Kids these days

I believe that a focus on nature (often fantasy nature, as in Waldorf's magical forests) can have a detrimental effect on unschooling and on the relationship between parents and their children, when the children were born in the 21st century and would like to use the internet resources so readily available to them. Grounding, re-wilding, dancing with wolves, an "excessive admiration" of Walden Pond or Little House on the Prairie.... those things should be saved for single people or childless couples who won't be inconveniencing growing, learning children with it.

SandraDodd.com/fantasy
(slightly rough discussion, there)
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Calmly and peacefully

What I...do, is to help people live calmly and peacefully. It always interests me when people want me to stop doing that, to take it back, to say that indignation and fear are as good as joy and a feeling of abundance.

And it's not just my opinion, that anger and stress are unhealthy for people biologically, and socially. And it's not escapism or irresponsibility for me to say that when people feel grateful for things in their lives (food, running water, safety, roofs that don't leak) that they will have a happier moment, hour, day, sleep. I didn't make that up. It's self-evident AND backed up by even the slightest knowledge of biology and psychology.

SandraDodd.com/news
photo by Cátia Maciel

Being safe, being trusted

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

If your default answer is no—by the *kids'* standards even if *you* feel you say yes a lot—then they're likely to 1) see the world in terms of impossibilities rather than possibilities or 2) ask someone else who may be less trustworthy.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Be their trusted partner.


SandraDodd.com/chores/appreciation
photo by Rosie Moon

Sometime maybe

Karen James wrote:

When people think "always" and "never", they get stuck in "always" and "never", and can't see the in-between where, most often, the details and valuable bits of wisdom are.

I've found that a lot of new unschoolers seem to get stuck in extreme thinking--the always and never lands. 😉 I probably did too. Maybe it's part of adjusting to a new paradigm of thinking.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Marta Venturini

Learning as much or more

Unschooling doesn't mean not learning — it means learning without the trappings of school. It's not unlearning or uneducating. It's only unschooling — it points out a contrast in approaches to learning. My unschooled kids are learning as much or more than their schooled friends (and that includes home schooled or institution schooled).

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/unschool/moredefinitions
photo by Colleen Prieto

Merriment and peace

Inventory your own tools. What do you already know that can make you a more peaceful parent? What tricks and skills can you bring into your relationships with members of your family?

SandraDodd.com/bignoisypeace
photo by Janine Davies

Help, often

Pay attention to your child and help him do/find/see/experience things that will interest him. Help him be his best self as often as you can.

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
photo by Kelly Drewery

The morning sky

Somewhere in the world it is morning every moment. Somewhere, light is dawning. Some people, and I'm one of them, believe that any portal to the universe leads to the whole universe

SandraDodd.com/morning
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Simply good

Karen James, on deschooling:

Think creatively. Think joyfully. Cultivate an attitude of enthusiasm and awe at as many things you can find in a day, especially the ordinary things or those things you've looked upon with skepticism and fear.

Be thankful. Notice little things throughout the day that are simply good. The health of your children. The pattern on the soap bubbles in your kitchen sink. How perfect a favourite mug feels in your hand or looks on a shelf. A laugh. An easy moment. The breeze. The sunshine. A connection with a loved one. A touch in passing. A deep breath. A full moon. A cat purr. A hole-free sock. 😉

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames/deschooling
photo by Ester Siroky

Wade in and understand it

It's okay to change gradually. It's okay to say "I'm working on something," or "We're looking into something," or "We're going to try this for a while." It's good to wade in and understand it before trying to defend it fullscale.

Action and understanding
photo by Tam King

Seeing gifts

Colleen Prieto, April 2013

We just watched a documentary called Lost Castles of England. My 10 year old loves Star Trek and so he was particularly thrilled that it was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. 🙂

We paused - oh - probably at least 25 times during the documentary to look up things ranging from "When was the Bronze Age?" and "What exactly is Stonehenge anyway?" to "Who were the Normans?" and "How exactly big is England?" and "They killed the garrison... What's a garrison??"

