photo by Cátia Maciel
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Seeing the magic and the joy
photo by Cátia Maciel
Monday, March 18, 2024
"Trying 'no limits'"
I see so many families trying 'no limits' and then…I responded:
Two problems: "trying" and "no limits." If a kid knows the parent is only "trying" something, he will certainly take all he can get, desperately and in a frenzy.
"No limits" is not something any family should believe in, or promise their children The world has limits of all sorts. Parents don't need to add to that, but parents can't guarantee "no limits." They CAN give children lots of choices and options.
Gradual change would have helped.
Saying yes a thousand little times is better for everyone than one big confusing "Yes forever, don't care, OH WAIT! Take it back."
SandraDodd.com/cairns
photo by Sandra Dodd (in Albuquerque)
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Other possibilities
(a.k.a. Alex Wildrising)
photo by Brie Jontry
Saturday, November 4, 2023
Calm, happy, trusting
When he is calm and happy and trusting, THEN you will feel better—not because of things we wrote, or didn't, but because you will BE better. You will see it in your son's eyes.
Don't make it about you. Make it about his range of exploration and his choices and his learning and his happiness. You can live on the interest, if you invest enough in him.
photo by Amy Milstein
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Human nature, people and relationships
In a way unschooling could be said to have a recipe or to use a recipe as a jumping off point. But it's not a recipe about unschooling, it's like a recipe about human nature, about people and relationships. Part of that recipe is knowing that people are curious and like to learn. Part of the recipe is knowing that people are social and we care about other people and we like to learn from other people. Part of the recipe is knowing there is a difference between the external world and the world of individual experience, or a difference between 'the self' and 'the other'. It's a complicated recipe.
Human nature is not a simple, straightforward thing. Unschooling jumps off from there. "Okay, this is what we know about being people."
On the recording, Pam asks a question at 1:01:00 and Meredith responds:
on YouTube or on Pam's site
photo by Cátia Maciel
Friday, August 11, 2023
Action (rather than REaction)
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild
from an alleyway in Sweden
Monday, June 5, 2023
Aim high; be generous
Don't aim for 50/50.
If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.
If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal.
photo by Dan Vilter
Friday, June 2, 2023
It's not about power
Some of my response is below, and near the photo credit is a link to the full post.
My children don't "decide what to learn, how to learn, and when to learn it." They learn all the time. They learn from dreams, from eating, from walking, from singing, from conversations, from watching plants grow and storms roll. They learn from movies, books, websites, and asking questions.
photo by Amy Milstein
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Growing safely
I see deschooling much more than just that process of replacing school with no school. Because to me, radical unschooling is that lifestyle that you were talking about, is that spiritual practice, almost. Because radical unschooling is that to me, deschooling has been so much more. It’s been about personal growth. It’s been about healing.
And so, trying to give Conchinha this safe place, I ended up getting my own safe place, too, in the process.
and there is a link to the transcript
photo by Karen James
Friday, April 14, 2023
Smaller problems
Deb Lewis wrote:
The more you're aware of how good things are when they are good, the easier it will be to wade through the times when things are less good. If you're aware of how lucky you are, everyday problems by comparison can seem smaller, and more manageable."
photo by Cátia Maciel
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
The nature of things
Rivers are flowing whether people are looking or not.
Children play, and ask questions, and examine new things, and ideas.
Children will learn whether people are looking or not, but for unschooling to work well, parents should be involved in providing an environment of safe, soft, interesting materials and experiences. They should be new and different sometimes and comfortingly familiar sometimes. Not the same all the time.
When relationships are comfortable and adults are attentive, learning will flow even when you're not looking.
photo by Karen James
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Be more positive than I am
Positive is not being cynical and not being pessimistic and not taking pride in being dark and pissy.Yesterday I added it to my newish page on Positivity. It is the least positive thing on that page. 🙂
photo of Hadrian's Wall, by Jo Isaac
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Gratitude, hope, love
Breathe in a happy memory.
Breathe out gratitude.
Breathe in hope.
Breathe out love.
photo by Brie Jontry
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Amazed and joyful
photo by Brie Jontry
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Following the herd?
Can't that be a legitimate decision to make?
It's good to know where they're going, and why, and what the alternatives might be.
Finding choices and options for yourself and your children is good when it's possible.
photo by Ester Siroky
Friday, May 13, 2022
Comfortably oneself
I've been reflecting on the idea of potential...
I think, six years ago, I was thinking of the potential to be anything. Now, six years later, as I watch my son navigate his teen years, and as I come to understand him and myself better, I think the potential to be comfortable enough in one's own skin, to be fully and unapologetically oneself, is what is so great.
photo by Sarah S.
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Quoting "science"
Facts change.
The text aboved was part of a rant. Sometimes when I rant, it's fun to read later, but the context was (as usual) unschooling, within the world of homeschooling.
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Building a rich life
"What it takes to build a rich life is you — your time, energy, imagination, openness, passion, and optimism." —Claire Horsley |
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
Friday, January 28, 2022
Fear doesn't have a stick
I responded:
Fear doesn't hit you with a stick in a dark alley.An additional problem, though, is that it also treats "fear" as something outside herself, that comes toward her and assaults her when she least expects it.
Don't use the word "assaults."
It's too dramatic and it makes you a victim.
Maybe ALL the negative words are doing that—personifying, or anthropomorphizing, an emotion as an external enemy. So some would say "it's just semantics," but it's a map of one's emotions that ranges outside the body and builds bad guys, I'm thinking.
photo by Ester Siroky
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Step thoughtfully
People can ruin their lives with unschooling if they don't know where they're going. If they just intend to make a bunch of wild decisions and mill around, it won't work. Their kids will end up needing to go back to school, and being clueless kids in school. So it's almost that big a project. You will have to take hundreds of thousands of steps. And so it's better to take a step thoughtfully, knowing what direction you're going, than to thunder around yelling, "I'm an unschooler! I'm an unschooler!" and not get anywhere.
So I think they need to understand the direction they're going, and why. And they can get there a lot faster and a lot more whole, and with a lot more peace and understanding, if they will Read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch.
I was speaking, not writing. You can listen (at 15:15), or read the transcript.
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Golden, New Mexico, March 2020
(the last time I left town)