Enrichment, love and happiness

"jbantau" wrote, in the midst of sharing how she changed her life to accommodate unschooling:

Doing things with my children that enrich their lives and make them feel loved is my true happiness.

—jbantau

Click here to go to the full story (right under "the little stick figure guy" photos) on the "me time" page, SandraDodd.com/metime
photo by Sandra Dodd

Not following a script

Sandra Dodd to Pam Sorooshian, in a sort of group interview:

You've been communicating closely with all kinds of homeschoolers, not just unschoolers, for a long time now. Thinking back to the best of them and the families in which things were strong and good, what traits in the parents or families do you think helped most?

Pam Sorooshian:

Hmmm - the best of them.... I think it is that they aren't treating their kids the way they think they are "supposed to," but are looking clear-eyed at their own real children and treating them as the individuals they are. I mean - they aren't following a script. They are authentic. They don't punish a kid because they have some idea that "kids need to be punished" - they think about what their own real standing-in-front-of-them kid is probably feeling and thinking and they respond to that reality. How many times have we seen a parent yell or be harsh with a kid that was already upset? Without regard to what was upsetting them.

Parents who get really in touch with their kids - who let themselves think what their kids are thinking - who aren't afraid to imagine what their kids are REALLY feeling and thinking...... those are the good ones.

Sometimes I'm amazed at what parents tell themselves that their own kids are thinking or feeling. The really awful ones make all kinds of terrible assumptions about kids' intentions.

—Pam Sorooshian
2009

Chat with Pam Sorooshian
photo by Cátia Maciel

Principles, rules, and coaching

Sandra Dodd:

Principles produce all kinds of answers where rules fail.

Alex Polikowsky:

Some people come to unschooling and in the beginning of their journey they ditch rules but try to replace them with unschooling "rules". Replace them with principles.

When you do, most of your questions and doubts will no longer be there.

Michele James-Parham:

Another common "unschooling rule" or frame of mind due to misinterpretation: We're unschoolers and don't have rules, so we don't have to follow your rules (in-laws, restaurant, museum, etc.).

Just because you allow jumping on your couch at home, doesn't mean that Grandma has to allow jumping on her couch or that the museum has to allow jumping on its couch in the lobby.

SandraDodd.com/coaching
photo by Belinda Dutch

Extraordinary doings

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It helped me think more clearly about unschooling when I realized unschooling isn’t something kids do. Unschooling is something parents do. Unschooling is *parents* creating a learning environment for kids to explore their interests in.

Unschooled kids aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary. They’re merely doing what comes naturally. They’re doing what all animals with lengthy childhoods do. They learn by doing what interests them in an environment that gives them opportunities to explore.

Unschooling is parents doing something extraordinary. It’s deliberately creating an environment where kids are supported in pursuing their interests.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingis
photo by Rosie Moon

Don't stop too soon

Some people define unschooling as a relationship (or lack of one) with school. Others define it as a relationship (or potential damage to a relationship) with their children.

It seems our detractors say "If my kids aren't in school and I'm not using a curriculum, I'm unschooling."

It seems to me that stopping there will lead to frustration and failure and the continuous little additions of rules and lessons and requirements.

It's enough if one is looking toward school and wants to declare the kids are out AND they're not going to use a curriculum. So at that point in the sort (if we were writing a computer program), they've passed through two gates:
     School? if no, then homeschooling
     Curriculum? if no, then unschooling

But will that last years? It's the label of a moment. "Now what?"

It's not a computer program. For me it's about natural human learning, not about not-school and not-curriculum.

SandraDodd.com/lists/help
photo by Jo Isaac
in Australia

Access to tools

Karen James wrote:

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude for the many gifts in my life has taken me from a place of hopelessness in my mind, to one of abundant possibilities. Because my life *looks* more abundant to me, every moment holds more potential. That doesn't mean my life is all wonderful and easy. It does mean that I have access to more emotional, creative, and intellectual tools to help me move toward the kind of life I want for myself and my family.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Amy Milstein

Work or play?

