Looking near and far

If you look too far and try to see everything, you might miss something exciting and very near. Keep the little things in mind, and in focus.

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Brett Goodman, lizard expert and unschooling dad

A big, calm place

Focusing too narrowly on danger doesn't make the world a big scary place. It makes it a small, terrifying place. You don't need to do that.

Overcoming Fear
photo by Ester Siroky

Esoteric and foofy? Why?

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"

Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

I've used this quote before, but used better titles:

2017: Travel interesting paths

2018: "Why do we do this?" (with the same photo, even)

Windows, and grown children

The pandemic made me appreciate the views from windows. I loved seeing so many exotic window views shared on facebook.

My youngest has her own house now. For a few months, she had a housemate, who is pregnant. The baby's father died, during the pregnancy. Holly had known the friend years ago, and invited her in to rest and recover.

A few days ago, Holly let me know she had been 200 miles away, overnight, helping the roommate move to another town to be with her mom, in a new place. This view is from that new window.

I brought that story to let you know that someday those little children at your house will grow up, and you might find them being compassionate and generous in ways you will only learn about after the fact. They will see beauty, out windows in other places, and might send you a photo.

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Holly Dodd

Time and space

When you find ways to offer your partner space and time to be alone, it will eventually benefit the whole family.

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild
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Clearly and maturely

Rippy D. wrote:

[The Always Learning discussion] has helped me think more clearly and maturely. It has helped me change unhelpful patterns and most of all helped me step into the *JOY* of life, connection, partnership with my children and husband. I know how scary it is to feel examined, and I think some other readers interpret examination as meanness, like I once did. I think to do unschooling well, it is a fundamental element to have an examined life. To be mindful of our choices and understand our thought processes.

—Rippy Dusseldorp

Healing Presence
photo by Ester Siroky
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Beauty and options

I want to present a portal to a beautiful piece of writing by Robyn that all unschoolers might want to read (or re-read) called "The Beautiful Park". I won't quote from it, because anything said is a spoiler. It is experienced anew each time it is read.

I will quote from something I saved as "Robyn Coburn on Giving Children Options":

"The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers."

—Robyn Coburn

more by Robyn Coburn
photo by Karen James

Lighten your child's life

The more lightly you live, the lighter your children's lives will be.

Live lightly, in various ways
photo by Nina Haley

Your relationship with learning

You can't wait until you understand unschooling to begin. Much of your understanding will come from the changes you see in your child and in your own thinking, and in your relationship with and perception of learning itself. You can't read a touch and then go and unschool for a year and then come back and see what you did wrong; you could be a year in the wrong direction.


from "Beginning to Unschool," page 36 or 39 of The Big Book of Unschooling
(I changed "it" to "unschooling," in the first line above.)
photo by Janine
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Light, shadows, and thoughts

Which is better—a bridge, or a photo of a bridge?

It depends.

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Lots of little bridges to "It depends."
photo by Karen James

Experiments and experiences

Keith and I have enjoyed our children and the success of our experiments and experiences has been a joint project at which we were very successful. The effect of sharing something difficult, like parenting in a way that’s not universally acclaimed and supported, can be strengthening to a relationship.

We had always worked at being courteous to each other. We always said please and thank you about any “pass the salt” or “could I have a Kleenex.” It was easy, then, to model that for our children and for them to see the valuable effect of it.


Source:  20 Unschooling Questions: Sandra Dodd from NM, USA

Related:  Becoming a Better Partner
photo by Sandra Dodd
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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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Be where you are

Parents complain about children living in fantasy worlds sometimes, and not growing up and facing reality. I think probably in every single one of those cases, it was the parental fantasy of what the child ought to be doing that was really the problem.

Make each moment the best moment it can be. Be where you are with your body, mind and soul. It's the only place you can be, anyway. The rest is fantasy.

Walk where you are

The quote above is from The Big Book of Unschooling
pages 79 and 80 (72 and 72 of the first edition)
photo by Cass Kotrba

Creating and protecting peace

Peace precedes learning.

Peace is a pre-requisite for unschooling to start working. It doesn't need to be constant peace (and won't be) but it needs to be increasing peace, and the attempt and intent to create and protect more peace.

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Wide view and close-up

A closer photo of this gate might look more limiting than this distant view. There's no fence attached, past the low places on each side of the road. It will keep vehicles out, but not animals.

If you're feeling limited by something that doesn't really have a fence, it might be illuminating to look more closely at some of the construction, at the details. Things are different different places, and interesting.

To young children, things can be new even if they're the same old hardware, or view, or tree, or sky, to the adults. If you can see through a child's eyes, things might seem new again.

Seeing as a visitor or a tourist, in your imagination, will reveal another layer to your same-old, too. Even when you don't have visitors, you can think of what might be interesting to someone from another side of the world.


Your House as a Museum
photos by Sandra Dodd, visiting Queensland in 2014
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Shady shadows

Light makes art, by projections, reflections, animated shades, and shadows! It's beautiful, temporary and only costs the time it takes to remember to look for it.


SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Karen James

Nearly natural limits

Kelly Lovejoy wrote:

The world is FULL of natural limits. Our lives are FULL of natural limits. It's the way we deal with those limits that matters. Finding solutions and dealing with obstacles and knowing what limits are real.

—Kelly Lovejoy

From a discussion of Boundaries, at Unschooling Basics
photo by Ester Siroky

Lucky Kirby!

Kirby, my oldest, was born in 1986. I went to La Leche League (LLL). There I learned a crucial concept: my child and I were partners, not adversaries. What was good for him was good for me. At that time I had been going to Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings for a little over a year, and there I learned that we need to avoid repeating our parents' parenting mistakes, and that by raising our own children gently and respectfully, that we would heal our own hurts.

Lucky Kirby!

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingworks 2002
photo by Ester Siroky
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Viewpoint

The camper from which this photo was taken has been moving around Europe extensively, so the view changes, but the doorway stays about the same. This day, they were in Turkey.

What we perceive is seen through our own eyes. Even looking at a photo, we see what WE see, of what the photographer saw. Our thoughts can't be theirs. What it smelled like can't be conveyed, or how it sounded.

Some scenes and places and stories, dishes, houses, I have shared with my husband and children, but still their perceptions and memories can only be their own. This is a good thing, and good to remember.

Center of the Universe
photo by Ester Siroky

Some ideas for beginning

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


Though homeschooling is becoming more common, it is still confusing to outsiders. That's understandable, as it can be quite confusing from the inside.

Don't do what you don't understand.

Beginning Unschooling: Some ideas
photo by Lisa Jonick
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