Be brave; have fun

Be curious. Be open-minded! Beyond this, or behind that, are other things. Peek. A joyful attitude is your best tool.

SandraDodd.com/attitude
photo by Catia Maciel

Snobbishness vs. Godzilla

Carol/Sognokids wrote, in the middle of something a little longer:

One day Colton and Bud returned from the library, thrilled with what they had found. A video copy of "Godzilla!" I snorted derisively and suggested that our time would be better spent with a book. I was ignored. They made some popcorn and started the movie. I sat with them on the couch, or to be more accurate, on my moral high horse, with an "uplifting" book in hand. I rolled my eyes and sighed with gusto to point out how they were wasting their time. Colton and Bud continued to ignore me.

Something finally penetrated my self-imposed role as the chief of the culture police. A voice whispered in my ear: Look at them, Carol. Just LOOK at them! I studied my son and my husband for about five minutes. They were totally engrossed in the movie, yet they never stopped touching each other. Colton would lean against Bud's shoulder as he giggled helplessly, or Bud would squeeze Colton's leg during a particularly intense moment. They were totally connected to each other through their movie experience, and it was a joy to watch. I knew that they were making a memory together.

—Carol / Sognokids@...

SandraDodd.com/t/godzilla
movie still respectfully borrowed from a website
(this page)

Kindness, grace and generosity

Meredith wrote:

Expecting human relationships—of any kind—to be fair and equitable is a set-up for cynicism and disappointment in the human race. Human beings are marvelously varied in their needs and capabilities. It helps a whole lot to think in terms of needs and capabilities rather than rights or fairness or equality. What more can you do to support the people you love—including yourself? Kindness, grace, and generosity go a lot further toward creating warm relationships and a joyfully harmonious home than measuring out equality.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/50/50
photo by Cátia Maciel

Never easier!

Teresa Y. wrote:

People have a lot of resources these days, and they are mostly very accessible; of course it makes sense that some of them would seek to use what's available to them when they want it, not just what the schools offer between 8 and 3. It possibly has never been easier to learn about as many different things from so many different sources as it is right now.

—Teresa Y.
(original)

SandraDodd.com/unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

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

Let them live THEIR childhoods

Someone (who was against video games) wrote:

Being exposed to new stuff is what will generate new interests.

I responded:

If they're being "exposed" to new stuff just to generate new interests, though, they could easily decide to resist and avoid the new stuff, long for video games, and not trust or desire time with mom.

Wanting kids to do what mom envisioned her own ideal childhood to be is a trap to be avoided. Don't try to get them to live YOUR missed childhood. Let them live theirs, or they will miss both.

How important is your child?
photo by Alex Polikowski, of a computer her son built, with her help, when he was younger. That son is grown and an engineering student now.

Learning/problem solving

Don't discount the learning/problem solving that is going on while our kids play video games. I can't think of anything else that he does that engages his mind so thoroughly and completely—that gets it moving and thinking and wondering. And that can only be a good thing.🙂

—Stephanie E.

The rest of Stephanie's account is great; I had a hard time choosing a short quote: SandraDodd.com/game/gamecube
photo by Sarah Peshek

TV, games, or any video media

Years back, a group of families traded babysitting. Kirby had a favorite family to visit, where there were several kids who knew and liked him. When interviewed ten years later, I responded:

When Kirby was four or five, they had a Nintendo and we didn't, but [they] kept it up in the closet. Once Kirby played it, he always wanted to play it when he went over. Our simple solution to that was to buy him a Nintendo. After that, when he went to their house, he played in the yard.

They only used their TV for the Nintendo (when it was out, for a measured session) or for videos (sometimes, not much). When those kids came to our house, they only wanted to watch TV.... If TV has never been limited or demonized, it will never be so mesmerizing.

There is another factor that will make it mesmerizing for children: depression and a need to escape. Kids who hate their lives are better off focusing on the TV so strongly that they don't even see the wall behind it. Sometimes it's their only way out of the room. ... But if the TV is just one of a myriad of interesting things, and the room is a happy place, and there are others watching TV and it will lead to conversations, singing, research, drawing, play-acting and dress-up, it's not so mesmerizing.

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Kirby (middle)
playing with a five-year-old, in 2014 or so

---

That day, what came out to the interviewer was "Kids who hate their lives..." but any kid who is stressed and stuck might need such an escape; it's not unhealthy.

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)

Learning, input—living there

a mom wrote:
Having the television on all day is not something I want and I live here too.

Sandra Dodd's response:

We don't have the television on all day.

You live there too, but if your priority is your children's learning, then limiting input is going to make that more difficult.

Other unschoolers responded, too, in that discussion:
SandraDodd.com/bookworship
photo by Jen

History, music and enthusiasm

This was written about the Dodd kids and their questions about U.S. Presidents, in 2003. Click the link at the bottom for what came before and after this passage:

---

Holly (11) got the book to see if it could be a simple truth that some presidents had only been half-page presidents.

"FDR. Is he the guy in Annie?"

"Yes." (Holly's favorite historical period is the Great Depression. She likes the music, the clothes, and the stories of hardship and social change.)

"This guy looks like he's from Texas."

"Lyndon Johnson was the only one really from Texas," I said, and then muttered a bit about George Bush Sr. and trailed off saying I guess maybe George W. might be an actual Texan. Holly wasn't listening anymore. She was looking at a cartoon illustration of Theodore Roosevelt. He's the one she had thought looked like a Texan, from the picture. I checked the fine print for her.