The best moments are when an activity might look like work, but it feels like play.

It can happen to anyone.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Cátia Maciel

Embracing what is

"L" is for Learning

This photo is the background for the "L" on the new(ish) Learn Nothing Day logo.

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Real learning, the kind of learning humans are hard wired to do, is about discovering connections between one thing and dozens of things. What those connections will have in common is interest.

—Joyce Fetteroll, saved at Real Learning

The photo first appeared here in 2018: Laugh, think, smile
Thank you, Amber Ivey.

Seeing clearly

We don't always see things clearly and directly. Two people, in the same place, will have different perceptions and reactions. You probably know that, but a reminder might be helpful. When you can, be patient and accepting.

SandraDodd.com/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Swirling and wonderful

Pam Sorooshian described what she called "a very basic tenet of unschooling":

Surround the child with a swirling, wonderful, exciting, stimulating and rich environment and the child is naturally capable of learning from it.

—Pam Sorooshian

The quote is from my page on "Talking to Babies," but a better next read is the list of Principles of Unschooling by Pam Sorooshian
photo by Sandra Dodd, of unschooled siblings in Queensland
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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

What is "natural"?

The other day on facebook, someone asked friends to share their most recent photo of nature. I looked through my photos, back two months, and though some were of the sky or mountains, there were buildings in the foreground. Those of plants were plants in the yards of humans.

Is a photo of a bird playing in a puddle more natural than a bird in a human-built birdbath? Is a bird's nest or a beaver dam more natural than a human's home?

For a long time, and still, some people have wanted to keep human life and thought far away and separate from animals, and to deny that we are related to other mammals, to other primates. I suppose it's human, and natural, to wonder where the line is between what is natural, and what is human.

SandraDodd.com/instinct
photo by Amy Milstein

Seasons, in and out

Seasons change, and yet it's the same old seasons, in the same old order.

People can change, but they're still people, who get excited about snow, and then frustrated with the same snow, and then tired of snow.

Snow is natural, and it's beautiful. It is natural for people to have short attention spans, to want to make things better, to see what could be, should be, might be, and to think about that instead of what *is*, in that moment. Accept that human nature, like snow, can be welcome, beautiful, irritating, and sometimes dangerous.

Be careful walking, and driving, and help others be safe.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Amy Milstein

Steps toward "better"

By making the better choice, you step away from the worse choice.


SandraDodd.com/choicees
photo by Ester Siroky

Doing it

Until a person stops doing the things that keep unschooling from working, unschooling can't begin to work.

It seems simple to me. If you're trying to listen for a sound, you have to stop talking and be still.

Some people want to see unschooling while they're still teaching and putzing and assigning and requiring.

They have to stop that FIRST. And then they have to be still. And then they have to look at their child with new eyes.

If they don't, it won't happen.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sukayna, in Lebanon
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Peace inside

Peace, like learning, is largely internal.

Mother Teresa could have found a more peaceful place than Calcutta, but she was helping people find peace in non-peaceful surroundings.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sukayna

Hardly any words

Unschoolers have experiences other homeschoolers don’t have.

Unschoolers know things that teachers can’t learn in or around school.

Unschoolers who start early enough can have relationships with their children for which there are hardly any words.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Janine

...like it's 1999

This is the 1999th post, and it reminded me of the Prince song. That song came out in 1982, before I had children. It was quite futuristic, right? For most of 18 years, he was singing of something distant.

All the children born before then are adult-aged now. Most of the children of readers of this blog were born in the 21st century, and might need some explanation to appreciate that song.

You're living in history! It's flowing around you and through you.

The very first post, and why
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Holly doing something
more like 1899, but in 2015.

Connect the dots

History is infinite, that's for sure. You've gotta start somewhere, and pretty much it doesn't matter where you start because it's all connected, like a universe-sized dot-to-dot you could never finish but you started when you were born.

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Lisa Jonick