Yes, but... it depends

Some statements are too definite. Sunshine melts snow.


It depends. It depends how cold it is otherwise, and how long the sun shines. The day that photo was taken, even the icicles weren't melting in sunshine. And if the ground is warm and the air is warm, snow can melt in the dark.

When you make a statement, think about whether it could easily be made more solid, more reliable.

• Sunshine can melt snow.
• Sunshine might melt snow.
  
• If it warms up today, that snow might melt.

Thoughts and words, tweaked just slightly, can keep truth safe. For clarity and trustworthiness, remember "it depends."

SandraDodd.com/depends
photo by Sandra Dodd

Connect and assist

An expression of boredom is a request for connection, for input, for assistance with the world.

Bored No More
photo by Sandra Dodd, but Holly put the clock in the tree years ago

Secret worlds

Parents new to unschooling often fear the responsibility of needing to discover things to show their children.

More experienced unschoolers discover the sweet joy of children finding wonderful things to show the parents.

Behind that bark is a little hidden world.

SandraDodd.com/discovery
photo by Rosie Moon

Philosophical and spiritual

Unschooling can make life better. Really, fully unschooling becomes more philosophical and spiritual than people expect it to.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Gail Higgins
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For now...

Laurie Wolfrum, on responding to critical questions about your parenting or unschooling:

Some phrases to keep in mind:

Periodically we evaluate how things are going.
Nothing is written in stone.
For now, this works for us.
We’ll see how things go.

—Laurie Wolfrum

Empowerment
photo by Daniel Moyer

Thoughtful, patient, kind

When people make changes in their lives that make them more thoughtful, more patient and kinder, they'll be better partners, and neighbors, and dog owners.

One day on facebook...
See also SandraDodd.com/pets
photo by Annie Regan

If a tree grows...

These flowers and this tree live near people. Some don't.

Not only do some people not live near plants like these, there are many plants in the world that will live, reproduce and die unwitnessed by any humans.

No matter how much someone knows about the lives of millions of people, there will be some individuals who never heard of him, and lives he will never see or imagine, even in a distant way.

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo by Gail Higgins
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A step toward joy

Some of the things that help people be confidently in the moment, feeling satisfied and content are:

• Breathing
  
• Gratitude
  
• Happy thoughts
  
• Fondness
  
• Acceptance

At first it might be relief and not joy, but as relief is a step away from fear, more relief will be progress toward joy.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 275 (or 318)
photo by Ester Siroky
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One step. Breathe. One step.

I think "struggle" comes with a dramatic martyrdom, wrapped in "You wouldn't understand." How many steps does it take to step out of that puddle of pity and onto solid clarity? I think one. Stop struggling. Breathe and try to think clearly.

If that doesn't come naturally, or seems mysterious, here are some ideas:

Breathing

Clarity

Peace

Positivity

Thoughts about doing better

SandraDodd.com/struggle
photo by Rosie Moon
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In the world

The thing I think I've seen more than anything else in some of the older unschoolers, the people who are teens who haven't been to school much or at all, is they are so whole. Their place in the world is real. They're not preparing for the possibility of applying to have a place in the world after they're grown. They are in the world. And there's something so different about that.

Unschooling and Real Learning
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Morals and optimism

I live without religion, but not without morals. I know that being good is better than "being bad" (harmful, thoughtless, irresponsible), and I know that optimism is better than negativity. That doesn't mean I think there is magic at work in the fact that stepping out into the day joyfully will make the day better. People don't need to have a construct of "manifestations" or wishes or visualizations to make good better than bad. It just is, in ways linguistic and logical and biochemical.

photo by Tessa Onderwater

The quote is from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 199 or 231.
Best match on my site is SandraDodd.com/mindfulness.
A deeper match is from a discussion in 2001, on Always Learning, with Pam Sorooshian, Joyce Fetteroll, Deb Lewis, and others, on what some homeschoolers claimed about religion and morality.
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Solidity and permanence

Karen James took both of these photos. They ended up next to each other in my folder of possible-future-Just-Add-Light images. They made a pair, for me.

