Means, encouragement, time and space

If the child is allowed to sit with mom or walk across the room, read or not read without pressure or fanfare, walk or not walk as he wishes, if his environment is kept comfortable (taking his personality, fears, needs into account when arranging his comfort) and if he has the means and encouragement and time and space to explore his ever-expanding world, he will learn.

SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Sandra Dodd, at a tile museum in Lisbon
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Are you there yet?

The words are Joyce Fetteroll's, quoted yesterday by Robin Bentley, and I lifted them because they're good:

If there is one thought that will help you understand unschooling and respectful parenting it is this:       The primary goal is joyful living.       All other goals are secondary.

All decent parents, of course, want their children to be happy. But they assume that sometimes happiness needs to be sacrificed to get something better. But for unschooling, peaceful parents meeting any goal must also meet the goal of living life more joyfully.

"Are we there yet?" (center column, halfway down)
photo by Sandra Dodd

A million ideas

I'm glad to live in a time when photographs are so easily taken and shared, without ever needing to be set on paper or touched with hands. I can show you things I've seen. Just Add Light has had images from four continents, from mothers and fathers sharing photos of their children, and from teens and children sharing photos of things they've seen. A thousand people can see them on the same day. A thousand photos have come through. It's worldwide strewing from which each reader makes his or her own connections. Shared experiences are interpreted differently by each person involved, and connected by each to his own existing knowledge and images.

SandraDodd.com/strew/sandra
photo by Sandra Dodd,
and it's one of over 1200,
but I rounded to the nearest thousand

Healing and learning

Deb Lewis wrote:

Studies are now popping up suggesting laughter makes our brains work better, reduces stress and helps sick people get well...

I don't think humor will guarantee my kid will have a better life, but I know it won't hurt him. If all it does is leave him with happy memories of his childhood and parents, I'll count it among our most useful tools."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/humor
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the only funny thing
in Chichester Cathedral

Incidental learning

"Learning is often incidental. This means that we learn while engaged in activities that we enjoy for their own sakes and the learning happens as a sort of 'side benefit'."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/principles
photo by Sandra Dodd, of medieval art on tile in a tube station in London
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Let it go, let it flow

Shelter your kids from what you know is ugly. Shelter me too, if I'm around.

It's really okay to "cherry pick" in regard to the stories you let into your day. There's enough horror somewhere on the planet at any moment to make us all suicidal, so make it a habit NOT to collect or dwell on those stories. You have a responsibility to create as safe and peaceful a nest as you can for your own family.

Thank you, Heather Booth, for saving that and putting it where I could find it again.
art and photo by Sandra Dodd
(the switchplate near our kitchen sink)

Choosing freely

Wanting to learn, and making the choice to be in a school when one has the choice to leave without shame or punishment is a world apart from "no choice" and "have to."

SandraDodd.com/teen/college
(the quote is from page 262 (or 303) of The Big Book of Unschooling)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Compassion and goodness

"Self discipline" is like "self regulation." It's still about discipline and rules. How and why should one discipline and regulate oneself, when decision making in the light of compassion and goodness will work much better?

SandraDodd.com/self-regulation
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Protect the peace

One of my main principles has been that it's my job to protect the peace of each of my children in his or her own home insofar as I can. I'm not just here to protect them from outsiders, axe-murderers and boogie-men of whatever real or imagined sort, but from each other as well.

SandraDodd.com/peace/fightingcomments
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A better direction

Is the cup half empty, half full, defective or overflowing?

One mindful step in a better direction can be joyous. You don't need to reach a destination to have joy.

The Big Book of Unschooling
page 318 (or 275, if it's yellow)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Go easy, but have fun!

Some people overstate their cases and say “Our children will never go to school.” We didn’t. First of all, it’s not something any parent can insure. But we didn’t burn our bridges or commit to an unseen future. What we said was “Kirby’s staying home this year.” And then “Kirby’s going to stay at home again.” When people asked the inevitable questions, we said things like “It’s working for now,” or “If it stops working we’ll try something else,” or “If he stops having fun, he can go to school.” Then we were careful to make sure he had lots of fun!

From an interview at "Do Life Right"
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Love, love, love

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Parents do all kinds of things in the name of love….not all good for their children.

Love is not enough.

But there is a kind of love that is absolutely necessary for successful unschooling, and that is love of learning.

Unschoolers value learning. We look for it everywhere. We crave it.

But, love it gently. Don’t try to force it – not a good idea for learning OR love!

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pamsorooshian
photo by Sandra Dodd

The best I can do

My mother did the best she could, I suppose. I need to do the best I can do. So I tell my children everything they want to know. I show them the world in words and pictures and music. While they're becoming better, wiser people, I am too. I wish I had learned these things before they were born, but I didn't have my teachers yet. I have tried to pass on to other moms the best of what works well for us, and to put little warning beacons near pitfalls.


SandraDodd.com/zeneverything
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Kids want to learn.

I think the way adults learn is the best way to learn — ask questions, look things up, try things out and get help when it’s needed.


Kids want to learn. When people unschool their kids, the relationship with the kids becomes the driving force, and it becomes the environment for more learning and more happiness, which primes the pump and you can’t stop it. Try not to learn. You can’t do it.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/stlouis2011
photo by Sandra Dodd
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No Need to Recover

All of my children have worked in jobs alongside college graduates. Mine did so without college loans to repay, though they might pick up some college debt yet. My husband didn't get his engineering degree until he was nearly 29, and he went through public school and then straight to college. He ran out of steam, tired of school and schooling, by the age of 20. It came back to him, though, once he had some time to recover. My kids won't need to recover from schooling.

Why I Unschooled My Three Kids (an interview)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Where art lives

Robyn Coburn wrote:

Maybe thriving at [the University of Wollongong] gave me an enhanced appreciation of blurred edges. I find the concept of interconnectedness of all knowledge, one of the tent poles of Unschooling philosophy, to be a no-brainer. Art as science as history as math as language studies as economics; skills acquisition as a function of activity rather than a separated prerequisite. I believe creativity is the foundation of all activity.

—Robyn Coburn

"Encouraging Creativity": SandraDodd.com/robyn/creativity
photo by Sandra Dodd, of medieval floor tile at Winchester Cathedral

Just right

When I was little, I always liked the musicality of the story of The Three Bears, with its "too hot, too cold, just right" and "too hard, too soft, just right."

Recently I was interviewed and responded to a question about what can be a hurdle for new unschoolers, and what advice I would give to beginners:

"Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch."

That's my new improved advice for anyone about anything. Some people think they can read their way to a change, or discuss themselves into unschooling.

It's important to find out what others have discovered and done, but nothing will change until the parents change the way they respond to the child. But if the parents change EVERYthing about the way they respond to the child, that creates chaos, and doesn't engender confidence. The child might just think the parents have gone crazy or don't love him anymore.

One solid step in the direction a parent intends to go is better than a wild dance back and forth. And if that solid step feels right, they can take another solid step.

the full interview, by Kim Houssenloge, of Feather and Nest
Photo by Linnea, with Holly's camera