We also paused a bunch of times as he described how he's going to be getting up early tomorrow to start work in Minecraft right away - he plans to build a motte-and-bailey timber castle, as described in the documentary. He asked me to keep the documentary in our Netflix queue so he can refer to it as needed for the particulars.

When the show ended, he stood up from the couch and proclaimed "That was AWESOME. And the whole time it was Spock. Spock just GIVING you interesting history stuff!!!"

It hit me right away that he didn't say "Spock teaching you history" or "A show teaching you history" or anything about teaching at all. He doesn't see things in terms of Being Taught. In his mind, he received a gift of new knowledge and facts this evening. A gift given by Spock, which made it all the better. 🙂

—Colleen Prieto

---

Note from Sandra:
Colleen's son, Robbie, is twenty years old, as I share this. The story above has been on the page about "learning" for a long time, quietly helping others.

What Teaching Never Can Be
photo by Sandra Dodd

Rules, and problems

Families with rules have a lot to fight about. Couples with a lot of rules have a lot to fight about.

---

When I wrote that, I had been married for 24 years. As I post it here, I've been married for 39 years. Live lightly.

from a discussion 15 years ago
photo by Holly Dodd, in 2008, the year I wrote what's above

Growing safely

Marta Venturini, in an interview in 2020:

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.

—Marta

You can hear the recording here: SandraDodd.com/marta
and there is a link to the transcript
photo by Karen James

Solidly optimistic

Unschooling is a profoundly optimistic decision and that it involves a huge commitment to living a very optimistic life.

I think it is possible that THE most significant thing unschooling does is nurture optimism.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/commitment
photo by Jihong Tang

Be careful

Improved is better than failed. Solid and long-lasting is better than painful and disrupted.

Be gentle, be careful, with your thoughts, responses, facial expressions, and touch. Be sweet and soft to your family.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Jo Isaac

Just say no

If people want you to be disdainful of your children
or to treat them harshly,
just say no.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 46 (or 50)
on the page that links to Logic
photo by Holly Dodd

Growing up and leaving gently

I have heard many stories of the rearrangements of families with unschoolers who are in their late teens or early twenties, and a young adult will leave, or bring another in, or the house is split up some. The stories are peaceful, and not about fear and arguments.

This, below, is from an interview I did in 2010.

I think when the child leaves naturally and positively, for a good reason, and the parents were willing to have him stay longer, there are fewer regrets and frustrations than under other circumstances. When kids are small, the mom is constantly on call. When Holly was born I had two and five year old boys. I know what it's like to have three young children. I also know what it's like to have three teens driving. But when they're calmly and confidently grown, the mom can leave for a month and they'll still be okay.

—Sandra Dodd

Interview, by Kim Houssenloge, of Feather and Nest
photo by Jihong Tang

Keep looking

If you're traveling or if you're in a familiar place, the things you see are viewed through your own windows, or doors. You see through your own eyes, and experience. *You* see.

The world you see where you are today will not be what you could see ten years ago, or twenty.

What your child sees and what you see will probably be different, and continue to change.

Keep looking.

SandraDodd.com/awareness
photo by Ester Siroky

Pretending to think could turn to...

Once a mom was being argumentative and defensive. She deleted a long discussion out of spite or frustration, but some of us rescued it. Here's a peek (some of my response), and a link.

Pretending to think about suggestions for a few days before rejecting them would be more courteous, and you *might* find that pretending to think about something could turn to actually considering it.

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

---

Teeth, April 2017, many voices
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Ester Siroky's kitchen window view, years ago

Windows

Windows can frame surprises!

Part of being able to balance yourself in the world is to be ready to appreciate the unexpected, and also to be grateful for a same-old, uneventful view.

Sometimes, leave your curtains open and your soul prepared for anything.


Not My Windows
photo (wild turkey out the window) by Colleen Prieto, in New Hampshire