One has a framework of sticks that grew slowly and gradually. Sticks they are, still.

The second image shows sticks that were collected and propped up for fun. Each pole had a life, somewhere, one time. A new phase of that life was being part of temporary art. Another phase was being seen and captured from one angle on one day, in one moment. Then I saved it a while. One thing leading to another, now you've seen them.

Look at what else in that scene seems solid, and old. What else seems fragile or transitory? The ocean is ancient, and strong, and it changes too. It moves all day and all night.

Expecting people to be more solid and unchanging than other, older, harder things is an expectation to let go of. People do change, and we see them with our everchanging eyes and thoughts.

Learning to accept change is good growth.

SandraDodd.com/acceptance
photos by Karen James
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Last-minute gifts

Something people need for Christmas is patience, sweetness and a little more attention than you think you have time for. Slow down just enough to look more closely at each person in your house, or in your video feed, or who sent you a card or note. If you can't give them more of yourself directly, think kindly of them. Maybe do something helpful for someone else, in their honor. Many people are not where they would like to be this week, and those who see each other might not hug and kiss. If you can make things better and not worse, that is a profound gift.

Give patience for Christmas.
photo by Sandra Dodd, from last year

Find wonder where you wander

"Watch and listen to you kids. Let yourself get caught up in what they find wonderful and in the process rediscover wonder itself."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Ester Siroky

A solitary tree

The words and photo below are by Karen James. I would not have been able to find or write anything better to go with this beautiful photo than Karen's description of it on September 16.

The air was clear today, so the three of us went for a walk at one of our favourite spots. The guys walked ahead, while I meandered behind, finding things to photograph.

Whenever we walk at this particular place, I always look for this tree. It's alone at the top of a cliff, at the curve of the path that winds us eventually back to where we started.

I love its solitary presence.

I love its asymmetry, shaped, in part, by the strong winds coming off the ocean.

I love that it stands at a fork, with one path bending softly toward a return, and one leading to the edge of the cliff.

I love that I can see Ethan climbing and resting in it in my memory.

Today, I loved its hard shadows and blue backdrop because that meant the smoke had parted, at least for now. It looks beautiful in the mist too. It's a beautiful tree.

More by Karen James (photo, words, or both)
photo by Karen James

I do believe...

Here's a fairy door. That is clearly what it is.

Are fairies real? We all know that word, and there's that door.

"What aspect of some particular subject involves objective truth? What is folklore or mythology? What literature or fantasy has come about based on that subject or item? Consider dragons, or India, or snakes, or rainbows. Checklist Abe Lincoln, the discovery of fire, or the depths of Lake Superior. Plot WWII, Japan, electric guitars, or Egypt."

Disposable Checklists for Unschoolers
photo by Rosie Todd
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Unschooling Discussion 2020

New discussion, on Facebook, as of August 1
Unschooling Discussion 2020
[Still there as an archive. —Sandra, 2021]


photo by Sandra Dodd

A living, breathing thing

Unschooling lives (is alive; breathes; functions) where the learning is happening. The learning is supported and fed by the relationships between the parents and children.

Not changing (where unschooling is compared to fire)
photo by Ester Siroky

Feel your thoughts

Read about why, and what others have seen. Try it a little. Don't expect her not to think you're crazy at first; wait a while. Watch her reaction. Feel your own thoughts. Lay your fears out to dry in the air and sunshine.

Gradual Change
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Being that tree

He just wouldn't have blossomed in his own natural way if I had tried to make him be some sort of tree he wasn't. Trees grow from their seed. Acorns grow oak trees. Apple seeds grow apple trees. And sometimes parents think that by some sort of pruning, and you know, shaping, that they can change who their child is. But that's not being a good parent any more than planting trees and then not watering them, or letting the cat scratch them up, or whatever, is being a good arborist.

It's good to give them what they need, but to try to change them by withholding or shaming doesn't work any better for a child than it does for a tree.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/extras
SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Ester Siroky
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