving


Radical unschooling works the same way for every child. Pay attention to what he's interested in. Don't force things. Find interesting items and situations, be patient and loving, and learning will happen. The more it happens, the more it will continue to happen.

Learning will happen
photo by Karen James

Monday, November 29, 2021

Interest in things

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Get interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"
—Joyce Fetteroll
Most of the third of Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Nina Haley

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Tricks of the eye



Artists know for sure, and other people sometimes notice, that nearer looks bigger, and far seems small.

What we see depends on where we are and what we know.


Relatively close,     or     Here and there
photo by Sandra Dodd

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Normal, functional art

I like museums, but if you can see the whole world as a museum, your life will light up!

If you can see art in normal, functional things, your life will lighten up!


SandraDodd.com/mystery
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a dam and some tumbleweeds
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Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Actual paths, and other choices


I love the potential in this photo. There is too much to explore, but the options are up, down, through, around. It reminds me that we live in the moment that connects the past and the future.

The world is too big for anyone to see everything. History will never all be discovered or known. The best we can do for ourselves and our children is to view their surroundings with wonder and curiosity. We can help them experience small things and large, old things and new.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sukayna
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Monday, August 28, 2017

Learning, relationships, integrity


Everything counts.

If school and grades form "the object" and life is the field, many things "don't count."

Living without school or schoolishness, everything counts.

In learning, in relationships, concerning integrity—everything counts.


The Luminous Mind, Episode 197, Sandra Dodd, “Everything Counts”

photo by Gail Higgins
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Friday, June 23, 2017

Not just for kids!

I've been saying "why not?" more often and it feels good! I think it's rubbing off on my husband.

. . . .

Say "yes" to saying yes!
—Kara

Read the middle of that story with a sweet example:
SandraDodd.com/joyce/yes
photo by Hinano

Friday, June 16, 2017

Things and places

I like museums, but if you can see the whole world as a museum, your life will light up!

If you can see art in normal, functional things, your life will lighten up!


SandraDodd.com/mystery
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a dam and some tumbleweeds
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Monday, February 1, 2016

Once upon a grocery list...

In a past year, Karen James to her son Ethan: I'm going to the store. Do you want anything special?

Ethan, after a pause: Yeah. Lettuce.

Karen: Lettuce?

Ethan: Yeah, lettuce...and other good snack food like that.

Karen: Okay.

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd, at an allotment garden in West Sussex
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