"Oh! Born in New York City, but he was into horses and such."

... and it continues at SandraDodd.com/day/presidents
(standard publicity still from 1982 "Annie")

Learning by watching

Problem:
My son spends a lot of his time playing video games. I have accepted that this is his passion... and maybe very well play a part in his career path. but lately he's also been watching videos of other people playing video games on YouTube! Please help me see a reason that this is not just a waste of time... I know you'll have a good way to look at this latest passion.

An idea:
Musicians watch videos of other musicians. Athletes watch videos of other athletes. Chess players have even been known to watch other people play chess with something approaching awe and rapture. Woodworkers watch woodworking shows. Cooks watch cooking shows. Dancers watch better dancers and learn like crazy!

[and there was more, ending with...]
Don't worry about what kids choose to do. Make sure they have lots of choices, and don't discriminate between what you think might be career path and what might "only" be joyful activity and self-expression, or what might seem to be nothing more than relaxation or escapism. Let them choose and be and do.

SandraDodd.com/watching
photo by Sandra Dodd

More joyful ways to live

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

The first step is finding something that's better than what you have.

The second step is wanting to change.

The third step is figuring out how to change.

So, as you read along, you may wonder why I suggest that parents basically make life more difficult for themselves. The reason is because I believe it leads to a much better place. And that better place is a more joyful life for our children and our families.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Children and media discussion
photo by Janine Davies

A grid over which to lay other things

If someone knew almost nothing in the world but trivia relating to popular music for the past 100 years, that would make a HELL of a good grid over which to lay other things. And I don't think a thorough knowledge of pop music (in any culture or language) over this particular past hundred years, which saw the proliferation of recorded music available in homes, the advent of radio broadcasts, movies with music, television variety shows, transistor radios, cassette players in cars, CDs, iPods and cell phones that store a ton of music could help but create a timeline of the culture. Wouldn't songs from Marx Brothers or Fred Astaire movies remind people of The Great Depression? Can anyone hear big-band swing music and not also think of the hairdos and costumes? Does "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" not remind anyone of WWII? Knowing some of the context of Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers brings up LOTS of stories about where those songs were first heard.

The lyrics of some of the songs make specific mention of historical events, and that could help dating things, too, if a person were trying to figure out what came first.

Any hobby delved into deeply becomes another portal to the whole world—real and imagined; past, present and future.

"Trivial" connections are real
video from Young Frankenstein, 1974
Directed by Mel Brooks
Written (in part) by, and starring, Gene Wilder

Enjoy the landscape

Karen James wrote in 2012:

My nine-year-old son ran into the kitchen yesterday while I was fixing a snack for us to take back to our game of Minecraft saying he had finally figured out how to make a "logic gate" using redstone. He was jumping up and down, so thrilled with his accomplishment. I wasn't even sure what a logic gate was, nor how to make one. We quickly returned to the game where he proceeded to educate me by building trap after trap for me to trip, and invention after invention to me to use, all using this new skill he figured out. We played for over two hours together, at which point he stopped and said he wanted to see if his friend was available to play out back with him. I stayed at the game for a bit, building, and trying to figure out what he had done 😉

A good chunk of our days are filled with gaming, and I wouldn't change a moment of it. My son is learning so much, is healthy both physically and emotionally, and truly loves his life. What more could I hope for?! (And, BTW, inviting media into our lives was a stretch for me at first too. I know the fears. I read all the studies. But after a few years of living this life, I also know my fears were unfounded. But as Alexandra and Sandra say...don't go too fast. You'll see more. Enjoy the new landscape!)

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/videogames/
image by Karen James, Ethan and Nick, in October 2012

Sitting, playing, learning

Playing a video game is not violent. Playing a game is sitting on a couch with a remote control.

Shaming a kid who wants to sit on the couch with a remote control, or somehow
preventing him from playing, is closer to violence than a kid causing the
character he's controlling to shoot an imaginary weapon at some pixels.

SandraDodd.com/violence
photo by Sandra Dodd

The world in movies

Movies touch and show just about everything in the world. There are movies about history and movies that are history. There are movies about art and movies that are art. There are movies about music and movies that would be nearly nothing in the absence of their soundtracks. Movies show us different places and lifestyles, real and imagined.

---

(Think "film" if you live outside the "movie" zone; think "streaming video" if you want, though that includes TV series, shorts and documentaries which will dilute the idea of a film designed to last a couple of hours, with a beginning and end. Artistically speaking, "movie" refers to one of those. Many of the advantages do apply to other audio-visual media.)

MOVIES AS A PLAYGROUND, as tools, as portals
The image is from "Searching for Bobby Fischer," 1993, about learning, parenting, mentors, talent, and a child seeing life. It's called "Innocent Moves" in the U.K.

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

Stomping around (in a good way)

Carol/sognokids wrote of recovering from snobishness about TV, concluding with:

We had cable reinstalled the next day, and we never looked back. We don't watch a lot of TV, but when we do, we do it together. We have laughed and cried together as we have watched, and we have wondered and marveled. Television has been a wonderful learning experience for me. It taught me to loosen up, and to appreciate those wonderful moments when I cocoon with my family. And when I watch my husband and son stomping around the house like Godzilla as they destroy Tokyo, I know that I am standing on holy ground.

—Carol/sognokids

The rest is worth reading, and there's a story by Deb Lewis, too:
SandraDodd.com/t/godzilla
photo borrowed from 60 Years of Godzilla
variant post:
High horse on holy ground